Matt Zoller Seitz is assigned to review Oprah's new network, OWN … on New Year's Day. Hilarity ensues:
Just in time to stop me from weaving a noose from nylon recycling twine and scrawling a farewell note, the OWN theme song ends and celebrity chef and domestic goddess Cristina Ferrare materializes to shill her series "Big Bowl of Love" (weekdays at 3:30/2:30 PM central). "When I bring a bowl or a platter to the table, I really mean it," she says. "I'm bringing a big bowl of love!" It sounds like a threat. She repeats the show's title 20 times within the space of three minutes.
Kottke sees the above video on Scott Schuman, aka The Sartorialist, as an homage to a very contemporary athleticism:
Watching the concentration, focus, and determination in Schuman's eyes and body as he walks around looking for photographic subjects immediately reminded me of an elite athlete; that same look was documented at length in Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait. And that's no accident…what Schuman does is an athletic pursuit as much as anything else. The way he holds his camera while walking, down by his side, slightly behind his back, hiding it from his potential subjects until he sees an opening…he's like a running back cradling a football, probing for an opening in the defensive line.
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow explores what drugs do to the environment after they've gone through our system:
One of the greener drugs turns out to be that little blue pill: The human body fully converts Viagra into relatively harmless metabolites. (Well more than half of the antibiotic amoxicillin, by contrast, passes through the patient unchanged.) Such drugs offer tantalizing clues that scientists may be able to apply to future formulas.While trying to learn from these accidentally green drugs, scientists are also seeking novel ways to keep minnows off Prozac. [Retired scientist Buzz] Cue and others dream of a "magic switch" that would allow a drug to remain stable until its release into the environment, at which point—presto!—it would become biodegradable. One way to do this is to make drugs "photodegradable" with light-sensitive molecular triggers, which would cause the drug to decompose in the waste treatment plant.
Daniel Engber reports on a disturbing trend among nerds:
The archetypical sword murderer, for his part, is a 20- to 40-year-old white male who still lives with his parents. He's often a paranoid schizophrenic, and he often expresses himself by killing his mother or father.
[T]here seems to be some confusion between the paper shredder and the fax machines. The fax machines—which have not been used for years but remain plugged in for some reason—are on the shelf by the restrooms. They are black. The paper shredders are on the desks near the conference room. They are putty-colored. Apparently, this distinction is not clear to everyone: two employees were overhead in the men's restroom earlier this morning discussing the "cool black shredders." There is no proof, of course, that any employee has actually used a fax machine while operating under the misapprehension that it was a paper shredder, or vice-versa, but if this were to happen, it would be quite distressing, primarily because the two devices have almost diametrically opposed functions: the shredder shreds while the fax machine faxes, sending copies of documents electronically to remote locations, where they are not shredded and cannot in fact be shredded, as they are not any longer physically present. A copy of this memo has now been posted on the wall next to both the shredders and the fax machines, as well as distributed to every employee. Please retain it for your records. Do not shred it.
The Internet has concentrated once widely dispersed aspects of a human life into one and the same little machine: work, friendship, commerce, creativity, eros. As someone sharply put it a few years ago in an article in Slate or something like that: our work machines and our porn machines are now the same machines. This is, in short, an exceptional moment in history, next to which 19th-century anxieties about the railroad or the automated loom seem frivolous. Looms and cotton gins and similar apparatuses each only did one thing; the Internet does everything.
Today on the Dish, Andrew feared a rising tide of religious fundamentalism. The Daley dish from the left kept rolling in, and Andrew defended Obama's choice. Andrew skewered the "swinging dicks" of the conservative media elite, and felt a smidge less of his Palin concerns since she fell prey to her own love of over-exposure. Hal Rodgers planned to replace Obamacare with funding for Gitmo, and David Cole penned the only slightly more ridiculous Conservative Constitution of the United States of Real America. Sean Scallon drove home what tea partiers still have to learn from Ron Paul, Yuval Levin wanted to replace size with purpose every time Republicans talk about the government, and we rounded up reax to the jobs report. California police can search cell phones without a warrant, SWAT teams create unnecessary violence and don't stop the drug war, and lobbyists supported the symphony.
