– from the campaign of Paul Broun, candidate for the US Senate in Georgia. The AR-15 offer came up in a debate last night.
Author: Andrew Sullivan
Ask Reza Aslan Anything
[Updated with questions submitted by readers]
Reza is an Iranian-American writer and a scholar of religions. He is the author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam and, most recently, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, which offers an interpretation of the life and mission of the historical Jesus. Previous Dish on Zealot here, here and here, as well as Fox News’ treatment of Reza here and here.
Let us know what you think we should ask Reza (if you are reading on a mobile device, click here):
A Silver Age? Ctd
Pierre Omidyar’s and Glenn Greenwald’s vision:
Salmon is struck by Omidyar’s ambition:
[H]e wants to build a global news organization with multiple brands, deep pockets, fearless journalists, top-notch support services, and even its own technology company. You can see how he could get to $250 million pretty quickly, at that rate. That’s a lot of cash — but it’s still less than a single year’s journalism budget for Bloomberg, Reuters, or the BBC. Omidyar needs to make his money go a long way: he’s building not only an international virtual newsroom (with real physical newsrooms in more than one city) but also an elaborate technology, sales, and even legal infrastructure.
Meanwhile, George Packer is confused by Ezra’s new project:
What does it mean to explain the world on the Web? One thing Internet journalists are never short of is commentary—many of them, such as Klein and Matthew Yglesias, who will leave Slate to join the new project, have been specializing in it since they were fledgling bloggers. (Klein has also written for The New Yorker.) What the Web has never figured out is how to pay for reporting, which, with the collapse of print newspapers, is in desperately short supply, and without which even the most prolific commenters will someday run out of things to say. Klein says that the new site is going to be in the “informing-our-audience business,” which describes everything from the Times to Fox Sports to blogging (which is what Klein and his colleagues have made their names doing). Perhaps Klein isn’t ready to say clearly; perhaps he doesn’t yet know exactly what he and his colleagues will be doing at Vox.
Vox CEO Jim Bankoff provides some details. On the eight-figure investment request:
[Q] Ezra reportedly sought $10 million plus from The Post for a new venture; is Vox committing that amount to this?
[A] We are not disclosing our investment, but suffice it to say these rumored amounts are way off and way high. Moreover, Vox already has many of the core pieces in place, including a leading proprietary modern media platform, Chorus, as well as a full set of creative brand advertising products, killer sales, technology, design, business teams, etc. So Ezra and team will be already starting with a very strong infrastructure.
[Q] Is the built-in infrastructure, etc the main reason why the “eight figure investment” figure is way high?
[A] Well, as I said, I never heard of an eight figure investment being contemplated to begin with (beyond unsourced rumors that are way off), but our existing infrastructure does contribute to making this initiative stronger and more cost efficient …
Mercifully, Vox’s “creative brand advertising” doesn’t include sponsored content:
Bankoff told Ad Age that he has no intention of “tricking anyone” with alternative forms of advertising such as sponsored content or “native” ads — which other new-media growth stories such as BuzzFeed have said they believe are a key part of the future of content. Instead, the Vox CEO said he is counting on Vox’s ability to produce better-quality display ads that will bring in more revenue than the standard banner or site takeover. As he described it:
“We really are in the process of reinventing what brand advertising can be on the web… we believe it can be engaging and beautiful and well integrated [and] fully transparent — we’re not trying to trick anyone like some native ads do… we can create high quality media products at large scale, and we can create high value brand advertising at scale as well.”
Last but not least, Nate Silver updates us on his progress and describes the website he’s building:
In contrast to the previous version of the site, which mainly focused on electoral politics, the new FiveThirtyEight will provide coverage of five major subjects: politics, economics, sports, science, and lifestyle. By design, almost any topic in the news can potentially fit into one or more of these categories. Our idea is that the site’s mission will be defined by how we cover the news rather than what we cover.
How will we cover the news? The new version of FiveThirtyEight will seek to apply the concept of data journalism on a wider scale.
