Month: November 2012

Tom Jacobs quotes from DFW's The Pale King:

Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is… The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valour. It was theatre. The grand gesture, the moment of choice, the mortal danger, the external foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all – all designed to appear heroic, to excite and gratify an audience… Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality – there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire… actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.

Hurricane Sandy made Jacobs grateful for the "bureaucratic forces that quietly and almost imperceptibly but decisively shape our lives and the world we inhabit":

Bureaucratic institutions like FEMA, City Hall, the NYPD, the Department of Sanitation, Con Edison, and so forth. Catastrophes tend to offer them a moment to step into the spotlight and either dazzle or utterly fail. One of the reasons their emergence in the public’s attention is interesting is that the work they do in non-catastrophic circumstances is so workmanlike and dull that it’s boring to even think about.

(Photo: Residents of Staten Island speak with a FEMA representative, left, November 3, 2012 in Midland Beach after Superstorm Sandy left millions without power or water in the Staten Island borough of New York. The storm continues to affect business and daily life throughout much of the eastern seaboard. By Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images.)

By Just Cobe, in Runzmattenweg, Freiburg, Germany, via Street Art Utopia.

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is the letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of the morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is," – E.B. White, July 3, 1943.

In a nuanced piece of reporting, Graeme Wood examines how Uganda's reputation for prejudice and persecution has resulted in some successes for the movement:

Since this planet is blighted with societies where gay people are jailed (Egypt, among many others), flogged (Saudi Arabia), or stoned to death (Iran), the question might reasonably be asked: why was Uganda, a country of sickening anti-gay hatred but no executions, whippings, or anti-gay pogroms, singled out as the worst of the bunch? …

For a while, it might well have seemed to outsiders as if anti-gay pogroms were imminent. But with the deft sidestep of a martial artist, the gay rights movement in Uganda has used that moment of ghastly bigotry to raise its public profile, and some of the more extreme elements of the anti-homosexuality brigade have retreated into strategic silence. The situation is still volatile, but the roles have switched in an unpredictable way.

How the narrative is changing:

The gay rights cause in Uganda started with violent persecution, which escalated with the [tabloid newspaper] Red Pepper and Rolling Stone outings, the ridiculous and self-defeating anti-homosexuality bill, and the murder of David Kato, however ambiguous the motive. That persecution was originally wholly terrible. Then it became terrible, but also useful. Once the persecution had provoked a certain level of outrage, especially internationally, the tide reversed dramatically. Now status as a public victim is a protective talisman as well as an income-generating activity, and there is a perverse incentive to revel in it for the cameras, or, when meeting with journalists like me, to report it as a perpetual crisis.

(Trailer for Call Me Kuchu, which Wood describes as "the latest and best of the documentaries about gay life in Uganda.")

Teenie Matlock unpacks the "subtle but powerful ways that language influences how people think about political candidates and elections." The importance of grammar:

A few years ago, I began exploring the idea of grammatical framing. In an article with Caitlin Fausey, "Can Grammar Win Elections?" published in Political Psychology, we explored the consequences of tweaking grammatical information in political messages. We discovered that altering nothing more than grammatical aspect in a message about a political candidate could affect impressions of that candidate’s past actions, and ultimately influence attitudes about whether he would be re-elected.

Participants in our study read a passage about a fictitious politician named Mark Johnson.

Mark was a Senator who was seeking reelection. The passage described Mark’s educational background, and reported some things he did while he was in office, including an affair with an assistant and hush money from a prominent constituent. Some participants read a sentence about actions framed with past progressive (was VERB+ing): "Last year, Mark was having an affair with his assistant and was taking money from a prominent constituent." Others read a sentence about actions framed with simple past (VERB+ed): "Last year, Mark had an affair with his assistant and took money from a prominent constituent." Everything else was the same.

After the participants read the passage about Mark Johnson, they answered questions. In analyzing their responses, we discovered differences. Those who read the phrases "having an affair" and "accepting hush money" were quite confident that the Senator would not be reelected. In contrast, people who read the phrases "had an affair," and "accepted hush money" were less confident. What’s more, when queried about how much hush money they thought could be involved, those who read about "accepting hush money" gave reliably higher dollar estimates than people who read that Mark "accepted hush money."

From these results, we concluded that information framed with past progressive caused people to reflect more on the action details in a given time period than did information framed with simple past.

