Author: Andrew Sullivan

Yglesias Award Nominee

by Patrick Appel

"The jury [in the Oscar Grant case] got it right. There's ample evidence that Mesehrle was negligent—likely criminally negligent. There's evidence that Mehserle and his fellow officers may have used excessive force the night Grant was killed. There's also evidence that Mesehrle's fellow officers tried to cover up the shooting by confiscating the cell phones of BART passengers who recorded the incident (generally speaking, police can ask for your name and address to later obtain a court order for video of evidentiary value, but they aren't permitted to take your cell phone or camera at the scene). There's evidence that one of Mehserle's fellow officers used a racial slur just before Grant's death. But there simply isn't any evidence that Mehserle is a murderer," – Radley Balko, Reason. Serwer differs on a couple points.

Evolutionary Psychology And Cougars

by Chris Bodenner

John Cloud presents new research showing how evolution "has encouraged women to be more sexually active as their fertility begins to decline and as menopause approaches":

This age group — 27 through 45 — reported having significantly more sex than the two other age groups in the study, 18 through 26 and 46 and up. Women in their middle years were also more likely than the younger women to fantasize about someone other than their current partner. The new findings are consistent with those of an earlier Buss paper, from 2002, which found that women in their early 30s feel more lustful and report less abstinence than women in other age groups.

In both studies, these findings held true for both partnered and single women, meaning that married women in their 30s and early 40s tend to have more sex than married women in their early 20s; ditto for single women. Also, whether the women were mothers didn't matter. Only age had a strong affect on women's reported sexual interest and behavior.

The System Is Sick, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

Jonathan Cohn begs Kathleen Sebelius to read Mariah Blake's article:

You might be wondering why, after all these years, hospitals don't simply turn their back on the GPOs and buy directly from companies selling better, cheaper wares. It's not clear, but the likely answer is a combination of inertia (hospitals have always done it this way, so they keep doing it) and corruption, of the moral if not legal kind (hospitals still have personal and perhaps financial ties to the GPOs). Of course, it helps that lobbyists have fought to give GPOs so much leeway–and that Congress has gone along.

But there's a silver lining here: Health care reform seeks to reduce spending, in part, by rewarding hospitals that have low infection rates. It will also reduce payments to hospitals, by a substantial amount, on the theory that hospitals can cut their prices without cutting quality. Blake's story suggests there's plenty of room to do just that.

Picky Eaters, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

I think there is a large missing piece to the argument that veganism is just an extension of the neurosis of picky-eating. When I went vegan (nearly 2 years ago), I was afraid that my options would be limited and I would be eating the same things over and over again. But my fear was really just an extension of the “vegans only eat salad” argument that some ignorant omnivores use. Since I cut out all animal products, I have discovered a number of delicious plant-based foods that I never would have otherwise. I had never tried beets before I went vegan, and now I love them. Same with eggplant. And rainbow chard. And wild greens like sorrel or stinging nettles. Not to mention the myriad uses of tofu! The point is – once you embrace your veganism, you realize that it can be a vessel to try all kinds of new things. In my experience, it is the hard-line meat-eaters who have a limited palate – not the vegans. How creative can you get with a steak anyway?

I flirt with vegetarianism from time to time, and my experience mimics this reader's. But then I enjoy cooking and experimenting with new dishes. Another reader adds:

I'm afraid you've lost me a bit when you say, "Moral arguments are more compelling the less you like what you are giving up."  Isn't it the other way around? Someone who struggles to make a moral choice in resisting a strong temptation seems to me much more likely to be acting genuinely from an ethical perspective, since if he weren't, he would give in to the temptation.  Someone who doesn't have the temptation might well be making the choice for that reason and dressing it up in moral clothing.

I should admit I have a selfish reason for making this argument: I've been a vegan for just over two years, and I would gladly eat dairy in some form every day if I could, all other things being equal.  But I reached the point where I couldn't overlook the fact that essentially dairy means impregnating animals solely to get them to give birth to children so they will produce milk–and then drinking the milk ourselves, taking the children away from their mothers, and either selling them to be killed almost immediately (as veal) or raising them to take their mothers' place as dairy cows.  Our human consumption of cows' milk is a bizarre and frequently inhumane practice, and despite my taste for and enjoyment of milk and cheese, I couldn't stomach it any longer.  How does that make my moral reasoning less compelling, rather than more so?

Perhaps "compelling" was the wrong word. My basic point was it takes less willpower to give up something you already don't like. You need a nudge rather than a shove in the right direction. Several vegetarian friends have told me that they have never liked red meat – even as children. Cutting other meat out of their diets was therefore less difficult. These vegetarians often have moral reasons for opposing meat consumption, but this moral grounding is typically less developed and stated less forcefully than it is by formerly meat-loving vegetarians or vegans.

