The Dish – Page 359

Genes And IQ: An Update, Ctd

A reader quotes me:

“There’s not a huge debate about the heritability of IQ, but a huge amount of debate about how much intelligence can be tied to genes and how much to the environment.” You’ve been careful in the past not to let IQ stand as a proxy for intelligence, so I’m not sure why you absolutely conflate them here. Also, you have a false dichotomy here: genes and environment are not separate influences. Gene expression is mediated by the “environment”.

A well-known example of this is the desert locust, which has a solitary (grasshopper) and gregarious (locust) forms which were, at one time, thought to be different species. Which form develops depends on the social environment of the insect during its development (specifically, the gregarious form develops when its hind legs are often stimulated by other individuals due to crowding.) A particular pair of individuals, one solitary and one gregarious, may have exactly the same genome, but exhibit severe morphological differences upon full adulthood, and these differences are controlled entirely (or nearly entirely) by the genome.

And genomic expression is far more complicated than you make it sound.

There is rarely a straight gene-to-trait pathway of expression. A gene might regulate the expression of another gene, which turns off a separate gene and turns on two more, one of which slows down the expression of the first gene, another of which causes a side effect that … etc, etc. It’s a bewildering tangle of interactions that permeates the cell and well beyond. Do you think it’s possible to document the whole ecology of a rain forest: all of the interactions and feedback loops between plants, insects, animals, the air, the soil, bacteria, worms, sunlight, wind and weather, ocean currents, river sediment, etc, etc? Trying to find which genes affect intelligence is like trying to find particular Amazonian fish species that are responsible for global warming.

Another quotes the article I cited:

“A copy of each variant accounts for only 0.3 points on a standard IQ test (with a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15).” With 126K points, the margin of error for something with a standard deviation of 15 and a 95% confidence interval (meaning that we’re 95% sure that this isn’t just chance) is about 2*15/355 = 0.085 IQ points, so at least the 0.3% looks to be statistically significant, although just barely, since the margin of error is more than 1/4 of the entire effect. And the connection to IQ (as opposed to years of schooling) was based on a sample of 24,000, where the margin of error would be 2*15/155 = 0.2 IQ points, or nearly the entire effect. So, I’m not sure whether these results are statistically significant – the algorithm for mapping the 126K data points of years of schooling through the 24K data points of IQ isn’t specified.

Worse, however, what they did is identify 6 variants that were associated with additional years of schooling. If I told you that several of those variants were associated with Ashkenazy Jews, for example, I would have just found an expensive way of saying that Jews as a group spend more time in school than average. Correlation really doesn’t equal causation. My guess is that they found some genetic markers that are associated with some ethnic groups, and then “discovered” that those ethnic groups spend a little more time in school on average.

The author in the end says “We haven’t found nothing.” But that’s most likely exactly what they found.

Another also scrutinizes the statistics:

I was rather surprised that you went there again:

What to make of this with respect to our cultural and political debate about genes and intelligence? For me, some relief that the area is so complex, and varied, and hard to decipher that we may have more time ahead before these things become more knowable, and thereby may avoid any of the worst social implications for longer than some of us feared.

As a scientist (albeit one completely unfamiliar with the field in question), a result that shows such a minuscule effect, well within the variance in the response of the system is equivalent to there being no effect at all. You should probably become more familiar with statistics but such a result essentially means that there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever between specific genetic markers and cognitive abilities. Such a small effect (an order of magnitude smaller than normal variance in IQ) is very likely the product of the random nature of the sample. Your statement seems to suggest that things are really complicated. They are not, at least when it comes to the conclusions of this study; there are no meaningful correlation between genetic variants and IQ.

Without knowing the literature at all, I am willing to bet that there are studies that find much larger correlations between socio-economic factors and IQ scores. Based on IQ scores of whites vs other groups, I am willing to say that such effects are perhaps an order of magnitude larger than the effects in this study.

Let it go (to quote from Frozen) ...

Everybody’s Working On The Weekend

Looking at a new NBER study, Christopher Ingraham counts the ways Americans are overworked compared to our European peers. For one thing, we’re more likely to take that business call on a Saturday:

The U.S. has the highest incidence of people reporting any paid weekend work. 29 percent of Americans reported performing such work in the American Time Use Survey, more than three times the rate among Spanish workers. It’s important to note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that these workers are working 9 to 5 every weekend, only that they reported performing paid weekend work in a time use survey. This would include things like going into the office for a few hours to finish up a project.

