Month: March 2012

Benjamin Wallace elaborates on the complaints against the speaker series:

"If you look at it primatologically," one TED attendee says, "it was originally designed like an eighteenth-­century salon, where the very smart and the very rich pretend they have something in common for a very short time. But now there’s a very small cohort of smart people and CEOs—alphas—and a huge panoply of betas: senior vice-presidents. What’s fascinating is how many betas are in the room."

Wallace spoke with Richard Saul Wurman, the man who started TED, sold it and is now launching a new conference this fall:

Wurman is stripping down a form he sees as having become overly packaged. Speakers will likely not know what they’re going to talk about until Wurman poses a question. There will be no time limit. “People will have a conversation onstage until I get bored." And there will be no tickets. The only people at the conference will be the speakers, a guest each, and a few sponsors. "I’m having nobody come," Wurman says, merrily. "That’s the ultimate ‘fuck you.'"

Tasha Robinson isn't a fan of the film:

In Seuss’ book, the Lorax has a frustrated pathos, and the story focuses on his pleas on nature’s behalf as it’s destroyed around him; here, he’s a neutered punchline in a series of height gags. The film’s design is beautiful, from the softer-than-silk truffula trees to Ted’s gaudy plastic hometown. The handful of songs are catchy, and the whole film feels pleasantly airy. But this is a dark story with a heavy message, and it’s been transformed into a harmless, pretty confection. 

A.O. Scott was less kind [NYT]. Goldy gags on the above ad for Mazda:

The fact is, it's hard to stretch a Dr. Seuss book into an hour and 45 minute movie, which I'm guessing is why Dr. Seuss never consented to it when alive. And you know what else I'm pretty damn sure he never would consented to? Whoring his tale of environmental woe and consumerism run amok, to sell a fucking car.

Colbert ran with that theme this week. Scott Meslow shows how Seuss' politics have played out in the past:

Seuss, who drew more than 400 political cartoons for the leftwing newspaper PM in his lifetime, was sometimes overtly political in his texts—leaving filmmakers to determine just how political their Seuss-based films can afford to be. The first challenge came with the semi-political Horton Hears a Who! (which Seuss biographer Philip Nel calls a "parable" intended to teach children "that everyone needs to get involved for democracy to work") was routinely co-opted by political organizations, to its author's frustration; when its most famous line- "a person's a person, no matter how small"—was printed on the stationery of a pro-life group, Geisel himself threatened to sue if it wasn't removed.

Maria Popova honored the beloved author's birthday yesterday by highlighting his forgotten book of nudes.

Neil Harbisson, a color-blind artist, believes so:

Though he himself has no emotional relationship to colors, he learned that most people do. They’re influenced by them — even if they don’t know it. "For example, if you don’t want your bike stolen, and you paint it pink, you have much less possibility that it gets stolen," Harbisson said. "If you want to avoid people jumping off a bridge, paint it green. They tested this in London, they painted a bridge green and people stopped jumping from it."

Harbisson had a tech company build him an "eyeborg," a camera that translates color frequencies into sound:

The sound is then pulsed directly into his skull, via a headband that keeps the whole thing snug on his head. "I don’t see it as a device anymore, I see it as part of my body," said Harbisson. "I started feeling this the same year I started using it, in 2004. I started to feel that the software and my brain were creating a new sense, and there was a point in which I couldn’t differentiate between what was given by the software and what came from my brain. I decided not to take it off anymore, and it’s been a part of my body since then."

 

By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Friday on the Dish, Andrew gleaned Obama's true feelings on striking Iran from that fantastic Jeffrey Goldber interview, reflected on Breitbart and Matt Drudge, flagged a podcast discussion with Johann Hari, decided the President wanted to keep tax rates stable for the middle class, and reminded us that it wasn't too long ago that a Catholic and a Mormon competing for the GOP nomination would be inconceivable. We analyzed Super Tuesday's importance, discovered Mitt's religion was his only portal to the world of the working class, declared his tax plan unworkable, wondered how Romney planned to appeal to the moderate vote, and continued the discussion of "electoral tribalism." Ad War updates here and here. Not to forget the controversy du jour – Rush Limbaugh's bullying nastiness towards Sandra Fluke – we hoped that Rush had gone a bridge too far and thought he was hurting the GOP.

