Month: May 2012

He might have checked out the curriculum first:

Page 173. Graduate course Theology 678—Western and New Religions.

Course description:

“The history, doctrines, and present state of the major cults such as Mormonism, Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventism. The course will also include a study of the Occult Movement. Emphasis is placed on the errors of these groups and on methods and materials for confronting them effectively.”

Keep pandering to anti-Mormon fundies, Mitt. It’s so becoming.

It coincided with the rise of the Sears Roebuck catalog:

While it is certainly true that the music was forged in part by the legacy of slavery and the insults of Jim Crow, the iconic image of the lone bluesman traveling the road with a guitar strapped to his back is also a story about innovators seizing on expanded opportunities brought about by the commercial and technological advances of the early 1900s. There was no Delta blues before there were cheap, readily available steel-string guitars. And those guitars, which transformed American culture, were brought to the boondocks by Sears, Roebuck & Co. … Guitars first appeared in the catalog in 1894 for $4.50 (around $112 in today’s money). By 1908 Sears was offering a guitar, outfitted for steel strings, for $1.89 ($45 today), making it the cheapest harmony-generating instrument available.

Daniel Gross discounts anything the company tells investors:

In the digital media world, projections about what will happen three years from now, let alone one year from now, almost always defy expectations.  … In 2008, could Zuckerberg have projected how Facebook's users would grow by 2012? In 2009, would Facebook have told shareholders that it would consider spending $1 billion on Instagram? No. Instagram didn't exist. Business models come and go with such speed that anything a CEO — even one as legendary and awesome as Mark Zuckerberg — tells you about the near-term future is likely to be wrong.

Previous videos of Maggie Gallagher here, here, here, here and here. “Ask Anything” archive here.

Rosecrans Baldwin traces it:

In 1968, the New York Times dispatched reporters to take the pulse of anti-French sentiment in the U.S. Supposedly, de Gaulle’s opposition to America’s presence in Vietnam had relit the Kill France fires. (De Gaulle’s public statements didn’t help; he told Time in ’67, "You have to be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.") Results on the ground were mixed: French restaurateurs in New York reported no loss of business; one Pittsburgh travel agent didn’t notice any anti-French sentiment, another placed an anti-France ad and reported an "overwhelming" anti-de Gaulle response. In Chicago, a restaurateur said he only sold French wine upon request. In Richmond, there were reports of travel boycotts, same for Kansas City and Detroit. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote in an op-ed, "We wish to emphasize that we do not hold the slightest feeling of ill will against Brigitte Bardot."

But the pendulum can swing positive, too.

General Lafayette did celebrity laps of New England after contributing to the Revolutionary War. Once news arrived of France’s 1830 July Revolution, the "Marseillaise" was sung in theaters, and New Yorkers threw a two-and-a-half-mile parade. In fact, New York’s first ticker tape parade was held to celebrate the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France in 1886. Jacqueline Kennedy hired a French chef to run the White House kitchen in 1961, the same year that The Art of French Cooking was published and quickly sent to a second printing, followed by Julia Child’s debut on TV—and suddenly the nation felt compelled to make coq au vin for dinner guests. More recently, Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s latest film, has become his top-grossing ever.

Coverage of this week's election here, here and here. 

They gather every year at ROFLCon:

Laura June, who attended the conference, catches up with the everyday people responsible for our biggest memes:

Many of the attendees whom I spoke to, once I talked to them long enough, mentioned that they weren’t really better off financially than they had been before creating whatever they created, or becoming a meme, or finding their little corner of celebrity. The problem with this model is not that the subjects of our internet culture aren’t profiting enough off of them: it’s that literally everyone else is.

The companies who make ads to sell their phones, the massive websites which post them and sell highly profitable ads against them, the makers who create Nyan Cat scarves. These are often highly successful ventures with massive corporate structures behind them. Entire websites find their bread and butter in posting endless variations of Chuck Testa images, and it’s not just highly criticized sites like I Can Has Cheezburger; even CNN routinely gets in on the game these days. Chuck himself, is in many ways, a cash cow for plenty of websites, but he’s still running his taxidermy business, and told me flat out that he is "broke."

Christine Erickson examines child stars in the meme world, including Sammy, aka Success Kid:

When asked what the best part of being famous was, he responded, “When I was a baby, I was putting sand in my mouth, and then I was famous — and that’s why I was born.”

