Month: September 2012

Maria Bustillos awards the title to James Thurber:

Thurber abided in uncertainty and pain always, every minute, in his work and in his life, and though the pleasures he was able to enjoy and to transmit are all the more beautiful and delicate for their fragility, there's always been a tendency among casual American readers to take Thurber's hilarity as the point of his work. To see his comedy as shtick, rather than the dead serious moral philosophy that it really is. …

But it was Thurber who first opened the vein that later American humorists like Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks and Louie CK continued to mine.

These writers never cast off their essential seriousness, a deep sense of the gravity and precariousness of the human condition, but incorporate an antic humor into a larger worldview that is informed by grief and pain. We might put it this way: Thurber was the first American to turn terror into comedy, and that's why he's our Kafka. The difference is that if Thurber had written The Trial, Josef K. might easily have been set free on the whim of a drunken night porter and escaped into God knows what altered condition, as Walter Mitty does. The world of Thurber is both crazier and more lifelike than Kafka's, because in Thurber there is room for silliness and fun, for pleasant surprises, and luck, and the pleasures of imagination, love and beauty, and the chance of a meaningful interaction with another person—as well as room for fear, bewilderment and disaster.

Thurber's famous story, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," is being adapted for film by Ben Stiller, but looking back at a previous adaptation, Bustillos doesn't have high hopes.

Michael Chabon's new novel, Telegraph Avenue, features an Obama cameo. Kathryn Schulz defends the writer's use of the then-senator:

In the 2004 speech that made Obama famous, he asked America a question: "Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?" As a novelist, Michael Chabon is preoccupied with fallibility and weakness and, in the broadest sense, infidelity — our chronic failure to keep faith with each other and ourselves. Over and over, his books tell the story of the huge bang, short half-life, and inexorable decay of our dreams. And yet they are more buoyant, more in love with life, than just about anything else in contemporary American literature: escape artists in themselves, utterly unchainable by cynicism or despair. Chabon knows that whatever you are building is about to fall apart, but he will hand you the glue gun and say "Go for it." Build and wreck and rebuild and re-wreck: That’s life, in the long view, and Chabon is a very patient man. Gonna keep on tryin’?/?Till I reach my highest ground.

This is Chabon’s answer, in literary form, to Obama’s question to America. He does not have a solution to the problem of human fucked-up-ness. He does not believe that progress is inevitable, or that injustice can be ignored, or that we can outsource our issues to a higher power. He just has the very rare ability to sustain a non-naïve faith in goodness: ­vanilla without the vanilla. That requires a different kind of audacity, and more of it, than putting the president of the United States in the middle of your book. What Chabon has, to kinda quote that president, is the chutzpah of hope.

Chabon's novel is centered around two record store owners, one white and one black. Tanner Colby surveys the skepticism of a white novelist writing about race:

"White person tackles race" shouldn’t have to be such a big deal. From Herman Melville to Harriet Beecher Stowe to Mark Twain to William Faulkner to Harper Lee, the grand American narrative of race was always tackled by white writers, writers who created and inhabited black characters as they would any other. … White writers are returning to the subject of race, and they are driven not by some ham-fisted, white-guilt social consciousness, as William Styron was, but from the realization that the story of race is their story, too. They’re not cultural carpetbaggers—they’re taking a long look in the mirror and assessing the impact of race and racism on themselves.

In an interview with Andrew O'Hehir, Chabon talks about growing up in a sort of suburban liberal utopia:

I grew up in Columbia, Md., which during the 10 or 11 years my family lived there tried and to a fair degree succeeded to be a very racially integrated, economically integrated, place where all were welcome. … And in Columbia I grew up surrounded by black kids. They were in my classroom, they were my friends, they were my enemies, they were my persecutors and my saviors and my girlfriends and my teachers and my school principals, and when I left Columbia, I rapidly discovered that the rest of the world wasn’t like that. It was a rude awakening for me. …

It’s what I heard Barack Obama, you know, when he gave that keynote address at the 2004 convention – what he was talking about, to me, was Columbia, Md. The America he was describing, was the dream of Columbia, the vision of Columbia, I had grown up believing in. And it’s a raft too. It’s Huck and Jim’s raft. It sometimes seems like a will-o’-the-wisp, but on the other hand it won’t go away, as a beckoning image of possibility or potential.

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood and has written about Dungeons & Dragons here and here. Previous videos of TNC here, here and here. “Ask Anything” archive here.

Magician Alex Stone reveals a trick:

The idea is to set up multiple paths to the same endpoint. In the simplest version, you deal two cards down on the table and ask the spectator to "remove" to one of them. If your volunteer removes to the card you want to force, you say "Ok, that’ll be yours." If, however, the spectator points to the other card, you eliminate it, saying "Great, we’ll remove that one." (Here you’re exploiting the ambiguity in the meaning of the word remove.) Either way the spectator winds up with the same card. This sounds transparent—especially with only two cards—but it gets more sophisticated. In the right hands, it can be incredibly deceptive. By couching choices in ambiguous, open-ended language and exploiting the fact that the spectator doesn’t know what’s coming—assuming they’ve never seen the trick before—the magician can gently control an apparently free decision from among numerous items.

Stone goes on to apply the same logic to other, real world examples, such as how juries dole out child custody depending on how the question is framed. Romney sure could use a magician right now.

Mark Jacobson tours public housing in New York:

Of all the housing experts I spoke to, Howard Husock, vice-president of policy research at the rightist Manhattan Institute, was the only one to offer a comprehensive plan about what to do about the projects. "Public housing might have seemed like a good idea in the thirties, but it wasn’t then "and it certainly isn’t now," Husock said when I visited his office on Vanderbilt Avenue, next door to the Yale Club. [New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) head] John Rhea was doing his best, but he’d been dealt an "impossible hand," Husock said. As long as NYCHA depended on federal funds, it was doomed to failure.

Continued subsidies compounded the faulty logic built into the system by the 1969 passage of the Brooke Amendment, which fixed public-housing residents’ rent at 25 percent (now 30 percent) of their income, thereby assuring that the projects would never pay for themselves. Since then, Husock said, the projects had created a huge "frozen zone" that impeded the "normal turnover of properties," choking off the construction of other housing, both market rate and affordable.

"People weren’t supposed to live in public housing for 40 years. Where did La Guardia say that? Public housing was supposed to give you a leg up, a way to move on. Not stay forever," Husock maintained.

The above video is shoddily narrated but contains some really interesting views:

Historian Joel Schwartz takes us on a guided tour of New York City before the NYC Housing Authority razed large swaths of run-down neighborhoods to build public housing projects. These arresting photographs of a long-vanished New York City owe their astonishing detail to the 4×5 inch negatives captured by the NYCHA photographers. Photos are from the NYC Housing Authority collection housed at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives.

Should an uninformed electorate abstain from voting? Joseph C. McMurray examines the theory proposed in 1785 by the philosopher-mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet:

To clarify Condorcet’s argument, note that an individual who knows nothing can identify the more effective of two policies with 50% probability; if she knows a lot about an issue, her odds are higher. For the sake of argument, suppose that a citizen correctly identifies the better alternative 51% of the time. On any given issue, then, many will erroneously support the inferior policy, but (assuming that voters form opinions independently, in a statistical sense) a 51% majority will favor whichever policy is actually superior. More formally, the probability of a collective mistake approaches zero as the number of voters grows large. Condorcet’s mathematical analysis assumes that voters’ opinions are equally reliable, but in reality, expertise varies widely on any issue, which raises the question of who should be voting?

McMurray's conclusion:

If Condorcet’s basic premise is right, an uninformed citizen’s highest contribution may actually be to abstain from voting, trusting her peers to make decisions on her behalf. At the same time, voters with only limited expertise can rest assured that a single, moderately-informed vote can improve upon the decision made by a large number of experts. One might say that this is the true essence of democracy.

Friday on the Dish, after Andrew analyzed why Romney's 1980 playbook isn't working, the candidate's tax release induced yawns (and Tweet-cracks). Meanwhile, Peggy Noonan called Romney's campaign a "rolling calamity," undecideds broke for Obama and Kevin Drum argued Romney was the most electable of the GOP candidates. Jim Fallows and Josh Barro then dissected Romney's and Obama's debating styles, Bernstein wondered why Romney picked such feeble attacks and Romney campaign rolled out a new Spanish language ad.

In polls, Andrew synthesized that latest swing-state data, Sam Wang defended his House forecast and Nate Cohn discounted Gallup's poll. More generally, Eric Randall rounded up Romney's 99 problems, Dan Drezner explained what presidents care more than voters about and former governor likened George Romney's presidential run to duck-on-football action. And while the job market increasingly demanded bachelor's degrees or higher, income inequality has worsened compared to 1774 and Republicans illuminated American history.

In world news, Benghazi's identity fragmented, Eli Lake investigated what really happened in Libya and Mara Hvistendahl kneecapped Hanna Rosin's arguments about the end of men in Asia.

In assorted commentary, Andrew highlighted how the diversity of early Christianity's sacred texts contradicts the rigid dogma of later permutations. Meanwhile, TNC discussed how he talks to his son about race, readers distinguished between pedophiles and child molestors, as well as weighing in more on hookup culture. Seth Mnookin explained bad science, Andrew Rotherham reported on teachers cashing in on lesson plans, Elizabeth Greenwood was appalled by "Breaking Amish," and Brad Leithauser took on Hemingway's paradoxical style.

Homer voted, Chris Jones profiled quiet comedian Teller and the mainstreaming of gay culture marginalized queens. Plus, men loved money and Ben Yagoda dissed idioms. MHB here, VFYW here, FOTD here and don't forget to ask Dina anything (this reader sure won't)!

The rest of the week after the jump:

By Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Thursday on the Dish, Kevin Drum marveled at Romney's ignorance, Jesuits tackled Ryan, Joan Walsh mused on Ryan's future presidential prospects, and Ezra Klein summed up Romney's income tax-only deception. Readers agreed with Andrew on Hillary's presidential cred and dazzled us with their knowledge of home state-losing tickets. Andrew debated Jesse Bering on circumcision.

Looking at the polls, the race leaned hard in Obama's direction, and while Sam Wang predicted a Dem House retaking, Dylan Matthews dismantled his case. Rasmussen showed Obama in the lead, while Silver assessed the Senate and tried to filter out the noise. Pareene believed gaffes mattered, Tod Kelly pondered the fact that few people like Romney – in part for cracking jokes like this. Alex Massie compared Romney to Gore, Shafer likened him to Nixon, and a commenter christened him "Money Boo-Boo."

Meanwhile, Joyner gave up on Afghanistan while Dexter Filkins noted the relative absence of the Taliban in Afghanistan's killings. Bill Browning wanted gayer ads, Michelle Malkin frothed on Fox News, and partisanship picked up in the '60s and '70s. And as Jill Lepore investigated political consulting, Barbara Spipndel revisited Strom Thurmond's bizarre relationship with race while Rick Perry spouted off about Satan. TNC addressed the Trayvon Martin case, wealthier people noticed their use of government programs less than poor people, and all psychotherpies were created equal.

In other assorted commentary, Gila Lyons recounted her panic attacks, Malcolm Harris reframed Breaking Bad's main product, Daniel Trone mapped Springsteen's concerts, Davy Rothbart collected "anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life," and Chris Anderson hailed the DIY movement. And as David Byrne considered the right to silence, a Korean guy loved drumming. FOTD here and VFYW here – and don't forget to ask Dina anything!

Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew said "nice try" on Romney's videogate retaliation, hailed another Obama campaign ad and called out cynicism in Romney's elite pandering that Obama lacked. Readers testified to Romney's ignorance of how most Americans live. Meanwhile, Romney's 47% stat conveniently omitted all other taxes, Millman and Larison traded views on whether Romney's comments would hurt him and the two-minuters entered.

In polls, Obama lost his bounce but gained in the enthusiasm gap, topping Romney on a number of key dimensions. And while Obama still led by more now than he did at this point in 2008, the race more closely resembled 2004. Plus, Warren's prospects boosted Dems' Senate outlook and same-sex marriage initiatives looked set for ballot-box victories. Finally, Pew results suggested the public sided with Obama on last week's embassy attacks.

Team Romney rolled out a debt-focused ad, Alyssa praised Obama's Letterman appearance and Peggy Noonan compared Romney's spending strategy with Obama's – unfavorably. Ambers argued the economy isn't everything as Jay Rosen pointed the way out of the "post-truth" era – something beefcakey blowhard Paul Ryan needed some help with. Chris Geidner, meanwhile, awaited the announcement of marriage equality cases on the SCOTUS docket and TNC mused on whether the GOP is racially motivated.

In world news, Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt flagged escalating Sino-Japanese hostility as both presidential candidates slammed China on trade. Meanwhile, Razib Khan explored global views on free speech, women excelled in the CIA and the climate for crime ripened.

In assorted commentary, Malcolm Gladwell investigated the screening tactics of child-molestors, Tanya Marie Luhrmann explained how our understanding of schizophrenia has evolved and Catherine Rampell labeled McArdle's college-is-a-bad-investment thesis "faddish." Burberry offended Aaron Paul, the iPhone 5 bored and Jane Austen lit up brains. Then readers threw down widsom on girly hurling.

MHB here,VFYW here and don't forget to vote for the "Dick" presence in the Morris Award – and ask Christopher Ryan anything!

Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew framed the election as a Tory against a Randian. And as commentators hailed Ponnuru's takedown of the 47 percent attack line from last year, Andrew saw hope for the GOP's return to sanity. He also pointed to the debates as Romney's chance for recovery, parried a reader's dissent on the context of Romney's remarks, and assessed the Obama camp's first online ad regarding the scandal. (Full ad war update here.) Scores of bloggers contextualized the remarks and assessed the damage. As Bob Shrum wondered what Romney had left, conservatives applauded the "Real Romney" and John Tucker argued the race wasn't over. Derek Thompson observed the popularity of the 47% talking point, Jim Tankersley questioned its appeal to independents and Rich Lowry knocked Romney's lack of policy substance.

As another shoe dropped from the taped fundraiser, Andrew reiterated that Romney would be an extension of the Likud party. Chait called out Romney on pandering to conservative Jewish donors, Ackerman parsed Romney's Mideast policy, and the GOP base got the campaign it wanted. Meanwhile, Krugman broke down tax-paying by age, Blake Zeff outlined why candidates go off-script for donors and Rob Delaney likened Romney's fragmented talking point to alcoholism. Ta-Nehisi hailed the end of whiteness, the 47 percent video kicked around for months before breaking yesterday and Dorothy Rabinowitz earned a Dick Morris nod. The @MexicanMitt meme emerged and we highlighted some notable quotes here and here.

In other electoral developments, Weigel tallied up how Dems might hold the Senate, Nate Silver noted that swing states remain close, Virginia's hue grew bluer, and Super PAC execs pocketed mammoth salaries. Meanwhile, Chris Geidner looked forward to SCOTUS gay marriage cases, readers set the record straight on Bush apologies, while another identified Obama as a night owl. Jesus may have married and John Hodgman revealed the funniest person in the world. VFYW here, FOTD here, MHB here, and reflections on the view from a Mankato, Minnesota window here.

By Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Monday on the Dish, in the wake of Mother Jones' video bombshell, Andrew reflected on Romney's views on 47% of the voters and wondered whether he just lost the election. Blogger reax here, tweet reax here, and reader thoughts here. Romney's desperate TV response here.

Andrew also marveled at the GOP's tax-cut non-logic, questioned Romney's staff-blaming, called out Netanyahu's election-meddling, remarked upon Europe's views on Romney, noted that the Catholic heirarchy is now indistinguishable from the GOP, and hoped for sanity on marijuana decriminalization. Meanwhile, John Heilemann reported on Romney's "very bad place" and Alex Altman rounded up the reboot stories. And as Derek Thompson graphed Romney's middle class, Galupo wished Romney's tax proposals were less detailed. Ezra Klein analyzed sequestration, Sasha Issenberg proposed ideas on turnout-boosting and Nate Cohn anticipated a momentous week ahead. In ad war news, the avalanche snowballed and Obama may have gotten an ad bump.

As Goldberg and others anti-Semite-slimed MoDo, David Gregory slipped up on Netanyahu and Eric Lewis asked why Israel should get a pass. Ayaan Hirsi Ali discussed democracy's long game in the Middle East. Judith Matloff considered the language journalists use when writing about military violence and David Carr thumped Michael Lewis for granting quote approval.

In assorted commentary, Emil Johnson plotted the hobbit longevity spike, Andrew Tuck checked in on efforts to curb sprawl density and Tom Stafford warned about eBay psychology. Girls threw like girls, John Hodgman advised those with scanty upper-lip hair and black holes resembled dams. A Fox News prankster thought he was funny, Frank Portnoy advocated mandatory lunch, Ian Ayres encouraged prudent road-crossing and readers pushed back on the hookup culture debate. FOTD here, MHB here and VFYW here.