Andrew also assessed Chris Christie's veto of marriage equality in New Jersey, recalled Clinton's betrayals on the subject, and applauded the Human Rights Campaign's new hire for the top job. We aired Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's Catholic defense of marriage equality, noted Breitbart's comparatively positive attitude towards gays, debunked the idea that Obama killed him, and saw the culture war ruining everything (including the Weekly Standard's covers). The Gaza blockade created a mess, Syria entered a new phase, Libya got better, American soldiers handing out Qu'rans in Afghanistan was proposed and subsequently shot down, Americans failed to understand the world's points of view, and Britain weathered its own type of scandal. Posthumous baptism offended some (including Andrew), gun ownership declined, degrees were valuable, and law professors struggled to teach legal codes surrounding sexual assault. A man explained his vasectomy, a woman feared almost all food, Yiddish produced the word "meh," and the internet was a dog park for cat owners.  

Hathos Alerts here and here, AAA here, Quote for the Day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

West Yellowstone, Montana, 5.35 pm

Thursday on the Dish, Andrew appreciated the late Andrew Breitbart in spite of left-wing nastiness (medical details here), responded to some reader dissents on the topic (Frum's thoughts here), and rethought his Romney/Huckabee idea. We profiled Romney's Virginia edge on Super Tuesday, looked at historical evidence that his favorables weren't likely to get much better, pegged Mitt as the "candidate of the 1%" with some quantitative support, watched him play Newt, aired a rebuttal to the "demographic catastrophe" thesis about the GOP, and noted both the incompetence of the GOP electoral establishment and the coolness of President Obama. Ad War Update here.

Andrew also floated a new Urtak poll on the Cannabis Closet, lambasted Limbaugh's sexist crassness (follow-up gross here), was infuriated by "the sickness on the right," poured cold water on the idea that airstrikes could guarantee a non-nuclear Iran, found evidence that Israelis weren't all that supportive of an attack, and flagged a foul proposal to turn Iran into North Korea. We parsed the signs that might suggest war wasn't coming, sparked debate about Tehran's cabs, worried about Syria after the fall of Baba Amr, discovered that war hurt the earth, explained the importance of the Russian vote, and located Americans firmly in the global 1%.

Maryland joined the marriage equality ranks (perhaps for reasons predicted by Dan Savage), the tax-breaks-for-children debate raged on, ignoring Obamacare's rules ceded power to the feds, the economy seemed capable of surviving high gas prices, the war on medical pot killed, and spending food stamps for soda created controversy. Technology caused panic, HBO stayed offline, and the jury duty thread continued. Malkin Nominee here, Hewitt Nominee here, Quote for the Day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew guessed at the significance of Romney's Arizona and Michigan wins, looked forward to Ohio, and declared Netanyahu a bigger threat to Obama than any of the GOP candidates (follow-up here). We put together our patented reax to the night's events, checked the calendar to pinpoint a spot where Romney might be dealt a serious blow, questioned whether Mitt could make any real policy shifts in the general, decided Romney and Santorum weren't all all that substantively different, questioned whether Rick had ever won the Catholic vote, and placed the odds of no candidate getting a majority of delegates at around 20%. The RNC screwed the pooch by creating this extended primary calendar, the GOP's youth problem got put in stark relief, Olympia Snow gave Obama a lovely electoral present, and readers pushed back against the suggestion that Obama's deep resevoir of black support was a consequence of his ethnicity.

