Andrew Sullivan

Did Israel Share Its Kerry Intercepts With Russia?

We know from Der Spiegel that our “number one ally” intercepted John Kerry’s phone calls during the recent peace process negotiations. But a top Israeli source tells ~~Ken~~ Richard Silverstein that Russia was also involved: “Israel provides Russia with transcripts of the Kerry calls it intercepts when his plane is within tracking distance. And Russia does the same when Kerry’s calls are intercepted by its agents.” It’s win-win for Putin and Netanyahu in trying to sabotage international efforts to restrain their respective ethnic expansionism. Money quote:

My source had this to say: “It’s a ‘fruitful ongoing joint venture’ initiated by Lieberman thanks to his Moscow connections. Israel provides Russia with recordings of intercepted calls Kerry makes flying over the Middle East, and Russia provides Israel with recordings of calls he makes flying over Central Asia, the Far East & the Pacific Ocean. The source notes this ‘joint venture’ became extremely important for Moscow since last February – because of the Ukrainian crisis.

Putin and Netanyahu: a meeting of like minds.

“Re-Purposed Bovine Waste”

John Oliver – peace be upon him – lays waste to the corruption and bullshit that is native advertising:

The piece is well worth watching in full when you get a second. And it says something that it takes a comedy show on a subscription based cable channel to lay it out. (Note to those of you who have not yet subscribed to the Dish: subscriptions are the only way the media is going to dig out of this giant, gaping, ethical hole.) Oliver targets the pimps and whores at Time Inc. with particular verve, and, as a cheery on top of the cake, Women’s Wear Daily has a hilarious gaffe today by Norman Pearlstine who has capped his illustrious career in journalism by burning down the entire house. In a Q&A, Pearlstine was bragging about a new “native advertising” lab, headed by a respected journalist:

N.P.: The Time Inc. Content Solutions model is one to follow in that it’s got some very experienced journalists working on those products but they don’t engage in magazines on editorial where they’d be covering the people that they are writing about.

WWD: So, journalists for the publications are working on native content?

N.P.: Chris is really the exception to that. He happens to be the creative director at Sports Illustrated, a magazine that doesn’t cover the people whom we’re working on. He’s a brilliant creative director with a wonderful commercial mind. The place we’ll have to be careful is if there are packages that he’s working on would somehow involve Sports Illustrated. He’s going to have to recuse himself from doing anything at the magazine itself that would raise conflict. It’s my job to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

WWD: Is native changing the culture of journalism?

I think we know the answer to that.

Dating While Disabled

Elizabeth Heideman examines how wheelchair users and others with visible disabilities navigate the world of online dating:

Because of disability trolling, some people may hesitate to disclose their differences right away. Wheelchair users may only post photos that show their bodies from the waist up, or people with visual impairments may not mention their guide dogs and white canes in bios. Only when they schedule an in-person date with someone do they mention their disability.

Tiffiny Carlson calls this “dropping the D-bomb.” Carlson, a writer who uses a wheelchair due to spinal cord injury, has been online dating since 1998. “I always disclose my disability right away in my profile and photos,” she says via email. Just like a messy divorce-in-progress or the fact that there are three kids under the age of 10 waiting at home, Carlson feels that disability is an important fact that potential partners should know from the beginning.

Unlike Woodward, who feels the Internet can bring out more negative in people than positive, Carlson thinks online dating is actually a better, less scary way for guys to approach her. For people who’ve never interacted with a wheelchair user, the first time can be intimidating (especially if you don’t know proper etiquette). Exchanging a few flirtatious messages online, though, paves the way for a smooth first date.

A Predator As Protagonist

Praising the above Kroll Show sketch about drone pilots as “smart and disturbing,” Sam Lipsyte offers a caustic take on how we might start incorporating drones into war lit:

Should we now envision drone protagonists for the new war fiction? One could portray the drone as a gung-ho robot that begins to question authority. It can work in a short satiric burst, but if it goes for too long, the technical questions (where did these feelings come from?) might overwhelm the narrative missile’s “arc.” The robots-turning-against-us motif, from Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety” to 2001’s HAL, seems a little old hat now. Perhaps it’s time to revisit Joseph McElroy’s innovative ’70s novel Plus, which tracks the consciousness of a cyborg brain as it confronts its limits and its mortality. Maybe it’s time for a long-form meditative drone. Or something more parable-like: Jonathan Livingston Seadrone?

