Month: April 2013

Facing Grammatical Extinction

by Matthew Sitman

Megan Garber unpacks the decline of “whom”:

[T]he Internet, itself almost aggressively forward-looking, institutionalizes the errors. Dating sites talk about the people “who you match with.” Twitter offers its users a recommendations list titled “Who to Follow.”

We break the old rules, then, because new rules are, effectively, replacing them. Few of us still use whom in speech, and we’ve adopted that practice in our writing, particularly in more-casual forms (e‑mails, texts, IMs). What scholars refer to as “secondary orality,” the tendency of written language to adopt the characteristics of speech, is for many of us the new linguistic reality. According to the language blogger Stan Carey, “Whom is unnecessary—indeed, it’s out of place—where a conversational tone is sought.” We type with our telephones and we chat with our keyboards and we write, increasingly, as we talk. And—to whom it may concern—our words rise, and fall, accordingly.

Map Of The Day

by Zoe Pollock

Mark Graham mapped “the percentage of local edits to [Wikipedia] articles about places” in order to measure “the percentage of edits about any country that come from people with strong associations to that country”:

Unsurprisingly, they show that in predominantly English-speaking countries most edits tend to be local. That is, we see that most Wikipedia articles (85%) about the US tend to be written from America, and most articles about the UK are likewise written from the UK (78%). The Philippines (68%) and India (65%) score well in this regard, likely because of role that English plays as an official language in both countries. But why then do we see relatively low numbers is other countries that also have English as an official language, such as Nigeria (16%) or Kenya (9%)?

His takeaway:

Some parts of the world are represented on one of the world’s most-used websites predominantly by local people, while others are almost exclusively created by foreigners, something to bear in mind next time you read a Wikipedia article.

Containing The Congo

by Brendan James

The UN is putting some teeth on its peacekeeping mission in the DRC, authorizing a 3,000-strong “intervention brigade” to put down militia violence in the eastern part of the country. David Bosco reminds us that the last attempt to do so turned ugly, fast:

In 2006, a group of Guatemalan special forces soldiers assigned to the peacekeeping mission attempted to hunt down units of the Lord’s Resistance Army operating in Congo’s Garamba National Park. The operation turned into a disaster. Several U.N. soldiers were killed (likely by friendly fire), and the LRA forces escaped. In early 2009, U.N. forces began actively supporting the offensive operations of the Congolese armed forces. But that collaboration was dialed back as criticism of Congolese army tactics mounted.

He argues these missions are almost always hobbled by inadequate forces sent with ambitious goals:

Part of the problem with offensive U.N. operations is that the training and resources of the forces doing the fighting often doesn’t match the mandate. It’s one thing for the Security Council to authorize offensive operations from New York; it’s quite another thing for peacekeeping commanders to manage them successfully on the ground. During the U.N.’s Bosnia operation in the 1990s, that gap between the Council’s proclamations and the actual work of peacekeepers grew to tragic proportions.

On Holiday With Hyperinflation

By Zoe Pollock

Graeme Wood ventured out to the Iranian resort island of Kish to understand the effect of American sanctions on Iran’s economy:

The Iranian rial trades semi-openly, and as this magazine went to press, its value was hovering under 40,000 to one U.S. dollar, weaker by nearly half compared with six months earlier. Authorities tried to ban currency trading for a few weeks in October, when the inflation rate peaked, but they failed. Finally they just asked money changers not to advertise the depressing new rates in their windows.

Wood’s First Rule of Budget Travel applies here: where there is runaway inflation, there are great deals for travelers with hard cash. … The first sign of rising prices was the hotel rate card. I had agreed over the phone to pay 370 dirhams, or about $100, for a night at a five-star hotel, including breakfast and lunch. (I had originally been told that the hotel had no vacancies, but when I asked again in English, with the implication of payment in foreign currency, a room materialized.) The rates for Iranians were quoted in Iranian rials, and to me—I had not been in Iran in more than three years—they looked not high but simply wrong. A zero in Persian writing is represented by a dot, and here I saw dots leading far off to the right, as if someone had left an ellipsis on the rate card instead of the full price. The Iranian price was 1.8 million rials.

