Month: April 2011

Trig Wars

I'm going to respond to Justin Elliott's alleged "definitive debunking" of the questions surrounding Sarah Palin's maternity of Trig in due course. It deserves more than an instant reaction – and adds two new sources to the dozens that have now emerged to shed partial light on the story. In the end, there are two stories here: the actual story and the meta-media-story. I'm interested in both equally. And the visceral contempt and dimissal for me personally is sadly a part of the latter.

One aspect of the meta-media-story is media intimidation – from within and without. MSM reporters tackling anything to do with the Palin pregnancy have to overcome what they know will be Img-article---ries-wonkette-trig-palin_201153649802 the spin from the Palinite right: that they are just liberal maniacs bent on destroying this real and talented hope for conservatism, precisely because she is such a hope for conservatism. This dynamic is one MSM reporters have internalized, making what would be routine questions and investigations of a public figure in, say, reality TV or national politics into exceptional and career-risking gambles.

Imagine a huge media backlash and internal restraint about, say, Lindsey Lohan's drug use or Britney Spears' romantic and pharmaceutical forays. No, I can't imagine it. But when politics and tabloid truth combine – think of the John Edwards story – the MSM can suddenly find itself mute. Part of this is genuine: the desire not to pour salt onto the wounds of Elizabeth Edwards or to make the life of a new-born kid with Down Syndrome any more challenging than it might already be. Part of it is simply discomfort. Wouldn't it be less fraught to cover the budget negotiations? Part of it is about status: all of this is beneath me, and hurts my reputation as a Serious Journalist, respected by my peers.

But then there's this. What Wonkette published about a completely innocent little boy was, as I said as soon as I absorbed it, despicable. Whatever may be the truth behind all the Palin pregnancy stories, even if the zaniest theory is true, Sarah Palin is taking care of a child with Down Syndrome who deserves respect and privacy even if his own mother refuses to give them to him. To mock him, the most defenseless figure in this whole saga, is just foul. I've made my position on this question very very clear from the beginning. The only person who truly deserves protection from this media mayhem is Trig himself. I'll go further and repeat what I have written from the very start. I deeply admire and respect Palin for doing what she has done in giving this child a home and a life. It is more of a sacrifice than I will ever know. And more of a joy than I will ever know. We can be journalists but we can also be humane toward children and see the good that someone has done as well as the bad.

But the blowback has not just been rhetorical. It has been to bring the entire site to its knees. The  buycott of Wonkette's advertizers has led to almost all of them fleeing immediately:

Starting with Papa John’s Pizza, the companies began to run. It grew from there. As of Friday afternoon, the list was 30-some strong, and includes brands like Huggies, Vanguard Group, Nordstrom, Bob Evans, and StarKist Charlie—the tuna mascot. [See the list of Wonkette’s remaining advertisers.]

I feel as queasy about this flexing of Palinite muscle as I do about the original, disgusting, asinine story. In some ways, I see a legitimate come-uppance for a tacky site that published a simply inexcusable piece of mean-spirited dreck using a child who cannot defend himself, treating him as if he were subhuman, which he most definitely isn't. But I also recoil from mob action like this, for the impact it has on fearless free speech and the chilling effect it will have on an already cowed and defensive MSM when covering the truly tough stuff about Palin.

Fat Is Infectious?

Jonah Lehrer analyzes a new study that finds being exposed to pictures of someone who is overweight makes us prone to consuming more calories:

[T]his research begins to explain how obesity moves through a social network. It turns out that the habits of others shape our own, that we unconsciously regress to the dietary norms around us. Because we’re not particularly good at noticing when we’re sated and full – the stomach is a crude sensory organ – we rely on all sorts of external cues to tell us how much to eat. Many of these cues from other people, which is why our eating habits are so contagious.

The View From Your Window Contest

Vfyw_4-23

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

Marrying Wrong

Kimberly Goad wonders about it:

According to recent research conducted by Jennifer Gauvain, a therapist in Denver, 30 percent of now-divorced women say they knew in their gut they were making a mistake as they walked down the aisle — and kept walking anyway. Only a handful backed out. The obvious question: If you know you're marrying the wrong guy, why do it?

Amanda Marcotte, unsurprisingly, blames sexism.

Why Apes Don’t Need Accutane

Jesse Bering explains:

Although increasingly glaborous (hairless) skin evolved for adaptive purposes—it may have enabled our ancestors to keep cool, for example, while traveling across the hot savanna—the sure-footed pace at which genes for depilated flesh were selected posed some cosmetic problems. Kellett and Gilbert observe that the evolution of our sebaceous glands, which were accustomed to dealing with hair-covered flesh, lagged behind this change in our appearance. As a consequence, all that oily and waxy sebum, normally committed to lubricating fur, hadn't much fur to lubricate. So the sebum started to build up and clog our pores instead.

Malls: Everywhere And Nowhere

Michael Galinsky explains his collection of photos from 1989:

I shot about 30 rolls of slide film in malls from Long Island to North Dakota to Seattle.  It was hard to tell from the images where they were taken, and that was kind of the point. I was interested in the creeping loss of regional differences.  I thought a lot about (photographer Robert) Frank's "The Americans" as we drove from place to place without any sense of place.

Egypt’s Future

Fareed Zakaria predicts that, ten years from now, Egypt will look a lot like Indonesia:

Ten years ago most people thought Indonesia wouldn't even exist as a country after (President) Suharto fell. People thought that Indonesia was not even a real country.  The Dutch had colonized these 400 different islands.  It was poor. It had the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism, extremism and jihadi groups.

But the democratic political system stabilized the country. It provided vents and escape valves for some of these tensions.

Who Killed Cap & Trade?

Bradford Plumer asks:

Maybe none of the theories about what went wrong are correct. It’s quite possible that climate activists basically did a competent job —after all, they did get a big, complicated bill to the 20-yard-line in a legislative body that rarely passes big, complicated bills—and they just got unlucky. After all, if John McCain hadn’t thrown a tantrum and changed his mind about the merits of tackling global warming, cap-and-trade very well could have passed and those inside-the-Beltway greens would now look like geniuses. Maybe there’s such a thing as too much clever second-guessing. Sure, environmentalists will have to adapt to changing circumstances —right now, the focus is on protecting the EPA's Clean Air Act authority—but does climate activism really need to be completely renovated? Or does it just need to wait for the right moment to come along? (Granted, greens better hope that moment arrives before the planet heats up too much.)