What is data journalism? In one sense, data journalism can refer to the application of statistics and other quantitative methods toward issues in the news. Plenty of us are “stat geeks” at FiveThirtyEight. However, our methods will also include data visualization; the development of interactive graphics and features; and investigative and explanatory reporting, especially as applied to publicly-available data sets.
We’re aware that our strengths as a journalistic organization provide more value in some fields than others. For instance, statistical analysis is more likely to be useful when applied to a gubernatorial election in South Carolina than to a civil war in Syria. We have immense respect for news-gathering journalists and for original reporting.
Why Do Men Have Weaker Immune Systems?
T:
This month, a team of scientists at Stanford University has reported some of the best evidence yet that testosterone directly influences immune system function in men. … This finding that testosterone may dial down the immune system in humans is consistent with the results of studies of other animals, ranging from fish to chimps. But why would an essential male hormone deliberately handicap the immune system?
The answer might be that this is one of those odd outcomes that follow from the perverse incentives of evolutionary logic. In 1992, a pair of biologists at the University of Tromsø in Norway proposed the “immunocompetence handicap hypothesis,” which essentially says that males will perform dumb, dangerous stunts to impress females. The idea behind the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis is that, in order to prove their genetic fitness to potential mates, males make a trade-off between a robust immune system and a set of elaborate, testosterone-driven secondary sex characteristics, like brightly colored plumage in tropical birds.
Assortative Mating Takes Off
As Charles Murray noted and predicted years ago, marrying someone with the same level of education has gotten more popular:
The paper’s authors, led by Jeremy Greenwood at the University of Pennsylvania, mined census data from 1960 to 2005 and found that people’s tendency to marry someone of the same education level as their own increased steeply. After taking into account the increases in the education levels for men and women that have occurred between 1960 and 2005, the odds of a college-educated male marrying a college-educated female rose by 12 percentage points.
One more factor behind radical economic and social inequality is asserting itself. I wonder sometimes if this is not also behind some of the cultural and political polarization that plagues us. The more the educated group marry and hang out with each other, the less contact they are likely to have with people outside their purview. How many real friendships, for example, does a college graduate have with someone who didn’t finish high school? If you don’t marry across these gulfs, and your social circle naturally has few people in it who can speak to their own experiences in the truly struggling middle class, how can we begin to cross the red-blue divide?
It’s not that this divide isn’t crossed daily, nor that assortative mating makes it impossible, nor that milder versions of this didn’t always happen. It’s just that so many trends, now exacerbated by this one, are making “one nation” increasingly difficult to sustain. What potent social and economic trends are bringing these two nations together? Reality TV? Millman finds that the shift is largely due to women’s preferences changing:
[W]omen’s preferences have come to match men’s preferences over the 45 years in question. In 2005, the percentage of highly-educated women willing to marry men with a low education was essentially identical to the percentage of highly-educated men willing to marry women with a low education. In 1960, women were much more willing than men to “marry down” educationally-speaking.
Drum qualifies the study by noting that “that assortative mating has actually increased only modestly since 1960.” And he doesn’t blame rising inequality on matrimonial trends:
[R]ising income inequality isn’t really due to a rise in assortative mating per se. It’s mostly due to the simple fact that more women work outside the home today. After all, who a man marries doesn’t affect his household income much if his wife doesn’t have an outside job. But when women with college degrees all start working, it causes a big increase in upper class household incomes regardless of whether assortative mating has increased.
The Politics Of Pot – In Florida
As billboards like this one go up around MetLife Stadium for the Superbowl, the State Supreme court in Florida just upheld a medical marijuana initiative in the ballot this fall. Governor Rick Scott had tried to block the ballot measure in the court, so he’s stuck defending that position in this November’s gubernatorial race against Charlie Crist, who’s backed the initiative. What’s fascinating about this is that Scott is opposing a ballot measure that 70 percent of Republicans in Florida support – along with 87 and 88 percent among Democrats and Independents respectively.
How big an impact could the initiative have? If it brings out Millennial voters in force in a midterm, it could tip a close race. And if medical pot enables a Democrat to win back Florida, it could truly re-orient the national party even more squarely on the issue. And the GOP would be hard-pressed to fight back hard: this could be the wedge issue of the next few years in some states. But the reason this is good news is not partisan. Florida is almost a text book study in the failure and cruelty of Prohibition:
In 2012, law enforcement uncovered 540 marijuana grow houses in Florida, more than any other state in the country.
While medical marijuana legalization will not stop the state’s black market, some law enforcement experts argue it could help reduce the violent crime associated with illegal drugs and reduce the prison population
In 2010, Florida ranked third in the nation for marijuana arrests, with 57,951, behind New York and Texas, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The number accounted for more than 40 percent of the state’s total arrests that year at a cost of $125.6 million.
Medical marijuana also generates more passion among the liberalizers than the prohibitionists. And it’s hard to stare down their arguments without seeming callous. I mean who would want to run against a version of the drug that prevents seizures in children? Or against a wealthy Florida businessman, John Morgan, who has a story like this:
Morgan’s father had emphysema and lung cancer and used marijuana in the waning days of his life, he said. His brother was paralyzed at 18 after a lifeguard accident and also used it to get relief from the pain of his injury.
Advantage: Crist.
The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #189
A reader makes a snap judgment:
Definitely Las Cruces, New Mexico. I recognized the Organ Mountains instantly from my many trips to New Mexico State University for work. Don’t know where in town exactly, but given the new state of what looks like an apartment complex I’d say it’s on the north side of town just west of Interstate 25 where most of the new construction seems to be taking place. Best I could do in the three minutes before heading out the door …
Another also goes with his gut:
I haven’t done the research, but my first reaction to that flatness was somewhere in California’s San Joaquin Valley. I’m sticking with it. John McPhee wrote that the San Joaquin “outplains the Great Plains,” and Hitchcock transplanted a corn field to the San Joaquin, because no location in the Midwest was flat enough for the crop duster scene in North by Northwest.
The housing market has been brutal in the San Joaquin the past several years, and that apartment/condo complex looks new-ish, so I’m going with Merced, which is home to the University of California’s newest campus and maybe a little more resilient.
Another:
The place looks like the San Francisco Bay area, somewhere on the Peninsula. And the “lease” sign looks like it has area code 415 as its first 3 digits. Clearly it’s a US motel (you can see the building 2 sign), along with US stop signs. You’ll get at least 2000 replies saying SFO area.
Most of this week’s contestants did answer the same area, but not San Francisco. Another gets close:
Clearly American Southwest (American because of the double-yellow line in the lower right hand corner, and Southwest because that’s the only place in America that looks like that). At first I was thinking someplace like Henderson, NV, but I think there are more mountains near Las Vegas. Tucson, AZ is the closest of any place I’ve been to resembling the location.
Arizona it is. Another recognizes the city:
After the renewal countdown started appearing on the Dish, I should have expected an obvious ploy to woo my re-up with an easy VYFW contest shot of a neighborhood in my metro. I have neither the skill, time nor patience to search Google images and maps for the exact spot but it looks like southeastern Phoenix to me. Pretty sure that’s Piestewa Peak in the mountain range in the background which is not far from my house.
Alright already! Rest assured my renewal will be forthcoming.
Another notices the main hidden clue for this week’s contest:
Go Tigers!
Another elaborates:
This is totally exciting for me to send this. I love the VFYW contest but they’re always so difficult.
The picture immediately reminded me of how it looks in Arizona. I live in Sierra Vista (not far from the Mexican-American border) which is several hours from Phoenix, but it’s looks pretty similar. The view is from the Phoenix Airport Marriott hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. The sign by the road is “Balsz Tigers” next to the Balsz Elementary school located at 4309 East Belleview, Phoenix, AZ 85008. The hotel is at the corner of E Moreland Street and N 44th street.
I know I won’t win. I know people will send exact floor and window of the hotel, but I don’t care. It’s quite awesome just to send this in for the first time.
