Month: June 2011

Megan Garber notices that online "writing and speech, textuality and orality, collapse into each other":

The framework of text and speech falls apart once we recognize that Twitter is both and neither at once. It’s its own thing, a new category. Our language, however, doesn’t yet recognize that. Our rhetoric hasn’t yet caught up to our reality — for Twitter and, by extension, for other social media. … Speaking is no longer fully ephemeral. And text is no longer simply a repository of thought, composed by an author and bestowed upon the world in an ecstasy of self-containment.

A reader writes:

"Meanwhile, billions of gallons of freshwater disappears uselessly into the ocean, the result of icebergs that break off from the ice caps of Greenland and melt into the salty mix," wrote David Zax. Are you sure that they melt uselessly? Do you consider the deep ocean currents, including the Gulfstream, to be useless? The sinking of the heavier cold fresh water into the warmer lighter salt water off Greenland is a major engine of these deep ocean currents that circle the globe, moving vast amounts of heat and delivering nutrients that many major fisheries rely on.

Update: Another says "the reader's reasoning is a little off":

The driving force behind sinking of water masses near the poles is the increase in density of cold salt water due to removal of fresh water by evaporation and the formation of sea ice. Melting of icebergs might decrease the water temperature slightly due to thermodynamic considerations, but it's really all about the salt.

Matt Welch confronts the criminal justice system:

More than 800,000 people are still arrested each year for marijuana alone, despite the widespread misconception that pot has been largely decriminalized, and despite the fact that close to half of all Americans by now have smoked it, and more than half, by some surveys, favor legalizing it. We can thank the drug war for “stop-and-frisk” harassment of young New Yorkers, for the transfer of military equipment and tactics to local police departments, for wrong-door SWAT raids that kill innocents, for an entire shadow economy of dubious jailhouse snitching and back-room sentence reductions. Vanishingly few public officials even pretend anymore that the drug war can somehow be “won.”

Today on the Dish, Andrew demolished the Republican agenda as a fulfillment of Christian ideals. Conservapedia changed history to support Palin's revisionism, doublethink got a new mascot, and Longfellow shuddered. Amanda Marcotte deconstructed Palin's distorted metaphor using Paul Revere for the Tea Party, and her movie tapped into all the brainwash methods a la Clockwork Orange. Romney ignored Sarah Palin and believed in global warming, while Mormonism had built itself into a sanctified multinational corporation, and Beinart got premonitions of four more years for Obama.

The Arab Spring hit economic bumps in the road, Saleh fled Yemen, "ghosts" spied on citizens in Syria, and a gay girl in Damascus was disappeared. The discovery of AIDS turned 30, even great authors had reprehensible views, and Sam Harris clarified the difference between determinism and fatalism. Icebergs could quench the Middle East's thirst, luck distorts success, and price doesn't indicate quality of food.

We were mesmerized by motion in NYC, Hemingway didn't breed six-toed cats, cellphones endangered sperm, and kids came out. The NYT allowed for a hot lesbian exception, Andrew's beard aimed for crazy, and Andrew defended Weiner as "were you fully erect?" echoed across the blogosphere. Cool ad watch here, gaffe of the day here, threat compilation here, quotes for the day here and here, Yglesias award here, Moore award here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

–Z.P.

The above diptych shows a homeless man juxtaposed with a real estate developer, from Mark Laita's book, Created Equal:

In America, the chasm between rich and poor is growing, the clash between conservatives and liberals is strengthening, and evil and good seem more polarized than ever before. At the heart of this collection of diptychs is my desire to remind us that we are all equal, until our environment, circumstances or fate molded and weathered us into whom we have become.

More contrasts here.

A reader writes:

This "daughter test" sounds like the exact definition of a nanny state, and after reading both sides, I think it can be boiled down to "I'm not sure I can educate my daughter to behave responsibly, so I want everyone else to keep an eye on her as well".  Now, I understand that they are not so worried about their own real daughters as about the daughters of less-aware parents (or at least I hope that is indeed their concern), but it still feels like forcing behaviors on others to act "for their own good" – always a perilous edge to walk on.