Or maybe not. We like to think we’re all sealed up safe in our technology, but it’s a delusion, and good war fiction tends to shred societal delusions. Drone pilots are often suicidal PTSD cases themselves, after all, and plenty of soldiers from all sides died in combat during the last few wars, not to mention the horrific slaughter of so many civilians. Even with Pentagon-issued joysticks, it’s still about boots and dead bodies on the ground. The drone as a fictional character might have some promise, but the grunt’s-eye view will continue to resonate. We’re all underpaid, overworked, underinsured first-person shooters now.

The Pro-Life Resurgence Has Peaked

But Lane Florsheim suggests that’s a measure of its success:

Though the rate of passage for restrictive laws has slowed down this year, in certain states, this is because much of the damage has already been done. In these states, it seems, the pro-life movement is winning. Reproductive rights were one of many issues for which the 2010 midterms served as a turning point, thanks to the wave of newly elected conservative state legislators taking office around the country. “We’ve seen 226 abortion restrictions enacted over the past four years,” Elizabeth Nash, State Issues Manager at Guttmacher, told me. “That speaks to some states enacting multiple restrictions, and perhaps the urgency in some of those states to adopt further restrictions is just not there.”

Meanwhile, Amanda Marcotte notes that the abortion rate in Texas – where new regulations have forced more than half of the state’s providers to stop offering the procedure – has not fallen as much as many expected:

New regulations requiring Texas abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges forced more than half of the clinics in that state to stop offering abortion services. This was expected, by both pro- and anti-choicers, to cause a significant drop in the abortion rate in the state. But as Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux reports at The Week, the drop was much less significant than expected. Research by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin found a 13 percent drop in legal abortions over the previous year, which is significant, but not nearly as big a drop as you’d expect when half the clinics in the state shut down. “In some ways, we were expecting a bigger decline,” study author Daniel Grossman told the Texas Tribune. Abortion rates have been falling on their own nationwide for decades, likely due to improved contraception use. That suggests that while most of this drop is due to the law, some of it might just be part of the larger national trend.

The findings demonstrate a fairly serious flaw behind the push for more and more restrictions on abortion laws. “If more clinics close, one might reasonably assume, the demand for abortion will also decline, either because wait times at the existing facilities are too long or because women will decide that an abortion isn’t worth the hassle or expense,” Thomson-DeVeaux writes. However, this thinking relies on the false belief that women enter into the abortion decision lightly, and that a few obstacles will deter them. Avoiding the expense and hassle of having a child when you don’t want one remains extremely motivating, more than many health care experts realized.

On that note, let’s revisit last week’s rousing reader debate over abortion regulations:

As I’m about to send this, I see you’ve posted more dissents, and you comment, “Who is making abortion impossible?” Come on. Really? Please look up how many clinics around the country have closed in the past three years due to these obstructive “standards,” check out how far women might need to travel, and tell me that’s not putting safe, legal abortion out of reach for many, many women. You also describe these laws as “a way to provide some sort of speed bump before human life is taken.” OK, if by “speed bump” you mean requirement after requirement, with new ones continually added.

Another continues:

To say that a “speed bump” is needed before choosing to have an abortion assumes that women have abortions as a lark, without prior discussions with partners, friends, family members, health care providers or clergy. Or maybe a woman doesn’t discuss her decision but just, you know, takes the time to think about it on her own. Do you think the federal or state government should put up “speed bumps” just in case a woman didn’t think about her decision long enough, or not long enough to suit you? This attitude also ignores the other “speed bumps” that already exist: getting the money, taking time off work or finding day care (most women who have abortions already have children), traveling the possible hundreds of miles to an abortion provider, much more likely now with with these disingenuous “safety” restrictions on clinics.

In fact, you bemoan later-term abortions, but there are already so many “speed bumps” in place that by the time a woman takes the time to make a decision and deal with the practical issues I listed, and then has to possibly put up with a government-imposed waiting period, more time has elapsed in her pregnancy. Wouldn’t you prefer that a woman who knows she wants to have an abortion have it as early as possible and not be forced to delay because of these “speed bumps”?