Andrew also explained how temporary defeats ultimately strengthened the movement for marriage equality, if recent polling data is any guide. We looked to Libya to help understand Obama's foreign policy doctrine, noted the importance of military thinking for humanitarian intervention, heard Tehran's taxi system weas an anarchistic mess, charted a slow path to reform in Egypt, and wondered if the Chinese government (populated by the world's wealthiest lawmakers) could survive without its own reformation process. Anti-"sharia" crusader Frank Gaffney got on his high chutzpah, readers responded to Andrew's essay on the "messy pursuit of what might be happiness," debate sprung up over tax credits for having childern (follow-up here), and America needed an immigrant infusion. Tragedies were tweeted, legacy media withered post-internet, and so did the "classic" porn star. Whaling collapsed, printing organs became possible, norms panoptically powered traffic laws, readers resented jury duty, and a handy video elucidated the reasons behind leap years. AAA here, Yglesias Nominee here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew liveblogged Romney's triumphs in Michigan and Arizona, wondered if Romney had already lost the war, slammed Santorum's class warfare, connected his version of Catholicism to extreme Christianism, and remembered what a formidable orator Obama was. We kept you up-to-date on the Michigan polling (here, here, and here), broke down the state's Republicans, looked at the Democratic effort to muck up the primary, previewed Romney's clear victory in Arizona, predicted a "long slog" for Mitt, pinpointed his gaffe blindspot – wealth, checked out the Christianist gap between the Mormon and the Catholic, and continued to speculate about a Romney/Paul alliance. Obama won Citizens United and 2012 continued to be a rearguard action for the GOP. Ad War Updates here and here.

Andrew lambasted Obama's Simpson-Bowles calculation (follow-up here) and meditated on the shifting American family and the possibility of a bottom-up social conservatism. He also spotlighted an email from the Palin docu-dump, posted a bit of her dada poetry, and recalled the history of sane conservatism's exile from the Republican party. Putin's engineered reelection looked set to create a political crisis (already having generated a Creepy Ad), cyberwarfare wasn't a certainty, and WikiLeaks' latest steal was a snore. Colonialism created AIDS, vaccination mattered, and humanity appeared to be improving. Brevity potentially explained Pinterest's success, a spam bot made everyone bust out laughing, and Bully's R rating remained contentious. AAA here, Yglesias Nominee here, VFYW Contest Winner here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Finally, the stats on our Twitter feed and Facebook page revealed great success, with a VFYW tumblr soon to come. Go check them out!

By Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

Monday on the Dish, Andrew wrote a long assessment of how Santorum's ascendancy (and the above outburst) reveals the theo-political core of today's GOP. On a follow-up note, we tracked the backlash against Rick's Kennedy comments, noted Santorum's "honesty probem," and assessed his labelling Obama a "snob" for wanting people to go to college. We also watched Romney's Michigan lead expand and then narrow, decided the auto-bailout made Michigan a no-go for the GOP in the general, and saw every candidate but one alienating Michigan Muslims. Mitt jumped hard right, had difficulty going positive, and received support from hypocritical bishops, while Paul won the military-industrial vote and voted like a fiscal conservative. The meaning of the delegate count got broken down, sanity about the race sometimes required punny headlines, and Republican ideological rigidity might have paid off. Geoffrey Kabaservice's book on the collapse of GOP moderates got reviewed here and here, and Chait predicted the party's downfall here.

Not to be distracted by the campaign, Andrew kept the focus on Obama's war on medical marijuana. We hoped that Assad could be brought down without devastating escalation, found no evidence that unemployment created insurgents, psychoanalyzed the neoconservative mind, and were fascinated by Jerusalem Syndrome. The Oscars created a proud moment for Iranians and weren't quite as special as one kid hoped, while the MPAA still prevented children from seeing an important film about bullying. Identity politics got criminally crazy, NPR innovated on journalistic approaches to the truth, and everyone hated jury duty. Mapping the Amazon helped save it, cash withered away, people failed at risk assessment, insect eating got assessed by the EU, and the morality of killing zombies was more complicated than you think. AAA here, Tweet of the Day here, Yglesias Awards here and here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

– Z.B.

Jonathan Bernstein explains what is at stake:

Romney has a large delegate lead, which will most likely be even larger after Tuesday. What will really matter is whether the party and the press agree that it's essentially over. This will be the first night since South Carolina where, if things go well for Romney, we could reach that point. But if he has yet another setback, the wait will go on.