Max Fisher has mixed feelings about taking a hyperinflation vacation:

Imagine the money in your wallet suddenly increasing value by a factor of four and a half — your nightly hotel budget rising from $70 to the equivalent of $340 — and you can see the appeal of a hyperinflation vacation.

Still, it feels a little weird to profit off of someone else’s pain. In this case, that someone is the entire Iranian middle and lower class. (Something Wood is very aware of and discusses with great care in his article.) The Post’s Jason Rezaian has reported from Tehran on the pain that ordinary Iranians feel from inflation, with everything from food to medicine becoming tougher to afford. And Wood points out that wealthy Iranians — those more likely to be affiliated with the regime, and thus desired targets of the economic sanctions driving so much of the inflation — are actually able to profit off of the inflation, for example with well-timed imports or by taking out the fixed-interest loans available only to those with political connections.

(Chart of the official Iranian rial-U.S. dollar exchange rate and the black market rates diverging by Steve H. Hanke of CATO)

“We’ve Known Each Other For So Long” Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

A reader responds to the April 1 post with a succinct email:

Dick.

Another elaborates on that sentiment:

Dammit, I got Rickrolled by you, or by Andrew, or by whoever’s idea it was to put up the Rick Astley video. I thought the link was probably to Andrew’s message to readers that he put up the night before, about taking a week off. But no – I click on the link and up pops the youthful Richard Paul Astley of 1987. It has been quite a while since I have been Rickrolled at The Dish.

Another:

I thought Andrew was REALLY going to send a “message to his long-time readers”. On second thoughts, I guess he did!!! CURSES.

I want to quickly note how difficult it was finding a version of the “Never Gonna Give You Up” video that doesn’t have a pre-roll ad, which defeats the whole purpose of the rickroll. Advertising really is ruining everything.

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish, Andrew signed off for vacation, but not before leaving a new ‘Ask Anything’ video. Meanwhile, we sized up the stakes in the Korean peninsula, Ackerman suggested we ditch the term ‘WMD,’ and Matt Taibbi described the difficulty of knocking down bad laws. We checked in on the chances of a GOP resurgence and the state of immigration reform, explained why the government won’t help us with our taxes and discovered that shale gas won’t hold up progress on renewable energy. Rob Walker told the story of a man forced to rat on criminals, readers continued the delicate thread on “gay rape” and kept up the appraisal of our public defenders.

Elsewhere, Noah Berlatsky stuck up for pricey weddings while we continued the threads on prenups and taking on a husband’s name. Readers pushed further on Justice Roberts’ possible blind spot on the definition of marriage, others defended the idea of political ‘evolution’ on the question, and the World Values survey tracked the progress of gay rights worldwide.

In more assorted coverage, Christopher Jobson came across found art in the age of Google, we witnessed the new found relevance of fanboys, learned some sneezes come from being hot and bothered. Also, we we questioned the authenticity of the Harlem Shake meme and later found the original version of “reality” entertainment was as staged as it is now.

Later, we browsed some dictator kitsch as Dirk Brockmann followed cash around the country and readers responded to Tomasky’s call for a more efficient restaurant check. We agonized over Kevin Ware’s compound fracture, watched cola cans score medical supplies, and asked whether Adderall will become a commonplace energy fix. Touchscreens were put to the test in the MHB, before we remembered that bunnies can be scary in the Face of the Day and spent a moment in Chengdu, China for the VFYW.

–B.J.

Tending The Family Tree

by Zoe Pollock

Plant

As spring takes root, Dahlia Lithwick contemplates her mother’s green thumb:

I don’t shiver in anticipation at the thought of splitting tubers or transplanting peonies, as my mother does. She reminds me what it is to be of the earth and to fight for the Earth, not by way of bumper stickers and committee meetings and petitions, but by just planting and tending and weeding and never giving up on even a broken bit of spider plant. I see that in my son now, too—happy with dirt in his green rubber boots and a watering can and a watermelon seed. When I go to visit my parents, my first stop is my mother’s garden. When his lonely plant goes yellow at the edges, my son asks to put in a call to his grandparents. The earth and the garden have rooted us all to one another when nobody was looking. We cultivate our garden and let life take it from there.