The study showed that Americans are also more likely to work nights. Max Nisen notes the obvious origins of our weird work hours:

These strange work hours probably happen because Americans work so much and lack the enforced vacations and limitations on overtime that exist in some European countries. Nearly twice as many U.S. workers work 45+ hour weeks than in Germany, and more than twice as many do so than workers in France, the Netherlands, and Spain. As the work week grows longer, weekend and “strange” work becomes much more likely.This stands to reason: Someone moving from a comparatively standard week of 35 to 44 hours to a 55- to 64-hour week is almost twice as likely to let that work bleed into weekends and nights, according to the study. …

So what would happen to the U.S. if it adopted similar controls? According to the study, if the country adopted the French distribution of work hours, night and weekend work would drop substantially, but would still remain well above that of continental Europe.

Jordan Weissmann considers other explanations:

[T]he sheer time we spend working doesn’t explain why so many of us find ourselves staring into a glowing Outlook screen at 12:43 a.m. on a Wednesday. Even if Americans worked the same amount of time as the French, Dutch, or British, Hamermesh and Stancanelli find that we’d still be more likely to stay up late tooling around with Excel, reading memos, or doing whatever else it is that keeps us up at ungodly hours. It might be a cultural issue. It might be because we have fewer laws governing when people can and can’t be on the clock. Though it feels unlikely, there might even be a happy story here about enlightened American companies allowing their employees to use flexible schedules to accommodate their personal needs. Whatever the reasons, Americans structure their workweeks differently than Europeans. We’re night owls and weekend MS Office warriors—which, in the eyes of the rest of the world, probably looks pretty nuts.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like ISIS?

A military approach alone won’t do the trick, Zack Beauchamp argues, emphasizing the extent to which Obama’s strategy depends on political factors largely outside his control:

Even assuming the Iraqi and Syrian rebel forces can be made strong enough to take on ISIS in purely military terms, there’s a list of everything that needs go right — politically — for Obama’s strategy to work out:

The Iraqi government needs to stop repressing and systematically disenfranchising Sunnis. It also needs to accommodate their demands for positions of power in government in perpetuity, so ISIS doesn’t just pop back up after the US leaves.

The US must avoid sending the signal that it’s coordinating with Iran, which would put it on the Shia side of a sectarian war.

Syrian rebels armed and trained by the US don’t simply take their new weapons and defect to ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra, the local al-Qaeda affiliate.

US airstrikes and US allied military campaigns need to avoid killing large numbers of civilians, which could cause a pro-ISIS popular backlash.

If the US actually does manage to demolish ISIS’s control on territory, it needs to ensure that neither Syrian President Bashar al-Assad nor al-Qaeda simply take over the land that ISIS has vacated.

The United States has to do all of this without deploying ground troops or otherwise getting caught in a bloody, brutal quagmire.

For the outcome to end well, every single one of these events must go the right way. There’s a reason that one US General told the Washington Post that the new campaign in Syria is “harder than anything we’ve tried to do thus far in Iraq or Afghanistan.” Given how those wars ended up, that’s a pretty ominous comparison.

Deborah Avant also considers ISIS a fundamentally political challenge:

The US has done better at managing crises to roll back attacks in the Middle East. It has not been as successful translating these short-run gains into positive steps toward inclusive governance. Furthermore, US anointment in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to leaders with little legitimacy and little attention to US concerns. The last thing the US wants to do is to intervene in a way that pushes the various anti-government rebels in Iraq (and/or Syria) together with ISIS against perceived US puppets. Though less may not be enough, I agree with Joshua Rovner that less is more when it comes to US presence in the Middle East. A broad strategy involving many others is a good idea. Doing that under the mantle of an American coalition is not. A plan with the US in a supporting, background role has best chance for long run success.

Beyond that, however, what will the US and its allies do about the malaise upon which al-Baghdadi and others have been able to capitalize? … Messages about global citizenship, human security, and an inclusive global politics seemed to evince more hope in the 1990s – perhaps for good reason. The shreds of a hopeful message visible in parts of the Arab Spring have blown into hiding. The US talks more about how to combat extremism than about what might replace it. Though some audiences in the US believe that America holds the keys to the future, many across the world do not.