(Video via Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg)

Friday on the Dish, Andrew flagged a remarkable pro-gay GOP internal memo, recounted his own attempt to date a woman, compared his school pranks to Romney's, and tracked some right-wing panic over Mitt's bullying incident. We kept up with the discussion of the hair-cutting attack, figured running on foreign policy wasn't Romney's best move, opened up an "empathy" gap between Mitt and Barack, bet marriage equality would help Obama in the fall, placed Obama in the gay rights pantheon, speculated on the future of gay politics, checked on the downticket races, lauded an impressive move towards filibuster reform, knocked Jonah Goldberg down a peg, and brought out the popcorn for a Barney Frank smackdown.

Video games prepared the next generation of warriors, TSA profiling seemed wrong, and an alien invasion of New York (a la The Avengers) would cost $160 billion. We predicted digital brains were impossible, taught you how to fight robots, wondered if parrots understood language, prioritized statistics in the modern economy, examined online scams, spotlighted the live-tweeting of brain surgery, and debated attachment parenting. The top .5% took all the cash, the recession sucked away trillions, and visiting America was too hard. Fish stocks were depleted and America went gluten-free. Ask Maggie Gallagher Anything here, Malkin Nominee here, Hathos here and here, Quotes for the Day here and here, Tweet of the Day here, Chart of the Day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Halong Bay, Vietnam, 12 pm

Thursday on the Dish, Andrew reflected further on the evolution of the president (yesterday's NPR segment here, third round of blogger reax here), while gay GOP activists somehow reverted to partisanship and disdain. We sorted through the politics of Obama's historic shift, Andrew owned up to a Von Hoffman nomination, and Bristol Palin stood by traditional marriage. The president sent a signal to the courts and to the Democratic leadership, readers could relate to his "evolution," and the fight for marriage equality is deeply-rooted. It turns out that the pre-election announcement was probably predetermined, and North Carolina was worse than we thought. 

We checked in on the civil unions bill in Colorado, were confronted by sunflowers, and remembered those who didn't live to see the day. Romney exuded caution in response, and his actual position became increasingly unclear. As a high school bully, the presumptive Republican nominee targeted the weak and marginalized, he had a hard time apologizing, and a clear choice emerged between the future or the past. Those on the wrong side of history huddled around an NRO symposium, marriage has been "redefined" before, and in reality marriage equality strengthens marriage. 

Meanwhile, the shrinking of the public sector dampened the recovery, ordinary Americans were fine with deep cuts to defense, the UN mission in Syria didn't stand a chance, and Islamism lost steam in Egypt. It might be a good time for house-hunting, silents are wondrously demanding, occupational licenses are unnecessary, and the obesity epidemic is going to make us pay. 

Ad War Update here, Ask Maggie Anything here, VFYW here, FOTD here, and MHB here. 

By Getty Images

Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew broke down over Obama's public evolution on gay marriage, recanted his claim that Obama's shift wouldn't matter, took stock of the thinking that motivated anti-equality crusaders (follow-up here), looked in vain for Democratic hit men, and gagged at the Obama campaign's emails. We grabbed reax to Obama's big shift here and here, picked out the Christian heart in Obama's defense of equality, discovered a GIF tumblr about the event, tackled some terrible arguments against the President's position, picked out an apt historical comparison to North Carolina's retrograde vote, assessed whether Obama was sticking his political neck out, and looked at the tough position Romney was stuck in now. Romney was trapped on immigration as well, Ron Paul crept up on the GOP, the election wasn't over, and the radical right ate Lugar. Ad War Update here.

Andrew also compared the US and European approaches to recessions and austerity, defended a pundit's right to mock black studies and not get fired (critical follow-up here), and reissued the call for Dishterns: The Next Generation. We discovered the best gene, worried about the growing need for geoengineering, debunked the notion that dinosaurs farted there way to runaway climate change and extinction, and weighed the evidence that e-readers were good for the climate. Slideshows killed websites, Mark Zuckerberg delayed gratification ad infinitum, people bought (more or less) cardboard furniture, TSA profiling produced complex feelings for one reader, and raccoons boned. Ask Maggie Gallagher Anything here, Quotes for the Day here and here, Headlines of the Day here and here, Yglesias Nominee here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

By Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images

Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew read the polling evidence that the heinous Amendment 1 would pass in North Carolina (as it did), laid bare the bigoted view that underpins the Amendment, explained why those who support its ban on civil equality are out of step with America, gave an explanation for what made them tick, and compared Obama's record on gay issues to Romney's awful one. A despairing gay reader planned to leave North Carolina if the Amendment passed (responses offering support poured in here and here), Romney might have gained more supporters than current polling suggested, business experience (debatably) helped Mitt, minority voter registration dropped off (follow up here), and Obama embodied an optimistic sort of populism. The Julia Obama ad met with mixed reviews, Wall Streeters disliked the Administration, and Mormonism embraced Zionism. Ad War Update here.

