Month: August 2011

Today on the Dish, in the aftermath to Irene, magic mushrooms bloomed, giant Gambian rats surfaced, and we parsed the reactions of the media and government. Bachmann blamed Irene on bloated government spending (ironically), global warming didn't cause Irene, and the real person behind @Irene remained calm. The right asked Perry to exchange identity politics for some actual policies, Erica Grieder expected him to follow public opinion, and we ran the numbers on a possible independent party bid. We exposed the Islamophobia racket, Peter Beinart eulogized neoconservatism, Zack went after Wehner's attack on the Obama economy, and TNC wasn't having Ron Paul's thoughts on FEMA. Perry compared his brain to chicken pot pie, and Brian Thill dissected the candidates' iconography.

Cameron's support for the Libyan intervention resembled Tony Blair's liberal view, we analyzed the spelling of Qaddafi's name, and we wondered if we'll need a big army if future interventions look like Libya's. The Middle East's bread riots aren't the region's first, one man's story of limbo at Guantanamo stands for many, and the fact that many of the revolutions were leaderless means the future of those countries can be determined in due time.

Humans aren't good at picking people out of a lineup, racists walk among us, and domestic terrorism was curtailed by suspect "preventative" measures. Bisexuality remains taboo even in progressive circles, the history of debt touches on sin and the sacred, and we reviewed a new film on lesbian romance in Iran. Readers connected infinity to Borges and Neil Gaiman and their own terror, attacked junk mail, and didn't want to be your gay best friend. David Sirota was sick of vegetarian foods glorifying fake meat, and Greek yogurt hails from Bulgaria.

Hathos alert here, creepy ad watch here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

–Z.P.

(Video: Irene NYC from Buffalo Picture House on Vimeo.)

by Chris Bodenner

A reader keeps the discussion going strong:

I have been following this thread with interest and have noticed the subject has evoked a general sense of terror in many of the readers who have commented. I should point out that one of the classic hallmarks of intelligence is existential depression of the kind provoked by "infinity."  In fact, in young, gifted, children (and children with OCD or Tourette's syndrome, who are often highly intelligent) existential depression is often triggered by their first encounter with the concept of infinity.  As a child of six or seven, my introduction to infinity led to years of sleepless nights, and often nightmares.  To this day, I can find myself disturbed for days if I begin to dwell on the subject.

My intellectually gifted, six-year-old son, who is currently being treated for OCD, is a fine example of this as well.  Earlier this summer, after he had brought up the idea to me (regarding the stars and the size of the universe) and we discussed it as far as he might be able to understand, he became, over the following weeks increasingly withdrawn.  Finally, one evening, out of the blue he told me that sometimes he "just wanted to die."  

I, of course, stopped what I was doing and asked him why.  He said, "It's always the same.  Nothing changes and there are never any answers – never an end to anything.  It just goes on and on."  It was a long night, and although we aren't fearful that he is genuinely suicidal, my wife and I are much more aware of the effects "infinity" can have on the psyche.  The concept of infinity is difficult enough for educated adults to grasp and comfortably accept.  Imagine being only six years old: you are bright enough to hold the idea in front of you, but lack the emotional foundation to hold back its inherent terror. Sometimes infinity really hurts the brain.

Another writes:

I'm surprised to learn that so many people had difficulties with the concept of infinity. For me the awesomeness and beauty of infinity came to me as I fell into a mirror-upon-mirror reflection in an ornate gilded palace I visited in my youth. With a display such as this, one can never be firmly in the center, but always ever so slightly to the side so that the path of infinity slightly curves, blocking out a full view into infinity. Even this does not bother me, now or then, as I just figured that I will never fully see into the eyes of God, if you will, if not for only on this plane of existence. 

Another:

My first encounter with infinity: the Land O Lakes butter box.

Another:

I'm enjoying the infinity thread – a great late-summer diversion. I'd like to point out that your illustrations of the Mad magazine cover and the like are technically not examples of infinity but of recursion, which is a process of repeating objects in a self similar way. Fun as the images are, there is no "infinity" in a universe where the same objects continuously repeat themselves; there is just endlessness. (Maybe Bill Murray in Groundhog Day has an insight or two to offer.)

Here's a challenge. Try thinking of infinity going backwards. Growing up in a Catholic grade school I was taught that God is eternal – always was, always will be. I imagined God hanging around in the Dark Ages, witnessing Jesus' birth, digging the age of the dinosaurs, chillin' in the Ice Age (sorry), hitting a creative peak just about the time of the creation of the Universe … and then POW – I hit a wall.  Can an infinite God be "always was" even before anything else "was"? Or to be less grammatically tortured, is there a beginning to infinity?

My brain hurts.

by Zoë Pollock

Tyler Cabot tells Noor Uthman Muhammed's story:

It is a strange population, the 171 men still left at Guantánamo. There is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and another two dozen hardened militants, who will never be released. This class of prisoner represents a small minority of the population. Then there are the others — about a hundred men, mostly Yemeni, who have been cleared to leave but have no place to go, as no country will take them. And there are another thirty-five or so like Noor. They are nameless, low-level operatives, or hapless men who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are the detritus of a decade-long war.

They can't simply be released. That would be admitting that they aren't as bad as the government once said they were. And most can't be tried, either, because much of the evidence against them — if there is any — is too fraught, as it was gotten by torture, and would never have even been considered to be evidence in any American judicial proceeding before September 11, 2001. And no serious person would have ever argued for it as such.

