Month: December 2010

The Economist chats with Oliver Sacks:

One doesn’t tend to think of oneself of having a condition. Especially if others in the family have it, they attribute it to "the way we are". Once after giving a talk on tourettes in London I took a taxi and the cabdriver was a flamboyantly tourettic, cursing, jumping on the roof. And I asked him very shyly if he had tourettes, which he denied indignantly. It is not easy to recognise a condition until it is pointed out: dyslexia is one of them, and it affects 10% to 15% of the population.

If it fails in the Senate – despite solid public support, endorsement from the Joint Chiefs, backing from the Defense Secretary, a big majority in the House and a 57 – 40 vote in the Senate – what does this say about gays having a fair chance in the legislative process? Because a group of deeply homophobic Republican Senators can derail any pro-gay legislation, the gay minority has essentially been shut out of the political process. David Link has a smashing column on this here.

In fact, whenever we work through the political and legislative process – as in California where the Legislature twice backed marriage rights only to have them vetoed by the governor and then sent to a referendum – we have a very hard time winning. Yes, Massachusetts and Connecticut and DC and Vermont are encouraging. But elsewhere we’ve been shut out. Primarily by Republicans.

It is precisely these Republicans who constantly tout the evil of using the courts to advance minority rights, and urge legislative action. But when we try to advance them with reason and patience and legislation, these same Republicans see to it that nothing gay-inclusive stands a chance in the Congress, even when majorities in both Houses favor it. Obama played DADT by the book, as he usually does. They still told him – and all gay servicemembers – to go pull a Cheney.

I’ve been leery of using the courts as a strategy. But at this point, when a small cadre of bigots, like McCain and DeMint, act as a direct obstruction to the will of the people and the will of the Congress, we are being told they are our only recourse. The bias of one party leaves us no choice. And if DADT is repealed through court order – the blame for the real disruption this would cause lies with bitter, fear-ridden men like McCain and Butters.

(Photo: Dan Choi honoring the grave of Leonard Matlovich, by Mark Wilson/Getty.)

Fallows gives a few examples:

Because 95 percent of the world's population lives outside U.S. borders, the majority of the world's talent will also start out residing abroad. But immigration has brought in a disproportionate share of the nation's creative talent. Half of the members of the National Academy of Sciences are foreign-born. America benefits from attracting more than our "fair" share. China has never won a Nobel Prize in the sciences; the Chinese-born scientists who received prizes were honored for work they did overseas, largely in the United States.

Even they have to draw the line somewhere. In an interview titled "Levi's Story", we read:

[W]e are witnessing the emergence of a whole new class of communities — especially in rural and small-town America, and the outer suburbs — where scores of children and young men are growing up apart from the civilizing power of marriage and a stable family life. (Think of Levi Johnston, minus the access to the money his temporary fame has brought him). This does not bode well for the economic and social health of these communities.

But the piece should really be called "Bristol's Story." Levi wanted to get married; it was Bristol who pulled the plug on it, with the support of her mother, the alleged patron saint of family values.

I agree with Ben Smith that Palin's entire family is on the table – because she has put them on the table.

You don't have Bristol on DWTS and not expect the public scrutiny that every other DWTS pseudo-celebrity endures. You don't exploit an infant with Down Syndrome without getting questions as to where the child actually came from (a universally disbelieved pregnancy announced the day after McCain won the nomination for president and a few days after Palin met McCain for the first time). You don't put Tripp and Track and Piper as characters in a propagandized "reality show" without opening them up to the media hounds.

None of Palin's children seems headed for college. They use foul language; one has committed vandalism; one has had a teen pregnancy. Palin herself got pregnant before marriage. They are prefectly free to do all these things and I wouldn't in any way want to restrict their freedom one iota. But you don't splay your private life for maximal political exploitation and then play the victim card when the press, or what's left of it, asks questions. And you certainly don't go around extolling traditional family values – when, compared, say, with Obama, you have none.

Which reminds me: when are we going to get medical records proving that Sarah Palin is the biological mother of Trig? Maybe it will take a desperate Republican rival to ask. The press sure won't.

Amy Davidson takes a step back from the Wikileaks drama:

The Guardian is asking its readers what it should look for in the WikiLeaks files. Why can’t they look themselves? Although it is sometimes obscured in the coverage, and for all the talk of anarchic cyberwar, only a tiny per cent of the quarter of a million files have actually been made available to the public, pretty much just those the Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, El Pais, and Le Monde have released. That is why one should be skeptical of anyone saying that there aren’t big scandals here—does any single person know enough about what makes people in all the countries that come up in the cables angry to say that? Some of the newest releases, about oil companies in Africa and an apparent request that the Ugandan government at least tell us before it used our intelligence to commit war crimes, to name just two examples—should at least stop a person. The many plot developments related to WikiLeaks’ efforts to stay online can distract one from the task of sitting down and reading, and thinking about, the cables.

Morgan Clendaniel examines Proverbial Wallets, a new project from the MIT Media Lab:

The Bluetooth equipped wallets physically transform depending on your current financial situation: The Bumblebee buzzes every time your bank account updates. The Peacock inflates or deflates depending on your total assets. The Mother Bear … has a hinge that makes it harder to open if you are approaching monthly budgets.

Ezra Klein thinks that the pay-roll tax cut holiday will be extended in a year's time. Drum doesn't. His main reason:

Republicans don't care about middle class taxes. They care about taxes on the rich. I don't doubt for a second that they'll make some noise a year from now about how Democrats are increasing your taxes, but their hearts won't be in it. They'll fight to the death over taxes on millionaires, but when it comes to payroll taxes it will just be pro forma partisan kvetching.

Frum differs.

TNC reacts to a first degree murder verdict for a 15-year-old. Derrion Albert was part of a group who beat another kid to death:

My sense of this is that most kids would like to walk to school in peace, but somewhere around fifth grade or so, the corruption reaches out and taints them. … Your first forays into direct violence may be only defensive or retaliatory, but this quickly spirals into offensive violence, so as to burnish your rep. The hood is a galaxy of competing powers, and to be born there is to be drafted into your nation's Army. To spend time lamenting your citizenship, to be less then zealous in defense of your country, is to be unpatriotic, to invite charges of treason, with predictable penalties. And even this formulation makes it all sound too neat, too rational. We are, after all, ultimately talking about children, and thus people vulnerable to the worst impulses.

Palin's op-ed in today's WSJ bashes the fiscal commission report by invoking "death panel" nonsense and by defending  military spending. But then there's this:

In my view, a better plan is the Roadmap for America's Future produced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.). The Roadmap offers a reliable path to long-term solvency for our entitlement programs, and it does so by encouraging personal responsibility and independence.

Allahpundit games this out:

Does this mean a Palin/Ryan ticket is officially on the table? And two: If she’s nominated, what’s going to happen to the all-important senior vote in the general election once Democrats start clubbing her over the head with this? I admire her guts in backing it, but it’s not a pure asset for a candidacy. Just ask McConnell and Boehner.

Andrew Sprung hopes – as the Dish does – for a bipartisan tax reform deal. The stars are aligning:

Who would have thought a month ago that the deficit commission could knead its initial plan outline into a shape that would garner 11 out of 18 votes, and that Obama and the Republicans leadership could agree on a package that yields substantial real stimulus to balance the giveway to the rich?