Saturday, March 7, 2009

07 Mar 2009 08:23 pm

The Undark Night

Judith H. Dobrzynski misses nighttime:

It's hard not to notice that much of the world is ablaze in light even after the sun goes down. According to the United Nations, 2008 was the first year that more than half the world's population, some 3.3 billion people, was living in urban areas. Bigger cities mean more light at night from streetlamps, neon advertising, office lights kept on, bright stadiums.... (Across the U.S., you can see for yourself how the night has changed already—and how it may get worse.) Not only does all this light pollution obscure the stars, create driving hazards, and cause insomnia, but it can also disrupt animal-behavior patterns and confuse birds, which end up colliding more frequently with tall structures. Plus, there's all that the wasted energy to consider.

The Dish has tackled this subject before.

07 Mar 2009 05:37 pm

The Printed Word

Scott Esposito interviewed Allan Kornblum, the publisher at Coffee House Books, a few weeks ago:

Keep in mind that clay tablets lasted 3,000 years, papyrus scrolls lasted two thousand years, the handwritten rectangular book we recognize today continued for about a thousand years, and letterpress printing lasted 500 years. All of a sudden we've had desktop book design, the internet, and the ebook, all in the last twenty-five years. Writers, publishers, and readers have had to swallow these major changes as if we were all at a fast food restaurant, so it's not surprising that we're all suffering a bit of indigestion.

(hat tip: Booksquare)

07 Mar 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

Just throw out that Gerhard Richter hanging on your wall. An anthem for the times:

(Hat tip: CR)

07 Mar 2009 04:03 pm

Homphobia In America, Ctd

After I linked to Gordon Brown's condemnation of Prop 8 as "unacceptable," it occurred to me that on this, as on many things, Brown is full of it. What Prop 8 was about was whether gay couples deserved the civil right to marry, as opposed to domestic partnerships with all the state (but not federal) benefits of marriage. But this is Brown's own position. Britain does not recognize civil marriages for gay couples. It has the "separate but equal" institution of "civil partnerships." This is much better than the US, whose federal government still denies gay couples any legal standing at all, denies them social security spousal benefits, taxation as married couples, immigration rights, etc. But it is no better than California today.

But if Brown really does believe that the current resolution of Prop 8 is unacceptable, he can always introduce legislation in Britain to provide full marriage equality for gay couples, as exists in other European countries. Why won't he?

07 Mar 2009 03:42 pm

COIN From The Inside

Andrew Bacevich reviews David Kilcullen's new book:

With the administration whose policies he sought to implement now gone from office, Kilcullen uses Accidental Guerrilla to skewer those he served for gross strategic ineptitude. His chief finding—that through its actions the Bush administration has managed to exacerbate the Islamist threat while wasting resources on a prodigious scale—is not exactly novel. Yet given Kilcullen’s status as both witness and participant, his indictment carries considerable weight. Here lies the real value of his book.

(hat tip: Andrew Exum)

07 Mar 2009 03:27 pm

The Secret Lives Of Lamps

Rune Guneriussen's work has been ricocheting around the internet. She animates household objects by arranging them in natural scenes and illuminating them. A pack of lamps forages through the brush, rows of rotary telephones migrate to the sea, sitting chairs engage in mortal combat. A few more images after the jump:

Continue reading "The Secret Lives Of Lamps" »

07 Mar 2009 02:24 pm

The Kindle Dialogues

What if it just adds to our ADD? Alan Jacobs explores:

Think of it this way: Suppose you bring one book along with you on a trip. Suppose you start it and it’s not really doing much for you — you’re having trouble getting into the mood of it, the swing of it. If you have it on a Kindle, you’re almost certain to give up and turn to one of the dozens of other books you have available. But if it’s the only book you’ve got, you’re more likely to stick with it. And if it’s a good book — if it’s a book that holds real pleasure or instruction for the persistent and non-distracted reader — then later on you’ll be glad that you read it. You’ll be glad that you didn’t have something else to read on that trip. You’ll be glad that you had a book instead of a Kindle.