By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Friday on the Dish, as the fiscal cliff loomed near, Andrew told Obama to get on with the governing. Readers chimed in on whether the Right will alter course after this week's losses, while Conor and Drum suggested the GOP find a less-racist path. Then, to Allahpundit's amazement, the Romney campaign's phones failed at being smart, while to all of our amazement Obama both cried and sang (in our Mental Health Break). 

Kate Pickert and Judy Soloman previewed the state-level reactions to a now-inevitable Obamacare, and Elias Isquith and Dylan Matthews dug into how unfair the House popular vote was for Democrats. From the other side, the Right gave us whiplash with their new immigration stance to solve a demographic problem that Tim Scocca charted and McArdle claimed was overblown. In other demographics, Ann Friedman went glass-half-empty on "The Year Of The Woman" while Tim De Chant made some nifty maps to explore election day via population density. Not to be outdone, Buzzfeed mapped the Tuesday's results as if they had happened in 1850 (Romney should find himself a time machine).

Matt Glassman and Kerry Howley spelled out the return on investment Sheldon Adelson got, and a whopping nine conservative pundits threw their terrible predictions into the ring for this year's Dick Morris Award. Speaking of denial, Julian Sanchez explained why partisans are better off avoiding the reality of math. Sam Trende and Nate Cohn argued over whether or not millions of white voters disappeared on election day. Michael Moynihan blamed us for the prevalence of political dishonesty, but you should believe Marc Ambinder, who predicted a bleak future for anti-gay conservatives, while Dan Savage thanked pro-equality straights.

Michael Koplow insisted Tunisia couldn't have democracy without including its Salafists, while further east we looked at the upcoming election in China. Emily Drabant went looking for the gay gene, Josh Sanburn detailed how poverty can lead to suicide, Kevin Dutton suggested that kids read more to care more, and Lorin Stein recommended we all enjoy the tightly-packed meaning of short stories. Pat Robertson was shocked that women could "struggle with" porn. Elsewhere in that industry, Lux Alptraum and James Deen doubted that LA would be able to keep its new condom law up. Anthony Bourdain has a famous tongue and Noreen Malone admired it, and Spencer Woodman waxed lyrical on the benefits of hurricanes. Lastly, our Face Of The Day fought for her home in Rio De Janeiro and a reader in Cuba sent us a window view.

The rest of the week after the jump:

South Orange, New Jersey, 6 am

Thursday on the Dish, Andrew enjoyed a little Fox News Schadenfreude before diving into the Right's massive reality issues. He also wondered if George Will and his deluded brethren will ever have the integrity to find new professions, and then marveled at Romney's poor showing in CA and NY. After Massie checked on the post-election denial at The Corner, Michael Grunwald doubted the GOP would learn their lesson – not that Maddow and Heilemann didn't try to set them straight. Besides, as Larison noted, the Republicans have Chris Christie to inexplicably blame for Obama's victory.

Also, Ackerman, Sasha Issenberg, and Michael Scherer looked at the success of the Democrats' nerdiness, and Massie, Ruy Teixeira, and others dug into the GOP's big Hispanic problem. David Simon championed America's new racial and social hierarchy, while Drum poured cold water on this week's liberal glee. Then while Romney sang a ditty, Lauren Ashburn took Douglas Brinkley's temperature on Mitt's future (in short: good luck). On the rest of the ticket, Noam Scheiber let the air out of the Paul Ryan effect. Also, despite the overall accuracy of Nate Silver, #DrunkNateSilver and the other poll-aggregaters, Jason Zengerle worried that the current math-frenzy would make future elections even horse-racier. Jonathan Bernstein and Nate additionally pondered the Left's possible edge in the electoral college, which Florida finally made 332-206. Jennifer Victor broke down the spending splits of Teams Obama and Romney, while Karl "Crossroads" Rove and his ilk learned they'll have "holy hell to pay" to their disgruntled bankrollers.

Weigel and Ana Marie Cox remained happily astonished at Tammy Baldwin's victory, while efforts to bring marriage equality to Minnesota pushed forward. We also learned that – surprise – campaigning as a rape-philosopher is not the secret to electoral success. Later we loved to hate how Eric Dondero has sworn off his liberal acquaintances (except maybe Elton), and we laughed as Robert Stacy McCain posed as a grand historian to suggest "manful endurance" to the Right.

