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.
A bag of blood:
Thomas Biggs, then 29, and a surgical resident under Cronin, says the idea came about when one of his colleagues, Frank Gerow, went to the blood bank. "They'd stopped putting liquids in glass bottles, and begun putting them into plastic bags," says Biggs, "and he was walking in the hall with this bag of blood, and felt that it had the softness of a breast."
Cliff Kuang theorizes:
Americans only spend 6.9% of their income on food. Compare that to a country such as Italy, which has a far lower rate of obesity. Italians eat only 100 fewer calories per day than we do–but they spend more than twice their income on food … I would argue that Europeans are willing to pay more for better food because what they eat is so wrapped up with national pride and cultural identity. Why wouldn't you spend the time to buy great ingredients for something homemade if that's how your beloved grandmother did it? Americans, by contrast, have far less of a cultural attachment to the food we eat. We don't have national dishes and food traditions that bind us together in the way of Italy or Greece.
Explore the Food Service Warehouse's interactive infographic for more comparisons.
Graeme Wood tries to train a new network of Libyan journalists at the behest of USAID:
All of my students were under 30 and had entered the profession from other pursuits. Ex-nurses, ex–medical students, ex-architects, and ex-engineers showed up, and a few people seemed young enough to have practiced no occupation other than Facebook Revolutionary, straight out of high school. … I preached a gospel of objectivity, freedom from bias, and independence—the canonical American journalistic virtues—and explained why journalists aren’t supposed to shade stories to protect the powerful, or lie, or break the law, or pay their sources, or be paid by them, or pretend to be someone they’re not. The students appreciated the theory but challenged me in practice. Nearly all said, for example, that they would decline to publish a story that made the leaders of the rebel government look bad, at least until the war was finished.
(Photo: Pro-revolution Libyans watch the first live broadcasting of the first locally based television station to operate in Libya since the start of the revolution 'Al-Hurra', at the revolution square in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on May 30, 2011. By Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
Louise Foxcroft looks to the history books:
In the Victorian age the true "medical idol of the moment", according to the Lancet, was Horace Fletcher and his mastication theory. Dieters chewed everything several hundred times (700 times for a shallot) and not only slimmed down but defecated less. Fletcher was so proud of his faeces that he always carried one with him to prove that it smelled like a hot biscuit and weighed only 2 ounces. Franz Kafka and Henry James were fervent Fletcherites and came to loathe food.
In reviewing Jodi Kantor's The Obamas, David Remnick contrasts their happy union with history's more troubled presidential marriages:
Richard Nixon was so flagrantly indifferent to his wife that one of his aides, Roger Ailes, wrote in a memorandum, "I think it is important for the President to show a little more concern for Mrs. Nixon as he moves through the crowd. At one point he walked off in a different direction. Mrs. Nixon wasn’t looking and had to run to catch up. From time to time he should talk to her and smile at her." In Nashville, on her birthday, Nixon took the stage at the Grand Ole Opry and played "Happy Birthday" on the piano. The song complete, Pat ran to him with her arms outstretched in pleasure. Nixon spurned her embrace and signalled the master of ceremonies to resume the program.
John Cassidy assesses the state of political journalism today in light of gossip-driven books like Kantor's:
If this is a problem, it isn’t a new one. In a corridor outside my office, I have a shelf full of books about the Reagan Administration. There are tomes about Iran-Contra and Reaganomics, memoirs by cabinet ministers, accounts of the end of the Cold War. I’d be willing to bet that the one that sold most is "Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography," by Kitty Kelley. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the book that sold the second largest number of copies was "What Does Joan Say? My Seven Years as White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan," by Joan Quigley.
What is new, or newish, is the twenty-four-hour news cycle, which amplifies minor stories and happenings, such as the publication of Kantor’s book. This certainly makes the job of press secretaries and politicians more difficult. I’m not sure it does the public a great disservice, though. The frenetic pace of things means that minor stories are quickly replaced and forgotten. If a significant but dubious story goes up, legions of reporters and columnists and bloggers eagerly compete to tear it down.
More "controversies" from the Kantor book here and pushback from Michelle here.
(Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama walk from Marine One after arriving at the White House on December 14, 2011 in Washington, DC. By Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Scott Galupo insists that the "private-equity industry is not coeval with the free-enterprise system":
I don't think Romney was an evil bloodsucking corporate vulture. I want smart people to be able to locate economic efficiencies, and thereby ensure growth in the long term. I want venture capitalists to take risks and reap rewards ("Bain," after all, is Gaelic for "harvest" or "reap"!). But the system in which this dynamism takes place is not prairie grass. It is an artifact of governance, both corporate and political—of accounting principles, auditing standards, bankruptcy law, securities regulation, and all the rest.
