Academics have a word for what the neighborhood has become: a nightscape. Bars and restaurants were once peripheral to the main drag's primary economic drivers: supermarkets, coffeehouses, boutique shops, record stores. But in post-industrial cities, nightlife has grown into an industry in its own right. As in any industry, shop owners tend to cluster. A century ago, that meant the creation of a Garment District. Now it means the creation of a Party District.
There are a few of them of course. You'll hear similar complaints about the Meatpacking District, about areas of Fifth Avenue or Smith Street in Brooklyn, or the side streets of the Flatiron District. But the Party District below 14th street east of Third Avenue is the largest, the densest, and still growing. To hear the people who live further up near the Stuyvesant Town end of the East Village talk, the Party is spreading largely north, and somewhere around the summer of 2009, it wholly enveloped the stretch of Avenue A between the northwest corner of Tompkins Square Park and 14th Street.
(Photo by Christopher Shoenbohm. His caption: "A typical local market in New York City. I liked this one because of their use of flourescent lights. This particular site is on 9th St and 2nd Avenue in the East Village. One of the great things about living in nyc is that you can walk to your local stores at any time of the day or night.)
Chloe at Feministing analyzes a calendar now being sold in the wake of the TSA kerfluffle to make a larger point about supposedly sexy poses:
I appreciate these photos because they’re a reminder that, when you look at conventional definitions of “sexy” from a slightly different angle – in this case, from an angle that removes facial expression, hair, makeup, surrounding requisite beach or fur rug and leaves nothing but the body – those definitions start to look really ridiculous.
These poses are totally absurd, so unlikely to be struck during actual real-life sex, and this particular form of photography throws that into sharp relief.
Yes, they're here - and at $16, much more affordable than the vintage, hand-printed Dish Ts. Check here for the design on the reverse and several new colors for the Ts, including this one (red and white now available too):
Many readers have had their jaws drop at the price of the regular Ts. We know, we know: $50 is a large amount for a t-shirt. And you feel that way until you see or wear the Rogues' Gallery clothes. I picked them because I wear them and love them - and know you will too. They are each hand-printed on vintage old t-shirts, that have a soft and yet robust texture, never shrink, and last forever. They're the most comfortable and durable t-shirts I have ever bought or worn - and I can't stop wearing them. I wanted Dish readers to have something classier and subtler than the usual mass market merchandise, even at the price of a higher cost. But the totes - and upcoming cheaper items - are much more accessible, even though they are also hand-printed.
Women readers have also asked if the unisex t-shirts work for them. Yes, they do - just pick a size one smaller than your usual in women's sizes. They're meant to be loose-fitting and hang beautifully on men and women of all shapes and sizes.
If you love the Dish and want to show it, have at it. If you're wondering what to get for Christmas for someone you know is a Dish-addict, you couldn't do better. And if you also want to support the Dish, and show your appreciation for the truly hard work that Patrick, Chris, Zoe and Conor do every day, the revenue from this will help support their work going forward.
The full shop is here. Merry merry. And please support the Dish in our first ever merchandising effort ever. We want to be around for another ten years and this added revenue stream is one way to help that happen.
Freddie de Boer has launched a book club blog - the subject is Umberto Eco's 1980 novel In The Name Of The Rose. Freddie is hoping to have participants start reading on December 7th:
[T]his is a book, I've always thought, to be read in winter. Not merely because it takes place in the winter, and not merely because the image that persists in my mind is that of a hay-strewn abbey, warmed by torchlight and ringed with snow. Winter is a season for reading, for turning inwards, into interior warmth. I mean this in the simplest sense and less speakable ones as well. It's cold out, in winter, and to curl up with a book in the light of a fire in your own hearth is wonderful. Internally, too, it's often necessary to turn inward to artificial heat and light. And the best reading for those times, I think, is reading that is intricate and varied and rewarding and, yes, labyrinthine. The Name of the Rose is a book that you can retreat into, deep for a deep winter.
Give it up for Jon Lovett, my friend and the funniest White House speech-writer I know. Yes, I guess that means he's funnier than Ben Rhodes. Way gayer too. Great Arianna impression too.
There's some sense that the press, in 2000, was basically hoodwinked by McCain. I'm sympathetic to that argument, and basically agreed with it, until I read this. I don't know Jim to be the sort to be taken in by press access and banter, so I am tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Still, I'd like to hear more about the 1980s McCain that Jim is referencing. I don't know much about McCain during those years--except that he opposed the MLK holiday.
Anna Blundy interviews P J O’Rourke. One of her questions prompts a rant on government interference:
My grandmother was able to keep people from smoking indoors with one cold stare. Why would laws and parliaments and police powers and courts and all sorts of annoying and ugly signs everywhere be necessary? All this expense and exercise of power of one group of people over another – why is all this needed to achieve what my grandmother could achieve with one cold stare?
He offers the counterexample of spittons:
[U]p until some time in the 1920s or so, virtually every American male chewed tobacco and spat constantly. It went away because women put their foot down and said: ‘That’s disgusting!’ I suppose that all had to do with the changing role of women but there didn’t have to be any politician around to think of taking the credit for that, though I’m sure they would have been glad to.
"The Sound of Trees " by Robert Frost appeared in The Atlantic in August of 1915:
I wonder about the trees: Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place? We suffer them by the day Till we lose all measure of pace And fixity in our joys, And acquire a listening air. They are that that talks of going But never gets away; And that talks no less for knowing, As it grows wiser and older, That now it means to stay. My feet tug at the floor And my head sways to my shoulder Sometimes when I watch trees sway From the window or the door. I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice, Some day when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on. I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone.
Grigoriadis doesn't veer from the formula one bit. Implying that women are too stupid to realize that delaying pregnancy until your 30s raises your chances of infertility? Check. Implying that infertility is a much bigger problem than it actually is in a country that has a relatively high birth rate for an industrialized nation? Check. Focusing on the complaints of side effects without checking the actual scientific studies on the prevalence? Check. Characterizing the entire female population as being exactly like your free-wheeling fun time friends in their 20s who are the kind of girls who match their pill cases to their shoes, without considering that mothers, the fiercely monogamous, and the totally unfashionable also have a need for the pill? Check. And above all, freaking out about how "unnatural" it is, as if it's somehow more unnatural than every other drug on the market, not to mention air conditioning, latex, television sets, and the wearing of shoes? Check.
In my world, copyright’s purpose is to encourage the widest participation in culture that we can manage – that is, it should be a system that encourages the most diverse set of creators, creating the most diverse set of works, to reach the most diverse audiences as is practical...
Diversity of participation matters because participation in the arts is a form of expression and, here in the west’s liberal democracies, we take it as read that the state should limit expression as little as possible and encourage it as much as possible. It seems silly to have to say this, but it’s worth noting here because when we talk about copyright, we’re not just talking about who pays how much to get access to which art, we’re talking about a regulation that has the power to midwife, or strangle, enormous amounts of expressive speech.
It was announced recently that Zadie Smith—one of the few writers equipped by fame to do otherwise—has accepted a tenured position at NYU, presumably for the health insurance; perhaps this marks the beginning of the end, a sign that in the future there will be no NYC writers at all, just a handful of writers accomplished enough to teach in NYC. New York will have become—as it has long been becoming—a place where some writers go for a wanderjahr or two between the completion of their MFAs and the commencement of their teaching careers.
You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@theatlantic.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book, courtesy of Blurb. Have at it.
Gabriel Sherman takes stock of the future opinion pages of Rupert Murdoch's new iPad-only newspaper:
In stark contrast to those of Murdoch’s existing American papers, The Daily’s politics will be centrist and pragmatic—Bloobergian, if you prefer—according to people close to the project. ... If you know his record, it’s not surprising that Murdoch would be this ideologically pliant. Throughout his career, he has moved to align his media interests with the shifting winds; in the U.K., for example, his papers took a favorable view of Margaret Thatcher, then pivoted to do the same for Tony Blair. Yes, this is the same Rupert Murdoch who gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association and has Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck on the payroll. But he’s sinking at least $30 million into The Daily, and he’s a businessman first.
This week Rowan Somerville won Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his second novel, The Shape of Her, and for sentences such as this:
Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her.
In response, Laura Miller stands up for fiction that can arouse us:
The presenters of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award gleefully seize upon their targets' most outlandish metaphors; Somerville compared a nipple to the "nose of the loveliest nocturnal animal, sniffing in the night." Yet perfectly serviceable, if disreputable, four-letter words risk turning a scene, in the words of one commentator, into something "perilously close to erotica, with its cheapening effect of sexual arousal." And we can't have that, can we?
Well, why can't we? Is there any reason why the literature that makes us laugh, cry and rage shouldn't also, occasionally, turn us on?
Paul Devlin continues his quest to correct the record of bad transcriptions in the new Anthology of Rap. Devlin spoke with Adam Mansbach, a member of the anthology's advisory board who was disappointed with the collection:
[T]his is a book that seeks to establish the relevance and artistry of hip-hop lyricism, and instead it's made many of the world's best MCs look downright incoherent by misrepresenting their words.
When Ice Cube says "your plan against the ghetto backfired," and it gets turned into "you're playing against the ghetto black fly," more has happened than just a simple error in transcription; you've made an important song perplexing and impenetrable—while staking a claim, backed by institutional power and market presence, that your version is canonical.
Over at The Nervous Breakdown, Art Edwards admits his own history of misheard lyrics and debates whether he likes his own versions better.
