Month: January 2012

The latest Suffolk University poll suggests you'd be foolish to dismiss Ron Paul's chances:

For the fourth day in a row, Mitt Romney has fallen in overnight tracking, and Rick Santorum has dropped into fifth place among likely voters in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, according to the latest Suffolk University/7News two-day tracking poll.

Ron Paul is gaining on Romney, while Jon Huntsman has rallied into third place. Romney dropped 4 percentage points overnight to 35 percent. The former Massachusetts governor still holds a 15 point lead, but his margin has declined by 8 percentage points since last Tuesday, when 43 percent of likely Republican voters backed Romney. Romney is followed by Paul (20 percent), Huntsman (11 percent), Newt Gingrich (9 percent) and Santorum, who dropped another point to 8 percent overnight. Rick Perry and Buddy Roemer each had 1 percent with 15 percent undecided.

If you want to stop Romney's coronation, your best bet is to vote for Paul or Huntsman in New Hampshire.

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A Palin-level performance this morning:

Romney was asked about the ads attacking Newt Gingrich aired by Restore our Future, the Super PAC that supports Romney. “I haven’t seen the ads,” he said.

Seconds later: “The ad I saw said you were forced out of the speakership.” Romney went down to list attacks from the ad in question, which could be any of (or some combination of) the Restore Our Future spots.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said after the debate Romney meant to say he hadn’t seen all the ads. “He described the one ad he did see,” he said.

The "I'm unemployed too" candidate who nonetheless earns $26 million a year from Bain's investments might have gone a little too far this morning. Ben Smith:

Romney said his father, Michigan Governor George Romney, had told him, "Mitt, never get involved in politics if you have to win an election to pay a mortgage." "If you find yourself in a position when you can serve, why you ought to have a responsibility to do so if you think you can make a difference," he recalled his father telling him. "Also, don't get in politics if your kids are still young because it might turn their heads."

A few seconds later, he bragged about his run against Teddy Kennedy. "I was happy he had to take a mortgage out on his house to ultimately defeat me," he said.

Almost as tone-deaf as Huntsman.

A reader writes:

Full disclosure: In 2008 I voted for Paul in the primary and Obama in the general. I'm not prone to fantasy about Paul's chances but like you am rooting for him and what he stands for. I have seen a lot of these debates, interviews, clips, ads, etc., but the exchange between Paul and Gingrich was perhaps the most emotional I have ever seen Ron Paul.

When his voice quivered slightly and he said his "heart weeps for them," followed by his pithy "I served" rebuttal, I honestly teared up (and I'm not prone to that sort of thing). It will likely be glossed over in the MSM because it doesn't fit any prevailing narratives, but it was the poignant and sincere political moment I have ever seen.

I was struck too.

My live-blog of the debate is here; our "reax from the web" post is here. I'm afraid I slept through the apparently livelier debate this morning. Long week. But stay tuned.

Jenny Lawson wrote a poignant account on overcoming depression:

I wrote this post a month ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to post it then.  I was too weak from fighting to shout, and so instead I whispered this into the night and left it unpublished until I felt like I could speak to it with the battle-cry it deserves.  Years ago, coming out about depression and anxiety disorder was something frightening, but now people are more honest and open and so much of the shame has dissipated.  We may not have pink ribbons or telethons but we know that someone out there understands.  That is, until we’re honest about how it affects us.  I’ve never written about this because I can’t talk about it without it being a trigger but I think it’s important to be honest even when it’s scary.  Especially when it’s scary.

The blogger Corbusier argues that Modernist architecture has failed to deliver a truly great Catholic church:

Modernist space, one is supposed to marvel at its lightness, smoothness and simplicity, attributes that are commonly summarized as 'machine-like'.  If one desires a more 'humanist' look and feel, the designer can instill a quality of 'roughness' by texturizing concrete, oxidizing steel,  and inserting warmth by using  natural materials such as wood and stone.  Industrialization gives us that much more control to generate a precise effect, and empowers the designers unlimited opportunities in experimenting.  At the same time, it diminishes the role of the craftsman, who throughout most of human history was the guardian in generating material effects, and in  many ways assumed the role of architectural detailing.  Machines take the human factor out of the art of making, thus producing something devoid of passion, feeling that imbues every man-made object.

An earlier example of compelling transparent church architecture here. 

(Photo of Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut by Le Corbusier, in Ronchamp, France by Fox Wu)

Biologist Michael Soule traces it:

Well, let’s start with greed, which evolutionarily is by far the oldest sin — as old as life itself. All organisms have to seek resources, and in our species this desire for energy leads to the sin of greed, because our awareness of selfishness lets us choose to be greedy or not. Competition for resources is also ancient, and with competition comes aversion, or anger, toward one’s competitors. So the second-oldest vice is anger. 

Then you have the ancient visceral impulses, those that arise from the animal needs to sleep, eat, and mate: in humans these become sloth, gluttony, and lust. … The two remaining sins are envy and pride, the only so-called sins that are nearly uniquely human. They’re by far the most recent ones, located in the young neocortex, according to functional MRI scans. They require theory of mind — the capacity to understand that other people have minds — and they can only exist in highly social animals. 

Erika Check Hayden takes a closer look at sloth. Cassandra Willyard focuses on envy.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com Video archive here.

Jerry Coyne thinks so (follow-up here). Jean Kasez sighs:

Coyne says science will not allow [free will], since our choices take place in our brains, and our brains are part of the completely law-governed material world.  But this simple overview of what we know subtlely exaggerates what we know. OK, choices do take place in our brains, and not without brains, but it's not as if consciousness has been fully explained and reduced to a specific physical property of brains. Consciousness is a huge unsolved puzzle. Since free choices are conscious choices, it would seem premature to say you were absolutely sure how they work.