07 Mar 2009 02:15 pm

The View From Your Window

Obertraun, Austria, 1.41 pm

07 Mar 2009 01:49 pm

A Freeman Time-Line

Jon Chait argues that the opposition to Chas Freeman is largely about the rigidity of his realism, his connections with Saudi Arabia, and his brutal realpolitik with respect to China. And he has argued against the notion that this contretemps was initiated and pursued by advocates who are concerned primarily with Israel. I think this is self-evidently ludicrous. And it is not "bad faith" to say so. Yglesias makes the somewhat obvious point:

The habit of turning around and acting indignant when people point out that what’s motivating this fight is Freeman’s views on Israel is really pretty silly.

The great thing about the internet is that you can actually go back and track how this controversy began, and how it evolved. This is not about secret motives or any crap like that. And it's not about anything illegitimate or somehow disturbing. It's simply a record of who wrote about Freeman and what they wrote. The story was broken by Laura Rozen and her report on February 19 at 10.36 am is very dry and factual. In fact, it doesn't seem to presage any controversy.

Then came the three fire alarm from Steve Rosen, who has since been a clearing house for any and all attacks. Rosen is very candid about the reasons for his believing this appointment is "alarming":

This is a profoundly disturbing appointment, if the report is correct. Freeman is a strident critic of Israel, and a textbook case of the old-line Arabism that afflicted American diplomacy at the time the state of Israel was born. His views of the region are what you would expect in the Saudi foreign ministry, with which he maintains an extremely close relationship, not the top CIA position for analytic products going to the President of the United States.

Rosen followed up with a second post a day later focusing entirely on the Israel question - and arguing simply that someone with Freeman's views must be barred from a high-level job in the US government. Ben Smith wrote a piece the next day, "A Test For The Israeli Lobby", in which the entire controversy was about Israel:

A well-placed pro-Israel source says there's "no amount of good will" that would soften reaction to that appointment because "they might as well have appointed Bandar."

My colleague Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on February 23 that Freeman was "well-known for his hostility toward Israel," but argued that the Saudi connections were more "substantively" problematic. The evidence Jeffrey provided for "hostility to Israel" is this essay. Read it yourself.

Continue reading "A Freeman Time-Line" »

07 Mar 2009 01:01 pm

The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

At the risk of sounding somewhat obnoxious, I am finding this economic crisis rather soothing.

Continue reading "The View From Your Recession" »

07 Mar 2009 12:37 pm

The Freeman Debate Continues

Marty wrote yesterday that:

Much has also been written by others about Freeman's hostility to Israel, to Jews generally and to friends of Israel. His version has an old and ugly presence in Washington, going back to the lurid fantasies of James Forestall which ended in Harry Truman's dismissal of him as secretary of defense and his suicide, jumping to his death from the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. 

Can someone point out to me who has written about Freeman's "hostility ... to Jews generally?" I might have missed something. This is a very serious charge and requires very serious evidence. I'm happy to post it. I don't like the idea of people who have expressed hostility to entire peoples in general to be in government, let alone running intelligence. So this is evidence that would persuade me to oppose Freeman's appointment. Where is it?

07 Mar 2009 11:47 am

Punked

The kids at College Humor have a prank war of epic proportions going on.

07 Mar 2009 11:33 am

Creating A New World

This is a lovely diversion for the weekend:

a short film by Bruce Branit (co-creator of "405") in which a man uses holographic tools to create a virtual world for a woman he loves. The filming was completed in a single day, but the post-production computer graphics required 2 years.

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

07 Mar 2009 11:33 am

The End Is Nigh

Paul Starr is worried about newspapers:

The reality is that resources for journalism are now disappearing from the old media faster than new media can develop them. The financial crisis of the press may thereby compound the media's crisis of legitimacy. Already under ferocious attack from both left and right for a multitude of sins, real and imagined, the press is going to find its job even more difficult to do under economic duress. And as it retrenches in the face of financial pressures, [Tom Rosenstiel, director for Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism] says, "More of American life will occur in shadows. We won't know what we won't know."

