Month: May 2012

A survey of a century of American food panics.

Previous videos from Manzi here, here and here, with some reader pushback here and here. You can buy his book, Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, here. Video archive here.

Nope:

It is a little-known but undisputed historical fact that Johannes Gutenberg did not invent the printing press. Though the Gutenberg Bible was certainly the first mass produced printed work, it was hardly the first printed book — nor was it even the first made using movable type. Chinese and Korean inventors had been producing printed books for centuries before Gutenberg was born.

A key reason for his press's popularization in Europe:

In Chinese, movable type printers would need hundreds, or even thousands, of characters. So it would have been far easier for Gutenberg to streamline the printing press than it would have been for his Chinese and Korean counterparts.

The French graffiti artist Kidult recently tagged the Marc Jacobs store in SoHo. In response, the company Instagrammed the image and tweeted it out as "Art By Art Jacobs," infuriating Kidult. Now Marc Jacobs is selling the image on a t-shirt:

According to the Marc Jacobs Twitter, "Available now for $689. Signed by the artist, $680." … Jacobs, in this situation, has made one hell of a commentary about the absurd commoditization that some street art has yielded, and how easily ostensibly subversive art can actually be subverted, facile as it so often is, and it may be the best take on the matter since Exit Through The Gift Shop. In short: Marc Jacobs wins.

Naturally someone is now selling a $35 tee with an image of the t-shirt on a t-shirt, seen above.

(Hat tip: Kottke)

A reader writes:

I’m glad you brought this up.  Chris "Born to Run" McDougall is a solipsistic douche-bag with just enough information and exposure to be dangerous.  His running style is great for people with nice high arches and no pronation problems.  However, if you do not have both of these blessings, DO NOT FOLLOW HIS ADVICE.  You will likely end up injured, unable to run at all, possibly forever (see plantar fasciitis). Running on the balls of your feet for long distances is great if your feet have the appropriate architecture, but there is a lot of variation in this regard.  For most people, the engineering of the right running shoe really does correct problems that need correcting, and it only works if you roll from the heel to the toe (like walking rather than sprinting).  Unfortunately, this puts more strain on the shins and the knees. 

The good news for people without perfect feet: you can always take up cycling, which is a lot more fun. Humans are not uniquely adapted to running.  Just ask any horse.

Another is less critical:

In response to Nicholas Thompson, he points out in his post that Mr. McDougal's book is "not the best book on the intricacies of the sport" and then gives two references. I would add a third, Chi Running by Danny Dreyer. I've read Born to Run and never viewed it as a how to. Rather I view it as an inspiration and justification to change my running style. What Mr. McDougal really fails to discuss in his book is what changes need to be made. I tell people that Born to Run is the inspiration and Chi Running is the how to.

Chi Running's premise is you should never be using a stride that puts your foot strike in front of your body. This is for two reasons, physics and mechanics. The physics relates to your leg extending in front of your body and striking in a way the impedes your momentum, essentially stopping you on every stride. The mechanics addresses the stresses this impact has on your body, ankles, shins, knees, and hips. In Chi Running, your foot strike is under your core and fails to stop your momentum and if properly aligned, reduces the stress on your body. Mr. Dreyer refers to Chi Running as injury-free running.  The real key is to use gravity to assist you in moving forward, using a lean in your body similar to a ski jumper's lean.

Using Chi Running techniques, I have removed day-to-day injuries (not including doing dumb things like jumping over logs and twisting ankles, etc.). I run easier and enjoy it more.

Romney imagines "day one" of his presidency in his first spot of the general election: 

The ad is misleading, but Jamelle Bouie is nevertheless impressed: 

If you—like most people—haven’t been paying attention to politics over the last year, you would think that President Obama has purposefully kept jobs from the United States, raised taxes on "job creators," and passed a terrible, ineffective health care bill. And while you don’t know too much about Mitt Romney, he seems competent and concerned with the economy. This is the impression Obama has to fight if he wants to win re-election in November, and while there are many avenues for attacking Romney, Obama’s middling position means that this will be a difficult undertaking.

Matt Lewis adds: 

The words "President Romney" are repeated 3 times in his new ad. (Theory: People must be able to imagine you as president to elect you.)

Meawhile, the Obama campaign focuses on education – and relatability: 

In web-only videos, the DNC sums up the line of attack on Bain, while Crossroads ridicules Obama. 

Previous Ad War Updates: May 17, May 16, May 15, May 14, May 10, May 9, May 8,  May 7, May 3, May 2, May 1, Apr 30, Apr 27, Apr 26, Apr 25, Apr 24, Apr 23, Apr 18, Apr 17, Apr 16, Apr 13, Apr 11, Apr 10, Apr 9, Apr 5, Apr 4, Apr 3, Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, 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.

"And make no mistake about it, you are dumb.  You're a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people.  I was there.  We all were there.  You're barely functional.  There are some screw-ups headed your way.  I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they're a-coming for ya.  It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb," - Aaron Sorkin, at Syracuse's commencement.

Friday on the Dish, Andrew went another round on whether he criticizes the President enough (follow-up here) and marvelled at Obama's Kenyan anti-colonial agenda to cut the debt. We flagged an important discussion of debt policy, debated the economic impact of the expiration of the full slate of Bush tax cuts with some readers, listened to puzzled readers try to make sense of the "paranoid right's Obama," heard an encouraging story about politics and multiculturalism, pegged Obama's success to his GOTV campaign, bet Romney's Mormonism might help him, watched his favorables skyrocket, guessed at who Mitt would pander to if he won, gave an explanation as to why voter preferences don't much affect foreign policy, and compared Obama and Nixon on sports. More readers sounded off on the ways homophobia destroyed straight marriages and Maryland made progress. Ad War Update here.

Andrew also requested you ask Eli Lake Anything, issued a last call for Dishterns (by Monday, people!), and demanded the freedom to poop in restaurants. We fretted over Spain, noticed Hollande wasn't the only leader to walk awkwardly with Merkel, and wondered (again) if Bibi could come to terms with the Palestinians. Facebook's price didn't spike after its IPO (a concept which itself may have become anachronistic), autonomous cars decreased our need for parking lots, the health care system badly needed to change the fee-for-service model, and readers shared their own stories about the high price of a healthy pet. The Dictator received mixed reviews from the political commentariat, Donna Summer received glowing reader praise, and female comedians were better received on social media than through traditional channels. People believed in common sense falsehoods, a man opened a beer with a chainsaw, the new DSM seemed like it would classify 40% of college students as alcoholics, coffee wouldn't save your life, and Mexican food became American food. Ask Tyler Cowen Anything here, Chart of the Day here, Quotes for the Day here and here, Hathos Alerts here and here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

By Vano Shlamov/AFP/Getty Images

Thursday on the Dish, Andrew worried that cultural panic made Romney into the frontrunner (follow-up here and related nastiness here), explained how a terribly sad story from a straight reader brought the need for marriage equality into full relief, got some interesting perspective on his debate with Glenn Greenwald, and wondered what the hell "homosexual behavior" was. We puzzled over evidence that most people thought Obama was going to win, put the odds of a Senate handoff at 50/50, looked over an odd proposal to attack Obama on Jeremiah Wright, poked a gaping hole in the latest Birther nonsense, noticed that Romney's best strategy was to hide, and aired more criticism of Obama's marijuana policy. Obama improved attitudes towards marriage equality, equal marriage rights benefitted straight couples as well, and attitudes towards marriage in Europe surprised. Ad War Update here.