Friday on the Dish, Andrew slammed the right's justification for the assasination in Iran, weeped over another gay man driven to suicide by Christianist hate, refused to let Romney off the hook for his Bain shenanigans, found Paulmentum in South Carolina, and gave a reality check. We introduced a new daily feature – the Ad War Update, Romney had an empathy problem and a favorite tax loophole, the Bain attack might be strengthening him despite conservative misgivings, his candidacy looked hinged on his dubious job creation claims and ability to defend Bain in the long run, and the man had undeniable problems with personal wealth and evangelicals. South Carolina was (arguably) a Teastablishment state that Colbert couldn't run in, Paul might be galvanizing the anti-war right, Sheldon Adelson's motives for the Gingrich money bomb were made clear, and the oppo resarch of future campaigns looked to be bananas.
We looked at evidence of Israeli responsibility for the Iran bombing, thought Iran might negotiate like North Korea, examined the Syrian opposition, and listened to revolutionary Libyan hip-hop. The GOP might be interested in raising the minimum wage but no one would touch the drug war, free enterprise was not on trial in the campaign, the internets sans Jack Shafer mocked the NYT's "truth vigilante" piece, and Al-Jazeera might have become our best news source. Suicide killed youth while broken hearts did in everyone, police taser use had issues, film immortalized napalm mornings, "Fotoshop" revolutionized beauty, and nobody said this shit.
AAA here, Hewitt nominee here, Malkin nominee here, Yglesias nominee here, Chart of the Day here, Faces Of The Day here, VFYW here, (Movie) Quote for the Day here, and MHB here.
Thursday on the Dish, Andrew blasted the NYT public editor's cluelessness, fingered Israel for the bomb in Iran, expressed remorse over the outburst of excitement at the man's death, found a money connection between Newt and Netanyahu, warned Ron Paul against endorsing Mitt, looked at the wide-open South Carolina polls, marveled at Palin's economic populism on Bain, watched the video that might kill Romney (especially when the Dems amplify its message), thought the defense of Mitt was emotional weak sauce, and forcefully defended (with reader backup) that his primary candidacy was, in fact, killable on Bain grounds. We found his "envy" line on the 1% daft, surveyed his weakness with conservative opinion leaders (except the flip-flopping McCain), saw Romney's ideological "flexibility" becoming a general election vulnerability, and cautioned that Obama's reelection was hardly inevitable. Romney voted "present" on the drug war, the GOP's Hispanic problem wasn't going away, and a reader deepened the conversation about campaign signs.
The Arab Spring threw America a reputational lifeline, some Iranians outside the regime supported the nuclear program, Iraq was OK on its own, and Bashar al-Assad idiotically compared himself to Darth Vader. American soldiers violated Taliban corpses, most of our planes became drones, the war on terror ended, conservatives had reason to cut defense, and our torturers were compared to the Inquisition. The debate on conservatism and fracking continued, Krauthammer had a moment of honesty about Obama, Grover had a sordid affair, and the free ponies promise was a fascist Trojan Horse.
The meat industry was brutally abusive and, as a consequence, Americans ate less of it. We aired a number of reader views on AP credits and white male pop, smart people weren't more likely to be uggers, people misunderstood hackers, and Jimmy Kimmel explained how marriage equality would kill us all. MHB here, FOTD here, VFYW here, and AAA here.
Tampa, Florida, 9 AM
Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew loved Ron Paul's attempt to make it a two-man race of ideas (with the help of a pithy reader and some sympathetic writers), saw conservatives opening up to Paul, labelled the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist terrorism, went after the NYT for refusing to outright do the same and defended himself on the point against readers, remembered the past 10 years of Gitmo, and caught Mitt in a lie about his gay rights record. We compiled reax to Romney's romp in New Hampshire, looked to South Carolina for his Lee Atwater moment, thought the primary schedule might hurt the GOP with Hispanics (Florida notwithstanding), saw more evidence of a GOP enthusiasm problem, kept tabs on pundit and reader debates over the Bain days, and wondered what the hell Perry and Gingrich thought they were doing in the race.