 Kilgore watches the media:

 keep your eye on media coverage of Super Tuesday as either a mega-primary with many fronts (ten, to be exact), or as Ohio plus a bunch of other places. The latter interpretation could make Ohio matter more than the delegate count or the number of primaries and caucuses won. Romney, of course, could make the question moot by winning the Buckeye State as well. But then again, it would be perfectly in character for him to find another way to inform Ohioans he could buy and sell the lot of them with pocket change.

Cillizza, for one, is focused on Ohio. Cassidy wonders whether Super Tuesday could end Gingrich's campaign:

As of today, there is no sign of Newt abandoning the race over the weekend. But if he gets crushed everywhere except Georgia on Tuesday, he will have to sit down with Callista and with Sheldon Adelson and reconsider his options. And one of those options, surely, must be calling it quits and swinging his support behind Santorum.

Earlier Dish on how Gingrich is helping Romney here.

(Photo: Supporters of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney look on during a campaign rally at Capital University on February 29, 2012 in Bexley, Ohio. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Paul Pillar uses the Koran burning incident in Afghanistan to point out a broader foreign relations problem:

We Americans often honestly see ourselves as the aggrieved party because we know our intentions in doing some things that have caused controversy were honorable or even altruistic. But foreign populaces and governments often see things differently, and not just because those out to discredit the United States have promoted such a perception. The belief in negative intentions flows partly from having been conditioned to hold such a belief, just as the previous reasons for resentment over what Western forces have been doing in Afghanistan set the stage for the reaction to the incident involving the prison Korans. Beliefs about intentions also flow partly from the belief that a superpower has its act together, that it is capable of doing what it wants to do and that whatever it does is what it intended to do.

Romney skewers Santorum again for his Bush-era Republicanism: 

In a spot that might qualify for a Hewitt Award nomination, Gingrich doubles down on his $2.50 gas promise:

His Super PAC emphasizes Gingrich's alleged ability to "take Obama apart" in a debate:

The Democratic PAC American Bridge exploits a sports rivalry in the Buckeye State:

… and targets Romney on the Blunt amendment: 

Total Super PAC spending this cycle now exceeds $64 million. Alex Burns zooms in on Ohio: 

Mitt Romney’s campaign and super PAC account for a big majority of the spending. The Romney campaign has shelled out $1,486,960, while Restore Our Future has put in $2,369,244. That totals nearly $3.9 million – massively more than any other single campaign or group has spent in the state. In fact, no other party in the race is in seven-figure territory yet, my always-reliable source tells me. The pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future has put in $736,044. Rick Santorum’s campaign has spent just $386,669, while his super PAC has put in $515,937. That means the pro-Romney forces have outspent the pro-Gingrich and pro-Santorum forces, combined, by more than two to one.

Previous Ad War Updates: Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

Tyler Cowen defends the ubiquity of college education:

It’s now common that a fire chief has to have a master’s degree. That may sound silly and it would be easy to think that a master’s degree has not very much to do with putting out fires. Still, often it is desired that a firefighter is trained in emergency medical services, anti-terrorism practices, fire science (such as putting out industrial fires), and there is a demand for firefighter who, as they move into leadership roles, can do public speaking, interact with the community, and write grant proposals. A master’s degree is no guarantee of skill in these areas, but suddenly the new requirements don’t sound so crazy.

People sled after a heavy snowstorm on March 2, 2012 in Amman, Jordan. The capital is being affected by a polar depression, and the Civil Defence Department (CDD) has had to deal with over 70 weather-related accidents. By Salah Malkawi/ Getty Images.

J.F. at DiA observes that it's "not the issues that define culture war now; it's culture war that defines the issues":

Support for oil and gas exploration is American, period. Opposing it is European. Just like the argument over Obamacare is not really a debate over how to ensure that as many Americans as possible have access to affordable and at least adequate health care. Obamacare is "European socialism"; opposing it is American. Anything less than a full-throated war against Iran is appeasement, as is negotiating with the Taliban; never mind how America will pay for a war with Iran, or what its consequences will be, or whether Mr Gingrich's stated goal of leaving Afghanistan and leaving it safe could be furthered by finding some common ground with the Taliban. Outside America it is Europe in 1939; in Washington it's Haight-Asbury in 1968. To quibble over policy is to side with the enemy.