In suddenly-legal weed news, Jacob Sullum sketched the upcoming timeline for CO and WA, which Paul Campos hoped Obama would be laissez-faire about, and assuming that's the case Erik Voeten imagined American drug tourism. Remembering last week's storm, Eric Roston compared the clarion calls of Sandy and 9/11, while our Face Of The Day still doesn't have power in Brooklyn. A wistful Lauren Slater contemplated the unprovable love of pets – even a raccoon – and Quartz examined the economic implications of Brazilian dog-ownership. Radiolab explained the physics of coffee rings, Alexis Hauk visited the graves of dead writers and Josh Levin warned against the distractions of music-listening while biking.

Short men could jump in our Mental Health Break and there was Jersey snow for Obama/Biden in our VFYW.

Wednesday on the Dish, after Obama's speech reminded Andrew how "deeply American" the president is, Andrew hailed last night as a BFD for marriage equality, underscored Dick Morris' buffoonery, and read Rove's going rogue as a debacle for Roger Ailes. Readers reacted to the big win for Obama, Twitter captured the drama as results came in, and readers meep-meeped. Ezra Klein analyzed Obama's speech, Dan Savage reflected on the ground broken on gay equality, Alex Ross ruminated on Obama's role in delivering those colossal gains and, on the downside, most of New York's pro-equality Republicans fell. As we looked back at Andrew's views on pot legalization, the end of prohibition took root.

In other post-election analysis, Brian Beutler examined how the GOP lost the Senate, a reader philosophized on the formation of the new "America," and Weigel explained the arrival of the Republican minority. Frum cautioned against focusing solely on immigration, while George Will touted Rubio as the GOP's great Latino hope. As Douthat called last night a "realignment," Rush Limbaugh put it quite another way. The rest of the world's newspapers reacted, Puerto Rico bid for statehood, Drezner found Obama winning the foreign policy issue handily, and Marc Lynch reality-checked Fox's Benghazi obsession. Massie, meanwhile, rounded up The Corner's responses to Obama's re-election, Friedersdorf took GOP talking heads to task, and Nate Silver seemed to be a warlock. Jonathan Cohn cheered the survival of Obamacare, Kathryn Lofton argued Romney wasn't Mormon enough, and Henry Farrell worried about the decline of polling. Mary Matlin earned a Hewitt nod while Sasha and Malia appeared more mature than Matlin.

MHB here, a snowy NYC view here, and that lady with the American flag in her hair here. Andrew's appearance on Colbert is here if you missed it.

By Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Election Day on the Dish (Tues), Andrew and crew live-blogged the election returns from the Colbert studio. Initial blog reax here and Fox meltdown reax here. Andrew then absorbed Romney's concession speech, Obama's victory, and what another four years signifies about America. Earlier in the day, Andrew summarized his case for the president, highlighted Obama's closing argument, urged us here and here to hold pundits accountable, noted Romney's discomfort discussing his Mormonism, rejected cynical endorsements of Mitt, hoped for victories for marriage equality. We also reported the latest on how Sandy would affect turnout, asked readers to send us the view from their election, and, of course, prayed for resolution tonight.  A final look at the ad war here.

Meanwhile, Nate Silver's projections grew more favorable to Obama, Henry Entend provided a guide for the eight swing states, Nate Cohn described how the votes will come in, Buzzfeed created a decision tree for the candidates' paths to victory, Jeff Weintraub wondered if the Democrats have lost the white vote for good, Blumenthal warned us about the exit polls, Nathaniel Rich met undecided voters in Virginia, John Heilemann checked in on how the Obama camp saw the race and pondered the likelihood of a Bush v. Gore repeat, Ruy Teixeira credited the Hispanic vote for Obama's electoral advantage, Jeffrey Toobin walked us through the mechanics of an Ohio recount, and Walter Kirn dyspeptically analyzed the Ohio electorate.

Furthermore, Ezra Klein critiqued the case for supporting Romney in hopes of divided government, Sophie Quinton betted against a mandate emerging from the election results, Kerry Howley tracked the success of female candidates in New Hampshire, Jonathan Bernstein endorsed party-line voting, Chris Kirk mapped voter clout by state, John Nelson examined gerrymandered congressional districts, Frum criticized the American voting system, Jodi Enda revealed where the party designations red and blue came from, and the question of where campaign cash goes was answered.

In matters of marriage equality and marijuana, we revisited Charles Murray's change of heart on gay marriage and a reader wrote a heartfelt paean to love that no longer is undetectable, while Matt Baume and Jacob Sullum kept tabs on the polls relating to marriage and marijuana, respectively.

The Dish also considered how and why we vote. We provided a primer on the history or voting rights, Ilya Somin defended not voting, Brad Plumer charted the reasons registered voters give for not voting, Stephen Squibb put voting in perspective, Maria Bustillos asked an expert if we should be worried about electronic voting machines, Samuel Goldman advocated making election day a federal holiday, Derek Thompson applauded America's ubiquitous voting stickers, Adam Clark Estes dissected why online voting isn't feasible, and Megan McArdle proffered an explanation of why it can be illegal to photograph your ballot.

In other assorted coverage, Bibi took Israel even further to the right, Heilemann and Larison debated what might come next for Paul Ryan, and Monty Python made an election day appearance on funny religions. Hathos Alert here, Hewitt Award here, Yglesias Award here, MHB here, VFYW here, and the latest VFYW contest results, from Tehran, here.

Monday on the Dish, Andrew took Peggy Noonan's feelings to task, condemned giving in to "pure partisan obstruction," and after he reminded everyone of Romney's penchant for lying, he wondered why Romney was so touchy about his Mormonism. 

Andrew Cohen then marveled at how openly GOP leaders discuss their voter suppression ploys, Steve Schmidt called the voter fraud concerns "mythology," and while Beinart bet that a Romney loss would see Republicans fight about immigration policy, Lindsay Graham pretty much backed him up. Plus, Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei broke down why the support of blacks, Latinos, single women and educated urban whites didn't equal a governing mandate.

The GOP spun Sandy, New York and New Jersey improvised on voting plans, and Matthew E. Kahn made the case against FEMA's moral hazard. Meanwhile, Nate Cohn believed Obama's odds were good and expected a wait for the popular vote. Sam Wang then ran the numbers for a EC-popular vote split, Pew analyzed media tone of the candidates, and while Maryland's marriage equality ballot measure outlook remained tight, Minnesota looked worse. Paul Ryan then spewed Christianist rhetoric, Massie derided the idea that the GOP would embrace Bloomberg in 2016, and, overseas, only fundamentalist religious state allies supported Romney over Obama. Plus, Barney Frank shared early impressions of Romney and Andrew expanded the vocabularies of many.

Romney went positive on the ad front, Jeffrey Goldberg defined pro-Israel and as the death penalty in California looked set to die, Andrew Sprung encountered a new anti-Obama conspiracy theory. The Economist then looked at public debt and summarized the threat of marijuana legalization to Mexican cartels, as Glen Weyl proposed buying votes. Plus, election FOTD here.

In hurricane discussion, Justin Fisher imagined a New York that embraces nature, Charles Kenny reviewed who dies in natural disasters and Craigslist met hurricane demand – at a price. Readers then weighed in on the marathon, Taylor Berman asked whether the funding for the 9/11 museum shouldn't have gone to flood prevention and an unemployed Floridian edited out climate change on Sandy's Wiki.

And in assorted commentary, Dina offered holiday jift tips, Michael Specter defended the safety of GMO foods, and as CK did SNL, Walter Russell Mead bet on a growing trend in part-time retail. Plus, Gangnam-style VFYW here. And tomorrow, Andrew live live-blogs.

By Jez Coulson

Saturday and Sunday on the Dish, Andrew tracked the latest developments in the presidential horse race. He declared that Tuesday will be a reality check for pollsters and pundits here and here, noted the "chaos" that marked absentee voting in Florida, highlighted the views of Romney supporters in Ohio, asked if independents were moving back to Obama, reiterated Romney's uabashed support for torture, and provided election-related quotes of the day here, here, and here. Andrew also asked if Iran blinked, appreciated Michael Signorile's apology to a gay Republican, ran a reader's thoughts on the NYC Marathon cancellation, pointed to a photograph of another reader's post-Sandy cleanup efforts, and aired a debate over price-gouging in the wake of natural disasters.

It wasn't all politics at the Dish, though. In literary news, Dorian Lynskey resisted the tyranny of the must-read, Ian McEwan extolled the novella, Frank Cassese remembered writing advice from David Foster Wallace, and Stephen Marche pondered Google Books and the digitization of literature. Jane Martinson explored India's new wave of gay writers, Richard Russo divulged the origins of his new memoir, Drew Toal reviewed the letters of Kurt Vonnegut, and Patrick Ross lamented the arrival of Frankenwords. Read Saturday's poem here and Sunday's here.

In matters of faith, doubt, and philosophy, Theo Hobson described what he learned from Rowan Williams' theology, Clancy Martin reported on the schisms among gay evangelicals, Maria Popova recommended another recording of Alan Watts, George Scialabba considered the meaning of progress, and William Deresiewicz worried about the loss of solitude and privacy in the modern world.

