Author: Andrew Sullivan

A Product By Any Other Name

Neal Gabler introduces us to the folks who name “everything from companies to products to websites to ingredients to colors”:

Today roughly 500,000 businesses open each month in the United States, and every one needs a name. From Dickens with his bitter Gradgrind to J. K. Rowling with her sour Voldemort, authors have long understood that names help establish character. Politicians know that calling a bill the USA Patriot Act makes it a little harder to vote against.

The effects of strategic naming are all around us, once we begin to look for them.

“You go to a restaurant, and you don’t order ‘dolphin fish,’ ” [namer Anthony] Shore points out. “You order ‘mahi-mahi.’ You don’t order ‘Patagonian toothfish.’ You order ‘Chilean sea bass.’ You don’t buy ‘prunes’ anymore; they’re now called ‘dried plums.’ ” Maria Cypher, the founder and director of the naming agency Catchword, which named the McDonald’s McBistro sandwich line, will tell you that names “give us a shared understanding of what something is.” Paola Norambuena, the executive director of verbal identity at Interbrand, says they give us a “shortcut to a good decision.”

Naming is more art than science:

The oddity is that for all the weight a company places on choosing names, the decisions arise from a process that couldn’t be less corporate. There are no naming metrics, no real way to know if a new name helps or hinders. The field attracts people who are comfortable with such ambiguity. Jay Jurisich, the founder of Zinzin, is a painter with an M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Jim Singer, who founded Namebase, was a jingle writer, and Margaret Wolfson, who now runs naming at Namebase, still splits her time between naming and performing one-woman shows around the world in which she recites classical myths. The renowned pharma namer Arlene Teck (coiner of Viagra, from “vigorous” and “Niagara”) writes haiku. Maria Cypher of Catchword fronts a rock band. Other namers are stand-up comics, photographers, rappers, linguists and poets. “A good name has the potency of any piece of art,” says Martin McMurray, a partner at Zinzin. Wolfson’s friend Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, has told her that she is engaged in creating “practical poetry,” an assessment that Wolfson embraces, though she says she doesn’t use the term with all her clients.

Headline Of The Day

All-women’s college cancels ‘Vagina Monologues’ because it’s not feminist enough

Update from a reader:

I am not particularly liberal, but a deeper dive into the reasons that Mt Holyoke had decided to not do their annual performance of Vagina Monologues is not really about how feminist the play is.  It is about how the licensing of the play forbids any modification to (or criticisms of) the script within the performance [namely to include those who identify as women but don’t have vaginas]. Rather than put on the VM production again (for something like the 10th time), they are developing their own script and production. I don’t see much to mock about this. I don’t see any educational value for having college students put on a play that explicitly forbids them from modifying or interpreting it – particularly when they have performed the play several times before.

Mental Health Break

What you’re seeing:

This series of 3D printed sculptures was designed such that the appendages match Fibonacci’s Sequence, a mathematical sequence that manifest naturally in objects like sunflowers and pinecones. When the sculptures are spun at just the right frequency under a strobe light, a rather magical effect occurs: the sculptures seem to be animated or alive! The rotation speed is set to match with the strobe flashes such that every time the sculpture rotates 137.5º, there is one corresponding flash from the strobe light.

The Politics Of “Fertility Fog” Ctd

A reader from the other side of the reproductive struggle broadens the discussion:

I’m not sure if you’ve received many responses from male readers on this issue, but I’d like to add a male’s perspective. Oftentimes the discussion about having a child and fertility usually revolve around the woman’s reproductive health, and more often than not the male partners either don’t think about their own health, get tested to see if they’re producing healthy sperm, or consider their own health as an essential part of the equation.

I’m 42 years old, my wife is 31. We’re in the process of trying to start a family. She got off birth control over a year ago because her sister, who’s an obstetrician, recommended at least six months to a year of being off birth control before really trying to get pregnant. Of course none of our family knows about these things and yet I’ll share my perspective here anonymously to further the discussion.

I scheduled a check up with my urologist and reproductive specialist last September, which meant a full checkup and measurement of my testicles, a full history of my sex life, prior conceptions (there was with my first wife that ended in a miscarriage) and then providing the requisite sperm sample there in the office. There is nothing more romantic than locking yourself in an exam room with clinic-provided skin-mags from the early ’90s and trying to provide a sample while clinicians wander the hall outside. Thank God for smartphones, an unlimited data plan and online porn to ease my situation.

I subsequently found out that I had a low sperm count that was impacted by a high white blood cell count that resulted from trying to heal from a massive leg contusion. My initial response was despair at being nearly infertile.

But my doctor encouraged me that they would try a few things before making any decisions. A heavy round of antibiotics, 60-day supply of motility vitamins, and more frequency between ejaculations. At the follow-up exam and sample in hand, I was on the road to healthier motility and sperm count but still a cause of mild concern for my doctor. He said to keep trying and come back in 8 months. If we weren’t pregnant, he’d give me a shot of testosterone to boost my system as another step in fixing my sperm count issues.

What most doctors don’t tell you is that there are many aspects that affect a man’s reproductive health even on a day-to-day basis. My wife and I are both architects and have stressful project loads. Couple that with running our lighting business, everyday life and the stress factor can wear on you. Most doctors recommend 6 months of really trying before seeking out fertility help.

Tracking that narrow window of opportunity when your wife’s ovulation cycle is at its peak and hoping that your both feeling “in the mood”, the very act of trying to conceive becomes yet another layer of stress in trying to do everything correct. Hoping the stars align, you’ve had a healthy few days prior to the main event, you haven’t waited too long between efforts to maximize motility, factoring in the natural chances of getting pregnant on any one try, adding in that conception is very difficult to begin with all adds to the stress of trying to conceive. And while most couples we know have tried for longer than a year or two, we’re seeing many younger couples with fertility issues leap in with IVF or other treatments and getting pregnant quickly.

And while my wife and I continue to make the effort to chart her temperatures, map the moon cycles, keeping my junk primed but not backed-up, getting each other in the mood, generating the energy to do it when we don’t feel in the mood, and then her getting depressed, then my getting depressed at each month we miss an opportunity, and these all feed back into a temporary loop of despair about thinking that we will never get pregnant. We have to gently remind ourselves that it will take time and effort every month and we’ve barely just begun trying.

We get questions from friends and family about when we’re having kids or if we’re having kids. We euphemistically say we’re “working on it” and tell ourselves that it will happen when it happens.
For most men the pressure of having children is less of a burden than it is for women. Of course we’re told that men can keep reproducing into their 70s ala Charlie Chaplin. But I know this is unrealistic and unfair to burden my future children with a geriatric father. As a guy fast approaching 43, my own urge to have children increases and my desire to not be in a wheelchair and being mistaken for my kids’ grandparent at their college graduation adds a level of urgency to the equation too.

As a guy, wandering in the “fertility fog” now, I’d just like to say it’s not just a woman’s issue and it shouldn’t be a burden that just women should have to carry. I hope more men are open and honest about their own reproductive health with their doctor, spouse and especially themselves. For many men who want to start a family, the mere thought of being infertile or having low sperm count, the initial response to hearing that news can be depressing and create the idea of being “less of a man” because you might be incapable or have difficulties conceiving. I know I did when I first found out my predicament. But I also found out that it’s easier to fix my issues first. Fertility is complicated for both sexes and having that frank discussion is relevant to women and men.

Another man:

I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, seminoma, when I was 36 (quite old for seminoma), when my wife and I married less than one year.  It’s really a great cancer, from one point of view – very high cure rates of approximately 99+% from either radiation or chemo, so presumably >99.9% from either one followed by the other if necessary.  Given this choice, and despite being an expert in the chemo treatment (which he had devised; this was a world-renowned expert in the field), my urologist urged radiation because “the side effects of nausea and vomiting were fewer and milder”.

But as my wife and I were talking to the radiation oncologist prior to my first treatment, we mentioned to her that we planned to start a family one day, asking her advice on how long to wait after the radiation.  She got a horrified look on her face, and said: “Oh, no.  After the treatments you’ll certainly be sterile.”

The urologist also knew that we planned to start a family; upon further discussion I came to the conclusion (possibly incorrect and unfair) that to him sterility wasn’t a side effect worth mentioning or even considering. So it’s not just women who miss physician education on fertility.