#WhyIStayed, Ctd

The reactions to the Ray Rice story continue to roll in. CBS Sportscaster James Brown speaks out:

Amanda Marcotte rejects lines of commentary that suggest Ray Rice is a victim:

Because of this vast gulf in male and female experiences of domestic violence, unsurprisingly the impact also varies dramatically. On Tuesday, Catherine Cloutier of the Boston Globe published an examination of how much more seriously women’s lives are impacted by intimate partner violence. The CDC surveyed around 14,000 people to determine the impact of domestic violence on their lives. Men and women were somewhat similar in rates of having endured some kind of assault, at 27.5 percent for men and 29.7 percent for women.

But looking beyond counting individual touches, a different picture emerges. Twenty-four percent of female victims report feeling fearful, compared to 7 percent of men. One in five female victims suffer from PTSD symptoms, whereas only 1 in 20 male victims do. Only 3 percent of male victims suffer physical injury, but over 13 percent of female victims do. Twice as many female victims as male victims missed work because of domestic violence.

The disparity is likely the result of male abuse simply being way more violent and chronic than female abuse. Asking people if they’ve been hit once is relevant, of course, but in measuring the realities of domestic violence, the more important question is if you’re being hit frequently, being terrorized by violence on a regular basis, being stalked and controlled, or being threatened with your life if you try to leave.

Yes, no one should hit anyone else. But that statement is the beginning of the conversation about the problem of domestic violence, not the end of it.

And the Dish is channeling that conversation here. Josh Levin wants the NFL’s other abusers to held accountable:

The best analogy here is to the awful scourge of sexual assault on college campuses. In addition to going to local police, a student can have her complaint heard through a campus adjudication procedure, one that uses “the preponderance of evidence” as a standard of proof rather than a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. (As Emily Bazelon has explained, preponderance of the evidence means “reviewers must find only that it’s more likely than not that the sexual assault or harassment occurred.”) There are problems with these campus systems—the New York Times story on Hobart and William Smith Colleges offers a harrowing account of all that can go wrong—but at least they acknowledge the existence of something akin to institutional responsibility.

At least before TMZ released the Rice video, such a concept did not exist in the NFL. Teams have long operated on the assumption that they could say they’re “aware of the situation,” and then just pretend like nothing happened as soon as the news blew over. At some point, individual teams may decide that it makes sense for them to move to a preponderance-of-evidence standard—to decide that it’s in their best interest to cut a player if it’s more likely than not that he’s a domestic abuser. I don’t know if we’ve reached that point yet, but the Rice video has gotten us closer to that day. Seeing a sports star clock his fiancée in the face has changed something—for fans, for the media, and ultimately, I think, for the teams. If it doesn’t, then the NFL’s problem with domestic violence runs even deeper than we thought.

Alyssa Rosenberg finds wanting NFL Commissioner Goodell’s standard operating procedure:

When it becomes impossible to deny that bad news utterly, his task then becomes to respond in a way that has minimal impact on the NFL’s finances and on the week-by-week play on the field. As long as Goodell is willing to accept the public perception that he is dishonest or in denial, absorbing the damage on behalf of the league, I suppose it is a viable approach to protecting “the integrity of the NFL.” But no matter how much pain Goodell is willing to accept, this is a way of operating that leaves his league a little more battered with every incident. In life, unlike on the gridiron, sometimes it is better to take the hit and move expeditiously to heal from the damage.

Robert Silverman thinks the NFL needs more women:

If the league actually wants to solve the problem, instead of treating it as a particularly thorny public relations issue; if the league had a vested interest in trying to win back a semblance of trust from the 46 percent of their fan base that happens to be female and the unknown percentage of men who are equally repulsed? Here’s one solution: Hire more women and place them in positions of real power.

New Russia Sanctions: A Salvo In The Energy War?

The US imposed additional sanctions on Russia’s finance, energy, and defense sectors today over its involvement in the Ukraine crisis, on the heels of another round of sanctions from the EU:

The U.S. Treasury Department tightened on September 12 debt-financing restrictions for sanctioned banks from 90 days to 30 days. And it added Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution, to the list of state banks subject to the restriction. It also prohibited the exporting of goods, services, and technology for Russian deepwater or offshore projects for five Russian firms: natural gas monopoly Gazprom Gazprom, its oil unit Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftgas, and Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft. Gazprom Neft and pipeline operator Transneft also have new debt restrictions of over 90 days’ maturity. … The European Union’s new sanctions include asset freezes on 24 senior officials and lawmakers, including nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinosvky, bringing to 119 the number of people sanctioned by the bloc over the Ukraine conflict. The measures also include restrictions on financing for some state-controlled Russian companies such as Rosneft, Transneft, and Gazprom Neft.

Noting that the sanctions on Rosneft might freeze a $500 billion joint project with ExxonMobil to drill for oil in the arctic, Matthew Philips comments that “these latest energy sanctions could sever what are arguably the closest ties remaining between Russia and the West”:

In the two decades since the Cold War ended, Russian and American astronauts have worked together on the International Space Station, and the Russian military has helped the U.S. get equipment in and out of Afghanistan. But the strongest area of cooperation has come in the energy industry, where U.S. oil majors such as Exxon and Chevron(CVX) have entered into a number of joint ventures with Russia’s state-controlled energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom (GAZP:RM).

The Bloomberg View editors also tie the EU sanctions to the energy war:

Putin may have himself to blame for tipping the EU’s internal debate against him. By reducing natural gas deliveries to Poland and Slovakia this week, Russia made it clear that it still plans to escalate its effort to turn Ukraine into a failed state. Russia’s state gas company OAO Gazprom has cited maintenance work as the cause of the stoppages. That’s hard to believe. Poland and Slovakia happen to be the two countries that are reversing pipeline flows to pump natural gas from the EU into Ukraine, which Russia cut off from supply in June. The goal was to ensure that Poland doesn’t have enough gas to sell to Ukraine — which is exactly what happened. Slovakia has been warned.

Keith Johnson sees the Kremlin’s latest moves as an escalation in the gas war:

It’s not entirely clear whether the sudden drop in Russian gas exports to those countries is politically motivated or if there is a technical reason, such as maintenance on the Russian gas system or the pipelines themselves. Gazprom said that shipments to both countries remain unchanged. In any event, Polish officials said they have been assured by Russia that gas volumes will return to normal on Friday.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin made clear earlier this year that Moscow would aggressively go after countries that buy Russian gas and then turn around and ship it to Ukraine. That kind of energy trade, known as “reverse flow” because most of the gas pipelines pump fuel from east to west, has long incensed Gazprom and the Kremlin, which charge different countries different prices for gas and which rely on energy exports to maintain leverage over former client states in Central and Eastern Europe.

But Bershidsky calls sanctions on Russia a lose-lose proposition, particularly for Europe:

In this race to the bottom, Russia may prove the more resilient, if only because Putin’s authoritarian regime has a mandate from a majority of Russians to wage a new cold war. The food embargo and the price increases it caused in Russia did not drive down Putin’s approval ratings, and Russians have stoically accepted the ruble’s recent losses against the dollar. The currency depreciation can also help the government weather low raw materials prices by boosting the value of foreign-currency exports in ruble terms.

Europe, on the other hand, cannot take much more economic pain. A new slump could send some governments tumbling. In France, 62 percent of the population already wants President Francois Hollande to resign. The world is too interconnected economically, and the European recovery too fragile, to keep using trade disruptions as weapons. Even Ukraine is taking a hit from slumping metals prices: Steel and iron ore account for about a third of its exports.

Mental Health Break

Who knew Mario was such a dick:

This Is How Homophobia Ends

The relatively quiet, undemonstrative and yet decisive moment to allow self-identified gays to march in New York’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade is an almost text-book case of how homophobia can be undermined. There was mercifully no coercion – freedom of association is a critical principle for a free society. There was growing social pressure – from ordinary folk, organized gays, and, more critically, boycotts by New York politicians. No one is jumping up and down rubbing this quiet victory in. Yes, it took years of protest and anguish and anger to get here – and all the while, homophobia ran rampant. Cardinal Dolan has decided to remain the Grand Marshall of the parade, even with an explicitly gay group in its ranks – a remarkable turn-around from the past. The decision was a pragmatic one:

Dolan said Wednesday that the parade committee that operates the annual event “continues to have my confidence and support.” “Neither my predecessors as archbishop of New York nor I have ever determined who would or would not march in this parade … but have always appreciated the cooperation of parade organizers in keeping the parade close to its Catholic heritage,” he continued. Dolan concluded by praying “that the parade would continue to be a source of unity for all of us.”

Is that a sign that the Francis effect – downplaying the divisiveness of the issue in the Church – or just a sign that the society has evolved to a point where exclusion of gays seemed to counter “unity”?

My bet is that the threat of Guinness boycotting the parade was the final straw. The decision by the march’s organizers to include one gay group was unanimous. Bill Donohue is livid, of course. But even Donohue was reduced to merely arguing that a pro-life group be explicitly included in the parade alongside the gays – and when that didn’t transpire, he threw a tantrum and his organization – presumably him and his fax machine – will not be gracing the parade with its presence.

Too bad. He’s part of the New York Irish community and he belongs there as well. And what you see here, I suspect, is simply another reflection of greater informality in many religious groups and congregations, in favoring more inclusion without explicit rejections of orthodoxy. Michael Paulson has an interesting take on that development in American religion, especially with respect to gays and lesbians:

In the new results, 48 percent of congregations allow openly gay people in committed relationships to be members, up from 37 percent since the second study in 2006, and 27 percent of congregations allow them to serve as volunteer leaders, up from 18 percent.

Alas, Catholics are going backward – because inclusion was easier when gay couples couldn’t get married in a civil ceremony (creating a bizarre discrimination against those gays who have committed to one another for life). But the society moves on – as do congregations, as do public events.

Know change. And it may well come not with a bang, but a whimper.

Back From The Desert, Ctd

This week we have aired various opinions from readers on the fantastic month of guest-blogging. Or how one puts it:

Unbelievably awesome viewpoints and people, even when I don’t agree. So well written. I am reading all of their stuff! In years past, I maybe skipped when Andrew went on vacation. Stupid me.

Another reader:

I have vastly enjoyed this rotation of guest bloggers. From the feminist libertarians to socialist Freddie, I have thoroughly enjoyed the quality of writing, the coherent world views (as opposed to reactionary bluthering), and diversity of opinion. I love disagreeing with such well-articulated philosophies. This is a fabulous place for great ideas and conversations. Much appreciated.

Another:

Can Andrew stay in Ptown another month? Between DeBoer and Shepp and whoever “Dish Staff” may be, I see more of an emphasis on hard thought-provoking news instead of beards, male body hair, and dogs.

Another differs:

I‘ve followed you for years, through various iterations of your online presence, initially driven by getting your reaction to whatever was going on in the world. I eventually made the Dish a daily stop and started to appreciate the non-topical posts. It was fun getting to know someone more personally who I had admired for years. I liked the fact that there was no public comments area, but that reader responses were often posted and engaged. Maybe we risked getting a little too insular at times with recurring jokes and the development of some jargon, but I think it was still a welcoming online environment.

I’ve been on board with the move to independence and hiring staff from the beginning, but the blog has developed into more of an e-zine than a personal blog. This is accentuated, of course, with you on vacation. I guess all of this is to say, I like it, but this is not what I came here for.

Maybe it’s inevitable, as your site evolves, your audience will too. Some like me may become less engaged, but you may add more new readers in the process. But while there’s a lot of interesting content to be found on the web, mostly for free, there’s only one Andrew.

More feedback:

I am so sad to see Sue Halpern and Bill McKibben’s guest stint come to an end. I enjoyed their humane, sane, engaging, and thoughtful posts. In particular, I’m grateful for McKibben’s posts about the golden age of radio. I have since listened to several of the podcasts/shows at Radiotopia and will certainly listen to many more – what a trove! I probably would not have come across it without his Dish post, so thank you. I also appreciated the posts on climate change and wish I could be in NY to join the protest. The variety, range, and quality of all the guest bloggers’ posts has made it a particularly stimulating month at the Dish. I especially loved Matthew Sitman’s “Reading Your Way Through Life” thread, as well as his post on Reinhold Niebuhr; and I appreciated everything posted by Freddie deBoer.

In the past, I’ve found myself checking the Dish less often (though still regularly) during Andrew’s vacations. But the opposite has been true these past few weeks. The Dish has served up quite a feast in his absence. Thanks again!

And props to another young blogger:

I really enjoyed Jonah’s post on expatriates – it caught my attention like nothing else has today. I don’t really have anything to contribute, personally, but I wanted to compliment his writing and perspective. I look forward to follow-up posts on different people’s experiences on a fascinating subject.

Read those here. Another reader:

I just wanted to voice my happiness with the content Elizabeth and Phoebe have provided thus far. I’ve really enjoyed reading their perspective on family leave, affirmative consent, and female sexuality. The Dish has always covered gender issues more than many people are aware, but it’s nice to get some more in depth editorial comment on those topics.

Another:

The stories that were commonplace in my other online spaces (Facebook, feminist blogs, women writers groups) were suddenly appearing on The Dish (and it made me realize I hadn’t seen as many of them before). Now, one of the reasons I come to The Dish is for stories I don’t find elsewhere. So it’s not like I need to see these stories of interest to women in yet another place. But. Their inclusion made me feel more like I belong here. And more importantly, for the majority of your readers, who I know are men, I’m glad they are seeing stories that focus on issues important to women.

Another adds, “I love Andrew, but the feminine energy these two ladies brought to the Dish was a refreshing change of pace.” As another puts it:

Nice to have a heterosexual female perspective from Phoebe with some splash of fashion! Certainly rounds out all the talk of back hair.

But another woman dissents:

I’d like to respectfully disagree with the reader who wrote that he/she would miss Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Phoebe Maltz Bovy. I will not. Their posts struck me as the kind of unfocused, rambling conversations that my friends and I have. Nice and all, but rarely leading to new information or thoughts; these are “sharing” kind of conversations about our own experiences. I read The Dish because there is a lot of detailed information and sharp analysis/perspectives. Yes, the Dish turned into a sort of Jezebel, but for that I can go to Jezebel.

Another reader:

I’ve put off subscribing for far too long. I always had some excuse, usually “the internet should be free” which is obviously a cop out. In any case, the tipping point came last week and this, when you’ve let others like Elizabeth Nolan Brown and my personal friend Freddie deBoer guest-post. How can I not endorse a blog like yours, that has regularly featured other voices that ardently dissent to your own opinion? How can I not support a website that has on five different occasions featured my emailed comments?

I very often disagree with you. For example your reactionary stance on circumcision makes me roll my eyes every time you bring it up. And honestly I don’t care whether your blog’s economic model will work for others online. But the bottom line for me is that I want you to keep doing what you are doing, and by subscribing I can help you with that.

Another has a different line of reasoning:

I am laughing at myself as I write this – but here’s why I just became a brand new subscriber to the Dish: your guest bloggers are annoying! Sometimes the content is annoying, and sometimes it’s just that they expend an absurd amount of verbiage to make very simplistic points: droning on about Buzzfeed, say, in a treatise whose length you would devote only to a very thoughtful meditation on an important world event. I now fully appreciate how rare your talent and keen insight is, because it’s been made painfully evident by its absence this month. If this was a clever marketing scheme, well played.

One more:

I’m sure these emails get vetted by staff, which is good because this isn’t directed to Andrew anyway. I just wanted y’all to know that I am very much looking forward to Andrew’s hiatus. Of course I am a big fan of his, or I wouldn’t be a subscriber. But last year when he was on vacation I enjoyed the fresh takes on the topics and the change in “voice”. For what it’s worth, I believe the regular introduction of guest bloggers – even when Andrew is around – will only improve the Dish. So keep up the good work.

The Rebirth Of Political Correctness, Ctd

Nick Gillespie reacts to some freedom-of-speech controversies on campus:

A student publication at the university [of Western Ontario], The Gazette, published an irreverent special issue for incoming freshmen. Among the articles was a clearly satirical piece titled, “So you want to date a teaching assistant?” It included such tips as, “Do your research. Facebook stalk and get to know your TA. Drop in on his or her tutorials, and if you’re not in that class — make it happen…. Ask your own smart questions, answer others’ dumb questions, and make yourself known in the class. Better yet, stand out as a pupil of interest.” …

The piece immediately set off “a furor,” with the union representing T.A.s calling for the piece to be taken down for promoting sexual harassment and the university provost publicly castigating the paper for being “disrespectful.” The offending material was quickly pulled off from the paper’s website and the editors wrote a groveling, ritualistic apology, promising to report “on these issues in a more serious manner in the future.”

Gillespie fears the educational implications of such incidents:

We’re told that college is an absolute necessity in today’s advanced society. Higher education alone can cultivate the critical thinking skills and independence of thought that drives not just economic innovation but social progress too. Yet over the past 30 or so years, college has become an irony-free zone, one in which every utterance is subjected to withering cross-examinations for any possibility of offense across a multitude of race, class, gender and other dimensions.

Previous Dish on the subject here.

The Syrian Quagmire

Douthat considers Obama’s case for war in Syria specifically and finds it lacking:

Writing in support of our initial northern Iraqi intervention, I argued that it passed tests that other Middle Eastern interventions, real and hypothetical, did not: There was a strong moral case for war and a clear near-term military objective and a tested ally to support and a plausible strategic vision (maintaining Kurdistan as a viable, American-friendly enclave, while possibly giving the government in Baghdad an incentive to get its act together) for what such an intervention could accomplish.

Based on what we’ve heard from the president, an expansion of the war to Syria does not pass enough of those tests to seem obviously wise or necessary or likely to succeed. We have no Kurd-like military partner in that country and we’re relying on Saudi training(!) to basically invent one, there isn’t even the semblance of a legitimate central government, and the actor most likely to profit from U.S. airstrikes is an Iranian-aligned dictator who makes Maliki look like Cincinnatus.

Josh Rogin sympathizes with the Free Syrian Army, whose leaders say that if the US provides them with arms, they will use them to fight Assad as well as ISIS:

[T]he Syrian opposition and the Free Syrian Army aren’t waiting for legal authorization to fight the Damascus regime; they are getting bombarded by Assad’s Syrian Arab Army every day, as it continues to commit mass murder of Syrian civilians through the siege of major cities, the dropping of barrel bombs, and the continued use of chlorine gas to kill innocents, according to international monitors. “The fight against ISIS is one part of a multi-front war in Syria. The brutal rule and poor governance of the Assad regime generated the conditions for ISIS become the global threat that it is today,” Syrian National Coalition President Hadi AlBahra told The Daily Beast on Thursday.

But Allahpundit thinks its crazy to expect the FSA to prevail, even with American backing:

Some dissenting U.S. analysts think there are moderates still in Syria we can work with but good luck picking them out of the gigantic crowd of Sunnis currently fighting Assad. For the sake of my own sanity, I need to assume that this whole “training the moderates” thing is just a big ruse being cooked up by the Pentagon as a pretext for inserting more reliable Sunni forces into the fray in Syria against ISIS. The Saudis have already offered to host the “training”; presumably, a whole bunch of the “Syrians” who end up being sent back onto the battlefield are going to be Saudi, Iraqi, and Jordanian regulars with U.S. special forces support. They could hit ISIS where it lives while posing as locals so as to spare their governments the political headache involved in sending their troops into the Syrian maelstrom. (They’d also suddenly be well positioned to threaten their other enemy, Assad.) If I’m wrong about that and we really are depending upon Syrian non-jihadis to somehow overrun ISIS in the east, hoo boy.

Jessica Schulberg points out that Washington has already been arming the Syrian rebels for a year, albeit covertly:

Obama’s decision to shift the Syrian training operation from the CIA to the Defense Department could also indicate that he sees a longer-term role for U.S. advisers in Syria than he did previously. The CIA’s advantage is that it is capable of carrying out small operations quickly, unencumbered by traditional bureaucratic restraints. The Defense Department, by contrast, requires authorization but is more capable of training a large, conventional fighting force. In this case, however, the $500 million Obama has requested from Congress for the Syrian opposition will likely prove inadequate. The U.S. has already spent over $2 billion in Syria, with little effect. It took more than $2 trillion of U.S. spending in Iraq to restore some semblance of a centralized government and military.

Juan Cole suspects that geopolitical considerations are at play here:

[I]n Iraq the outside great powers are on the same page. But in Syria, the Obama administration is setting up a future proxy war between itself and Russia once ISIL is defeated (if it can be), not so dissimilar from the Reagan proxy war in Afghanistan, which helped created al-Qaeda and led indirectly to the 9/11 attacks on the US. Obama had earlier argued against arming Syrian factions. My guess is that Saudi Arabia and other US allies in the region made tangible backing for the Free Syrian Army on Obama’s part a quid pro quo for joining in the fight against ISIL.

(Photo: A Syrian woman makes her way through debris following a air strike by government forces in the northern city of Aleppo on July 15, 2014. By Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images.)