In assorted coverage, Jerry Saltz summarized the devestation Sandy caused to the New York art world, Dominique Browning provided tips on growing safer trees, Michael Specter wondered about geoeningeering our survival of climate change, Matthew Teague profiled a repo man, Meehan Crist and Tim Requarth documented the ambiguities of rising IQ scores, Eric Barker explained the effects of sleeping pills, Robert Ito fretted about social robots, Heidi Julavits contemplated love and lust on reality matchmaking television shows, and Ben Reininga culled a list of strange sex advice from Cosmopolitan. MHBs here and here, FOTDs here and here, VFYWs here and here, and the latest window contest here.

Spencer Woodman consults Walker Percy to understand the calm that can come after hurricanes:

I had picked his second book—The Last Gentleman—off my shelf after I recalled its strange depiction of hurricanes as philosophically rich events that visit mass existential relief upon entire populations crushed under modern malaise. For Percy, the transformative power of a hurricane lies not just in the immediate excitement, the break in routine it brings, but more so in a storm’s capacity to limit the range of human choice, its ability to deliver a whole city from the chaotic realm of the Possible back the unquestioning mode of the Necessary.

Percy, on his "own intensifying spiritual journey," found himself overwhelmed by American abundance and the comforts of his privileged life. It takes a shock to the system to put one on what he called "the search":

To understand his take on hurricanes, one must start with his brand of malaise, one attuned to a distinctively American discontent. An overabundance of daily choice paralyzes the will of Percy’s characters. Minute decisions become indistinguishable from the major questions of how and why. For Percy, all options lurk about all the time and the soul recoils from this infinitely sprawling dichotomous key of doors ajar. Breadth of opportunity should make life colorful, but Percy’s overabundance causes just the opposite. His characters strive to do something, but, with their compass dials spinning dizzyingly, they can do nothing but fall into desiccated daily routine. Workaday blandness melds with torturous cosmic confusion.

(Photo of Hurricane Sandy by Brian Birke)

Friedersdorf puts a tip in the GOP's suggestion box:

Stop letting prominent voices of movement conservatism get away with saying things that are a) actually just racist; b) demagogic race-baiting; or c) so obviously tone-deaf that anyone with common sense can see how terrible it would sound. Why is that so hard?! This isn't a call to embrace mindless political correctness, or to implement a full scale amnesty, or to cave on issues like affirmative action. This is so much easier! Just stop associating with people who deliberately play on America's racial anxieties for profit! Given the contours of America's racial fault lines, doing so is always going to turn off blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and a lot of whites.

Drum argues along the same lines:

Lightening up on immigration won't be enough. Like it or not, conservatives are going to need a much more thorough housecleaning if they want to survive in an increasingly diverse future. No more gratuitous ethnic mockery. No more pretense that reverse racism is the real racism. No more suggestions that minorities just want a handout. No more screeching about the incipient threat of Sharia law. No more saturation coverage of the pathetic New Black Panthers. No more complaining that blacks get to use the N word but whites don't. No more summers of hate on Fox News. No more tolerance for Dinesh D'Souza and his "roots of Obama's rage" schtick; or for Glenn Beck saying Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of white people"; or for Rush Limbaugh claiming that "Obama's entire economic program is reparations." No more jeering at the mere concept of "diversity." And no more too-clever-by-half attempts to say all this stuff without really saying it, and then pretending to be shocked when you're called on it. Pretending might make you feel virtuous, but it doesn't fool anyone and it won't win you any new supporters.

A Brazilian native girl living in the old indigenous museum (aka Aldea Maracana) next to Maracana stadium decorates a banner during a demo on November 9 against the Rio de Janeiro government's decision to throw them out and pull down the building, in order to construct 10,500 parking lots for the upcoming Brazil 2014 FIFA World Cup. By Christopher Simon/AFP/Getty Images.

Elias Isquith examines it:

It’s true that the House didn’t move much, but as many have pointed out, this is almost entirely a consequence of the redistricting triumphant Republicans engaged in — as they had every right to — after the 2010 election and in light of the new Census. Look at the raw numbers and you’ll see that Democrats garnered roughly 500,000 more votes than their Republican opponents. Not a landslide by any means, but a number that goes unreflected in the actual Congressional results.

Dylan Matthews believes "redistricting could keep the House red for a decade":

[I]t’s going to be tough for Democrats to make big gains in the House until 2022, when the districts are drawn again following the Census. And for that to happen, they’d have to do quite well in the 2020 state legislature elections.