Well, I had the chemotherapy, the cancer was cured, we later had two GREAT kids before getting a vasectomy. My wife and I are approaching our 29th anniversary.  Sounds like a happy ending.  However, I also got “chemo-brain” which is yet ANOTHER side effect that wasn’t mentioned – a permanent diminution of intelligence, concentration, etc, that has profoundly affected my entire life from that day forward (I’m a scientist).  I love my children beyond measure, but if I had known about chemo-brain in advance, and not knowing in advance the great kids I would later have, I would have chosen sterility and we would have adopted.

Zeroing In On Road Safety

Anna Maria Barry-Jester points overseas:

The Netherlands and Sweden have overhauled the design of their roads and cities, resulting in enormous declines in motor vehicle fatalities. In urban areas, curbs are removed, giving the perception of shared space (though cyclists, pedestrians and cars are still separated), which encourages drivers to slow down. And in most of Europe, driving lanes are much narrower, which also fosters slower travel. In Sweden, a program called Vision Zero treats all traffic fatalities as preventable, and this idea has recently crossed the ocean to U.S. cities.

NYC has been introducing new traffic laws along similar lines. The effects thus far:

[The citywide speed limit reduction to 25 mph] was the most public of Vision Zero’s initial changes, but to date, 29 of its 63 initiatives have been implemented. Preliminary data suggests the program may be paying off: 2014 saw the lowest number of pedestrian deaths since the city started keeping records in 1910. New York also had a decline in overall motor vehicle deaths from previous years. But with 134 pedestrian deaths and 250 overall, the city is a long way from zero.

Data released Tuesday by the New York City Department of Transportation also showed that controversial speed cameras near schools may be working to slow traffic at the 19 sites where they have been placed since September. Overall, there was a decline of 58.7 percent in the number of daily speeders found on these cameras (which ticket only at speeds of 10 mph above the posted speed limit), with individual cameras’ declines ranging from 21 to 75 percent. This suggests the mere presence of the camera can help reduce speeds.

A Poem For Friday

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“Even the Raven” by Kathleen Jamie:

The grey storm passes
a storm the sea wakes from
then soon forgets . . .

surf plumes at the rocks –
wave after wave, each
drawing its own long fetch

– and the hills across the firth –
golden, as the cloud lifts –yes
it’s here, everything

you wanted, everything
you insisted on –

Even the raven,
his old crocked voice

asks you what you’re waiting for

(From The Overhaul © 2012 by Kathleen Jamie. Used by permission of Graywolf Press. Photo by John Morgan)

Backing De Blasio

Nearly 7 in 10 New Yorkers disapprove of the recent antics:

“Cops turning their backs on their boss, Mayor Bill de Blasio, is unacceptable, New Yorkers say by large margins,” Maurice Carroll, a Quinnipiac University poll assistant, said in a statement announcing the results. “Even cop-friendly Staten Island gives that rude gesture only a split decision.”

Another poll from Quinnipiac shows the mayor’s overall approval up slightly. Friedersdorf runs through more numbers:

I worried New Yorkers would punish Mayor de Blasio for losing control, rather than backing him to insist that the NYPD is subservient to the people. I didn’t give New Yorkers enough credit.

A new poll by Quinnipiac University suggests that the city’s voters have seen through the police union’s tactics, and that its temper tantrum will cost it political support. Consider the following findings:

  • “Police union leader Patrick Lynch’s comments that the mayor’s office had blood on its hands are ‘too extreme,’ voters say 77 – 17 percent, the independent Quinnipiac University Poll finds. There is no party, gender, racial, borough or age group which finds the comments ‘appropriate.'”
  • “Voters say 47 to 37 percent that Mayor de Blasio’s statements and actions during his 2013 campaign and during his first year in office show he does support police.”
  • “The recent slowdown in police activity is more of a protest, 56 percent of voters say, while 27 percent say it is because police officers fear for their safety.”
  • “Voters say 57 to 34 percent that officers should be disciplined if they deliberately are making fewer arrests or writing fewer tickets. Black, white and Hispanic voters all agree.”
  • “Voters give Patrolmen’s Benevolent Assn. President Patrick Lynch a negative 18 to 39 percent favorability rating and say 43 to 27 percent that he is a mostly negative force in the city.”