And an awesome visual. Another is also just thrilled to be a contender:
One of my FAVORITE parts about the Dish is the VFYW contest, and one of the reasons I renewed my subscription last week was so I could keep seeing the fascinating entries – but I am so excited to send in my FIRST guess! I am sure you are going to get a million entries for this one, since the “Balsz Tigers” is Google-able to Phoenix, Arizona, and the airport Marriott is right there. I’ll guess the sixth floor of the Marriott at 1101 North 44th Street, Phoenix, AZ, and leave your insanely skilled readership to beat me by choosing the room
How fun, thanks for throwing us an easy one! (Now I really hope I’m right and not in the dreaded section above Read On …)
The very first guess we received this week:
Omigod! Okay, I’m not going for the win by figuring out where the hell is the tall building near the Papago Gardens condo complex in Phoenix because I just want to get this in before anyone else does. The elementary school across the street is called Balsz. Yes. And their slogan is “Believe in Balsz … Balsz believes in you!”
Other readers question our motives:
Pretty balszy (or lazy) of you.
Another:
Did you want to see how many people actually play?
461 this week. But the Green Line in Brookline is still our most popular contest ever, as far as entries. Another reader:
Is it some renewal marketing effort or have the pictures from Equatorial Guinea or some sparsely populated Swiss Canton stopped coming in?
Challenging-but-not-too-challenging views have become really scarce in the in-tray, but once in a while it’s good to throw a really easy one in the mix so most people can participate. Another reader:
I see from GoogleMaps that this shot is taken from an upper floor window of the Phoenix Airport Marriott hotel, but I haven’t a clue how to do the trajectory calculation to find the exact window. Kudos to the techies who are masters at this sort of thing. Thanks for throwing a piece of low-hanging fruit to those of us who otherwise despair week after week. Know hope indeed!
And fun for the whole family:
My nine-year-old son has taken an interest in the VFYW contest and this one was easy enough that I could coach him through the steps. While I recognized it as Phoenix right away, I walked him through the steps (plants suggest desert, looks like American city, etc.). He found the “Balsz Tigers” sign and was able to locate the school in PHX using Google. Little bit harder to get the “taken from” concept but the whole experience was fun for him. Later in the morning I heard him quizzing his younger sister about the puzzle and explaining the clues.
Another channels her inner grand-champion:
This photo is taken from the Phoenix Airport Marriott, 1101 North 44th Street, looking northwest. I’m guessing the 12th (i.e., top) floor. Alanza Place Luxury Apartments in the middle of the photo; Balsz Elementary School off to the left – how nice of them to put up a sign for their team!
Given the HUGE clue right in the middle of the photo (maybe it was chosen after a very long day of working on renewals?), I’m sure you’ll have hundreds of correct answers. Maybe that should reduce my excitement level about identifying a View, but I’m still utterly thrilled. You once ran one of my photos (Contest #144) and one of my (incorrect) guesses, but my VFYW footprint is otherwise non-existent. I toil in obscurity. Sometimes I get close; (I guessed Germany last week); more often I’m on the wrong continent.
Until today. This is as close to a Doug Chini moment as I’m going to get, and I’m savoring it!
Speaking of Chini-like triangulation:
Tricky. Google Maps doesn’t have the Balsz Tigers art in the fence, but there aren’t many Balsz Tigers in the world to Google. I’d say it’s from one of the top floors (9th?) from how steeply it can look down on the neighboring buildings and from near the convex part of the building from what was included in the photo.
Another reader knows the area well:
Having lived in Phoenix during my teens I instantly recognized the sharp profile of Piestewa Peak on the horizon, a popular scramble for local climbers and hikers. (We knew it then as Squaw Peak before it was renamed in honor of Lori Ann Piestewa, the Hopi woman who was the first female casualty of the Iraq War and the first Native American woman to die in a US military combat operation)
Another notes:
Piestewa Peak was named after Lori Piestewa, the first woman to be killed in action in the war in Iraq. She was taken as a POW along with her best friend Jessica Lynch but unfortunately died from the injuries she sustained in battle before she could be rescued. It’s good to remember those who served.
