Author: Andrew Sullivan

Nate Silver digs into the predictive stats.

When it comes to exposing a government's war crimes, real and courageous reporting is necessary. Harry Evans remembers his own achievement here. Money quote:

To reach his devastating conclusion, Saville had to acquire and sift a mass of passionate conflicting testimony of a fast-moving series of events occurring more or less simultaneously nearly 40 years ago. Pivotal to his whole inquiry was the unique, original first-hand reporting done over an intense 11 weeks in 1972 by a team of reporters of the Sunday Times Insight Team. Cardboard boxes of the reporters’ notes and memos, long stored at the Sunday Times, were seized by Saville in 1998 and provided the bedrock of evidence enabling his inquiry to test the veracity of witnesses in Derry, many of whom had forgotten or misremembered the testimony they gave freshly to the reporters in 1972 and some had died. No other press or television organization had attempted that detailed of a narrative reconstruction at the time.

Jane Mayer: save your notes. We'll hold these criminals accountable one day.

Jessica Bennett and Jesse Ellison make the case against marriage:

It may counter what we grew up thinking, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. With our life expectancy in the high 70s, the idea that we’re meant to be together forever is less realistic. As Hannah Seligson, the author of A Little Bit Married, puts it, there’s a “new weight to the words ‘I do.’?” Healthy partnerships are possible, for sure—but the permanence of marriage seems naive, almost arrogant. “Committing to one person forever is a long time,” says Helen Fisher. “I wonder how many people really think about that.” If you’re anything like us, you’ll have plenty of time to do just that—while you’re sitting in the pews, at other people’s weddings.

Andrew Romano rebuts his colleagues:

The fact is, marriage isn’t going anywhere. It will always be the dominant expression of love and commitment in our society. If young, egalitarian, independent men and women like Bennett and Ellison cede the entire institution to people who are fine with the old, broken model, then love and commitment will always be defined primarily in the very terms they abhor. To really alter the dynamic of male-female relationships in America, we’ll have to redefine marriage from the inside out.

And this has already happened. But do I think that commitment to one another for life is unreasonable or foolish? Yes, we do live much longer than most humans when marriage was forged in the West, and our options as individuals are more constant and more compelling in a wealthy time of comparative leisure.

But I take the “forever” seriously myself. And I think that core vow – never to abandon one’s spouse, to make living together work even when exit might seem easier – is central to marriage’s power. It is unreasonable – which is why we promise it. The vow establishes the arc of our ambition, and a sense of marital love’s eternity. This is why it remains sacred to me – because committing to another human being for ever – is always sacred. And when we commit to something this profound, we need to find some, well, awe to understand it.

That's what Michael Schrage is forecasting:

If you are a knowledge worker, cognitive capitalist, or a Reichian symbolic analyst, you will not be retiring at 65. Period. Even if you are in a protected public union with cosseted pension funds, you are at extraordinary risk. Just ask the Greeks, the Californians, or the Japanese. This is a global phenomenon. Demographics and structural deficits don't lie. Unless the global economy comes roaring back in ways that stimulate sustainable growth in OECD countries, even the most talented professionals had better expect to work for at least another five years.

If I live that long, I will be working. I see no reason why not.

Nor Ace of Base:

I was listening to Alejandro with my sister and we both heard the huge similarity to Ace of Base. I was thinking of mixing it with 'The Sign' but the she said it was 'Don't Turn Around'. Obviously she was right.

Compare the originals for yourself here and here.

The little pink pill performed poorly in FDA trials. The New View Campaign has been against the drug because they claim it tends "to pathologize normal sexual diversity and therefore NARROWS the 'cultural ideal' around female sexuality." Miriam at Feministing has a related thought:

Who decides what is hypoactive (aka not active enough or under active) sexual desire anyway?

In my opinion, sexual desire is not something that can be measured independently, most frequently what becomes an issue is how it compares to that of your partner (if there is a partner involved). Women are stereotyped with never wanting sex and men with always wanting it, but we all know it's never that simple.

The ensuing comment thread bats the question around some more. It seems simple enough to me in a free society. If it works, whoever wants to use it should be able to. You want more sex drive? Have at it. Personally, I'm somewhat relieved by the abatement of mine with age. The time I spent!

A reader writes:

Thanks for shining a light on Frank Kameny – a true hero in the LGBT equal rights struggle, who I was fortunate to meet and hear his exploits.  Out here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we have our own dazzling pioneer: José Sarria, a.k.a. The Widow Norton, a.k.a. The Nightingale of Montgomery Street!  The kids today can't even begin to imagine what courage it took, back in the 1950s, for these great leaders simply to stand up and assert their humanity and dignity in the face of universal ignorance and hate and derision.  We have come so far so fast and it's wonderful that they are still alive to see it.  They are national treasures.

Another writes:

I love me some Frank Kameny and consider him a great pioneer. But I find it choice that you  go to Kameny for your "Before Stonewall" person and not to Harry Hay, who actually founded the Mattachine Society years before. Kameny helped open a chapter of the Mattachines in Washington, DC, but the group began in California and owe some of its early organizing work to the models Harry learned while organizing shipyard and dock workers into unions during the Depression. Kameny deserves the great props he's receiving but he'd be the first to say that he wouldn't have had a Mattachine model if the generations before him didn't do it first.

Both my readers are correct. Frank was not alone nor the first. I mention him because he is a friend and great man and an inspiration to me personally. I didn't mean to slight any of the other pioneers. My point was to push back against the idiotic – and politically loaded – notion that the gay rights movement began with Stonewall. (It's also worth noting that many of those who fought back that night were not drag queens, but just regular homos who had had enough.)

Former Conservative Party spokesman Kory Teneycke is launching a 24-hour news channel in Canada:

His goal was a punchy, provocative, right-of-centre network to shake up what Teneycke describes as the "lame-stream media."

Pareene posts the trailer, "in case you're curious about what hardcore nationalism looks like in the world's most modest country":

Now that they have their own Fox news, Canadians will soon be demanding that their border be sealed, to protect them from the violent and economically unstable nation to the south.

Martin Krossel sees a bump in the road for Teneycke:

Quebecor needs the approval for the new channel from the Canadian Radio-Television Commission. That’s going to be no easy task. The Canadian Broadcasting Act imposes requirements on all broadcasters that, according to the National Post’s Tasha Kheiriddin, forces Canadian electronic news outlets to “provide ‘balance’” and prevents them from challenging many of the [Pierre] Trudeauvian sacred cows of Canadian identity, as defined by the act.” This, she argued makes it “difficult if not impossible” to create a purely conservative news station.

"I think if two people love each other, then what the hell? I think that everyone should have the chance to be equally miserable, if they want," – rapper Eminem.