Iran's Hormuz hawkishness was counterproductive, the case to strike Iran lacked a compelling endgame, Russia enabled Assad's bloodthirst, Ike seemed (contra Andrew's view) to be something of an interventionist, and Scotland may have wanted out of the UK. Employer-based healthcare limited your ability to fire your insurance company, layoffs weren't firings, the GOP hamstrung the IRS, Wall Street was (huge shock here) unpopular, rich people shoplifted, we lived in a time of short-term jobs, people thought about giving up on the stock market, and one man boldly proposed to save the economy with free ponies. The History Channel failed at, er, history, burglars stole computers, mothers absorbed baby DNA, pot was kinda good for you, a dude took a self-portrait every day for 13 years, AP credits were debated, and readers kept on discussing Amtrak and conservative environmentalism.
Attack Ad of the Day here, Hewitt Nominee here, Quote for the Day here, AAA here, VFYW here (with neat reup from yesterday's contest winner here), Face of the Day here, and MHB here.
Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew live-blogged Romney's cruise to victory in New Hampshire after ample pre-coverage: we found the latest polls showing him well ahead, found his worst-case scenario in the Granite State, checked his history in the state's elections, and wondered whether South Carolina was the true marquee venue. Romney himself received the lion's share of the candidate coverage – we looked at more views on the "firing people" gaffe, aired reader and bloggy defenses of his time at Bain while fact-checking and critiquing his unstrategic claims about it, and discovered how he beat Gingrich. Ron Paul had a bad day, Huntsman's surge might have been real while he took humblebrag cues from Britta Perry, Newt's money man developed GOP trouble, Santorum got pschoanalyzed, and all of these jokers just weren't funny. Wilkinson plumbed the depths of GOP primary voters' minds, Nyhan argued negative ads would be big, second place finish in the whole race was potentially bigger, campaign signs seemed kinda important, the field went nuts over China, and the whole shebang was explained amusingly.
Obama started doing better as confidence in the economy improved and most definitelywas not dropping Biden for Clinton. Being a President required a different mindset than being a CEO, the middle class wasn't a class warfare term, and the supply-side revolution busted. Assad gave a ridiculous speech, Paul Pillar defended the CIA, 1896 Palestine surfaced in film, the world might be screwed, and Bush's enablers gave Obama advice on the separation of powers. Anaesthesia suggested interesting things about consciousness, epidemics were monocausal, white dudes weren't chart-toppers anymore, readersdiscussed Amtrak finances, and spirals blew minds.
Quote for the Day here, AAA here, End of Gay Culture Watch here, (nigh unwatchable) Hathos here, VFYW here, VFYW contest winner here, Face of the Day here, and MHB here.
By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Monday on the Dish, Andrew watched the "I like firing people" video and teased out what one can (fairly) conclude from it. He also noted Bill Kristol's enlistment of Gary Bauer as spokesman for the neoconservative cause, chuckled at Vatican insanity over gays, set expectations for Romney in New Hampshire, and got some backup on Mitt's viability in the general from Arah-say Alin-Pay. We discovered some nasty details from Romney's Bain days, questioned his claims about creating jobs, tracked a debate over the qualit of the Republican field, blamed Bush for the state of the GOP, and examined whether the non-Romneys were a circular firing squad. Santorum was popular in the South, was understood as the political Tebow, and was peddling nonsense about polygamy. Huntsman had a modicum of momentum (possibly enough to get money from his pops), he and Paul benefitted from a Romney decline, Ron enabled both the mass imprisonment of Americans and his son's ambitions, and James Joyner timed out the inevitable GOP revolution.
The international response to brutality in Syria was muddled, Iran sanctions had bite, and the defense budget may not have contributed to innovation. Lobbying paid off, Thatcherhated lazy crony capitalism, and women didn't need their own blog to talk about politics. Marriage equality faced a test in New Jersey, Salt Lake City won the crown for "gayest city" (Orlando came in #2), nasty zealots acted like hipsters, and the best way to rebel wasin secret.
Crime declined, weather made men work, arguing with the fam helped kids, calling your mam calmed you, television shows sneakily manipulated contagious laughter, Amtrak's future wasn't clear, people were afraid to say they were sick, and Paypal went nutzo with respect to counterfeit policies. Faces of the Day here, Yglesias nominee here, VFYWhere, AAA here, Quotes for the Day here and here, and MHB here.
- Z.B.
Ron Paul's thoughts:
Scott Morgan encourages other politicians to echo Paul's message:
[Y]ou don't have to be just like Ron Paul to win points with voters by supporting drug policy reform. Paul's libertarian philosophy doesn't resonate well with many progressives, who are otherwise impressed with his drug policy positions. Any number of politicians on the left could earn enormous support, especially from young voters, just by copying Ron Paul's approach to marijuana policy and ignoring much of the rest of what he stands for.
The Dish 