Author: Andrew Sullivan

A different take on Erdogan's shift toward populism, Islamism and nationalism:

If you scratch the surface of what seems to be a secular versus Islamist divide in Turkish attitudes toward the West, you will quickly see that both the so-called Islamist and secular camps embrace the same narrative vis-à-vis Europe and America: nationalist frustration. New obstacles to EU accession, perceived injustice in Cyprus, growing global recognition of the Armenian genocide and Western sympathy for Kurdish national aspirations are all major factors forcing Turks to question the value of their long-standing pro-Western geostrategic commitments.

The whole blog, Istanbul Calling, is a great resource for understanding what's going on in Turkey.

Tara Parker-Pope finds:

Only 41 percent of respondents said children were important to a happy marriage, down from 65 percent in 1990. The only thing less important to a happy marriage than children, the survey found, was whether a couple agreed on politics.

So why do kids rank so low on the list? The fact is, marriages today are increasingly adult-centered, rather than child-centered, an issue identified in a sweeping 2008 report from Rutgers marriage researcher Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. In the report, called “Life Without Children: The Social Retreat From Children and How It’s Changing America,” Dr. Whitehead notes that the percentage of our lives that we devote to parenting is shrinking. Because married couples are delaying children and having fewer kids, they start parenting later and finish parenting sooner than couples of earlier generations.

Dan Ariely made a list. Number four:

Checking email is addictive in the same way gambling is. You see, years back the famous psychologist B.F. Skinner discovered that rats would work much harder if the rewards were unpredictable (rather than a treat every 5 times they pressed a bar, one would come after 4, then 13, etc). This is the same as email, most of it is junk, but every so often, it’s fantastic: an email from the woman you’ve been chasing for instance. So we distract ourselves from work by constantly checking and checking and waiting to hit the email jackpot. And to be perfectly honest, I’ve checked my email at least 30 times since starting writing this article.

Diego Valle Jones created a statistical analysis of Mexico's drug war:

In the beginning, the war proved a success by all objective measures: in 2007 the homicide rate decreased to its lowest level in recorded history and murders in Michoacan went down by more than 40%. Not that it mattered much, all the while the government was losing the psychological war—the use of torture and beheadings became common in executions carried out by drug cartels as they sought to protect their turfs and intimidate the population.

And then 2008 rolled around and the Sinaloa Cartel decided to take advantage of the weakening of the other cartels and the corruption that is endemic in Mexico to gain control of the drug trade…

Comic Sans delivers an enjoyable foul-mouthed rant.

A reader writes:

The success of the US in the World Cup won't be the impetus for a large growth in soccer fandom in the US.  The World Cup only happens every four years and people’s memories are short.  When we are producing worldwide stars – and better yet, if they are playing regularly in the US – that will bring the fans.  We Americans love winning, but we love stars more.  If the US is able to produce a Pele, Maradona, or even a Beckham, soccer will grow in popularity more than FIFA success.  Look at basketball; it wasn’t extraordinarily popular until Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and then Michael Jordan appeared on the scene, and now viewership of games involving Kobe Bryant or Lebron James are much greater than games involving good teams without huge stars.

Another writes:

I have no stake in the argument about whether soccer will or will not become a major sport in the US. However, as a historian, I like to remind people that up until the Second World War, three sports dominated the USA: baseball, boxing and horse racing.  To have suggested that basketball or football or stock-car racing would be major sports then would have been met with disbelief.  None of us knows what sports will become popular in the future.

David McRaney takes on hindsight bias, i.e. how you " often look back on the things you’ve just learned and assume you knew them or believed them all along":

You are always looking back at the person you used to be, always reconstructing the story of your life to better match the person you are today.

You have needed to keep a tidy mind to navigate the world ever since you lived in jungles and on savannas. Cluttered minds got bogged down, and the bodies they controlled got eaten.

Once you learn from your mistakes, or replace bad info with good, there isn’t much use in retaining the garbage, so you delete it.

Today on the Dish we covered the president's big Gulf speech. Larger reax here, a reader reaction here, and the Oil Drum explained why the gusher is growing. Netanyahu budged a bit on the Gaza blockade. Closing coverage of the Prop 8 trial here and here. Andrew lauded the forefather of the gay rights movement, James Risen lashed out at bloggers, Drum diagnosed the Tea Party, and a reader dissented over Andrew's diagnosis.

In Palin coverage, O'Reilly put some heat on her, a reader shrugged, Patt Morrison was outraged over her attempt to exploit Thatcher, and Scott Morgan gave her props over pot tolerance. Tons of Wasilla gossip here and here.

In Cup coverage, Drezner wondered when the US will seize upon soccer and Yglesias responded. Get your vuvuzela fix here and here. Senior citizen prognosticating here and here. People were flooding into Texas. In assorted commentary, Tim Kowal cornered op-ed writers on the Middle East, Jay Rosin put the press corps under a microscope, Cameron Abadi looked at Neda's doppelganger, Yglesias defended gerrymandering, and Robin Hanson talked celebrities and evolution.

Gaga is still no Madonna. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

— C.B.

(Image via The Ecoterrorist)

Evgeny Morozov reviews Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger:

Mayer-Schönberger fails to recognize that it is reminiscence—not forgetting—that faces extinction in the digital age. As Facebook and Twitter prioritize the present—our most recent updates always appear first while older ones have a shelf-life of half an hour—our digital lives are increasingly detached even from the most recent past. (The ubiquitous ADHD does not help either; Mark Helprin recently observed in The Wall Street Journal, “With the American attention span being what it is, time capsules are now retrieved 45 minutes after they are buried.”)…It would be disastrous to let the fears about digital forgetting blind us to the new possibilities for reminiscence created by digital remembering.

Talbot talked to David Boies this morning:

Boies said he thought it likely that Judge Walker would issue his ruling in August—my own hunch is that he will rule for the pro-same-sex marriage side—and that either side would appeal immediately. Indeed, Boies and Olson hope the Perry case will be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, and that they will ultimately win a decision comparable to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court case that declared laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional.