Author: Andrew Sullivan

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

Something to keep in mind is that police officers are required to walk into and to participate in events from which the rest of us are entitled – and even advised – to shy away.

That fact, I think, is part of the reason why police officers are less likely to be convicted for shootings for which they would be punished if they were not police officers. I'm not chasing after a guy identified by a bloodied victim as having raped her; I'm not supposed to confront him, to physically subdue him and to take him into custody.

If I think a guy has a gun – just "think" he does – I can run away. But since I wasn't running after him in the first place I'm not that likely to be present when he pulls out what I think is a gun. And I certainly don't have to keep going toward him so that I can capture and subdue him.

Police officers get a break on their decisions to use force because they have to actually make decisions; the rest of us don't.

by Patrick Appel

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman claim that American creativity is declining. Some of their conclusions are suspect, but much the research they round-up on creativity is new to me and well worth pondering:

Preschool children, on average, ask their parents about 100 questions a day. Why, why, why—sometimes parents just wish it’d stop. Tragically, it does stop. By middle school they’ve pretty much stopped asking. It’s no coincidence that this same time is when student motivation and engagement plummet. They didn’t stop asking questions because they lost interest: it’s the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions.

Having studied the childhoods of highly creative people for decades, Claremont Graduate University’s Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and University of Northern Iowa’s Gary G. Gute found highly creative adults tended to grow up in families embodying opposites. Parents encouraged uniqueness, yet provided stability. They were highly responsive to kids’ needs, yet challenged kids to develop skills. This resulted in a sort of adaptability: in times of anxiousness, clear rules could reduce chaos—yet when kids were bored, they could seek change, too. In the space between anxiety and boredom was where creativity flourished.

by David Frum

Everybody was talking yesterday about Sarah Palin's big fundraising haul: $865,000 in the second quarter of 2010. 

But I'm proud to say that FrumForum star reporter Tim Mak noticed something fascinating underneath the hype: Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann actually raised twice as much as Palin over the quarter. 

And for those who fear that the zanies have taken over the Republican party, Mak offers this reassurance: Palin raised a lot – but Mitt Romney (who has not reported yet) has almost certainly raised more. Details on the FrumForum site. 

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

One thing I haven't heard discussed amidst all the handwringing is her staff. You can't win the Iowa caucuses with a smarmy TV commercial – you need an actual organization. We seem to know a few things about Palin's staff – there are only a few that she trusts, they have no real practical political experience, and they spent the 2008 campaign being lambasted for their screw-ups. What serious Republican operatives are going to work for her after seeing how she treated the McCain people that were brought in?

You can't win a battle if the people that know how to fly the planes or drive the tanks aren't willing to fight on your side.

Another writes:

She can get the engaged and ruthless team, but do not discount the elites she needs. You've met the Axelrods, Carvilles, Roves, Shrums, Schmidts and Wallaces and their ilk. Professional campaign managers expect their bosses to be moderately engaged in such topics. Running for President is a tough job which requires experienced help. Who the hell is going to work for her?

I have no doubt she will run. And it will be the most spectacular train wreck in the history of man-made disasters. I'm already looking forward to the tell-all books by back-stabbing staffers.

Ambinder looks at staffing issues and more in his latest assessment of Palin's run. Massie also provides a lengthy breakdown on "why she can, should and will run."

by David Frum

Rush Limbaugh has at last found a buyer for his New York apartment, although for $2.5 mn less than the original asking price. The Wall Street Journal has the details. The photos, if you have not seen them, are well worth the look … and for Rush's sake, I hope the French are wrong that his style is the man himself.  

by David Frum

Here's more from the young blogger Alex Knepper whom the folks at NewsRealBlog published for months … but fired as a sex pervert and all-around lying maniac after he offered a post criticizing Ann Coulter. You can see just the kind of dangerous fiend he is too …

Russell Kirk aptly described ideology as a drug. Meditate on that. Ideology, in the classical conservative worldview, is something that provides a person with a comfortable, affixed set of dogma that serves itself, rather than the interests of the individual and his community. Traditional conservatives, skeptical that anyone can really remake society from on high, want to pierce through these absolute claims, not come up with their own. Those who want to examine their beliefs ought to act as Socrates did, asking questions even about those beliefs that are taken as axiomatic.

Edmund Burke lambasted Thomas Paine’s incredible pretensions that we can “start the world anew.” We can’t make the world anew. We can’t remake society from on high. We can’t fix the troubles of the human condition with a bullet-point agenda.

Knepper makes a favorable reference to an old essay of mine about Russell Kirk. Those interested can read that essay on the New Criterion site, here.

by Patrick Appel

Will Saletan is made sick by the the world of competitive eating:

Ten years ago, the record at the Nathan's contest was 25 hot dogs. Now it's 68, and Chestnut claims to have forced down 72 in a practice session.

He later strains his argument by connecting the pastime to pornography.

by Patrick Appel

Jonah Lehrer highlights a new study finding that mice with toys in their cages were better able to fight off cancer:

There is something spooky about this new link between nice cages and reduced tumor growth. Cancer, after all, is just stupid cells run amok. It is life at its most mechanical, nothing but a genetic mistake. And yet, the presence of toys in a cage can dramatically alter the course of the disease, making it harder for cancerous cells to take root and slowing their growth once they do. A slight chemical tweak in the cortex has ripple effects throughout the flesh.

It strikes me that we need a new metaphor for the interactions of the brain and body. They aren't simply connected via some pipes and tubes. They are emulsified together, so hopelessly intertwined that everything that happens in one affects the other. Holism is the rule.

by Patrick Appel

Talbot reads up on the DOMA case:

Which status quo did the Justice Department lawyers mean? If they were talking about marriage itself, well, yes, heterosexual marriage was the status quo in 1996 [when DOMA passed]. But if they were talking about marriage law, the status quo there was for “the federal government to recognize for federal purposes, any marriage declared valid according to state law.” States ruled. The federal government had to recognize even a marriage that no other states would allow—like one uniting a fourteen-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl, which was permitted nowhere but New Hampshire.

Argentine marriage equality ad via Savage.