Andrew also relayed a harrowing story about his dog Eddy and the economics of pet ownership, eulogized Mary Kennedy, Donna Summer, and Chuck Brown, and blamed Bibi for Israel's worsening international reputation. An Iran war looked likely to have far-reaching consequences, Turkey supplied a particular sort of Islamist capitalist, Europe looked to be in a position to make it past its current troubles despite Merde's awkward dance, and the dreaded Grexit didn't appear right on the horizon. Jonah Goldberg made hilarious faces and Piers Morgan's ratings scraped bottom. We listened to some pushback against attempting to explain politics with psychology, spotlighted another troubling execution in Texas, wondered if student debt was as much of a problem as we thought, and watched Occupy Wall Street receed. Sperm banks needed to screen donors, scopolomine creeped readers out, eating plants wasn't unethical, running hurt some of us, and there were tricks to catching liars. Newsweek had pretty pictures and Ken Burns told pretty stories. Ask Steven Pinker Anything here, Hewitt Nominee here, Quotes for the Day here and here, and VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew went deeper into the notions of Obama as first gay president and "learning how to be gay," attacked Romney's credibility on the debt issue, chronicled the Dish's long history of levelling harsh criticism Obama's way, dropped jaw in response to Jennifer Rubin's blase acceptance of campaigning on homophobia, and took a meta-look at DC life. We explained why today's campaign debates seem so silly, aired a strong approach to Mitt's Bain days from a reader, questioned Romney's approach to the press, analyzed his net worth, gave him acting advice, guessed how undead politicians would shake up American politics, penned a eulogy for Americans Elect's grave, and compared the campaigns' respective outreach efforts to different demographic groups. Future gay men might vote Republican, the black community debated about gays, marriage equality rose in popularity for similar reasons to sushi, and marriage wasn't always a sacrament. Ad War Update here.

We also learned a great deal about the move towards marriage equality in Albania, pushed back against fears of Syria bringing down the region, and raised some ethical questions about bioengineered soldiers. Eating plants wasn't ethically unproblematic (on one theory), "staying interested" in life staved off Altzheimer's, car sharing didn't much cut carbon, and Netflix started original programming. Allahpundit's comment section explained why we didn't have comments, red states had a different set of baby names, and fundamentalism fought a decent rear guard battle in the demographic war. Finally, we explored the lawyer surplus, looked into numerology and Auden, and found an unfortunate English lesson. Ask Jim Manzi Anything here, Charts of the Day here, Hewitt Nominee here, Yglesias Nominees here and here, Quotes for the Day here, here, and here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew debated Glenn Greenwald on "sentiment" versus "detached purism" and Obama's gay rights record (update here), livechatted about his cover story, defended its comparison of Obama's experience with racial identity to the gay experience, praised Evan Wolfson for his role in bringing about marriage equality's triumph, and found yet another instance of the GOP kicking gays out of the fold. We highlighted another marriage equality hero, Jonathan Rauch, analyzed the importance of the Van Lohuizen memo for the Republican approach to gay equality, tracked the many meanings of marriage over time, pointed out another devastating weakness in the anti-equality case, looked at TNC's experience with homophobia, and watched Obama's coming-out video.

Andrew also argued that Romney would be worse than Obama on medical pot, castigated his ridiculous foreign policy, and grudgingly acknowledged the "effective, if crude" nature of Mitt's recent line of attack. We tracked the debate over the Bain issue, marked Ron Paul's departure, wondered if his run had accomplished anything, decoded the Tea Party's goals, explained why Obama's style wasn't going to determine the election, and were impressed by Obama's gains among veterans. Ad War Update here.

Finally, Andrew reupped the call for dishterns – less than a week, people! The Grexit from the Euro inched closer, local Chinese leaders mucked with the economy, and the violence in Syria spilled over into Lebanon. A/B testing took over the web, the Internet's data glut messed with our heads, and texts and emails outpaced phones. Prison violence shocked, scopolamine terrified, college football got defended, and graduates had it rough. Banana improvement was a humanitarian priority, tacos were recent inventions, and veggie burgers weren't helping the environment, Ask Tyler Cowen Anything here (with some commentary on the world's healthiest cuisines), Chart of the Day here, Quote for the Day here, Yglesias Nominee here, VFYW Contest Winner here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Morazan, Honduras, 12 pm

Monday on the Dish, Andrew made the case for Obama's incrementalism in the marriage equality fight, explained how said case debunked the strongest argument against marriage rights, detailed the reasoning behind the Newsweek cover, dove into the strong polling support suggesting a fundamental shift in America's attitudes toward gays, and pondered the explanation for this sea change. We took on another common anti-equality nonsense argument, looked at an exemplar of an advocate for equality, unconvered a powerful story about an Obamaesque move in Albania, noticed the non-backlash to Obama's new position on marriage, watched Romney flip-flop on gay adoption, and listened to another view of Romney's hair-cutting past. The race remained tight, Obama raised Bain, Romney hit back on Wall Street ties but had a JP Morgan problem, crowd size didn't explain the race, Bush's second term still hurt, and good political humor required a deft touch.

Andrew also qualified his skepticism about an AIDS vaccine, suggested the Euro needed Germany to assert itself (as it weakened), and noted a horrible "I'm back!" column from John Derbyshire. Islamists warmed to capitalism, the web blanched at JP Morgan's $2 billion oops moment, and a lack of housing constrained technological advancement. We discovered cannibalistic medicine, tracked the gentrification in our guts, peeked into the world of microbes living in extreme environments,  understood how breats could kill, and bet that schoolkids of the future would be graded by robots. Not every married couple needed kids, becoming an adult meant cutting the parents off, the well-educated went on welfare, and an excellent pan got our attention. Handmade crafts ballooned, bank robbery deflated, news apps failed, and rejected New Yorker covers ruled. Ask Pinker Anything here, Quote for the Day here, Cool Ad here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

– Z.B.

Paul Berman went to see the new film by the erstwhile Borat. He came away grudgingly impressed:

In the matter of dictator movies, I prefer Baron Cohen to, say, Walter Salles, the director of a movie about Che Guevara. The Dictator is anti-dictator. The film even makes a semi-profound point near the end by observing that, as of our own moment, the dreadful dictators of modern times have fallen—Qaddafi, Saddam, Cheney—and goes on to observe that, even so, dreadful dictatorships may not, in fact, be at an end: a subtle contradiction, a footnote to the End of History thesis. Then, too, the dictator observes that democracy is not much different from dictatorship, except for the parts that are better, and maybe democracy is a great thing, after all, even if it’s not perfect. This particular display of political nuance is not offered with any equivalent filmmaking nuance.

Baron Cohen’s technique is to stand up and lecture at us. Here is a film that is not about filmmaking. It’s a good lecture, though. I would even say that, politically speaking, Sacha Baron Cohen is—I hate to use this word, it ought to mean death to any artist—sound.

Joshua Keating counters:

Yes, the film includes some send-ups of American hypocrisy in the war on terror — there's a pretty good bit in which Aladeen sniffs at the outdated torture devices of his American captor including one that was "banned in Saudi Arabia for being too safe" — and most of the American characters are either Islamophobic rubes or patronizingly P.C. liberals, but it's not as if any of them are wrong in their perceptions of Aladeen. He's a violent, misogynistic, anti-Semitic ignoramus who has the real Osama bin Laden stashed in his palace's guest suite. The only ordinary Wadiyan citizen in the film, the body double also portrayed by Cohen, is a dumb peasant who drinks his own urine and has difficulty distinguishing between women and goats. Whose prejudices are we mocking here? Cohen even throws in a few Chinese and African caricatures for good measure. …

The best satire targets the powerful, bringing them down a few notches and deflating their bubbles of self-importance. But in the first Hollywood film to address last year's Arab uprisings, Cohen seems less interested in laughing with the people who live under the Qaddafis and Mubaraks of the world than at them.

Autonomous cars could hasten the parking spot's decline:

[R]ight now depending on how you count we have somewhere between three and eight parking spaces per car. If the cars don't need to sit idly waiting for you until you want to leave (imagine a world of cheap, ubiquitous taxis) that number is going to become totally ridiculous. After exploding for about 60 years, the torrent of parking construction is going to halt very suddenly and then start shifting into reverse.