Month: September 2010

Seth Godin explores why things don't work and our huge potential to make things unbroken:

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Jezebel interviews Rebecca Traister about how the last presidential election affected perceptions of women:

J: You also argue in the book that media created by and for women, some of it new, made a major impact on the course of the election. RT: Take something like Tina Fey becoming the first head writer of Saturday Night Live. On the face of it, you can see someone saying it doesn’t matter. But then you combine that with Katie Couric becoming the first female news anchor, which itself was met with some derision. And you combine that with Sarah Palin.

When you put it all together, you had Couric interviewing Palin, sinking the Republican candidacy, and Fey using that material to inspire these incredible campaign-sinking sketches. It was a trio of women, all of whom were first [in their fields], and they were in this position [to talk about this] because Hillary Clinton had come before that and been the first woman to come close to a presidential nomination.

So all of those little minor things, — “Why are you women worried about who’s writing Saturday Night Live, or sitting in a news broadcast in an antiquated old newsroom?” — this was an instance in which we could see how all these things big and small combined, not just to change an election outcome, but also to change American history.

A pair of charming teen girls beat me to it. Inspiring montage starts at the 3:40 mark:

Jonah Lehrer explains why distractions can be good for us, as long as we're letting the right ones in:

The association between creativity and open-mindedness has long been recognized, and what’s more open-minded than distractability? People with low latent inhibition are literally unable to close their mind, to keep the spotlight of attention from drifting off to the far corners of the stage. The end result is that they can’t help but consider the unexpected.

Matt Welch fires back.

Today on the Dish, the O'Donnell deluge continued: on AIDS and homosexuality, on masturbation, and also on Tolkien. Her resemblance to Palin was uncanny, so we kept a pulse on her and the Tea Partiers – neither of whom should be allowed to sit on the master's porch. But that's what you get when the right stared down the Democrats.

On the home front, Andrew dashed defenses of Newt and D'Souza; "Galileo Was Wrong" was not a joke; and alcohol competed with pot. We looked at what the Bush tax cuts did to our economy and examined the varying levels of poverty and inequality in America. DADT took a hit and needed some help.

The arms race escalated; we looked to the status quo to see the future in Iran; and Castro created a wedge. Map of the day here; cool ad watch here; VFYW here; Malkin Award here; FOTD here; and MHB here.

TNC let go; Judge Judy owned Oprah; and some guys admired their guns.

By Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images.

Thursday on the Dish, Palin took on and ousted Rove; and Andrew answered Glenn on what differentiates the Tea Party from the rest of the right-wing. O'Donnell's lesbian sister believed in Wicca and the "starfish" Tea Partiers might have a plan. O'Donnell retreated into the Palin school of media; and the inevitable pile-on gained momentum here, here and here.

Fallows and Bob Wright offered insight into Marty's hypocrisy; and Kinsley proposed the price for the Boomers' legacy in America. Americans hated the stimulus because it trickled in; Cash for Clunkers was a clunker, and our ability to feel rich depended on where we live. Childish Americans were still drawing lots of disability insurance and big agriculture wasn't going anywhere. Democrats still weren't selling health care reform; crying for a murdered parent meant you had to get drug-tested in Texas; and McCain wasn't going green again.

Britain became a third world country and atheism is the new Nazism according to the Pope's PR. Afghanistan remained difficult; and the UK figured out how to stay Tea Party-free. France may actually be home to Islam's new McCarthyism; "Draw Mohammed Day" put its pioneer in the witness protection program; and Nazis tortured but Americans don't. Yglesias award here; VFYW here; MHB here; and FOTD here.

The internet owed a thank you to Craigslist; Zuckerberg needed to learn some IM-etiquette; and Australia outlawed speaking out against illegal things.

 

Wednesday on the Dish, Christine O'Donnell won the Delaware primary, a scary prospect for the future of the conservative movement. Weigel didn't think she had a chance in Delaware; and Malkin jumped on Rove. Mitch Daniels may run in 2012; and a GOP-ruled House could finally make the movement grow-up, forced to battle Obama's calm and poise. The Tea Party tiger continued to bite the GOP in the ass; and now 2012 is Palin's to lose.

Alaska experienced Not Fox News Islam; Brian Williams had a platform and didn't know it; and the Forbes brand devolved further. Andrew defended Marty; and D'Souza finally got the take-down he deserves.

We looked at what people bought online which didn't include seats to see the Pope. James Parker exposed the vaudeville roots of Jackass; bicyclists were people too; and Judge Judy in slow motion made everyone sound drunk. Creepy ad watch here; VFYW here; quote for the day here; Yglesias award nominee here; email of the day here; MHB here; and FOTD here. Dynamic duos do it better than one and robots learned how to deceive.

By Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Tuesday on the Dish, Holder held back unclassified evidence on torture victims, while even Iraq held its government torturers to account. Two American-Muslims searched for good in the aftermath of the summer's Anti-Muslim sentiment; and Hitch was as on as ever. Islam was the new communism for Republicans huffing their own glue and one Republican, Mitch Daniels, actually wanted to have grown-up conversations about fiscal responsibility.

Readers told us about their own conflicted relationship with the Catholic church; we incarcerated old people and universities outsmarted rent controls. A Miami hospital circumcised a baby by accident; Americans loved to hate reality television; and blogging tested the soul but debate team predicted a lot about the bigger issues.

Iran released U.S. hiker Sarah Shourd; a British teenager called President Obama a prick; and pockets of inequality persisted. Aggressive drones in Pakistan made us wonder about troop numbers in Afghanistan; and settlements still loomed over the peace talks. Question for the day here; MHB here; VFYW here; Colbert bait here; FOTD here; cool ad watch here; and VFYW contest winner #15 here.

The gaggle over Gaga carried on; female snail heads grew penises; someone was studying beardedness in advertising; and Jon Stewart had had enough of America's shit-tacos.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 4.30 pm

Monday on the Dish, Andrew explained the origins of his own faith, in advance of the Pope's visit to the UK. He expected something better from the right's best and brightest, Yuval Levin. The Missoulian was sick of Sarah's smears and the Republican echo chamber got louder over at Fox News. Obama was not a Kenyan anti-colonialist but he was a voice of sanity and reason in a world unwilling to hear it. We debated intellectual honesty and discovered that Instapundit sure had changed a lot since September 11, 2001. Nate weighed the odds of the House flipping; Chait defended Obama from progressive attacks; and we looked at the future for DADT.

The world was a fractal of inequality, but America's Muslims were better integrated than those living in other Western countries. Joshua Foust annihilated the Afghanistan Study Group's report; various voices sounded off on a still-violent Iraq; and for peace-keeping in Africa to work a constitution matters less than peace on the streets.

Lady Gaga got the Camille Paglia treatment; we picked our nose five times an hour; e-readers made reading too easy; and Google Instant may make us less unique. The haiku bandit hit the streets of Atlanta; our happiness came with a price-tag; and technology made us move to a winner take-all market. Chart of the Day here; VFYW here; MHB here; FOTD here; and the sobering View From Your (Former) Window in Boulder, here. Most sex-workers were paid to listen; our fascination with figs continued, this baby contended for the best, worst stump speech ever and Katie Rooney said yes.

–Z.P.

Marty's Yom Kippur statement, which moved me.

Jacob Sullum passes along the latest numbers:

As I've noted before, there is no obvious relationship between marijuana arrests and marijuana use. Although arrests have more than doubled since the early 1990s, the number of pot smokers was no lower in 2008 than it was in 1990 and perhaps somewhat higher, even allowing for methodological changes that seem to have boosted self-reported drug use after 2001.

Steven Taylor thinks the tea parties are over-hyped:

I will readily allow that the Tea Party movement has been of some significance to this point in time and will continue to have salience going into 2010 (and perhaps 2012), but to claim that it has “fundamentally altered American politics” is utter nonsense, insofar as to date all that it has done is affect a handful of GOP nomination processes to date.  This is interesting, to be sure.  It may also mean various behavioral changes by the GOP in the short-to-medium term, but it is a far cry from a fundamental alteration of much of anything.

Noah Millman searches high and low:

I have no love for the Tea Party, or for populism generally. I think populism is actually impossible. Elites make the decisions, and politics is a game of capture-the-electorate. But the Tea Party is a fact, and ignoring or decrying facts doesn’t help anybody. There are moments when the electorate loses confidence in the elites, and too many times recently the GOP has responded to this fact by either trying to order their base around (saying: vote for this guy because he’s electable, and we don’t want to blow this chance) or pandering to the basest instincts of the base (by fawning over radio talk show hosts, elevating symbolic culture-war issues to litmus test status, and so forth, all to try to prove that they’re really “one” with the people). Or, often enough, both simultaneously. And I don’t see how either of these strategies can possibly win back the people’s confidence.

Confidence can only be regained by showing actual leadership – saying to people: this is what’s really important, and this is what we’re going to do that the other guys can’t or won’t. There are Republicans who are doing that – Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie are two examples I cite – but not enough and precious few on the national level.