It can also be easily shift to be extremely retrograde and racist ("I don't want my daughter to marry no nigger" being the most obvious reference, as much as it pains me to even write that, or, in our more modern sense, "I ain't having my daughter marry a dyke"). Both of these examples, plus I'm sure a hundred others one could think of, show that this method of determining laws is not just suspect, but utterly broken. Far better to save the money to pass laws only against activities that damage others, not oneself, and spend the extra money attempting to educate everyone's sons and daughters in making the right choices. Sure, some will ignore or willfully disregard any advice, but at some point our definition of liberty must accommodate for self-destructive tendencies, or otherwise the idea that we have a right – as opposed to an obligation – to life ceases to have any meaning.

Another writes:

I may not have a daughter, but if I did, let me tell you what I'd want for her. I'd want her to live in a society that treated her like an adult, when she became one. I want I society that respects her personal decisions, her body, and her property. I don't want her to become a drug addict or a sex worker. But if she became a drug addict, I would want her to be treated by doctors, not police officers. If she became a sex worker, I'd want her to able to organize for the decent wages and better working conditions, without fear of legal repercussion.

I want my daughter to be able to take society's respect for her person and property and internalize it. I want my daughter to reject substance abuse, not out of fear of law enforcement, but because she cares about her body enough not to risk harming it. I want her to reject sex work, not because of the criminal world it associates with, but because she views sex as something important, do be done with someone you love. I want my daughter to be a good person, and that can only happen in a free society.

And 99 other cinematic threats (NSFW):

McArdle backs up Hilzoy and TNC:

[T]here's another reason I do not think that we should reject books because their authors have terrible opinions, which is that virtually all authors have some terrible opinions.  In the case of Naipaul, his, um, intermittent contempt for females shows up pretty clearly if you're looking for it.  Perhaps every writer's worst opinions influence what they write, but that doesn't mean you'll always know about them; H.L. Mencken was smart enough to keep his Nazi sympathies mostly to himself.  You might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire of even more odious opinions that the author is clever enough to conceal. Or maybe you don't recognize them, because you share them.  Whatever the case, you cannot improve your library by purging all the authors with terrible ideas; you can only empty it.

Dr. Science lodges a complaint:

There are things that hilzoy learned from Naipaul that she maybe couldn't have learned from any other writer at that time in her life — but that doesn't mean *I* need to learn them in the same way, or at this time. And there's always more to read than any single lifetime can cover. Hilzoy says Naipaul is "a gorgeous, gorgeous writer" — but "gorgeousness" is always going to be a matter of taste and mood, not going to work for everyone at every time. Sometimes you want High Baroque, sometimes you want Zen Monastery.

Hilzoy clarifies.

Megan is affronted:

What he actually did is bad enough: sexting from work?  With strangers he met over the internet?  As with Clinton, this is strange and reckless behavior for a public figure whose inappropriate behavior could be used to blackmail him… Maybe it's because I'm older and tireder but these days, the "not our business" school of sex scandal seems to function as a get-out-of-monogamy-free card for powerful men who want to behave badly … I am fighting a powerful urge to point out that virtually all of the people urging us to move on to something more important are men. But obviously, I'm losing the fight.

Not all women, however, share Megan's view:

One fun story is the 25 year old. He himself is not that interesting. In fact, if you are in your forties and you date a 25 year old, it’s safe to say that the kid is going to bore you to death, but it sure was fun to try that out. I’m not going to tell you about all guys. Although the alcoholic who had the same divorce lawyer that I did appears to still be available and he’s very rich, so maybe you should read about him if you’re looking for that type.

The guy I do want to tell you about is the one who lived five states away. We texted all the time. This created many moral dilemmas, such as, can I text about a blow job while I’m eating McFlurries with my kids. (Answer: Yes)