The Dish

James Surowiecki blogs about his column from this week. This is worth noting:

[A]s this paper from economists at the Federal Reserve shows, the growth in indebtedness has largely been driven by demographic changes and housing prices. Most interestingly, as Elizabeth Warren has argued, the idea that most Americans have been spending frivolously on consumer goods actually isn’t true. Instead, a hefty chunk of the increase in consumption in recent decades has been the result of higher housing prices, the rising cost of medical care, more spending on education, and childcare.

A generation ago, Warren says, basics (housing costs, health insurance, transportation, education, and taxes) accounted for fifty-four per cent of the average family’s income. Today, they account for seventy-five per cent of it. Now, some of those costs arguably do reflect a lack of frugality—homes are more expensive in part because they’re so much bigger. But the fact that more than fifteen per cent of personal consumption expenditures now go to medical care, when in 1930 only three per cent of personal consumption did, isn’t a reflection of frivolity, and that’s not going to change any time soon. In fact, when you actually look at what Americans spend money on today versus what they spent it on fifty years ago, it’s striking that Americans today actually spend less of their income on goods—including everything from furniture to clothing to food to appliances—and much more of their income on services. For the savings rate to get back to ten to twelve per cent, in other words, will require a lot more than having people stop buying flat-screen televisions.

Earlier this year Terry Eagleton had an involved essay on the role of religion in society. This Dish missed it at the time:

The distinction between Hitchens or Dawkins and those like myself comes down in the end to one between liberal humanism and tragic humanism. There are those who hold that if we can only shake off a poisonous legacy of myth and superstition, we can be free. Such a hope in my own view is itself a myth, though a generous-spirited one. Tragic humanism shares liberal humanism’s vision of the free flourishing of humanity, but holds that attaining it is possible only by confronting the very worst.

The only affirmation of humanity ultimately worth having is one that, like the disillusioned post-Restoration Milton, seriously wonders whether humanity is worth saving in the first place, and understands Swift’s king of Brobdingnag with his vision of the human species as an odious race of vermin. Tragic humanism, whether in its socialist, Christian, or psychoanalytic varieties, holds that only by a process of self-dispossession and radical remaking can humanity come into its own. There are no guarantees that such a transfigured future will ever be born. But it might arrive a little earlier if liberal dogmatists, doctrinaire flag-wavers for Progress, and Islamophobic intellectuals got out of its way.

(Hat tip: 3QD)

Riding High from 13thWitness™ on Vimeo.

Ackerman reports on the alleged rift between McChrystal and Obama:

Officials throughout the Obama administration, military and civilian, deny any rift and contend that the controversy over McChrystal’s remarks is a media-driven event with little substance. Some noted that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has set himself up as a key swing vote in the debate over changing Afghanistan strategy, has zealously guarded the administration’s freedom of action, and reacted very badly to the leak of McChrystal’s assessment — which did not, several civilian and military officials confirm, come from McChrystal’s staff. “The impact may be the opposite of the leaker’s intent,” said an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “This will increase the determination of the civilian leadership not to be rushed or pressured.”

That's what China re-named "Boogie Nights." Israelis changed "BASEketball" to "The Ball Died Laughing." More translated titles from around the world here.

A reader writes:

Quite by chance, I was at a friend’s beach house recently, picked out of the shelf a musty volume of Ogden Nash, and stumbled on this:

On a Good Dog

O, my little pup ten years ago
was arrogant and spry,
Her backbone was a bended bow
for arrows in her eye.
Her step was proud, her bark was loud,
her nose was in the sky,
But she was ten years younger then,
And so, by God, was I.

Small birds on stilts along the beach
rose up with piping cry.
And as they rose beyond her reach
I thought to see her fly.

If natural law refused her wings,
that law she would defy,
for she could hear unheard-of things,
and so, at times, could I.

Ten years ago she split the air
to seize what she could spy;
Tonight she bumps against a chair,
betrayed by milky eye!
She seems to pant, Time up, time up!
My little dog must die,
And lie in dust with Hector's pup;
So, presently, must I.

A website to prove it. Once upon a time…

And a dad in drag, after the jump:

That mustache is a little too convincing.

(Hat tip: Eliot Glazer)

A reader writes:

I'm an ER veterinarian who has experienced the wonders of chocolate vomit hundreds of times over the years, but has yet to slide into it headfirst. I'm writing because you mentioned giving salt to induce vomiting. While this has been a commonly advocated method in the past, it is no longer recommended. The salt can cause an increase in blood sodium levels, which can cause significant problems for the dog. A trip to the vet for a safer emetic is recommended, but if that is not possible due to distance or time frame, hydrogen peroxide can be given by mouth to dogs only. The amount administered is small and varies based on the weight of the dog, so call your local veterinarian or the always-helpful ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center for advice before administering.

In some ways, Obama's fealty to the big gay lobby rather than to the real gay community is testimony to why Democratic party politics remain repulsive to me. HRC has achieved nothing substantive for gay equality on a federal level in the twenty years I've been observing them. But they sure know how to milk donors at swanky black tie affairs. They are the Rotary Club for affluent gays, and their prime job is to explain to the gay community why it is never in the Democratic party's interest to do anything for gay people that might actually resemble equality. Oh, yes, we'll get a lovely Obama speech. Like that costs him anything or proves anything.

There is nothing Obama can say at this self-satisfied, well-heeled Rotary Club dinner that he hasn't said before. And the idea that simply showing up is something we should all be ecstatic over and grateful for is another sign of the low self-esteem and lack of self-respect among the leaders of that organization who did all they could to defeat Obama in the primaries last spring. I won't be there and haven't been there for more than a decade. It is not a forum to advance gay rights; it is a fundraising session designed to make people feel better for backing an organization incapable of passing laws supported by overwhelming majorities of the American people. Oh, and fawning over B-list Hollywood celebrities.

If Obama wants to support gay equality, he knows what to do. If Pelosi and Reid want to support gay equality, they know what to do. If HRC believes in gay equality, they also know what to do.

So spare us the schmoozing and the sweet-talking and do it. Until then, Mr president, why don't you have a nice steaming cup of shut-the-fuck-up?

Here's something that Bill Kristol can truly celebrate about Iraq. Liberation has unleashed Shiite death squads against gay men in that country, perpetrating horrible torture, violence and murder. Now that's a liberation the theocons can get behind. Of course, I know of no Obama administration statement of concern or plan of action on this either, and perhaps there is nothing to be done.

But it remains the case that a country still occupied by 130,000 US troops is cleansing its society of a beleaguered minority and the US military and government are silent and standing by. If this pogrom were taking place against any other minority, it would be front-page news. But gays are expendable; and in the view of the current GOP base, they are reaping what they sow.

Mercifully, some people are doing something to save those living in terror. Here's a moving story of how hard they are fighting and who they are helping.