Josh Marshall adds:

What also emerged in the poll is public anger that Patrick Lynch, President of the Police Benevolent Association has managed to make the public face of an asshole into the public face of the NYPD. And now there are signs of rising opposition to Lynch within the union itself. A raucous union meeting at Antun’s catering hall in Queens Village on Tuesday night broke down into a melee of pushing and shoving and screaming involving some 100 police officers angry Lynch’s leadership of the union. The yelling and screaming and shoving went on for about ten minutes, according to the Daily News, before Lynch walked out.

Noah Rothman searches for a silver lining for conservatives:

But the Quinnipiac poll isn’t all bad news for the NYPD:

New York City voters approve 56 – 37 percent of the job police citywide are doing, compared to 51 – 41 percent December 17. Approval today is 66 – 28 percent among white voters and 54 – 36 percent among Hispanic voters, while black voters disapprove 54 – 41 percent. Voters approve 71 – 25 percent of the job police in their community are doing.

Furthermore, conservatives can rejoice in the poll’s findings that MSNBC host slash activist Rev. Al Sharpton has received his lowest favorability score in the history of Quinnipiac polling. Only 29 percent of respondents view Sharpton favorably while 53 percent have a negative view of the political activist.

Egypt’s Revolution Isn’t Over

Egypt

Thanassis Cambanis checks in on the country. He recognizes that “the core grievances that drew frustrated Egyptians to Tahrir Square in the first place remain unaddressed”:

Police operate with complete impunity and disrespect for citizens, routinely using torture. Courts are whimsical, uneven, at times absurdly unjust and capricious. The military controls a state within a state, removed from any oversight or scrutiny, with authority over a vast portion of the national economy and Egypt’s public land. Poverty and unemployment continue to rise, while crises in housing, education, and health care have grown even worse than the most dire predictions of development experts. Corruption has largely gone unpunished, and Sisi has begun to roll back an initial wave of prosecutions against Mubarak, his sons, and his oligarchs.

But the overthrow of Mubarak has had an impact:

The legacies of the revolution are hotly contested, but one is indisputable: Large numbers of Egyptians believe they’re entitled to political rights and power. That remains a potent idea even if revolutionary forces and their aspiration for a more just and equitable order seem beaten for now.

In the worst of times under Mubarak, and before him Sadat and Nasser, mass arrests, executions, and the banning of political life kept the country quiet. But as Egypt heads toward the fourth anniversary of the January 25th uprisings, things are anything but quiet, despite the best efforts of Sisi’s state. Dissidents are smuggling letters out of jail. Muslim Brothers protest weekly for the restoration of civilian rule. Secular activists are working on detailed plans so that next time around, they’ll be able to present an alternative to the status-quo power. No one believes that this means another revolution is imminent, but the percolating dissatisfaction, and the ongoing work of political resistance, suggest that it won’t wait 30 years either.

A group of people who call themselves anti-coup demonstrators, stage a protest in the Helmeyat el Zeytun district of Cairo, Egypt on January 8, 2015. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

It’s Time To Stop The Handouts For Dirty Energy

The Economist declares that the “fall in the price of oil and gas provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix bad energy policies”:

The most straightforward piece of reform, pretty much everywhere, is simply to remove all the subsidies for producing or consuming fossil fuels. Last year governments around the world threw $550 billion down that rathole—on everything from holding down the price of petrol in poor countries to encouraging companies to search for oil. By one count, such handouts led to extra consumption that was responsible for 36% of global carbon emissions in 1980-2010.

Falling prices provide an opportunity to rethink this nonsense. Cash-strapped developing countries such as India and Indonesia have bravely begun to cut fuel subsidies, freeing up money to spend on hospitals and schools (see article). But the big oil exporters in the poor world, which tend to be the most egregious subsidisers of domestic fuel prices, have not followed their lead. Venezuela is close to default, yet petrol still costs a few cents a litre in Caracas. And rich countries still underwrite the production of oil and gas. Why should American taxpayers pay for Exxon to find hydrocarbons? All these subsidies should be binned.