Month: May 2012

"Romney has exactly one strategy for winning: being the out party during an economic crisis," – Jon Chait, in an almost-Yglesias Award worthy appreciation for Romney's strategic acumen.

A reader writes:

As hilariously awkward as that was for the French president, it bears a striking resemblance to our own president's experience the last time NATO held its summit in Germany. Maybe it's that elusive "German humor" in action? I don't know why else they wouldn't prep visiting leaders for the troop review.

Or maybe it's just the sharp right turn that flummoxed Francois and Barack.

No major pooping in the restaurant bathroom. Are there no simple pleasures left?

New research upends conventional thinking. McKay Coppins looks ahead: 

As David Leonhardt at the New York Times points out, the results could be skewed by respondents not wanting to seem prejudiced. But if anything, this study would seem like good news for the Romney campaign, in theory. The reality, though, is that voters won't be given the same evenhanded summaries of Mormon belief that these survey respondents got. Over the next six months, Americans are going to receive a widely-amplified education on Mormonism, and the curriculum — along with the few tidbits of information that penetrate the public consciousness — will depend largely on [the] teachers: Namely, the news media.

Time magazine asks it – again. The answer, by the way, is no.

Contra Dish readers who argue that tax increases put money back into the economy, GDP will take a major hit:

The dotted line shows what could happen if Congress can’t reach an agreement and lets all tax cuts expire and spending cuts kick in. If that happened, the U.S. economy would grow at least 3 percentage points less than its potential for each of the first three quarters of 2013 … To put this in perspective, the Federal Reserve expects the economy to grow at a roughly 2.9 percent pace in 2013. If Congress does nothing at the end of this year, much of that growth could be wiped out, and there’s a strong possibility that the United States could lurch back into recession.

Friedersdorf responds to my record of lambasting Obama:

Sullivan does write individual posts that criticize the president in terms every bit as strong as I or any other civil liberties loving opponent could ask. But like other Obama boosters who I've criticized on these very same grounds, the harsh critiques always seem to be forgotten or minimized when it's time to offer an overall assessment. It's as if Obama took a driving test that Sullivan was judging, where he performed quite capably on a great many tasks, but also ran over a three innocent pedestrians, unapologetically broke a major law, and erased data in dashboard GPS system that tied the car's former owner to a few homicides; and although the test administrator complained at each transgression, his ultimate report pronounced America lucky to have so skilled a driver on the streets.

Nah, Surely it's more like a scraped bumper and a cuffed rear mirror or a … oh never mind. Will Wilkinson calls me out as a pundit who "falls in and out of love like a bipolar fourteen year-old diarist":

Yet [Sullivan] proceeds — and this is as maddening as it is riveting — as if he were not an overheated, fickle instrument, as if his vehement mutable passions about public persons made perfect sense, were the unimpeachable output of a judicious internal process of cool analysis sensitive only to the objective features his subjects. But just when Andrew's infuriating audacity or blindness or whatever it is has you ready to punch your laptop, he teases you with fluent erudition, penetrating insight, subtle analysis and measured intellectual judgment. This mix is fascinating. It can be addictive. No, it does not make sense. 

But which human being does in the end?

A blog updated every 20 minutes or so can only reveal a blogger's human gyrations in the kind of granular detail a weekly columnist or less frenzied blogger can avoid. It is not always pretty; but I always try to keep it honest and open. Maybe I should be ashamed. I certainly feel exposed. And I wish I were omniscient and prescient and never had emotional responses to events … but that wouldn't be much fun would it?

Or think of it this way: A blogger who is not prepared to make a total fool out of himself is not a real blogger.

Graeme Wood’s review touches on both of Cowen’s picks, American pit barbeque and Pakistani food in the UK:

It is a style of food that, like a Wi-Fi signal, fast loses its potency away from its home base. “Eat barbecue in towns of less than 50,000 people,” he suggests; the brisket Valhalla known as Smitty’s Market in Lockhart, Texas, accordingly wins the unrestrained praise it deserves. For the best barbecue, look for restaurants that open in the morning and have real pits with stacks of burning wood, since nothing signals commitment better than a willingness to spend nine hours overnight cooking meat next to a pit of fire. These labor-intensive operations, Mr. Cowen writes, show “just how uneconomical true barbecue art can be”—which suggests that if you want to eat like an economist, you should find a chef who doesn’t cook like one.

And in the UK:

For authenticity, he awards points to Pakistani restaurants that feature pictures of Mecca, since they’re more likely to cater to Pakistani clientele. (“The more aggressively religious the décor, the better it will be for the food.”) Find restaurants where diners are “screaming at each other” or “pursuing blood feuds,” he says—indications that people feel comfortable there and return frequently with their familiars.

You can read about Cowen’s recent experiment shopping in a Chinese grocery for a month here. For some unknown reason, he didn’t mention Spotted Dick and Steak and Kidney pudding. On this whole subject, Orwell remains indispensable:

A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into; the other functions and faculties may be more godlike, but in point of time they come afterwards. A man dies and is buried, and all his words and actions are forgotten, but the food he has eaten lives after him in the sound or rotten bones of his children. I think it could be plausibly argued that changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty or even of religion. The Great War, for instance, could never have happened if tinned food had not been invented.

And the history of the past four hundred years in England would have been immensely different if it had not been for the introduction of root-crops and various other vegetables at the end of the Middle Ages, and a little later the introduction of non- alcoholic drinks (tea, coffee, cocoa) and also of distilled liquors to which the beer-drinking English were not accustomed. Yet it is curious how seldom the all-importance of food is recognized. You see statues everywhere to politicians, poets, bishops, but none to cooks or bacon-curers or market-gardeners. The Emperor Charles V is said to have erected a statue to the inventor of bloaters, but that is the only case I can think of at the moment.

Follow Tyler Cowen‘s work at Marginal Revolution and buy his new book, An Economist Gets Lunch. Earlier videos of Cowen here, here and here. Video archive here.

A final reminder that the Dish is seeking two interns to help with ransacking the web for smart nuggets, helping out with administrative crap, working on larger projects, and guest-blogging when yours truly takes a vacation. The paid internship (which comes out to about $10/hour) will be full time, includes benefits and is for a six-month duration. For the first time, the positions are based in New York City, at the iPod-looking super-cool Gehry-designed IAC building.

We are hoping to hire within the next few weeks or so. Start dates are semi-flexible. We're looking for extremely hardworking self-starters, web-obsessives and Dishheads, who already understand what we do here. We also prefer individuals who can challenge me and my assumptions, find stuff online that we might have missed, and shape the Dish with his or her own personal passions. I want to emphasize that the Beast's "balls-to-the-wall" aspiration is just as relevant to the Dish; these are intense jobs for the intensely motivated. They're also a pretty unbeatable opportunity to learn what online journalism can be. And a sense of humor is an asset.

To apply, please e-mail a (max 500-word) cover letter explaining why you are a good fit for the Dish and a resumé to Dish.Intern@newsweekdailybeast.com. The cut off for applications is Monday, May 21.