Category: The Dish

Thanassis Cambanis checks in on the country. He recognizes that “the core grievances that drew frustrated Egyptians to Tahrir Square in the first place remain unaddressed”:

Police operate with complete impunity and disrespect for citizens, routinely using torture. Courts are whimsical, uneven, at times absurdly unjust and capricious. The military controls a state within a state, removed from any oversight or scrutiny, with authority over a vast portion of the national economy and Egypt’s public land. Poverty and unemployment continue to rise, while crises in housing, education, and health care have grown even worse than the most dire predictions of development experts. Corruption has largely gone unpunished, and Sisi has begun to roll back an initial wave of prosecutions against Mubarak, his sons, and his oligarchs.

But the overthrow of Mubarak has had an impact:

The legacies of the revolution are hotly contested, but one is indisputable: Large numbers of Egyptians believe they’re entitled to political rights and power. That remains a potent idea even if revolutionary forces and their aspiration for a more just and equitable order seem beaten for now.

In the worst of times under Mubarak, and before him Sadat and Nasser, mass arrests, executions, and the banning of political life kept the country quiet. But as Egypt heads toward the fourth anniversary of the January 25th uprisings, things are anything but quiet, despite the best efforts of Sisi’s state. Dissidents are smuggling letters out of jail. Muslim Brothers protest weekly for the restoration of civilian rule. Secular activists are working on detailed plans so that next time around, they’ll be able to present an alternative to the status-quo power. No one believes that this means another revolution is imminent, but the percolating dissatisfaction, and the ongoing work of political resistance, suggest that it won’t wait 30 years either.

A group of people who call themselves anti-coup demonstrators, stage a protest in the Helmeyat el Zeytun district of Cairo, Egypt on January 8, 2015. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Rosie Cima examines research on how “people are disproportionately attached to songs that were on the radio when they were young”:

For better or for worse, this preference seems to override things like the critical quality of the music — people just plain like music more if it was popular when they were young, regardless of whether or not that music was terrible. But an even stranger thing about all this is that these preferences appear to be inheritable. In 2012, researchers from Cornell University and UC Santa Cruz exposed a bunch of college-aged subjects to clips of Billboard top singles dating back to 1955. Then, they surveyed the subjects’ responses.

The researchers’ found that, in addition to liking  music from their own generation, “subjects also displayed a similar attachment – including a feeling of nostalgia — to music that was popular in the early 1980s, long before they were born“:

“According to previous research, this would be the time when [the subject’s] parents’ preferences were established,” the researchers write. Their theory is that because of this attachment, parents listened to this music during their “child rearing years” contributing to their children’s musical education.

And there’s another bump in attachment, preference, and nostalgia for music that was popular in the 1960s. Although researchers mention that this music might just be higher-quality and thus have stayed in the popular listening repertoire longer (earning the label “classic rock”), they also say this bump could be the product of grandparents’ influence, either directly or through the parents, on the subjects’ listening habits and music-associated memories.

Megan Garber comments:

What the research also means, on a more collective level, is that there is a psychological reason that “Hey Ya” will inevitably be bringing people to the dance floors of the weddings of 2040—and that only part of that reason can be attributed to humanity’s ongoing desire to shake it like a Polaroid picture. Just as nostalgia tends to confer more nostalgia, popularity also tends to build on itself: Once a song makes it to the top of the charts, the memories people associate with it help to keep it in our cultural consciousness.

Matt O’Brien describes yesterday’s events:

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) shocked markets on Thursday by announcing that it would no longer hold the value of the Swiss franc down at 1.2 per euro, although it would lower interest rates from -0.25 to -0.75 percent. Mayhem ensued. The Swiss franc immediately shot up as much as 39 percent against the euro, before settling at “only” up 17 percent on the day. This is basically the biggest single-day move for a rich country’s currency, as economist David Zervos points out, in the last 40 years. And it’s sent Switzerland’s stock market down 10 percent, as its suddenly more expensive currency will cripple its exporters by making their goods more expensive abroad.

Neil Irwin explains how, amid the euro crisis of 2011, if “you were a company or rich person in a country like Greece or Italy or even France or Germany, fearful that the euro could go kablooey and your local banks with it, you were sorely tempted to catch a flight to Zurich or Geneva and deposit your money in a Swiss bank”:

All those people looking to park money in Switzerland, a country of only 8 million people, created incredible upward pressure on the Swiss franc. From the start of 2010 to mid-2011, the value of the franc rose 44 percent against the euro.

Think about that for a minute. It would be as if dollars in the state of Virginia (with a population similar to Switzerland) suddenly were worth 44 percent more than the dollars used in the rest of the country. Virginians would be wealthier, but it would be a catastrophe for businesses in the state. Suddenly their costs would be 44 percent higher, effectively, than that of competitors in other states. Tourism would dry up; why go to a Virginia beach when it is 44 percent more expensive than a North Carolina beach?

Jordan Weissmann reviews the same history:

When the euro crises went into full swing during 2011, panicking money men saw the franc as a safe haven and started buying it en masse, pushing up its exchange rate with the euro, and pushing some exporters into bankruptcy. Sensing an emergency, the Swiss National Bank declared that it would start buying euros in “unlimited quantities” to keep the franc’s value down. Thus, we got the cap.

So what changed? Buying unlimited quantities of euros is about to get expensive. The European Central Bank is about to begin a round of quantitative easing to revive the region’s economy—which, for all intents and purposes, means it will be printing lots of euros, which Switzerland would have to purchase in bulk to maintain its exchange rate. That’s just not sustainable. So, instead, it’s bidding goodbye to the cap, and riding out the nasty economic consequences.

In his column today, Krugman argues that “the Swiss just made a big mistake”:

But frankly — francly? — the fate of Switzerland isn’t the important issue. What’s important, instead, is the demonstration of just how hard it is to fight the deflationary forces that are now afflicting much of the world — not just Europe and Japan, but quite possibly China too. And while America has had a pretty good run the past few quarters, it would be foolish to assume that we’re immune.

Dean Baker disagrees that Switzerland made a mistake:

Switzerland did not see the same sort of downturn as the rest of the OECD in 2008. Furthermore, it has fully recovered from its downturn with a GDP that is 8 percent above its pre-recession level and an unemployment rate of 3.5 percent.

In this context, it is actually doing what we should want Switzerland to do as a good world citizen. By allowing its currency to rise, it will make its goods and services less competitive internationally. This means it will import more from its trading partners and export less, effectively providing them with an economic boost. This is what we should want to see. The countries that are at or near full employment should be running larger trade deficits or smaller surpluses.

However, Scott Sumner sees Switzerland’s actions as monumentally stupid:

I sometimes receive back channel communication from very-well informed people in Europe. Believe me, just as with the earlier nonsense in Sweden, there is no “rational explanation.”  People are appalled.

And Mark Gilbert worries about future financial surprises:

While victims of the turmoil ponder whether Swiss policy makers are irresponsible or just incompetent, the scale of the damage is a timely reminder that contagion is always unpredictable, that markets always overshoot, and that traders, when they smell profit, can outgun central banks.

M.G. Oprea spells out why changing France’s immigration policy won’t prevent future attacks:

The truth is, the men who launched these attacks in the name of Islam were French citizens. They were born and educated in France. They didn’t recently immigrate, and they didn’t import terrorism from a foreign land where they were raised. They were radicalized at home, in France. This is why cutting off immigration from North Africa, where most of France’s Muslim population comes from, or other Muslim countries, will not change the strained state of affairs in France among its citizens, or insulate them from further terrorist attacks.

She declares that “the French Muslim men who join radical Islamist movements often do so in the context of growing up in a country that has never wanted them”:

France has made a series of dangerous mistakes that immigration reform can’t fix. They have alienated a community of Muslims five million strong, and the youths in this community are doubling down on their Muslim identity. Because radical Islam considers itself at war with the West, it appeals to young people who want to reject the Western culture and society they feel has rejected them. So they turn to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, often finding their inspiration in prisons, where Arab youths are frequently radicalized.

A recent study found that large numbers of Europe’s Muslims are fundamentalist:

For Ruud Koopmans, sole author of a study published in early January in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and director of the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre (Germany), religious fundamentalism is defined in three ways: that believers should return to the eternal and unchangeable rules laid down in the past; that these rules only allow one interpretation and are binding for all believers; and that religious rules should have priority over secular laws.

He found that “between 40% and 45% of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas, that is they agree with the three definitions of the term”:

The results show that if first and second generations are considered and if each definition is taken independently, almost 60% would return to the roots of Islam, 75% think there is only one interpretation of the Koran possible to which every Muslim should stick, and 65% say that religious rules are more important to them than the rules of the country in which they live. “However in second generation Muslims the levels are slightly lower (between 50% and 70%),” states the expert.

Justin Gest fears that, after these attacks, “French Muslims — particularly their inclusion in French society — may not recover”:

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Western countries have enacted policies that prioritize counterterrorism and populism at the expense of social cohesion. Governments have implemented search and surveillance practices that target people based on their appearance or names; exceptional rules that alter detention standards for those held on charges pressed predominantly against certain minorities; citizenship criteria that discriminate against residents of certain origins or faiths; and cultural policies that prohibit certain religious practices and traditions but not others.

Critics have shown how such actions fail to secure societies. Far more worryingly, my research shows that such actions amplify a much greater threat for Western Muslims: their political withdrawal.

Belgium raided an alleged terrorist cell yesterday:

In Belgium, officials said they had averted “imminent” large-scale attacks on police targets after raiding a terror cell in the eastern town of Verviers, near the German border, whose members had recently come back from Syria.

John Hinderaker wants to strip returning jihadists of citizenship:

It seems obvious that anyone who leaves the U.S. or a European country to fight for ISIS or al Qaeda should not be allowed to return. But we are talking about citizens here–Belgian authorities have said, I believe, that the terrorism suspects are all Belgian citizens–and so far, to my knowledge, no country has enacted such a ban.

This may not be entirely due to a lack of will. The jihadists travel to a legal destination–Turkey, say–and disappear from there. While authorities may be aware of them and know that they have jihadist sympathies, there may or may not be clear evidence that a particular person joined ISIS or al Qaeda. Still, it seems long past time for Western countries, including the U.S., to try to prevent such obvious terror threats from re-entering the country.

But Juan Cole focuses on how few Belgian Muslims have fought for ISIS or al Qaeda:

About 310 Belgian Muslim young men appear to have gone to fight in Syria, with 40 having been killed there and 170 still in the field. About 100 have returned to Belgium. … Note that 310 volunteers for Syria out of some 500,000 Muslims is not very many, contrary to what some press reports imply. It is a fraction of a percent. You can get 300 people to believe almost anything (e.g. Heaven’s Gate ). Moreover, there are all kinds of rebel groups fighting the government in Syria, and you can’t just assume that the 100 returnees all served with al-Qaeda or Daesh (ISIS or ISIL). Several of the major rebel groups in Syria that they would have joined are extremist. The Support Front or Jabhat al-Nusra is an al-Qaeda affiliate. Daesh controls much of eastern Syria now. The Saudi-backed Islamic Front in Aleppo has become more and more extreme. However, in the past 4 years or so there have been moderate and even secular-minded rebel groups, so that they are returnees does not necessarily mean they are al-Qaeda.

Regardless, Christopher Dickey remarks that “the authorities in Europe now believe it is too dangerous to let potential terrorists who have fought and trained abroad continue to roam the streets”:

Alain Bauer, one of France’s leading criminologists and an expert on counterterrorism, tells The Daily Beast that there’s widening recognition that surveillance tactics and strategies will have to change.

“Counterterrorism used to be like counternarcotics,” says Bauer. “You wait and you wait, and then you get another guy, with the idea that you are working your way eventually to the boss. But time, which was the ally of counterterrorism in the past, is now the enemy.” In the old days, suspects were followed from training camp to training camp, from connection to connection, as authorities mapped out whole networks. But the Internet allows connections to be made very quickly, and inspiration for attacks to take effect without any direct connection at all.

selma reminder: 89% on metacritic 99% on rotten tomatoes and an A+ CinemaScore rating

— Mike Cavalier (@mikecavalier) January 15, 2015

As we covered yesterday, the film’s low number of Oscar nods was probably more a victim of a screener scheduling than anything else. But Noah Millman, contra most film critics, “had the feeling that most people didn’t really love the film”:

Indeed, I suspect that the Best Picture nomination is itself a kind of consolation prize, that voters were reluctant to shut it out altogether from the major categories. I understand why some observers are troubled by the unbearable whiteness of this year’s awards. But it isn’t fair for a single film to shoulder so much expectation. If it’s a problem, the problem originated not in this year’s voters but in casting and financing decisions made years before.

Beutler doesn’t buy that consolation prize argument:

Nearly all of the Oscar trophies are meant to reward skill and stylistic judgment, but the best movie award is the most subjective and thus the most malleable.

It’s capacious enough to allow that a story can be inspired, and the decision to turn it into a film brilliant, even if the technical execution is ultimately flawed. Selma isn’t a best picture nominee because the Academy felt politically obligated to recognize it somehow, but because best picture is the one category that really fits.

Suderman is befuddled as to why the film didn’t as least get an additional nod for Best Director:

I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I’ll leave that argument alone except to note that it’s always a little bit weird to see a movie nominated in the Best Picture category but not in the Best Director category, as if a film could be the best movie of the year but not also the best directed. You can imagine a case for the distinction, of course, but the Academy’s voting and nomination patterns don’t make that case.

But since 2009, the number of Best Picture slots has been double the number of slots for Best Director, shattering that pattern. And again, Paramount didn’t have time to send out screener DVDs to the Directors Guild. A Dish reader puts it well:

While the term “Academy” may evoke visions of hallowed hallways filled with wizened old intellectuals who bestow honors on film artists, it’s actually Hollywood’s PR machine. A qualified film not receiving “enough” nominations is no reflection of the quality of the film. Instead, it’s simply a failure of the film’s PR hacks’ effectiveness at marketing directly to the Academy voters. It’s not the film’s fault, nor is it the Academy’s fault; it’s the film’s publicists’ fault. In the case of Selma, I’ve seen more publicity for Paddington!

David Sims zooms out from Selma:

It’s crucial to note [that] the Oscars’ “diversity” shouldn’t begin and end with more nominations for Selma, which, to repeat, is a particularly Oscar-friendly movie. Plenty more films starring people of color—Beyond the Lights, Dear White People, Top Five, Rosewater, Belle—got barely a sniff of Academy attention (Beyond the Lights did get a Best Original Song nomination).

A reader notes:

It seems to have escaped all these commentators that African Americans do NOT define diversity. Alejandro Friggin’ Iñarritu is the Mexican director of Birdman, nominated for Best Director. He is hardly white. In fact, here in Mexico, his apodo (nickname) is El Negro.

Moving past the “snub” debate, Aisha Harris highlights was makes Selma so deserving of its Best Picture nomination:

[Director Ava DuVernay] rightly and effectively puts the black community at the center of the change of that moment, revealing in dramatic form the many moving parts that it took to get an important bill passed. It is not merely an “MLK biopic,” as many (including me) dubbed it before seeing it—it’s about the many black people (John Lewis, Hosea Williams, Andrew Young) and support from progressive non-blacks (James Reeb, Archbishop Iakovos) that it took to push progress forward when Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to focus on other policy battles first.

And that, perhaps more than anything else, is what makes Selma such an ideal Oscar contender, and what makes its Best Picture nomination truly matter. It rises above other biopics—including its fellow nominees The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything—because it doesn’t cling to the ingrained falsehood that one extraordinary, brilliant man can be solely, or almost entirely, responsible for a major societal breakthrough. Is King portrayed by DuVernay as the inspiring force that he was? Of course—she doesn’t deny history. But she also shows how King could never have gotten things done without the minds, the risk, the sweat, and the cooperation of many others. And in that sense, the academy has finally gotten this side of history right.