Another adds, “For most women, the speed bump doesn’t change their minds; it just pisses them off.” Another reader:

In your latest exchange with dissenters you end by saying, “I do not apologize for my belief that that there is a genuine moral issue with abortion – the fate of human life – that a fair argument would acknowledge rather than dismiss as self-evidently untrue.”

That is only one of the moral issues with the abortion issue, and I will concede that often those who fall into the pro-choice camp want to avoid talking about that. But the anti-abortion camp is equally (if not, more so) averse to acknowledging the moral implications of their position. Specifically, what are the moral implications of forcing a woman to take an unwanted pregnancy to term? What are the moral implications of bringing more unwanted children into this world, especially considering the fact that most unplanned and unwanted pregnancies occur in low-income populations? What are the moral implications of the anti-abortion camp’s objections to contraception coverage, which has been clearly demonstrated to be the most effective way to reduce unwanted pregnancies?

One more:

With regards to the abortion questions at hand, perhaps it is best to meet in the middle.

Laws requiring counseling and wait periods might be okay, but those requiring admitting privileges are not. While I disagree with both and firmly believe that abortion should be freely available, I can understand the moral concerns. The issue with adding “medical” requirements on abortion clinics, however, is not about encouraging thoughtful decision making. It is about closing clinics by way of overbearing regulation. As a conservative, I would think you would be against such tactics. Fewer clinics farther away providing more costly procedures leads to unsafe abortions which is equally morally questionable.

If people want to make abortion illegal because of their moral or religious beliefs, fine. Say that. But over regulating a business in order to kill it under the auspices of making it safer is not conservative. It’s lying.

Steroids For Your Brain?

Marek Kohn suggests that’s the wrong way to think about “smart drugs” such as Adderall and Ritalin:

“I think people think about smart drugs the way they think about steroids in athletics,” [professor Amy] Arnsten says, “but it’s not a proper analogy, because with steroids you’re creating more muscle. With smart drugs, all you’re doing is taking the brain that you have and putting it in its optimal chemical state. You’re not taking Homer Simpson and making him into Einstein.”

Smart drugs have provoked anxiety about whether students who take drugs to enhance performance are cheating, and whether they will put pressure on their peers to do likewise to avoid being at a competitive disadvantage.

Yet some researchers point out these drugs may not be enhancing cognition directly, but simply improving the user’s state of mind – making work more pleasurable and enhancing focus. “I’m just not seeing the evidence that indicates these are clear cognition enhancers,” says Martin Sarter, a professor at the University of Michigan, who thinks they may be achieving their effects by relieving tiredness and boredom. “What most of these are actually doing is enabling the person who’s taking them to focus,” says Steven Rose, emeritus professor of life sciences at the Open University. “It’s peripheral to the learning process itself.”

Previous Dish on Adderall here, here, and here.

A Crisis In Clowning

Reporting from an industry convention in Chicago, Leigh Cowart notes that the future for red noses doesn’t look so rosy:

[One] seminar, called “Posing for Pictures and Working with the Media,” is for the most part a simmering rally for strategy and solidarity in the face of the current clown PR crisis. Of course, there’s the usual scary-clown trope to deal with, like the recent separate attempts by filmmakers to drum up some publicity by donning clown garb and standing ominously along roadsides and construction sites, last year in Northampton, U.K., and more recently in Staten Island.

But there’s an additional tension this year: Just weeks prior, the New York Daily News reported that America might be facing a clown shortage. Citing decreased membership rates in the country’s largest trade organizations– Clowns of America International (CAI) and the World Clown Association (WCA) – the article painted clowning as the loser in a war of attrition, but nonetheless steadily committed to the fight. CAI President Glen Kohlberger claimed membership numbers are dropping because “[t]he older clowns are passing away.” Compounding this, the reasoning goes, is that interest in clowning is waning: Kids just aren’t joining up like they used to.

