Month: December 2012

A reader writes:

Thank you for sharing that video of David Kuo. I was absolutely gutted by it. This photo of David and Kim was taken at an engagement party for me and my now-wife – on the very night David would later suffer a seizure while driving. We had lost touch with the Kuos over the years, especially after they moved to Charlotte. The contrast of the way he looks on "Ask Anything" and the picture of haleness here … the tumor is there, but he doesn't know it yet. It's eerie, and devastating.

Your post is a summons to reconnect with a wonderful human being. Thank you, again.

Hanna Rosin criticizes Liza Long for writing about her mentally ill son:

We have of course gotten used to mommy bloggers embarrassing their children, saying which child they like best or how much they drink while stuck at home doing art projects. Louis C.K. regularly embarrasses his kids and surely one day they will get their revenge. These are humiliations that might require a kid to get therapy later, but they are not on the same order as what Long did. They are unlikely, for example, to prevent the kids from getting a job. So far the children’s rights movement has focused on protecting children from neglect and abuse, but maybe it’s time to add a subcategory protecting them from libel, by their own parents.

One of Hanna's commenters objects:

There should be absolutely no reason why we can't discuss mental illness like we discuss any medical disease or disorder. Most people readily discuss their aches and pains with no shame. Why should mental illness be any different? As long as we keep mental illness a taboo subject we sentence people, suffering from mental illness, in the closet. It is really hard to get good help in a closet.

Rebecca Schoenkopf shares the story of her late brother, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. She also defends Long:

Maybe Liza Long, who wrote about her violent son, is a lying monster who only cares about pageviews. Or maybe she is at the end of her rope, and her “media tour” I’m seeing ripped apart online springs from actually trying to get help for families like hers. 

I’ve known David Kuo since he worked in the Bush White House as Deputy Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. When he was working there, he suffered a brain seizure while driving and, without his extraordinary wife, Kim, taking the wheels from him, they might both never have survived.

But they have. David was diagnosed with brain cancer and left the Bush administration, reflecting in his conscience on his work there. The result was a book, Tempting Faith, that came out at almost the same time as The Conservative Soul. We found ourselves estranged from modern Republicanism and united by faith in Jesus. Thus a friendship was born, and it’s one I have treasured deeply. We have talked together, joked together, laughed together and prayed together. And the cancer has come and gone and come back again. When I saw him last, he had difficulty walking very far. And then I got an email from him with the following news:

In the last four weeks two new tumors have grown. Both are in the same area as previous tumors. One is located directly on the motor pathway that controls my left leg. The other is at the front of the cavity created by previous surgeries. The news knocked the wind out of us, gave us vertigo. Frankly we are still spinning. In all the scenarios we could come up with this wasn’t one of them. My physical state, even taking into account the blood clots and bleeding brain, was on the upswing. Those sensory seizures had stopped. We were crushed. All the suffering from the surgery and it did nothing but weaken me? All the hope for the viral treatment and nothing?

He has helped me so much over the years in my own spiritual journey; and it would be true to say simply that I love him and am proud to have him here. Watch his previous video on first hearing his diagnosis here.

Manohla Dargis' review shares my own view of the movie. It simply holds a glass up to torture. A reader writes:

I read Jane Mayer's article yesterday and frankly was disgusted. Her primary complaint seemed to be that the film didn't work to redeem the reputations of her sources. As if the fact that the FBI was against torture, and people in the CIA and military were "conflicted" about it, in any way mitigated the fact that it happened.

Her attacks on some of the characterizations in the movie, the "it's biology" bit and so forth, seem to be of a piece with Glenn Greenwald's critique, in that they seem to take all of the CIA characters at face value. This would be appropriate if Maya and Dan were heroes like Jack Bauer, but they're much more unreliable, like Humbert Humbert or Colonel Mathieu from "The Battle of Algiers". In "Lolita," if you want to see a pro-pedophilia message, you'll see it, but only by completely accepting Humbert's framing, and that requires a pretty closed mind and/or a lot of obtuseness. Similarly in "Zero Dark Thirty," you'll see a pro-torture message, or a "hagiography" of the CIA, but only by accepting the CIA characters on their face as the "Good Guys."

But, I think it's clear these people aren't good people.

