Author: Andrew Sullivan

David Gelernter contemplates the state of the Internet:

Nowness is one of the most important cultural phenomena of the modern age: the western world’s attention shifted gradually from the deep but narrow domain of one family or village and its history to the (broader but shallower) domains of the larger community, the nation, the world. The cult of celebrity, the importance of opinion polls, the decline in the teaching and learning of history, the uniformity of opinions and attitudes in academia and other educated elites — they are all part of one phenomenon. Nowness ignores all other moments but this.

Nick Carr:

But, [Gelernter] suggests, we can correct that bias.

We can turn the realtime stream into a “lifestream,” tended by historians, along which the past will crystallize into rich, digital deposits of knowledge. We will leap beyond Web 2.0 to "the post-Web," where all the views are long. It’s a pretty vision. I wish I could believe it.

There are times when human beings are able to correct the bias of a technology. There are other times when we make the bias of an instrument our own. Everything we've seen in the development of the Net over the past 20 years, and, indeed, in the development of mass media over the past 50 years, indicates that what we’re seeing today is an example of the latter phenomenon. We are choosing nowness over ripeness.

A bill passed this week would amend the constitution to reserve one-third of national and state legislative seats for women:

Opponents of the bill say that it will favor wealthy upper-caste women at the expense of the lower castes and Muslims. “We are not against women reservation,” said Lalu Prasad Yadav, leader of one of the parties seeking to block the amendment. “Give reservation to poor India, to original India. Ninety percent of the population is deprived in India.”

Critics of the amendment say that it will only worsen what is already a big problem — powerful men substituting their daughters, wives and sisters as proxies in political office. 

Aparna Ray has an extensive round-up of opinion on both sides.

(Video: "Agitated lawmakers opposed to the tabling of a women's reservation bill created a commotion and tore a copy of the bill, in the upper house of the Indian parliament.")

Joshua Keating lists five examples. Andrew Gelman finds "this sort of frank anti-contrarianism refreshing" and summarizes Keating's article.

According to a new study:

[Anthony] Chemero’s experiment, published March 9 in Public Library of Science, was designed to test one of Heidegger’s fundamental concepts: that people don’t notice familiar, functional tools, but instead “see through” them to a task at hand, for precisely the same reasons that one doesn’t think of one’s fingers while tying shoelaces. The tools are us. This idea, called “ready-to-hand,” has influenced artificial intelligence and cognitive science research, but without being directly tested.

Bradford Plumer wonders why.

Today on the Dish, Daniel Levy reported on the reaction to Biden's humiliation, DiA held Israel to a higher standard, Steven Cook defended the neocons, Bob Kaplan shared some ominous signs from Afghanistan, Michael Hanna updated us on the Iraq election, and Mike Crowley compared Maliki and Allawi.

On the domestic front, Ambinder took stock on HCR and explained the Paul Ryan budget, Adam Serwer relayed the crack/cocaine compromise, Matt Corley countered Thiessen, Andrew Sprung took down Mukasey, Chait questioned Mike Allen, and Hiatt embraced Rasmussen.

Readers argued over the Dish's use of explicit photos here and here. Others shared their experiences with kids who were easy to accept same-sex partners. Andrew featured a video of him debating natural law at Princeton (reader response here). Cool ad here.

— C.B.

Ambers tries to make sense of a confusing week. On the timing:

This morning, the majority whip, James Clyburn, said that the House will vote within the next ten days. Yesterday, the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said he expected a vote by the end of the week. The president's decision essentially allows the House to work on Saturday and Sunday — gives Democrats a bit of cover — and gives him the chance to work the phones.  The idea is that the House has until the 21st or so to pass its bill, and reconciliation talks will begin on the 22nd, and the whole shebang will be shebanged by the 26th of March.

Cohn has more on the time-line.

Mike Crowley wonders which presidential contender would be in the best interest of the US:

[A] reason Obama might be pulling for Allawi is his wariness towards Iran. On a visit to Iraq last December, I heard one prominent Sunni politician complain about Maliki’s ties to Shiite Iran. During his own period of exile, Maliki spent eight years living in Iran, and since he became prime minister in 2006, he has paid several state visits to Tehran. The Sunni politician complained bitterly about Shiite leaders in Baghdad who are “only Iraqi on their official documents”—which sounded like a reference to Maliki’s longtime residency in Iran. Though Allawi is also a Shiite, he is more secular than Maliki and has expressed more suspicion of Tehran.

E.D. Kain wants me to spend more time on the subject because he thinks "this issue rests at the heart of what went wrong with conservatism."  Italics his. An excerpt from his larger argument:

Sprawl is a result of massive statist interventions into our culture and society, and its symptoms are equally enormous.  Everything that conservatism has historically stood for is undermined by sprawl.  It is not only the physical manifestation of our decline, it is a poison which continues to contribute to that decline.  Its repercussions can be felt in our discourse, in our speech, in our way of thinking.  This is not merely a matter of aesthetically pleasing communities, but of communities which allow individuals to be a part of the whole.  I doubt this is sustainable, this suburban maze – in any way: fiscally, socially, spiritually.  It is, as James Howard Kunstler called it, “a peculiar blip in human experience.”