The Dish

"When science has attained a definite state of development, it frequently is not possible to assert in what direction a new advance will take place; even the most penetrating and discerning minds will often view a subject from different standpoints. But as regards general progress in some direction, I am not aware of any philosophic authority who regards the natural sciences as either finished or nearing completion, even in the matter of principles, still less in the matter of applications, and of verifications relative to the infinitely varied phenomena so abundantly diffused throughout nature. Rash as it may appear to some, I, for one, believe that all the physical sciences are still in their infancy, and that a considerable number of the generalizations now provisionally accepted are destined to be cast aside when more light is shed upon the true phenomena of the physical world. Such has been uniformly the result of past experiences, and a similar outcome is strongly indicated by fresh discoveries in many lines. There is indeed nothing in recent progress to indicate that the resources of the human mind have been exhausted," – T. J. J. See, in the wake of Einstein, from the Atlantic in 1902.

Mervyn Cadwallader’s 1966 article "Marriage as a Wretched Institution," from the Atlantic archives rants against the rigidity of marriage. Dan Savage’s and my thoughts on marriage here. Cadwallader’s argument:

Parents, teachers, and concerned adults all counsel against premature marriage. But they rarely speak the truth about marriage, as it really is in modern middle-class America. The truth as I see it is that contemporary marriage is a wretched institution. It spells the end of voluntary affection, of love freely given and joyously received. Beautiful romances are transmuted into dull marriages, and eventually the relationship becomes constricting, corrosive, grinding, and destructive. The beautiful love affair becomes a bitter contract.
[…]

What do we do, what can we do, about this wretched and disappointing institution? In terms of the immediate generation, the answer probably is, not much. Even when subjected to the enormous strains I have described, the habits, customs, traditions, and taboos that make up our courtship and marriage cycle are uncommonly resistant to change. Here and there creative and courageous individuals can and do work out their own unique solutions to the problem of marriage. Most of us simply suffer without understanding and thrash around blindly in an attempt to reduce the acute pain of a romance gone sour. In time, all of these individual actions will show up as a trend away from the old and toward the new, and the bulk of sluggish moderates in the populations will slowly come to accept this trend as part of social evolution. Clearly, in middle-class America, the trend is ever toward more romantic courtship and marriage, earlier premarital sexual intercourse, earlier first marriages, more extramarital affairs, earlier first divorces, more frequent divorces and remarriages. The trend is away from stable lifelong monogamous relationships toward some form of polygamous male-female relationship. Perhaps we should identify it as serial or consecutive polygamy, simply because Americans in significant numbers are going to have more than one husband or more than one wife. Attitudes and laws that make multiple marriages (in sequence, of course) difficult for the romantic and sentimental among us are archaic obstacles that one learns to circumvent with the aid of weary judges and clever attorneys.

Now, the absurdity of much of this lies in the fact that we pretend that marriages of short duration must be contracted for life. Why not permit a flexible contract perhaps for one or two or more years, with period options to renew? If a couple grew disenchanted with their life together, they would not feel trapped for life. They would not have to anticipate and then go through the destructive agonies of divorce. They would not have to carry about the stigma of marital failure, like the mark of Cain on their foreheads. Instead of a declaration of war, they could simply let their contract lapse, and while still friendly, be free to continue their romantic quest. Sexualized romanticism is now so fundamental to American life—and is bound to become even more so—that marriage will simply have to accommodate itself to it in one way or another. For a great proportion of us it already has.

What of the children in a society that is moving inexorably toward consecutive plural marriages? Under present arrangements in which marriages are ostensibly lifetime contracts and then are dissolved through hypocritical collusions or messy battles in court, the children do suffer. Marriage and divorce turn lovers into enemies, and the child is left to thread his way through the emotional wreckage of his parents’ lives. Financial support of the children, mere subsistence; is not really a problem in a society as affluent as ours. Enduring emotional support of children by loving, healthy, and friendly adults is a serious problem in America, and it is a desperately urgent problem in many families where divorce is unthinkable. If the bitter and poisonous denouement of divorce could be avoided by a frank acceptance of short-term marriages, both adults and children would benefit. Any time husbands and wives and ex-husbands and ex-wives treat each other decently, generously, and respectfully, their children will benefit.

The braver and more critical among our teenagers and youthful adults will still ask, But if the institution is so bad, why get married at all? This is a tough one to deal with. The social pressures pushing any couple who live together into marriage are difficult to ignore even by the most resolute rebel. It can be done, and many should be encouraged to carry out their own creative experiments in living together in a relationship that is wholly voluntary. If the demands of society to conform seem overwhelming, the couple should know that simply to be defined by others as married will elicit married-like behavior in themselves, and that is precisely what they want to avoid. How do you marry and yet live like gentle lovers, or at least like friendly roommates? Quite frankly, I do not know the answer to that question.

Using Marc’s projections for which candidate will win each state, a reader created this hypothetical delegate counter. To view the spreadsheet as an excel document click here. The reader writes:

1.  Marc didn’t provide a point spread which, given the proportional distribution of delegates, is really the key metric (yup, I side with Hillary on this one; its about delegates, not states).  I made up the numbers basing them, where I could, on polling data from Pollster.com.  Where there wasn’t data, I just made it up based on Marc’s predictions.  In some cases Marc makes wild predictions (Massachusetts doesn’t seem like much of a toss up to me…), in which case, I corrected his error (but of course the beauty of this is you can go an play with the numbers yourself and see what the effect is).

2. Actual delegates are awarded by congressional district and so the split really depends on the spread within district.  But that would be way too much work for a back of the envelope calculation.  So I just allocate delegates by percent spread.

3.  I included some separate analysis at the bottom to see what the effect of adding Michigan and Florida would be.

4.  Superdelegates are based on the NYTimes count as of Jan 23 with Teddy and Gov. Sebalius added in (the two I’m familiar with).  This is easily updated as endorsements come in.

5. The last column is called "marginal effect".  This is just a basic calculation showing the effect that a one percentage point change in a candidate’s vote percentage has on the delegate total.  So, what is the delegate pay off for putting in the effort to get a one percentage point shift in the polls?  This basically just confirms the obvious, but its interesting to put some actual numbers on it.  For instance, in American Samoa you would need to move the polls 5 percentage points to get just 1 delegate.

6. What’s nice about the spreadsheet is you can play with the numbers and the results are fairly sensitive to minor changes in the vote spread.  For most states, a two percentage point change in the spread yields a change in the delegate count.  This of course, is not true of the very big states. 

7. I haven’t included any of the post Feb 5 states (it would be easy to do of course), but the "needed to win" number shows how many delegates each candidate would need coming out of Feb 5 given the rest of the scenario. I think it all points toward an election thats going all the way to Puerto Rico.

Evidence of dirty tricks in California.

Gallup has it within the margin of error. Obama has gained 16 points since January 20, while Clinton has lost two. The momentum of that gain is sure to make a difference on Tuesday. And a small lead in California? zogby has even better news for Obama. Something is happening out there. As for Romney, some good news in California. But a national 20 point deficit against a rival who has won South Carolina does not a nomination make.

Mark Lawson provokes:

The main reason for this renaissance is that all levels of cinema – from the people who put up the budget to the people who pay for tickets – have become less frightened of intelligence and complexity. In its first decades, the people who made movies tended to come – except for an injection of European intellectuals displaced by Hitler – out of mainstream art forms such as vaudeville and Broadway. Now, a producer, director or actor is likely to have been schooled – and then film-schooled – to high levels, and can rely on a potential audience of similar sophistication.

So the film rights to Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd have been available for 30 years, but only now have Hollywood financiers and movie-goers consider its dark content and musical sophistication a viable proposition for cinema. Complex and unsettling fiction – such as Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men and Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain – now attract directors and actors in the way once reserved for populist fiction such as Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.

 Photographer Masaru Tatsuki spent ten years documenting Japan’s "decotora," short for "decorated trucks," one of the country’s pop culture phenomenons. Tatsuki expains:

I realised that [the truckers] possess a sense of masculinity that is dying out in Japan. I could also understand their feeling of wanting to decorate the tools they use for work. People are surprised that I spent ten years on this project, but it simply takes time to really understand something. And I wanted to really understand the things I wanted to express. That is why it took so long.

Bud Parr thinks so. The worth of literary blogs:

A healthy literary culture is one where not just the books with the biggest marketing budget or buzz should be publicly discussed. This, I believe is one of the greatest assets of the literary blogosphere. It is here where translation is not a dirty word. It is here where the publicity schedule means little. It is here where literary authors from independent presses get equal or better attention than whatever hotty the New York Times is billowing about this week to accommodate the tastes of myriad general readers. This is where being bitty becomes an asset. It’s specific, it’s personal, it’s opinionated. Those traits aren’t mutually exclusive with being critical; in fact they are the very assets that gives criticism life and probably why so many professional writers are finding themselves writing online, inviting comments from their readers, discovering others who happen to share their interests, no matter how specific.

Couldn’t agree more. The ridiculous Hollywood-style roll-out of books – in which they have seven days to make it, or else – does not reward reading or writing. It rewards marketing. The blogosphere can give books – especially those with more to say than gimmicks to flaunt – the time and space to breathe and gain discerning readers. Watch this space over the coming weeks for an attempt to do this some more.

"And for a Republican to be Hillary or Obama, he’ll need to win a large number of moderates and non-Republicans. John McCain has shown that he can do that," – Red State.