The Dish

I am now informed that Typepad did not go "belly-up," as I intemperately spluttered this morning. But there's a glitch in it that I stumbled onto that Patrick (peace be upon him) had to call customer service a while back to fix. I needed a hard refresh it turned out. Don't we all every now and again?

Austin Bramwell reviews Sam Tanenhaus' new book, The Death of Conservatism:

The conservative movement isn't dangerous or "revanchist;" it's just boring. Right-wing intellectuals should eschew the movement and reintegrate into the mainstream, not because the movement threatens the Republic, but because freedom of thought can only be found outside of it.

I hope the Dish can play a part in trying to add ideas and debates to the mix. The only movement I believe in is in the morning after my coffee.

E.D. Kain asks:

If Andrew believes that “no parent has a right” to circumcise their infant, why does he allow for the religious exception for Muslims and Jews?  Would the same be true for female circumcision?  Should we allow the religious African immigrants whose customs include female genital mutilation to continue with that practice – but not everybody else?  Where is the boundary to be drawn between the right of the infant and the religious freedoms of the parents?

That’s a good question. I tend to defer to religious freedom whenever possible, as I believe it is an inalienable freedom that the public sphere should do as little as possible to coopt or control. And circumcision – for all sorts of silly, archaic reasons – is nonetheless a deeply held religious ritual for many Jews and Muslims. I just don’t like interfering with those core convictions, even as I find it barbaric. Let’s just ban it in public hospitals as a routine procedure.

This sums a lot of it up:

Johnny Piper, the mayor of Clarksville, TN, recently forwarded an anti-Muslim email urging all “patriotic Americans” to protest a U.S. Postal Service stamp that commemorates an Islamic holiday. Piper’s email falsely claims that the creation of the Eid stamp was ordered by President Obama. In fact, the stamp was first issued in 2001, during the Bush administration. It was reissued in 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Khartoum, Sudan, 10.15 am

A good resource for those still struggling with the details.

"Our camera takes 1 exposure every 10 seconds, as we drive from San Francisco to Washington D.C." Rather hypnotic:

Jean Geran wants more pressure on the junta:

As the United States assumes the presidency of the UN Security Council this month, it should renew a diplomatic effort at the council, coordinated with the United Kingdom and other allies, to pass a long-overdue arms embargo of Burma. This at least would deny the ruling junta its primary tools of oppression and help stop the atrocities it commits against its own people. It will not be easy. But such a push would be an effective, multilateral, and noble centerpiece for the Obama administration’s policy toward Burma because both the justification for Security Council action and its chances for success have significantly increased.

A reader writes:

Just so you know, in my post Labor-day haze, I read the headline as Cheney's Lingerie Legacy, which was both terrifying and terribly intriguing.

James Surowiecki gives no quarter to the inflation hawks:

In the past ninety years, the U.S. has had only one sustained bout with high inflation—in the seventies. That track record should engender some faith that central bankers are going to be responsible, and that a healthy industrial economy isn’t prone to regular inflationary spirals. It hasn’t. Instead, we’re always about to relive 1974 all over again, which is why last year, as oil prices rose, we were bombarded with references to “stagflation.” In a way, there’s something profoundly puritanical, in the original sense of that word, about the inflation hawks: we are always on the verge of sinning, always about to succumb to our worst impulses. Even the rhetoric of inflation—the “debasement” of the currency—carries a moralistic tinge.