Neocons understood one large lesson about a democratic state in Iraq, and Angry Birds isn't modelled on terrorists. Muslims offered themselves as human shields for Christians in Egypt, but an American named Mohamed isn't safe from detainment. China was on its way to more elderly than the US, and Foreign Policy nominated some contenders for the world's most dangerous terrorist. We couldn't pull the plug on energy subsidies yet, and taxes tested our civic duties. Helen Thomas came back from the dead, and no one could ever replace the intimate aggregator, Denis Dutton. We heard stories of adoption and unadopting a child, sex abuse caused this tragic suicide, and some ancient cultures don't want fancy new cars. The drug trip tales continued, Kanye retired, and Judd Apatow doesn't translate well in Asia.
VFYW here, chart of the day here, MHB here, It Gets Better (the remix) here, Malkin award here, and FOTD here.
Prairie Village, Kansas, 9 am
Thursday on the Dish, Andrew exposed Paul Ryan for a fraud, the GOP's healthcare repeal law would increase the deficit by $230 billion, and Douthat called the GOP on their spending illusions. An Irish Catholic sportswriter came out, and readers challenged Andrew on his claim that Catholics approve. We got some historical perspective on calling a horserace this early, and the GOP was reliving 1994 again. Issa's attack on Obama backfired, and Sullum weighed the president's options for vetoing military spending on Gitmo. We covered the Daley decision, and Ezra tried to unpack it, with Sargent's help. Palin's public records get the special treatment, and Ann Coulter baited her. Andrew stuck to his guns on Will's support for Palin for president, Victor Davis Hanson accused the wrong person of sophistry on bogus grounds, and the government takeover of healthcare has already happened.
Andrew cleared up Grover Norquist's "boring white bread Methodist" faith, and Heritage bowed out of CPAC. The Grand Mufti of Egypt and Muslim moderatesshut Marty's argument down, and Joe Klein tried to unravel the Afghan endgame from his last conversation with Holbrooke. Marc Lynch worried about the stirrings of an Arab uprising, and Iraq had lots and lots of public employees. Brits loved America for British reasons, and some Israelis could make fun of themselves. Clay Shirky documented the shifting of the international tides with Assange and Wikileaks, and the NYT couldn't hold a candle to Dish VFYW readers. Conservatives centered their crosshairs on invincible Jane Mayer, Andrew Wakefield's lies may have killed children, and Francine Prose helped Andrew see why the difference between slave and nigger matters in Huck Finn.
Lego ads used to be great, we heard more reader stories of international and racially diverse adoptions, and asshole parents make Keanu sad. Jeffrey Leonard proposed cutting off all energy subsidies to save green tech, and the world's four riches citizens control more wealth than the world's poorest 57 countries. Comments are sexist but people are racists, and the American anti-contraceptive culture effects teenage pregnancy. Danny McBride fused powers with James Franco, and self-deception sells jewelry. Love poured in for the Birds, even while children were vomitting. Men laughed with fruit salad, this coach hated losers, and Phillip S. Smith reviewed the Cannabis Closet. Quote for the day here, VFYW here, MHB here, FOTD here, and Von Hoffmann award here.
Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew assessed Israel's chokehold on Gaza via a Wikileaks cable. We featured more fallout from CPAC's acceptance of gays, which some blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood. The recession changed us (the graph edition), and Andrew and Allahpundit weren't buying the Republicans on fiscal reform, or on healthcare reform either for that matter. Mitch Daniels feared for the deficit, George Will endorsed a Palin presidency implicitly, and Kinsley suggested parents get another vote depending on how many kids they have, to undermine the power of the elderly. We parsed the Prop 8 future with reax from around the web, and Douthat thought Obama was right to weigh in on the power of second chances, for Michael Vick. Larison didn't accept the tea partiers as Jeffersonians, and unemployment means the US now has a reservoir of labor for growth not dissimilar to China's, while Drezner insisted the US is still number one. Bernstein predicted a good year for Obama, considering what looks to be a major jobs surge, and Boehner didn't promise much, in a good way.