Another sends the best visual entry this week:
I’m terrible at guessing heights and room numbers, but I’m going to go with room 1105 – possibly a business suite, a photo of which is attached as BusinessSuite – since those are the only rooms I can find on the Marriott website that show plants in the rooms. (Well, those, and the concierge suite which seems to be on a lower floor and features a balcony.)
Another reader has stayed at the hotel often:
This week’s VFYW is taken from the Phoenix Airport Marriott, located at 1101 N 44th St in Phoenix. I’ll guess its taken from the seventh floor. I’m not sure of an exact room number this week, as I can’t find any posted floor plans of the Phoenix Airport Marriott, most likely due to the fact that it’s an airport hotel and security precautions preclude them from posting photos that might give potential wrongdoers a leg up. I’ve actually stayed there several times in the past, as this was a hotel my former employer used for conferences when I was still working. If only I’d known that eight years later I’d be playing an addictive detective-type game that required a detailed floor plan in order to MAYBE win, I’d have held onto the map that they gave us through my cross-country moves. (If only I was joking …)
Another gets painfully close to the right window:
The window looks skinnier than most of those on the front of the hotel. Based on the angle of the hotel compared to the street, it doesn’t appear to be one of the smaller ones on the half-moon extending out of the left side. Therefore, I’m guessing it has to be one of the very skinny windows just to the right of the half-moon. Since those windows are, in turn, right next to a section of the facade without any windows, I’m guessing these windows are for guests waiting for the elevator. Some eyeballing the distance from the top of the building across the street to the horizon, I’m guessing the 10th floor, but I’m not too confident about that. See the attached image in case my description is not sufficient:
A Phoenix native was tempted to head down to the scene:
I recognized Piestewa Peak right away (formerly known as Squaw Peak), then used the antenna in the distance to figure out that it had to be taken from the airport Marriott on 44th St and Belleview in Phoenix, AZ. As that’s only about a mile from my house, I considered getting in the car and going there to figure out the room. Then I realized it’s the weekend, so I opened a bottle of wine instead. Totally bookworthy.
One more:
There’s no way on Earth I can win this one, since the “BALSZ TIGERS” sign is going to completely give away the location and people are going to spend hours triangulating the exact position of the window in the Phoenix Airport Marriot. Of the 1000+ entries that guess that much correctly, I’m assuming that 300+ will get the correct room. Of those, 100+ will guess how far the photographer was standing from the window, 50+ will know the species of house plant blocking the view, and 5 will somehow deduce the photographer’s blood type. The winner will be the one who did all this successfully 83 times without winning.
Indeed, this week’s winner has correctly guessed numerous previous contest without ever clinching the prize. His detailed entry:
This one was too easy. The Balsz Tigers banner is easily visible along the major thoroughfare, so a Google search for that turned up Balsz Elementary in Phoenix. When you look at that in Google Maps, it’s clear that Balsz Elementary is the building in the left of the VFYW, and the picture is taken from the Marriott. (See image #1 for the range of the view shown in the VFYW.) So this is going to be an issue of getting the right picture.
A view from the other end of the side street visible on the right in the VFYW makes it clear that the center of the Marriot looks slightly different. (See image #2.) A view from N 44th Street, basically a reverse of the window view, confirms that the near windows of the center part would fit the picture. (See image #3) Although the hotel is positioned at an angle to the street, the VFYW seems to be even more angled, indicating that the windows facing more toward N 44th Street would fit.
Then it’s an issue of which floor. I honestly have no idea, so I’m just guessing the window I’ve indicated in image #4, attached.
The submitter of the contest photo verified the exact window for us and added:
I was there for a science fiction convention called Dark Con that featured Adrian Paul of “Highlander” and world-famous science fiction author Gini Koch. After I noticed this week’s contest was based on my photo, it took great restraint on the part of my best friend to keep him from entering. We play every week. I even bought him a Dish subscription to make it easier!
Many thanks to the hundreds of contestants this week, most of whom were playing for the first time. And don’t worry, next week will be much more challenging!
(Archive)
Left Behind
A short, powerful video on one family suffering from long-term unemployment:
But Obama can’t do much about it without help from Congress:
In his Tuesday address, Obama is expected to mention a White House pledge not to discriminate against the long-term unemployed, which major corporations like AT&T, Procter & Gamble, and Xerox have signed onto. It’s a depressingly real problem: research has shown that employers are extremely reluctant to call back job applicants who’ve been out of the labor force for more than six months, no matter their industry, education, or work experience.
It’s a far more modest initiative than the extension of federal unemployment aid that’s now stalled in Congress, despite a vigorous White House lobbying effort.
Chait explains Obama’s intention:
What Obama is trying to do in the State of the Union speech is to create a new kind of social norm in hiring. He’s arguing that employers should not let themselves use this kind of shortcut, and that more careful consideration can actually open up a wider pool of available talent.
Quote For The Day
“Had [Ezra] Klein housed his new operation in a place like ESPN, where Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight now resides, I would be expressing more optimism about his future. ESPN occupies the safest moat in all of media, and as long as Silver anchors his enterprise in its waters, he will be safe. Likewise, if Klein had a history of attracting customers to paid conferences in the manner of former AllThingsD impresarios Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher (who recently started Re/code), I’d predict that his new Vox site would replicate that success. But Klein has no comparable conference biz background, which has become increasingly competitive, and would probably be a bigger slog than establishing his new site. Nor is Vox as deep-pocketed as billionaire Pierre Omidyar, whose fortune constitutes a mighty moat.
I’m not selling Klein short, mind you. But neither am I going long,” – Jack Shafer, the man behind a moat with a big bucket of cold water always on hand.
Can You Repair A Shattered Glass?
Stephen Glass, the fabulist who wrote dozens of false and libelous stories for TNR and other magazines in the ’90s, is still having trouble getting his new career as a lawyer going; the California Supreme Court just denied him admission to the state bar. David Plotz, who strongly dislikes Glass, calls the decision “misguided and cruel”:
The Supreme Court also worries that Glass would fabricate documents and deceive clients, a bizarre and backward conclusion. The very first thing anyone knows about Glass is that he was a liar and a fraud. Any judge he appears before will know: This is that lying journalist. Any opposing counsel will be aware: This is Shattered Glass. He’s not trying to sneak into courtrooms under a new name: He’s Stephen Glass. He is a flashing red highway sign. This is what happens when you Google him. Glass is far less likely than most lawyers to try to sneak something past a judge, because he’ll know that every single word he speaks and document he signs is suspect.
Bmaz agrees:
[W]hile what Glass did as a journalist is appalling, the unyielding and scathing tone of the California Supreme Court seems to be somewhat shocking in the face of the common story of America being a land of redemption and second chances. Especially when the lower tribunals, that heard the real evidence, found otherwise. I guess second chances and redemption are only for banksters and war criminals, but not for a guy who made up some lousy digital media stories. You don’t have to like Stephen Glass to see the disconnect here as to who in American life really gets the shots at second chances.
I hired Glass as a personal assistant way back when.
In that job, he was terrific, as well as meticulous and charming and, in retrospect, sociopathic and manipulative. Mercifully, I had gone from TNR when he was wreaking his terrible damage to the place. I still feel a lot of anger about him and what he did, but I cannot but agree with David. The man at some point deserves to be able to start over. He’s been working as a paralegal in a law firm for ten years; he has passed the bar; there have been no allegations of unethical conduct in his current job. Maybe this says something about the pecking order, as this quote from the NYT suggests:
The question is, Are we prepared to say as lawyers that a man who is no longer considered moral enough to be a journalist is moral enough to be a lawyer? If people flame out in journalism because of dishonesty, is the law open to them? I think the answer is no.
Would journalists say that of an ethically challenged lawyer seeking to write about the news? I doubt it.
The Dish 