Today on the Dish, Andrew praised Rhode Island’s marriage equality bill for its solid balance of religious and civil liberty, puzzled over the GOP’s ongoing impotence on climate change, and cautiously noted a new report on the Tsarnaev story in the Mail (with good reason). Later on, he scrutinized the racy SEO strategies of digital media, tipped his hat to the NYT in light of their latest numbers, recoiled at Target’s fluorescent dystopia, and went shopping for hockey beards.
In political news and views, Nate Silver illustrated the GOP’s demographic transformation into a regional party while Douthat summed up their beef on healthcare and Sean Trende downplayed the effect of the civil rights era on the South’s Republican turn. Tim Murphy rounded up the local effects of sequestration across the nation, we followed up on the Obama administration’s conflicted stance on Gitmo, and Radley Balko sent a dispatch from a town in Arizona allowing civil unions. We revisited the road not taken on Bush v. Gore, took note of gun adverts geared toward kids, and readers asked Josh Fox if we may need fracking after all.
Elsewhere, Alix Spiegel explored the influence big brothers like Tamerlan Tsarnaev can have on their younger siblings, Mac McClelland examined the state of mental illness treatment in America, and we attempted in vain to untangle contradictory conspiracy theories. We surveyed the Arab world’s feelings on Mideast media and squared Vietnam’s strong record on gay rights with its poor human rights record overall as Charles Kennedy searched for a global income floor. Meanwhile, IBM harnessed cell phone data for a better public transport system and readers sounded off on small town drug addiction.
In assorted coverage, Paul Miller stepped back into the web after a year of self-deportation, we workshopped sex in Palestine, and readers offered their own tips on the subject of condoms and their discontents. We browsed galleries of more Wal-Mart and Target art, picked up on the little quirks of literary greats and spotlighted a barnyard Kickstarter worth your time. Patrick West pined for the album art of old, novelist Ben Greenman praised the paintings of Amy Bennett and Hugo Macdonald wrote in favor of small living space. We questioned the value of keeping cursive, writhed around to some hot, hot hathos and gazed out at a snowy Yankton, South Dakota in the VFYW.
–B.J.
The Dish 