Limbaugh missed a football game and thought of the Donner Party, and these two girls whooped ass on our immigration policy's fence. It takes a certain someone (an economist) to make $11,000 per monthly column, and Felix Salmon saw American plutocrats as the Russian oligarchs of the financial industry. Lisa Margonelli worried about $3.07 a gallon, and HIV prevention groups ramped up their circumcision tour across Swaziland. Nyhan pleaded for term limits on columnists like Gail Collins, Serwer and Jennifer Rubin duked it out over the New Black Panther Party controversy, and the religious unaffiliated were underrepresented in Congress. A homeless man with a voice of gold gets a leg up in the internet age, and Andrew weighed the loss of older cultures against a new SUV. Readers added to the chorus on adoption, and shared some more psychedelic flashbashbacks, and Andrew threw in his two cents here. Women laughed alone with salad, and a fun PSA on wrapping up "gifts" hit the right notes.
Chart of the day here, Hewitt award here, Yglesias award here, 2010 in cartoons here, FOTD here, VFYW here, and MHB here.
By Uriel Sinai/Getty Images.
Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew joined Paul Gottfried's pile-on of Lowry, and commended E.D. Kain on his interview with the editor of The American Conservative. Bruce Bartlett and Andrew banded together to ask Obama to save sane conservatism, Matt Steinglass nailed Israel's growing illiberalism, while Andrew saw the larger fight against religious fundamentalism.
Andrew didn't care that Sarah Palin retweeted Tammy Bruce on gay rights, while some were all too eager to insist she could win a general election. Erick Erickson begged to differ, Noah Kristula-Green documented the O'Donnell effect, and Peter Beinart asked the tea-partiers to re-read the Constitution. Tom Jensen rated Huckabee's chances, Ed Morrissey wanted Obama around more, and Obama out-trended Reagan. Sprung argued political calculation isn't always paramount to results, anti-gay groups boycotted CPAC because of GOProud, and the national debt climbed. International conflicts are down, but some cultures (and the chiefs among them) still had to fight to keep themselves alive. Judith Miller called Julian Assange a bad journalist, speaking on behalf a terrorist could mean providing material support, and Google was killing magazine puns.
Leonhardt opened our eyes to the rationing that already exists in healthcare, and we heard dueling opinions on the faul healthcare repeal. Sean Strub critiqued New York's new HIV scare-tactic, parking is pricey, Prop 8 headed back to California's Supreme Court, and readers responded to Ross on abortion and adoption. TNC called Kanye's latest album racist, Snooki was the new Fitzgerald, gay actors weren't getting gay roles, and Andrew weighed in on Hitchens' rules for the perfect cup of tea.
Chart of the day here, MHB here, FOTD here, Yglesias award here, Malkin award here, more mushroom threads here and here, dissents of the day here, quote for the day here, VFYW here, VFYW contest winner #31 here, and a bear and a bucket here.
Monday on the Dish, we caught up with the escalating religious cleansing in Egypt, and Claire Berlinski annhilated Marty's knee-jerk reaction about Islam. Andrew choked on this sentence about Iran's efforts to unseat the regime and seconded Goldberg on Israel's recent transformation. Andrew pushed back against Ross Douthat on the paradox of America's unborn, and Lindsey Graham promised permanent occupation for good behavior in Afghanistan.
Nate Silver and Krauthammer sized up Palin's chances, the neocons and liberals aligned, and Andrew called it her shark-jumping period. Palin quit Fox, Captain Owen Honors boldly went where others don't go with the military's video equipment, and Will Wilkinson captured why it's legitimate to criticize America's military policy. Rumors of a presidential run could help the ambassador to China (but not the GOP), and could lead to an advantage in 2016. The Dish destroyed Rich Lowry's arguments that Americans (and the politicians who keep repeating so) are the greatest. Andrew defended the concept of the (much improved) press from Professor Reynolds' takedown. Bruce Bartlett called out the GOP on the debt limit, John McWhorter argued ending the drug war would end the "black problem," and Ta-Nehisi had some tough questions for him. We eyed the 2011 energy crunch, Andrew questioned George Will's unlikely column, and Rudy Giuliani contradicted himself. Andrew Breitbart drank to get through college, and our computers had to lie to us so they wouldn't freak us out with their intelligence.