Andrew also defended himself against an attack in Jonah Goldberg's new book and castigated an old-new Israeli policy. We grabbed reax to Netanyahu's spectacular new coalition deal, dug deeper on the implications of a leftist government in Greece, and sampled the exquisitely inauthentic adaptations of "American food" abroad. A reader spoke up for a more moderate atheism, our brains treated God like a person, we all believed in magic, and daydreams popped up all the time. We linked marriage to class, explored the truth about emergency care in the US, cast our iPhone contracts in an (unfavorable) international light, and learned about the nation's biggest company, ExxonMobile. Cities inspired and chairs killed. Ask Maggie Gallagher Anything (with reader comment) here, Hewitt Nominee here, Quote for the Day here, VFYW here, VFYW Contest Winner here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Monday on the Dish, Andrew assessed the implications of Sarko's loss and the rise of the European left and explored a deeply disturbing proposal for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from Rep. Joe Walsh. We compiled reax to Hollande's victory, delved into Greek coalition negotiations, psychoanalyzed Britain's Foreign Secretary, noticed the guarantee of marriage equality in the UK by 2015, profiled Salaam Fayyad,  listened to an insider account of the Chen Guangcheng affair, compared the European labor force to its American equivalent, debated the ethics of foreign adoption, reminded ourselves that we were still at war, and aired a poignant message to KSM.

Andrew also apportioned some blame to the states for our marijuana debacle and mocked Mark Levin's wafer-thin understanding of the history of political philosophy. We also pooh-poohed the idea that swing state polls mattered, guessed about the kind of job creation Obama needed to keep his own job, figured Obama couldn't be swift-boated, noted Obama's problem with Wall Street, counted Ron Paul's delegate gains, bet Romney would push for some kind of stimulus, and debunked "Big Government Obama." An Obama official clearly endorsed marriage equality and put up a debate on TSA profiling. Ad War Update here.

We also called for a challenge to college football, examined the links between American diet and health, opened up to the idea of giving addicts a place to shoot up, and worried about social jet lag. An argument about Jesus' existance was weak and agnosticism was compatible with atheism. The internet rewired your brain (like everything), an app replaced greeting cards, figured AI beings would really be our children, recycling incentivized consumption, and the internet created new image copyright images. Pregancy resulted in carrying cells for years, psychology explained argument, and the Scrooge dive required an extraordinary amount of gold. Ask Maggie Gallagher Anything here, Hewitt Nominee here, Quotes for the Day here, here, here, here, and here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

– Z.B. (Thursday by M.A.)

Jonathan Rauch compares Obama's embrace of marriage equality to LBJ's embrace of the civil rights movement:

Obama has claimed for himself a place in gay history not unlike LBJ’s place in black history. He is the first U.S. president to put the federal government unequivocally on the side of full equality for gay Americans, and he will almost surely be the last Democratic president to have opposed full equality. For his party, for its liberal base, and possibly for the country, there is no going back. He has crossed the bridge from Selma.

Chait dissents:

The Johnson comparison is pretty nuts. Johnson’s primary contribution to the civil-rights cause was to pass a federal law. The need to pass a federal law was the central problem of the civil-rights crusade, and the barriers to passing such a law in Congress had been the main impediment to the cause for two decades. Obama has not passed or even proposed a law.

But he has withdrawn the DOJ's defense of DOMA, the unprecedented federal intrusion into marriage law that Bill Clinton signed. My own view will be in the next Newsweek.

(Image from TNR)

A long but excellent video pulls back the curtain:

Cory Doctorow is wowed:

Fundamentally, these things are exactly what they appear to be: con artists who suck money out of desperate people by lying to them about the money they can make with "work from home" businesses. They're pyramid schemes. But Flatley lingers on the personalities, the histories, the motivations and the unique innovations that the Internet has given rise to, providing insight into the feel of being inside one of these desperate, sweaty scams.