07 Mar 2009 10:27 am

The Hundred Years War

The Economist calls for an end to Prohibition:

Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.

I wish the Obama administration agreed.

(Image by Flickr user splifr)

07 Mar 2009 09:20 am

Freeman And Iran

Larison:

My guess is that it is Freeman’s reported aversion to groupthink and moralistic cant that led him to be critical of Israel in the first place, and that this inclination probably became stronger as time has gone by. I am also inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt inasmuch as I am rather familiar with how one posting or one statement can be taken out of a much larger body of work and be made to stand in for your entire worldview.

There does seem to be some considerable overlap between those making the most noise about Freeman and those preoccupied with the “Iranian threat.”

I cannot see how, after the debacle of the Iraq war intelligence, a contrarian and Israel-skeptic is not an asset in an administration. Unless, of course, you still want to skew intelligence for your next war.

07 Mar 2009 07:50 am

Anti-Gay Catholic Florists

Connecticut now allows all citizens to marry. But some are worried:

The Connecticut Catholic Conference today proposed some broad exemptions which it believes are necessary to protect [religious liberty]. The [marriage equality] law does not require Catholic priests -- or any other clergy member -- to preside over same-sex weddings. However, the church is seeking additional exemptions. For instance, it wants to ensure that a florist opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds not be forced to sell flowers to a same-sex couple.

Seriously: it would violate someone's religious liberty to sell and arrange flowers for a gay married couple? And how many florists - florists - are anti-gay?

Friday, March 6, 2009

06 Mar 2009 09:00 pm

Ulysses

A reader writes:

My first attempt to read Ulysses,, some 47 years ago, failed miserably.  I then read Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man and Richard Ellmann's excellent biography of Joyce, and my second attempt -- which yielded a great deal of pleasure and laughter -- came much closer to success. Ulysses remains my favorite novel.

Well, I made it through Portrait as a horny and repressed Catholic teenager (such, such were the joys) but haven't read Ellmann. Loved his Wilde biography though. But how does one blog 250 posts a week and read Ulysses? If you can answer that, drop me a line.

06 Mar 2009 08:46 pm

Turning The Place Over

This piece of public art in Liverpool is one of the more stunning I've ever seen. Details here.

06 Mar 2009 08:42 pm

The Poison Of DOMA

A reader writes:

DOMA should be renamed the "Homosexual Discrimination Act of 1996" or HDA. It is the most discriminatory piece of legislation passed in the last 50 years, and a Democrat signed it into law. DOMA's reach is vast and affects legislation even today.

I agree that the foreign born provision is the most cruel. My partner of near 5 years is from the Czech Republic. I spend $15,000 to $20,000 a year visiting him and bringing him here. Each time he comes I must write a letter to Homeland security taking responsibility for his timely exit from the country and swear I have the resources to support him while he is here and be able to produce proof of financial resources upon request from the US customs officials.

I have considered legal action but I fear the attention would hurt my business I have worked hard to build. I'm a life long Republican and still hold many Republican positions but I voted Obama this time.

Because it's all for nothing if you don't have liberty.

06 Mar 2009 08:41 pm

The Homophobia Of America

A British prime minister calls Prop 8 "unacceptable."

06 Mar 2009 08:21 pm

The Leader Of The Republican Party

"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill" - Rush Limbaugh.

06 Mar 2009 07:38 pm

The Enraging Incompetence Of No On 8

We discover they actually chose not to use a letter from Obama that said, among other things:

I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states ... Finally, I want to congratulate all of you who have shown your love for each other by getting married these last few weeks.

Every time you feel exasperated by the uselessness of much of the gay political establishment, you realize you are not exasperated enough.

06 Mar 2009 07:12 pm

Face Of The Day

The picture of a murdered young man is seen during a march against the massacres and forced disappearences by Colombian authorities on March 6, 2009, in Bogota. By Mauricio Duenas/AFP/Getty Images.

06 Mar 2009 07:02 pm

The GOP And The Recession

They come up with a plan: a spending freeze! And no, this isn't some nutcase. It's John Herbert Hoover Boehner!

06 Mar 2009 06:49 pm

Ubi Caritas

A nine-year-old girl is sexually abused by her stepfather over three years and then raped. She becomes pregnant with twins and a doctor performs an abortion:

“If the pregnancy had continued, the damage would have been worse, being a high risk pregnancy. The risk would have been of death or at the very least that she would never have been able to become pregnant again.”

The Catholic authorities immediately threaten to charge the girl's mother with homicide and excommunicate her. In fact, the archbishop declares her automatically excommunicated.

06 Mar 2009 06:31 pm

Yes To The Blue Penis

She has a point.

06 Mar 2009 05:57 pm

Trying To Stop The Bleeding

Michael Mandel looks at the dismal jobs numbers and suggests the government put more money into education and health care, two bright spots on the employment front:

I can easily imagine health, education, and government employment rising to 35% or more of the labor market before this downturn is over. Under the circumstances, that’s not a bad thing. It does set the stage for a mammoth fiscal crisis 5 or 10 years in the future—but for now, we need all the jobs we can get.

Leonhardt digs into the numbers some more.

06 Mar 2009 05:35 pm

Sebelius And The Theocon Test

The pro-choice Catholic governor of Kansas appears to be sailing past the Christianist base of the GOP. Dan Gilgoff asks Deal Hudson why.

06 Mar 2009 05:18 pm

Death Of A Newspaper

Nancy Mitchell, former reporter at Rocky Mountain News, bids her paper farewell:

I seldom tripped over TV reporters doing the kind of stories I did and I doubt education stories will ever pull the kind of Web hits that sports stories do. Editor John Temple gave us permission to do that work anyway, spending months on projects tracking eighth-graders through graduation and exploring why one in four children in Denver don't attend the city's public schools. Knowledge may not always right wrongs, I found out, but it is the only thing that's got a shot.

06 Mar 2009 04:38 pm

The Porn Of Fox News

A diligent and slightly obsessed reader keeps sending me out-takes from Fox news website. If you fully understand the deep connection between Christianist politics and wild-ass porn and illicit sex, you won't be surprised. Among today's Fox headlines:

She'll Strip For Presidents

Don't Grab My Butt

Sexy Super-Skinny Suits

To Be A Dominatrix

This is Bill O'Reilly's outfit. You know: the guy who's always complaining about an overly-sexualized culture.

06 Mar 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

Mistabishi - Printer Jam from Hospital Records on Vimeo.

06 Mar 2009 03:52 pm

Marriage Equality In Vermont

A bill to turn the state's civil unions into civil marriages has been put on the fast track by the legislature. The main question seems to be whether the governor would veto the bill. The Senate has a veto-proof margin of support - but not the House. I have to say I prefer this legislative grind to a court diktat. The same process is slowly working in New York state. Very soon, we are likely to have marriage equality in Iowa as well - and another legislative and democratic fight to retain it. Those of us fighting for civil equality need to relish these battles rather than try to short-circuit them. Because we have the better arguments.

06 Mar 2009 03:40 pm

Freeman And Intellectual Diversity

Fallows takes Chas Freeman's side:

I do know something about the role of contrarians in organizational life. I have hired such people, have worked alongside them, have often been annoyed at them, but ultimately have viewed them as indispensable. Sometimes the annoying people, who will occasionally say "irresponsible" things, are the only ones who will point out problems that everyone else is trying to ignore. A president needs as many such inconvenient boat-rockers as he can find -- as long as they're not in the main operational jobs. Seriously: anyone who has worked in an organization knows how hard it is, but how vital, to find intelligent people who genuinely are willing to say inconvenient things even when everyone around them is getting impatient or annoyed. The truth is, you don't like them when they do that. You may not like them much at all. But without them, you're cooked.

If Freeman were the only source of influence within the administration on the Middle East, the concerns would be reasonable. But he isn't; and his inclusion is a refreshing dash of realism - and an important sign that the Obama administration is captive to no single party, cocoon, lobby or ideology in foreign policy.

06 Mar 2009 03:27 pm

Phony Orwellians

The busting of some Brits:

Two out of three Britons have lied about reading books they have not, and George Orwell's "1984" tops the literary fib list, according to a survey published Thursday. ... According to the survey, 65 percent of people have pretended to have read books, and of those, 42 percent singled out "1984." Next on the list came "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy and in third place was James Joyce's "Ulysses."

I have not read Ulysses. I tried.

06 Mar 2009 03:23 pm

The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

I’m a public school teacher and a mom. My husband’s small repair business is closing and our roof is leaking. Because we can’t afford new clothes or toys for our preschooler, we’re getting together with neighbors and hosting a swap meet. Everyone’s bringing old (but wearable) toys, books, and clothes, and without exchanging a single penny, we’ll all be pouring out our bags of stuff and “shopping.” With a coffee pot running and our kids running around, it’ll be one way to celebrate being poor together.

06 Mar 2009 03:00 pm

"Subprime Marriages"

"The religious right was right after all. Civil unions have weakened the institution of marriage. But gay people aren't to blame -- straight people are," - A. Barton Hinkle, Richmond Times-Dispatch.

06 Mar 2009 02:37 pm

Ending Prohibition

Maybe the depression will force sanity into the law on marijuana:

It’s interesting that this discussion about potential marijuana revenue is getting a lit bit of traction out there. It seems that the best way to get some of these vices legalized is not to argue the moral route but instead to argue the financial one. It has worked for casinos and I have seen more than one ‘dry' county in my state begin to allow liquor sales when proponents successfully argued that it would help restaurants increase sales. I think we may see financial desperation work in favor of pro-marijuana legislation at least in places like California where it is already somewhat de-criminalized. How ironic that a drug which often symbolized counter-culture might get its strongest push from the forces of capitalism. Times they are a-changing….

Actually, not ironic at all. Capitalism has long been a powerful force for promoting social change before government ever gets around to it. Markets reflect a reality government is often insulated from. I don't believe, for example, the gay rights would have emerged without a strong economically vibrant gay middle class.

06 Mar 2009 02:18 pm

The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

I would like to second wholeheartedly the opinion that the US immigration system is broken. I have been in the US as an immigrant for just under ten years, first as a student then on an H1B visa. I have a masters degree from a US university, have never broken a law, and have always paid my taxes. And yet I have zero job mobility because H1B visas are tied to specific jobs - if you lose or leave the job, you lose your visa. This upshot of this is that you get stuck in jobs for which you are overqualified and underpaid. In terms of my earnings and career trajectory, I lag about four years behind my contemporaries in the same line of work. And yet I stay at my job because it is the only option to stay here.

On top of that, I am forced to apply a green card through my employer because I am gay and therefore am ineligible to be sponsored by my partner of eight years.

Continue reading "The View From Your Recession" »

06 Mar 2009 02:02 pm

Real Time And Realtime

Nick Carr has a Twitter epiphany.

06 Mar 2009 01:36 pm

This Is Web 4.0

Prepare to have your mind blow all over the keyboard (hat tip: dw):

06 Mar 2009 01:26 pm

A Dash Of Realism

From an interview with Bing West:

President Obama has declared a total pull out by Aug of 2011. So US advisers have about two years to improve the Iraqi security forces. But the leverage of advisers has been tremendously weakened – discounted – because the date certain for their departure has been agreed by the US and GOI. It’s too late for significantly more strengthening by US mentoring. We will provide technical training, staff procedures and logistical support. The greatest defect in our approach is the lack of police techniques appropriate to an insurgency.

The place will go to hell when we leave. Which is not a reason to stay.

06 Mar 2009 12:54 pm

The Center Moves Left?

Greg Sargent responds to Brooks:

...maybe what we’re seeing here is more of the Obama team’s efforts to redefine the moderate center. What Obama advisers are saying is that they’re undoing the radicalism of the Bush years. Yes, the Obama team is attempting an expansion of government activism not seen since Lyndon Johnson. But they’re redefining this type of government action as not radical at all, as the sensible and even moderate course, given the circumstances. And they’re saying this because that’s really how they see it.

And here's the point I think is worth reiterating. Much of the reaction on the right and center-right to Obama's budget has been a recourse to abstract principles. There's nothing wrong with such principles - low taxes, balanced budgets, small and limited government. I share them. But no self-respecting conservative would ever defend such principles without considering the full context in which we now find ourselves.

To give a blindingly obvious example: to treat the stimulus package as just another expansion of government, a reckless lurch to the left, as Fox News has done, is absurd. As unemployment spikes, stocks crash, and deflation looms on the horizon, deficit spending means something else. It's a pragmatic, not a liberal decision.

Now look at some less clear-cut contexts. The last thirty years have seen historically low tax rates for the successful. But they have also seen a sharp, globalization-fed increase in inequality.

Continue reading "The Center Moves Left?" »

06 Mar 2009 12:36 pm

Can Obama Legally Take Over The Big Banks?

Pete Davis explains why nationalization is a bad idea. McArdle summarizes his first point:

No US institution currently has the legal authority to take over a multinational financial conglomerate.  Banks are relatively simple operations, and the FDIC has extensive experience in resolution of a liquidation.  But banking and insurance and stockbroking and securities underwriting and capital markets trading all piled into one institution are vastly more complicated--there is, after all, a reason why each of these businesses have different regulators.  The argument for breaking banks into commercial and investment banking doesn't seem to have made much sense from an economic standpoint, but it may have made sense from a regulatory standpoint.  At least in the US, no regulator had the expertise to oversee these giant companies.

Why is it the fact that the government has no legal authority to take over these massive banking enterprises all but absent from the current debate? Isn't it, er, a little bit relevant?

06 Mar 2009 12:29 pm

Next Up: Your 401(k)

The amazing flushing toilet:

06 Mar 2009 12:06 pm

What We're Up Against

A reader writes:

At the Calif. Supreme Court hearings today, I saw the lowest of the lows: A pro-Prop 8 protester proudly wielding a hand-written poster which read,

"Dan White: Hero For Killing A Queer."

Not much commentary or reaction I can provide you. I was rendered mute.

But sometimes it's helpful to know where one's opponents are coming from.

06 Mar 2009 12:06 pm

What Will CNBC Do Now?

Felix Salmon celebrates because yesterday's stock market crash isn't making headlines:

...stock-market volatility is no longer considered particularly newsworthy in and of itself. What happens on any given day in the stock market is not actually very important, and I'm rather heartened by the fact that this news has failed to make the front page of, say, nytimes.com. Well done, MSM, for finally getting some perspective.

06 Mar 2009 12:04 pm

Drive Your Co-Workers Crazy

An online electronic drum-set.

06 Mar 2009 12:02 pm

Malkin Award Nominee

"Here’s where we began talking about another possibility: that Team Obama was deliberately  targeting the U.S. economy, deliberately impoverishing millions of Americans, deliberately angering our closest allies while coddling dictators like Putin and his puppet Medvedev and funneling millions to terrorist organizations like Hamas. Maybe that young person the financial journalist Jim Cramer spoke to was right and “We’ve elected elected a Leninist” whose “agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans”? ... What we need now is some clever legal talent to show how deliberately sabotaging the United States economy counts as Treason, a high Crime, or at least a Misdemeanor. Any takers?" - Roger Kimball.

Obama's predecessor secretly invoked the power to suspend the First and Fourth Amendments for seven years, authorized the seizure and torture of American citizens, launched two decade-long wars of attrition, doubled the national debt, presided over the worst financial bubble since the 1930s, provided the weakest level of economic growth in decades, and left the US in the grip of the steepest depression since the 1930s. But after five weeks, it's Obama who should be impeached? Ooookaaaay.

06 Mar 2009 11:52 am

Attention George Will

The Arctic's ice may disappear completely in the summer of 2013 - faster than many predicted.