Beer and monogamy correlate and Andrew revealed his mental colonic for the holidays. Rob Horning ruminated on boredom, Cosma Shalizi defended the lottery, and the soundbite shrunk (with good reason). Joanne McNeil composed a brief history of blogs, i-phone alarms rebelled against the new year, and Dave Barry roasted the year in review. Andrew looked forward to the Christmas Epiphany, DC was livable (the graph edition), readers weighed in on their magic mushroom experiences, and nature could still blow our mind.
Chart of the day here, FOTD here, cool ad watch here, 50th Odd Lie of Sarah Palin here, VFYW here, quote for the day here, FOTD dissent here, MHB here, and video heralding the New Year here.
I can attempt to understand the frustration of those who long to adopt a child, and would be willing to adopt a young child out of the foster care system, but find themselves stymied by the rights of the birth parents. I also know the damage the foster care system can do. I hesitate, though, to say that we should focus exclusively on the needs of the child – taking the child away from parents who don't have it together, and immediately severing that relationship.
I was the child of two drug addicts. When I was 2, my birth father committed suicide in a shootout with the police. When I was 3, my mother was given a choice by social services: get clean, or lose your daughter.
My mom got clean. Without anyone else to take care of me, I was placed in foster care while my mother was in rehab. I have no memory of this, so I assume it was all fine. After rehab, and counseling and all that, I was returned to her.
She had ten years clean before she died of complications from AIDS, when I was 13. I had ten years with a woman I loved more than anything else in the world. After she passed, I was adopted, at 14, by a family friend. That, too, has been a beautiful, life-giving relationship.
I don't know what the solutions to the problems of bad parents, endless foster care stays, and unwanted children are. But I'm glad that I got those ten years with my mom, and I know she was glad to have them.
Not all screwed-up parents need to lose their kids forever.
You wrote that the new car "is, as history has shown us, an irresistible choice." While this may seem self-evident, it is incorrect. In fact, history is full of examples of people (both individuals and societies) that chose NOT to trade their traditional way of life for the new car. An excellent example of this is to be found in the three Fuegians on The Beagle with Darwin (excerpted from Sex at Dawn):
Looking for an example of the world’s most downtrodden, pathetic, desperately poor “savages,” Malthus cited “the wretched inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego” who had been judged by European travelers to be “at the bottom of the scale of human beings.” Just thirty years later Charles Darwin was in Tierra del Fuego, observing these same people. He agreed with Malthus concerning the Fuegians, writing in his journal, “I believe if the world was searched, no lower grade of man could be found.”
As chance would have it, Captain Robert FitzRoy of the Beagle— the ship on which Darwin was sailing—had picked up three young Fuegians on an earlier voyage, and brought them back to England to introduce them to the glories of British life and a proper Christian education. Now, after they’d experienced firsthand the superiority of civilized living, FitzRoy was returning them to their own people to serve as missionaries. The plan was for them to show the Fuegians the folly of their “savage” ways and help them join the civilized world.
But just a year after Jemmy, York, and Fuegia had been returned to their people at Woollya cove, near the base of what is now called Mount Darwin, the Beagle and her crew returned to find the huts and gardens the British sailors had built for the three Fuegians deserted and overgrown. Eventually, Jemmy appeared and explained that he and the other Christianized Fuegians had reverted to their former way of living. Darwin, overcome with sadness, wrote in his journal that he’d never seen “so complete & grievous a change” and that “it was painful to behold him.” They brought Jemmy aboard the ship and dressed him for dinner at the captain’s table, much relieved to see that he at least remembered how to use a knife and fork properly.
Captain FitzRoy offered to bring him back to England, but Jemmy declined, saying he had “not the least wish to return to England” as he was “happy and contented” with “plenty fruits,” “plenty fish,” and “plenty birdies.”
What looks like even extreme poverty— “the bottom of the scale of human beings”—may contain unrecognizable forms of wealth. Recall the “starving” Australian Aboriginal people, happily roasting low-fat rats and noshing on juicy grubs as revolted Englishmen looked on, certain they were witnessing the last demented spasms of starvation. When we start detribalizing—peeling away the cultural conditioning that distorts our vision—“wealth” and “poverty” may reveal themselves where we least expect to find them.
The Dish 