(Photo by Flickr user downing.amanda)

Madison’s Mysterious Malady

While noting that Lynne Cheney’s new biography, James Madison: A Life Reconsidered, is the hagiographic treatment of his life and thought you’d expect from her, Kevin R.C. Gutzman acknowledges that Cheney does convince him on one disputed point of scholarship – she “goes far toward proving that he suffered epilepsy itself,” a diagnosis previously left in vaguer terms. Gutzman also finds the illness might have played a role in the evolution of Madison’s religious life:

She has consulted leading experts, perused the relevant portions of medical texts purchased by Madison’s parents early in his life and read by Madison himself, and carefully compared the accounts of his recurrent bouts with the problem, and she leaves me persuaded. She also ingeniously relates Madison’s illness to the apparent change of heart he experienced at Princeton as a youth, when he seems to have abandoned Anglican Christianity. Faced with Western Christianity’s tradition of calling epilepsy demonic, Cheney avers, Madison rejected basic elements of Virginia’s traditional religion. Alas, there is no evidence directly on point, but her cogitations are valuable. They will need to be borne in mind by future scholars.

Cheney’s attention to her hero’s health as he climbs to the very highest offices in American government likely owes to her own life story. After all, her husband, Vice President Richard Cheney, not only served two terms as an influential vice president at the culmination of a career that found him in various other important leadership positions, but also suffers from a severe heart ailment. We do not know the private details of his suffering, but there is a special poignancy in Lynne Cheney’s sympathetic descriptions of Dolley Madison’s ministrations to James. One supposes, too, that Cheney family travails recently much in the news may have prompted the author to think about the relationship between traditional Christian descriptions of urges and afflictions as “demonic” and the evident waning, or at least metamorphosis, of whatever faith young man James Madison once had.

(Image: Portrait of Madison at age 82 via Wikimedia Commons)

All Trees Are The Tree Of Life

James Hamblin explains:

It is becoming increasingly clear that trees help people live longer, healthier, happier lives—to the tune of $6.8 billion in averted health costs annually in the U.S., according to research published this week. And we’re only beginning to understand the nature and magnitude of their tree-benevolence. In the current journal Environmental Pollution, forester Dave Nowak and colleagues found that trees prevented 850 human deaths and 670,000 cases of acute respiratory symptoms in 2010 alone. That was related to 17 tonnes of air pollution removed by trees and forests, which physically intercept particulate matter and absorb gasses through their leave.

(Photo by Flickr user Ian Sane)

A Cooler Iced Coffee

Alexis Madrigal buzzes about Blue Bottle New Orleans Iced Coffee, a brand “legendary in the Bay Area” which is now expanding east. He finds Blue Bottle “not aggressively artisan like so many Portlandia products,” but rather “a delicious, not financially ruinous luxury”:

Brewed with chicory, cut with whole milk, sweetened with cane sugar, it’s a cold coffee beverage that is at once sophisticated and unpretentious. It’s not an austere challenge to the Starbucks-trained palate like so much of high-brow coffee culture. It just tastes good in an interesting way. … This drink might let Blue Bottle challenge Starbucks, which controls the vast majority of the ready-to-drink market. It would be the latte of the 2010s….

He goes on to compare Starbucks founder Howard Schultz with Blue Bottle’s founder and CEO, James Freeman. Whereas Schultz started as primarily a salesman, says Madrigal, Freeman operates from a richer coffee philosophy:

It is impossible to read Freeman’s ode to the art of roasting coffee, included in the book he wrote with his wife Caitlin, and not believe that he cares about coffee. … “For me, no matter when I got to bed, I always felt a sense of dread when the alarm went off at 4 a.m.,” Freeman wrote of roasting. “Classic Kierkegaard, straight out of The Concept of Anxiety: animals are slaves to their instincts and hence feel no responsibility, but humans are free and therefore constantly aware of their failure to live up to their responsibilities to God—or to Coffee.”

The only thing that staves off the dread is to get up and make the coffee. … “That first decision to get up in the morning is a mirror of all the hard and lonely decisions that must be made for the rest of the roasting day.” … Freeman believes coffee makes us the people we want to be. “I am actually able to change the brain chemistry of my customers,” he has written. And his personal obsession has been perfecting the art of constructing coffee, not growing it. Making coffee is “a performance that lasts 90 seconds,” and that alters the people who experience it.