(Photo: From the series Flora by Egill Bjarki via Amanda Gorence)

The Politics Of Immigration Reform

by Patrick Appel

Ezra examines them:

Elections really are zero-sum affairs. For one party to win, the other has to lose. … Immigration reform, however, sits at the center of an unusual convergence of forces that have made it positive-sum politics. Democrats believe in the policy, but they also believe that it’s good — even essential — politics to deliver on the number-one priority of the growing Hispanic electorate. Many Republicans also believe in the policy, and almost all Republicans believe that if their party is to prosper, they need to agree to immigration reform to show Hispanic voters that the GOP isn’t hostile to their interests.

Josh Marshall Brian Beutler argues that either Republicans or Democrats must be wrong:

A majority of new citizens will either be Democrats or Republicans. To the extent that the new GOP position on immigration reform changes existing voters’ minds about politics, only one of two parties will be on the winning side of that realignment. Some important Republican strategists and opinion makers recognize this, and worry the GOP has picked a loser.

Donald Trump, of all people, makes related points. How Brian Beutler sees the issue:

[T]he math looks very different in the near term than in the medium and long term. When President Obama won in November, immigration reform was destined to be on the national agenda this year. And though killing it might make sense for the GOP’s longer-term viability, for the immediate purposes of making gains in 2014 and securing the White House in 2016, it would be a grave error — particularly because Republicans haven’t responded to Democratic gains by offering up anything else that might appeal to Democratic voters. Supporting immigration reform isn’t exactly a sign of Republican panic, but that they think it’s their least bad course of action right now.

Stroganoff Over Science?

by Doug Allen

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/318197754792927232

Over the weekend, the NYT ran an obituary for Yvonne Brill, a pioneer in rocket science and recent recipient of the National Medal of Technology. The obituary originally started with this:

She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said. But Yvonne Brill, who died on Wednesday at 88 in Princeton, N.J., was also a brilliant rocket scientist, who in the early 1970s invented a propulsion system to help keep communications satellites from slipping out of their orbits.

Robert Gonzalez argues that this intro downplays her scholarly accomplishments:

Brill is a big deal in the world of rocket science. In the 1940s, she was quite possibly the only woman in the United States doing work in the field. In the 1970s, she developed and patented the electrothermal hydrazine thruster – a rocket propulsion system used by communication satellites to maintain a geosynchronous orbit around Earth. … All of this is, of course, mentioned in The New York Times‘ obit, which ran yesterday. Tragically, it is mentioned only after this spectacularly awful lede.

Melinda Hennenberger is more sympathetic:

Martin’s obituary for rocket scientist Yvonne Brill attempted to underscore her accomplishments by placing them in the context of other 88-year-old women who followed husbands around the country and stayed home to raise children for long stretches. … This perceived slight is irony gone awry, not a literal exaltation of stroganoff over science. But as the great Mary McGrory once warned me, “Nuance is overrated; clarity is the thing.”

Fact-Checking Fantasy

by Patrick Appel

The world George R.R. Martin created has a taken on a life of its own:

Martin has been an adviser on each season of [Game Of Thrones], but the process has inevitably required giving up much creative control. In some ways, though, Westeros got away from him long ago: At this point many of his fans know the world he created better than he does. The culture of fandom has changed; there are online communities devoted to fulminating over how long Martin takes to produce each book. One Sweden-based superfan, Elio M. Garcia Jr., runs Westeros.org, the main discussion forum for A Song of Ice and Fire, and controls Martin’s official Facebook and Twitter. If HBO needs to clarify details about Westeros, Martin occasionally fact-checks with Garcia.