It's important to keep in mind that vices do not tempt us all equally. When vegans or vegetarians tell me that their lifestyle is easy to maintain, I often wonder if they are projecting their own inherent dietary preferences onto me or if their moral fiber is simply stronger than mine. The ethical and environmental case against meat consumption appears solid to me, but I've been unable to stick with vegetarianism and have instead attempted to cut down on, rather than cut out, meat-eating.

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish, the NAACP leveled the racism charge at the Tea Party, tea-partiers punted on the DOMA ruling, Jesse Jackson played the slavery card over LeBron, and Susanna Ferreira warned us about anticipated violence after the Cup. In Palin coverage, Dave Weigel went after Andrew's take on Trig, Michelle Cottle marveled at her media strategy, Tim Mak downplayed her PAC haul, and readers doubted her ability to maintain a campaign staff.

Weigel, blogging from a remote island in Alaska, covered the NAACP uproar, clarified the record on the New Black Panther case, showed how the GOP is getting aggressive for Byrd's supposedly safe seat, and wished Rand Paul wasn't so boring now. David Frum, our other guest, dwelled on the state of libertarianism, addressed the prisoner problem in America, drew a deeper lesson from the NewsRealBlog row, praised a new pro-Israeli group, noted Limbaugh's new digs, and suggested a website (as did Weigel).

In other coverage, Greenwald dug up more examples of people praising Fadlallah, Andrew Napolitano called for the indictment of Cheney and Bush, and Nick Kristof confessed to constructing a "Western savior" narrative. Pot-blogging here. A reader joined Andrew Sprung in tackling Social Security reform and another sympathized with cops. Ryan Avent undercut the mythologizing of manufacturing, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman claimed the decline of creativity, Dan Ariely explained behavioral economic, Wilkinson shouted a libertarian solution to healthcare, and Patrick talked rhetoric. Some final installments on the monogamy thread here and here.

Cool ad here. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here. A particularly fun window contest here. 

— C.B.

Redeeming Prisoners

by David Frum

The Hip Hop Republican site takes on a cause that ought to be of huge concern to conservatives: the American prison system. 

In the 1990s, the US achieved amazing success against crime, in large part thanks to a new willingness to send more criminals to jail longer. "Incapacitation" is the technical term  for this strategy, and it worked. But incapacitation occurs at a huge human and financial cost. It's not cheap to lock up millions of people for long periods of years. Sooner or later, most of them do emerge – and what happens to them then? 

Currently, approximately 2 out of every 3 former inmates return’ to prison within three years of release. Helping inmates find and sustain employment immediately after release diminishes their chances of recidivism. Working towards a reduction in recidivism is important because keeping offenders from re-entering the penal system means less crime and less tax dollars (which can be saved and/or reinvested by the tax payer).

Most of the aid that offenders receive are through public funds from the federal government and philanthropic organizations which donate monies to non-profits and state agencies to help defray re-entry costs. Ex-convicts are typically placed into low-wage jobs and often quit due to the patience required for delayed gratification through legal work and/or lack of familial support.

Past experience with rehabilitation programs has been disheartening. In the 1970s, it became conventional wisdom that "nothing works." I'm not going to quibble with the success in public safety achieved by incarceration. But if compassionate conservatism means anything, it should mean support for research and experimentation to discover if maybe after all there is something that might work even a little better than writing off as valueless the lives of 3 million fellow-Americans, disproportionately minority and especially disproportionately black.

Would Hayek Vote For Obamacare?

by Patrick Appel

Will Wilkinson thinks not:

Singapore, I think, has the closest thing to the sort of system Hayek had in mind. Among wealthy countries, it spends the smallest percentage of GDP on health care, and it gets about the best results. You know what that’s called? Efficiency. How do you get it? Competitive markets with freely moving prices under the rule of law! It’s the sort of thing you’re in favor of if you want everybody to have access to really good health care and money to spend on things other than health care.

“Am I A Manufacturer?”

by Patrick Appel

Avent tweeted last week that "something about the word ‘manufacturing’ makes people lose their analytical senses." He expands on that thought:

There is a sense that people seem to have that the making of things is an activity crucial to a modern economy. It’s crucial because a country that can’t make things is vulnerable to trade collapse. It’s crucial because a country that can’t make things is likely to lose its economic edge. It’s crucial because without manufacturing you can’t export. And it’s crucial because manufacturing jobs, everyone knows, are high-paying jobs that provide a good living to people with limited education.

I don’t think too much of this. Economic activity isn’t about satisfying the demand for objects, it’s about satisfying demand, period, and people demand many things that have little to do with assembly lines and smokestacks — hair-cuts, mixed drinks, financial advice, dentistry, and so on. These activities are important. If they weren’t important, people wouldn’t be willing to pay lots of money for them.