 

by Zack Beauchamp

Reacting to Max Fisher's report that Qaddafi's passport spells his name "Gathafi," Issandr El Amrani explains how to think about the transliteration:

In Arabic, Qadhafi's name is spelled ??????? which if you drop the article, means
? – ? – ? – ? – ? or q – dh – a – f – i. The "q" letter is almost unique to Arabic (sometimes called "the language of the qaf" — sorry, it's the language of the dhad, not qaf!) and often transliterated as a "k", since its pronounciation can be difficult for non-Arabic speakers.

It is standard in classical Arabic and places like Fes in northern Morocco, but northern Egyptians, urban Syrians and others often pronounce this letter as a glottal stop, while southern Egyptians and Bedouins most often pronounce as a "g", as in "go". (This is why in Syria upscale Damascenes call the regime "the government of the Qaf", because pronouncing the letter is a country bumpkin thing to do, and Eastern Sunnis and Alawites — long dominant in the regime — often do it). Hence you see Qadhafi, Kadhafi or Gadhafi. The "dh" sound also has no equivalent in many languages as a standalone letter, and to top it off is made emphatic by a shedda — a kind of accent that indicates the letter should be doubled, which is why academics use the unwieldy "Qadhdhafi." And the "dh" is often not pronounced as such — in most colloquial Arabics, it is pronounced "d". I'm not sure why it might be pronounced "th", but perhaps this was used in Qadhafi's passport because it is close to the English sound in "the", which sounds very much like "dh".

Kal at The Moor Next Door has similar thoughts, though he's annoyed that this side-issue is receiving coverage. Nige reviews one book on the perils of translation more generally.

by Zoë Pollock

Anne Helen Peterson recounted why American housewives fell for Rock Hudson. A reader shares his own story:

Both my partner and I are amazed by the number of single/divorced/widowed women who flirt with us and/or want to turn us into their best gay friend. They all know we have been together for 27 years, but seem to ignore that minor inconvenience. They sit much too close, insist on turning what should be an air kiss into one on the lips, and want to take just one of us out. Thank goodness for Caller ID, otherwise we would be reenacting all those Rock Hudson/Doris Day double entendre phone conversation movie scenes nightly.

My partner and I know these women are lonely, especially in the evening, but we have no desire to become  walkers in the classic New York sense.  We understand a woman's need for an occasional escort to a major event. But we really do enjoy our quiet middle aged weekend evenings at home, if we wanted to go out, we would as a couple, dammit.  We have not been single for decades, rarely go out without the other and trust me, neither of us looks anywhere near as handsome as Hudson in our almost nicely tailored suits. Would these ladies constantly try to call to talk to a female friend's husband and then ask him out by himself? 
 
I wonder if younger generations, who did not grow up on the saccharine movies but with marriage equality, will have the same experience. Or will women continue to have a best gay friend to cha-cha with when they can't get laid. Like in that more modern movie, My Best Friend's Wedding, where Julia Roberts expects Rupert Everett to be always available.

Sounds like the Disappointing Gay Best Friend goes back farther than we think.

Nick Pratto (#25) of the West team from Huntington Beach, California celebrates after driving in the winning run to defeat the Japan team from Hamamatsu City 2-1 to win the Little League World Series championship game on August 28, 2011 in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. By Rob Carr/Getty Images.

— C.B.

by Zack Beauchamp

Totally in agreement with Ta-Nehisi Coates' reaction to Ron Paul's ridiculous comments about FEMA here:

It's always bugged me that Ron Paul was allowed to basically pull a "Wasn't Me" after a trove of bigoted literature was found bearing his name. Whatever…Ron Paul's thoughts on FEMA, like his thoughts on black people, are the spoutings of a nihilistic reactionary. Having a critique of Libya isn't enough.

Steve Benen piles on. Remind me again why we're supposed to lament this man not getting more media coverage? Pareene insists "there is no shortage of Ron Paul coverage":

The Web is full of Ron Paul coverage, and it has been for years. Researchers have found that 75 percent of the Web traffic that isn't dedicated to torrenting porn is taken up by discussions of Ron Paul. (Researchers have not actually found that, because researchers are IGNORING THE RON PAUL RevolUTION.) The sort of people with whom Ron Paul's message resonates are already awash in coverage of Ron Paul. (And the sort of people who find his philosophy repulsive are similarly inundated.)

by Maisie Allison

Philip Pilkington interviews economic anthropologist David Graeber about his new book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years:

In Sanskrit, Hebrew, Aramaic, ‘debt,’ ‘guilt,’ and ‘sin’ are actually the same word. Much of the language of the great religious movements – reckoning, redemption, karmic accounting and the like – are drawn from the language of ancient finance. But that language is always found wanting and inadequate and twisted around into something completely different. It’s as if the great prophets and religious teachers had no choice but to start with that kind of language because it’s the language that existed at the time, but they only adopted it so as to turn it into its opposite: as a way of saying debts are not sacred, but forgiveness of debt, or the ability to wipe out debt, or to realize that debts aren’t real – these are the acts that are truly sacred. 

by Chris Bodenner

Lately I've been unable to avoid the print versions of this Jell-O campaign plastered throughout the subway system, and I find them so obnoxious that I almost don't want to give the product any free publicity. But it is the perfect excuse to post Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" video: