by Zoe Pollock
Nige notes the rise of birdsong at night and references a recent study suggesting that it's because urban areas are too noisy in the daytime:
Nocturnal birdsong – once so seldom heard that hearers would assume (nearly always wrongly) it was the nightingale – is likely to become an established feature of the urban soundscape. One can only hope all these sleepless night aren't turning the birds into groggy irritable wrecks and ruining their days.
by Conor Friedersdorf
"The widely held sentiment among Tea Party Patriot members is that every item in the budget, including military spending and foreign aid, must be on the table," said Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. "It is time to get serious about preserving the country for our posterity. The mentality that certain programs are 'off the table' must be taken off the table."
They'll get two cheers if the Republicans they've just sent to Washington actually vote for cuts in military spending. And three cheers if they manage to meaningfully shrink government without impinging on civil liberties. In fact, there's always talk about completely eliminating a federal agency – and why not, if it's the DEA? I'm not saying there wouldn't be any negative consequences, but overall I think we'd be better off.
by Conor Friedersdorf
Aaron Sorkin news:
1) He is doing an HBO show on the subject of cable news – Sports Night meets West Wing.
2) He is writing and directing a movie about the John Edwards affair.
Suggested trailer copy for the latter project: "For John Edwards, there were always two Americas: the one where he was faithful to his terminally ill wife – and the one where he fathered a love child with his mistress."
by Zoe Pollock
Jen Paton compares the media's treatment of Jared Loughner with Timothy McVeigh:
Like McVeigh, Loughner targeted a symbol of government power, and hurt innocent people. Like McVeigh, Loughner had a complicated relationship with the military and, like McVeigh, he apparently had a deep mistrust of the United States government. Jared Loughner, like Timothy McVeigh, “had reasons of his own,” which are and always will be inaccessible to the rest of us. But we called McVeigh a terrorist. …
The media’s concern with sanity or insanity, and its quickness to find for the latter, indicates a reluctance to view terrorism as psychological, and, to flip things around, a reluctance to view a troubled young white American with no religious ties as a terrorist. In 1995, this was not a distinction we made so easily.
by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
I think we have to keep in mind the distinction between homicide and murder when we discuss abortion. I am not sure there is any logical way to argue that an abortion is not a kind of homicide. I mean, I support a woman's right to choose, but a fetus is not merely a "thing." At the same time, if we go from calling abortion homicide to calling it murder we are essentially making a moral judgment: we are saying that this kind of homicide is completely unacceptable. If that's Santorum's position, he is welcome to it.
Another expands on that point:
I’ve seen it pop up in several places recently. The newest challenge to the intellectual integrity of the anti-abortion/pro-life movement is to say: Well, if you really think that abortion is murder, why don’t you advocate that those responsible be tried for murder and punished as other murderers are? Apparently, the reluctance of the anti-abortion movement to take this position reflects an underlying hypocrisy.
As a pro-choice person, this strikes me as a disastrous path for the choice movement to go down. In the first place, I’m sure that plenty of anti-abortion advocates would like to see those who perform abortion, and perhaps even some of the women who have abortions, tried for homicide. They don’t push this point, because it seems overly harsh to most people.
But second, there is nothing inconsistent about treating abortion as a crime of lesser severity than the cold-blooded murder of an adult or child. All states recognize different levels of homicide, with different levels of punishment. Clearly, in a society where there is not yet a consensus as to the morality of abortion, where it is illegal it would make sense to treat it as a lesser crime than standard-issue homicides.
The bottom line is that, for years, the pro-choice movement has been trying in vain to show that the anti-abortion movement is either logically flawed or some sort of unhealthy spinoff of religious extremists and/or male misogynists. Neither of these is true. There are millions of people in this country who genuinely believe that abortion is the taking of an innocent life and, therefore, immoral and should be outlawed. Whether you agree or not, it’s a pretty simple proposition, an entirely legitimate point of view.
Pro-choice advocates frequently talk about a woman’s right to control her own body, to choose, and the negative impact on her life of an unwanted pregnancy. All of these are legitimate concerns and issues to raise, but they don’t engage with their opponents’ sole argument: that abortion is the taking of an innocent life. To dismiss that argument is to lose the debate. Unless pro-choice advocates directly confront the moral issue here, and address whether in fact a “life” is involved, they are destined to lose the debate.
Another writes:
The discussion of "abortion as murder" reminds me of this YouTube video. In it, abortion protesters outside of a clinic are asked what the hypothetical punishment should be for women who have an illegal abortion. There are not too many responses.
by Zoe Pollock
Tasha Cotter narrates the moment:
When you see someone you are supposed to love and realize you no longer love this person it is like walking into your closet and finding it empty. You wonder if you are crazy. You try flipping the switch on and off, but nothing. Are you even in the right house? You start to ask yourself things like this.
Well, I finally accepted that I was in the right place. I could recall the architecture, the scaffolding that had done a rough job at holding us up for so many years was still visible, but I could hear the wind in the bones of it, there was something hollow to it. I barely knew how to get from room to room, but there I was. In this empty house I’d never imagined, vacant closets, and no laughter.
by Chris Bodenner
Visual mashups of tracks from Girl Talk's latest album are starting to surface (probably NSFW):
by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
Douthat is leaping vast chasms of illogic, especially from the first paragraph to the second. Leave aside the problems of concluding something from the assertion that "what ultimately ails the world is its inherent imperfectibility—it's fallen character, if you like." Even if you accept this as a sufficient explanation, to conclude in the second paragraph that "this is true on all the great issues of the day" makes no sense. It's nonsense to say that no matter what our health care system or how many policy geniuses work away, "every gain will be an infinitely modest hedge against the wasting power of disease or death." (Translated: we all die sometime.) It makes a huge difference whether I can't have a heart transplant that gives me an additional ten or twenty years of life because Arizona's health care policy no longer pays for such operations.
And then, of course, the point he wants to prove (which is where his reasoning started, and worked backward to a rationale) is that no one in this imperfect world can "prevent the occasional madman from shooting up a parking lot." Well, if that's the case, why is it the "occasional" deaths from homicide with guns are much higher in the United States than in Europe?
Just because the world is imperfect and because we all die someday does not mean that it makes no difference whether we have a good health care system or a bad one, or whether we have a climate in which guns are readily available and homicide rates are much higher. To ignore such factors because the world is imperfect is using theology (bad theology at that) as a cloak for inaction or an excuse to shift attention away from hard questions.
by Conor Friedersdorf
And neither does Matt Yglesias:
My adventure in oral surgery has prompted various cracks about my earlier blogging against the dentists cartel. I would say that, realistically, the experience just really strongly underlines the case for reform in this regard. The basic fact of the matter is that I, as a patient, am and was very capable of discerning a situation like “it’s been 12 months since my teeth last got cleaned, so I should go to the dentist” and a situation like “I’ve had 48 hours worth of intense pain in the back of my lower right jaw so I should go to the dentist.”
The former scenario obviously doesn’t require an actual dentist, whereas the latter does. And if dental hygenists were allowed to work on their own, not only would this be good for hygenists (a lower-wage and female-dominated profession, and thus a progressive thing to do) it would almost certainly make it cheaper and/or more convenient to get your teeth cleaned.
Also annoying to me is the fact that health insurance excludes eyes and teeth for some reason. Those are critical body parts!
by Zoe Pollock
Michelle Goldberg profiles the complicated mindset of Philip Weiss, the Jewish anti-Zionist blogger and founder of Mondoweiss:
[Weiss] looks at contemporary Israel and is appalled. Because he came to Middle Eastern issues late in life, he has no fond memories of labor Zionism, or maddening recollections of the times Palestinians spurned opportunities for peace, to complicate his anger. As one long alienated from Jewish life, he hasn’t developed the habit, common to many American Jews, of reflexively giving Israel the benefit of the doubt. For him—as it is for many younger Jews—Israel is defined by Avigdor Lieberman and Operation Cast Lead, by Shas and settlements. …
[Weiss] came up against what he saw as the essential conflict between Zionism and American liberalism—which, after all, defines itself precisely by its refusal to privilege any race or religion. Liberal Zionists are used to holding these ideas in uneasy tension. Weiss could see nothing but stark dissonance. “I don’t believe in the necessity of a Jewish state,” he says. “Most Jews disagree with me, and that is sort of the heart of my crisis.”
The Dish 