Maya flat-out wants to murder Bin Laden. Her female co-worker talks blandly about murdering a confidential source if he balks at doing a job. Dan plainly relishes Abu Ghraib methods in the event, even if he burns out on them eventually (poor baby!). Their station chief is a glib careerist, and most Agency types not named Maya seem to be condescending, cowardly, unimaginative and a little sexist. Maya is the most sympathetic character, but she's a very strange, unbalanced person. She's not "movie crazy," and its clear that she's high-functioning and once set into motion can accomplish anything, but she's no Bruce Willis/John McClane.

The film's depiction of violence, its attitude and politics, are ineffable, and you can't put it into words – you just have to see it and figure it out for yourself. I don't agree with the idea that it has no politics, it most certainly does, but I think they transcend any of the conversations in the press.

The suggestion that it's pro-torture completely weirds me out. The Kyle Smith article you linked to was the first one I saw that actually tried to make sense of this argument, insofar as I think this is possible – it's still ridiculous though. I guess if you sit through those scenes and you sincerely believe that what you're seeing is just, good for America and the world, affirmative and righteous before man and God, then you're entitled to say so, and here's something to talk about. But I think enemies of torture like Greenwald and Mayer are being counterproductive by presuming this argument in the film.

To me, it says more about their contempt for a median American moviegoer, his ignorance and his (supposed) predisposition to violence and revenge fantasies, than what is actually on the screen. Glenn's attitude is cultural Leninism: any depiction which does not condemn must be objective support.

Anyway, I appreciate your coverage of this.

My first take after seeing the movie here. Jane Mayer's here.

According to criminologist James Allen Fox:

[O]ur collective memories seem to forget or move past other anxious times when mass shootings have clustered in time, for the most part out of sheer coincidence. Although there have been cases in which mass gunmen have derived inspiration from others who preceded them, and perhaps wanted a share of the notoriety that follows, the impact of copycatting is often overstated.

Plumer compares Fox's statistics to other statistics that show an increase in mass shooting deaths:

Fox is looking at all mass shootings involving four or more victims — that’s the standard FBI definition. Mother Jones, by contrast, had a much more restrictive definition, excluding things like armed robbery or gang violence. They were trying to focus on spree killings that were similar in style to Virginia Tech or Aurora or Newtown. The definitions make a big difference: On Fox’s criteria, there’s no uptick. On Mother Jones’, there’s a clear increase.

Earlier Dish on this year's mass shooting numbers here.

This morning, we have a true insight into why this country's fiscal standing is so perilous: because of the GOP. News late last night seemed to suggest that – perhaps reflecting a new sense of responsibility and perspective after Newtown – the president went a long way to accommodate the far right. The deal we're hearing about would have put the Clinton tax rates back only for those earning over $400,000, leave defense fat and happy, drop the payroll tax cut and adjust inflation estimates to reduce increases in social security benefits over time. Obama gets a mini-stimulus, a crimp on deductions for the very rich, extension of unemployment insurance and a framework for serious tax and entitlement reform next year. The two sides were slowly coming together, as they should.

Now, this morning, Boehner faces his gerry-mandered House majority and seems to throw the latest deal out of the window. Maybe it's because he needs to start somewhere with these fanatics. Maybe he knows he can't sell the current deal to his caucus and so is angling for the Speaker's election January 3. But maybe this is it. Even now, even after an election thumping, even in the face of huge majorities of the public, even facing another unnecessary fiscal crisis, even in the sobering atmosphere tragically created by Newtown, they are prepared to walk away from any sizable increase in the rates for the very rich.

This party is a threat to democratic discourse and to fiscal sanity. Their ideological mania knows no prudential restraint at all.

(Chart: the president's approval ratings since September 2012 via Pollster, with heightened sensitivity.)

Riobamba, Ecuador, 8.23 am

Jodi Ettenberg provides tips for traveling abroad:

Everyone tells you to eat at the stalls with the longest line of locals, but an important addition to that is to opt for the stalls with women and children in line, too. More variety in the customer base usually means the stall has been vetted enough that it’s safe for everyone. Yes, it’s still better to choose a long lineup of men over crickets and an empty stall, but given the choice, women and children in line is where you want to go.