By redditor opi8. Hat tip: Nerdcore

Saturday and Sunday on the Dish, Andrew denounced Bibi's attempts to blow up the presidential race, deconstructed Romney's "apology" nonsense, described his problem with Rasmussen polls, pointed to yet another Bill Kristol FAIL, celebrated a great new Obama ad, showcased the latest example of desperation from Karl Rove's super PAC, reminded us that Americans haven't forgotten the Bush years, and – gasp – admitted he wants to see Hillary as president someday. To read all of the latest coverage of the embassy attacks and their political fallout, see our designated thread page. It wasn't all politics for Andrew, though – he took the time to note how Dish readers can make the world less lonely.

We also provided wide-ranging coverage of both faith and doubt. Greg Garrett sketched an Augustinian approach to Christian political engagement, Casey Cep reimagined the meaning of sacraments, Robert Dean Lurie remembered Jack Kerouac's pervasive love of Jesus, and Paula Findlen uncovered the origins of modern religious pluralism. Susan Jacoby asked where all the women atheists were, great writers stared down death, Peter Lawler argued that Hitch's materialism couldn't account for his own greatness, and Josef Pieper illuminated the difficulties of sustaining hope.

In literary and cultural news, William Childress ruminated on the poet's purpose, Darryl Campbell named the foundation of criticism, Jonathon Green took a stand against democratizing definitions, Jeff Sharlet contemplated the lesson of suffering, Stefany Anne Goldberg reviewed a 19th century self-help book, and George Sugihara noted why we miss the signs of impending disaster. Read Saturday's poem here and Sunday's here.

We thought about sex and our bodies, too. Debbie Herbinick looked at the science behind good sex (it turns out Dan Savage has been right all along), Jeffrey Eugenides saw through the fantasies of the college libido, and Steven Strogatz mused on the math our bodies can teach us. Relatedly, Brian Jay Stanley explored our desparate need for validation and, for those trying to forget a fraught encounter, it turns out drinking doesn't help – but pot does. (For those interested, Keith Humphrey's debated what legalizing cannabis would mean for the potency of our weed.)

In assorted coverage, we mentioned how little cheats and rationalizations add up, James Estrin moderated a debate on how phone photography impacts our visual sense, Andrew Polsky feared the consequences of constant flattery from our politicians, The Billfold revealed the surprising story behind the IT preparations for the Iraqi elections, Karina Longworth reported on the afterlife of a defunct video store, John Churhill pondered the dignity of unglamorous work, and Alain de Botton peddled an "ethical advertising agency." We asked John Hodgman anything here and here. MHBs here and here, FOTDs here and here, VFYWs here and here, and the latest window contest here.

– G.G.

Details:

Earlier this month, space station astronaut Aki Hoshide (Japan) recorded this striking image while helping to augment the capabilities of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS). Visible in this outworldly assemblage is the Sun, the Earth, two portions of a robotic arm, an astronaut's spacesuit, the deep darkness of space, and the unusual camera taking the picture. This image joins other historic — and possibly artistic – self-portraits taken previously in space.

(Image by Expedition 32 Crew, International Space Station, NASA)

Mara Hvistendahl challenges the international claims in Hanna Rosin's new book:

Early in The End of Men, we learn that the average age of marriage for women in Asia is 32 — a fact, Rosin writes, that shows that women are delaying marriage at unprecedented rates. Later in the book, 32 resurfaces as the average age of first marriage for women in South Korea in 2010. Neither is correct.

Women in India typically marry at 18 — and perhaps I should say girls, because half get hitched before then. In Indonesia, the average age of first marriage for women was 20 in 2008, according to the World Health Organization. In China, demographers estimate it at 24 — and many rural women might tie the knot earlier if not for a high government-mandated minimum marriage age. In Malaysia, it is 26. The actual average age of first marriage for women in South Korea in 2010? Twenty-nine, according to a report by the government agency Statistics Korea. Thirty-two was, in fact, the corresponding figure that year for South Korean men.

That botched statistic — which immediately jumps out to anyone who has spent a bit of time in Asia — might be a metaphor for The End of Men. Rosin takes an interesting phenomenon, one that is reshaping our ideas about love and career in radical ways, and pushes it too far. In doing so, she makes a politically dangerous argument about the status of women in Asia and beyond. A partial leveling of the playing field in some spheres does not equal total and complete takeover. One might as well write a book titled The End of White People.