Today on the Dish, Andrew tried to understand a man like McCain who could condone torture and betray (gay) soldiers he claims to appreciate. Fred Kaplan fingered McCain's faulty logic on DADT, and James Fallows was disappointed by McCain's late-era loss of his historical standing. Scott Brown and Olympia Snowesided with repeal, Greg Sargent reassured everyone about a relaxed timeline for implementing it, and Adam Serwer exposed a sickening GOP strategy for avoiding pinning a DADT repeal on unelected judges. Dan Drezner unloaded on DADT, Yglesias prodded its supporters, Ezra Klein explained a filibuster, and 28% of Americans live in a jurisdiction recognizing same-sex marriage. Andrew responded to George Weigel on the Pope's condom comments, and Yglesias awarded kudos for what Wikileaks says about North Korea. John Limbert outlined why Arabs and Iranians don't get along, and Marc Lynch and John Nagl made the case for more diplomacy in Iraq.
Andrew singled out Paul Ryan as a fiscal fraud for killing the deficit commission. We gathered reax to a gloomy jobs report, tracked the tax cut game of chicken, and Felix Salmon eyed 9.8% unemployment. Matthew Continetti urged the government to invest, not just consume, but Yglesias begged to differ. Bruce Bartlett thinks a deficit plan would slow growth, and Jonathan Cohn predicted a hard road ahead for healthcare repeal. Reader asked Cher and Justin Beiber to shut up and sing, pub culture was endangered in the UK too, and Ben Sherwood's resume mucho just got another boost. The spousal diaspora extended to military families, Fox News hogged almost all of the GOP's pundit stars, and Pete Wehner chose civility.
Wikileaks quote of the day here, quote for the day here, VFYW here, cool ad watch here, MHB here, and FOTD here.
Thursday on the Dish, Andrew protested and mourned the removal of David Wojnarovicz's video "A Fire In My Belly" at the behest of Bill Donohue. We tracked day one the DADT hearings, and awed at McCain's shameless flip-flopping. There were hints of a huge civil rights movement in the gay community (and not to advance marriage-lite) and for Hispanics. Frum countered Wilkinson on the DREAM act, and Scott Brown pleased his state across party lines and may vote to repeal DADT. Andrew insisted anti-Semitism wasn't raging in Adams Morgan, Douthat compared Assange to al Qaeda and Will Wilkinson reassured us leaks will happen with or without Assange. Timothy Garton Ash appreciated the candor of the cables, and American diplomats in Germany didn't care for the privacy of German citizens.
Palin obscured the economic reality for working class supporters, and even her supporters urged her to rise above her celebrity gossip status and actually address some policy arguments. Andrew advised Obama on his next big gambit, we sized up Bloomberg's shot at 2012, sniffed the blood in the water for Pawlenty, and got some historical perspective on past primary dwarves that have risen to the occasion. Stan Collender and Howard Gleckman plumbed the depths of deficit commission's pitch and Bernstein dug away at whether deficits matter more than just politically. The GOP was bipartisan in name only, and the west coast was impenetrable to the Republican tsunami.
The smug not only burned, it also bombed. Readers got wild and crazy on bicycle dates, nerds had similar startup ideas, and the suburbs killed American pubs. We asked the Partridge family to shut up and sing, and the spousal diaspora spread. Iraqi police dressed the part, Scott Morgan caught us up on the cannabis substitute ban, the pill could be affecting fertility, and Michael Agger wanted to mine Facebook's data to improve society, not just to fill the coffers of advertisers.
Chart of the day here, tweet of the day here, Malkin award here, email of the day here, quote for the day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.
Ian Kington/AFP/Getty Images.
Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew raged against the dickishness of the GOP and the prospect of a failed DADT repeal. Andrew skewered Douthat on the idea that during W's reign the right showed anything like the integrity of the left under Obama. And in another round with Goldberg, Andrew cited a recent poll on what Arab countries really think of a nuclear Iran, to demonstrate that these countries aren't really aligning with Israel.
On Wikileaks, Andrew argued Julian Assange is a red herring for a new era in internet culture, and that it has helped expose torture by the U.S. government. Aaron Bady pointed to the real damage done by Wikileaks, by hindering the government's own internal ability to communicate. Karim Sadjadpour pondered a democratic Iran, Kristol wanted to whack Wikileaks, and Matt Welch called him "flippantly authoritarian." Drum simmered down the partisan sniping, and Robert Gates shrugged.
Andrew was moved by Palin on Trig's future adult life, and wondered about the whereabouts of the anti-Palin brigade. Frum would settle for a Romney-Huckabee ticket, and Allahpundit insisted Palin wins the Huckabee followers if he doesn't run. The Fiscal Commission released their final proposal, and the next leak was aimed at a big bank. Bernstein defended why deficits don't matter politically, but Andrew wouldn't totally excuse it. We parsed Mike Pence's speech on economics, the housing bubble was still popping, and AGs waged ideological warfare. Andrew sang his own tribute to World AIDS Day, and it wasn't his offer to "die digitally." Gregory Johnsen didn't think killing Al-Awlaki was going to solve the problem of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Dish readers divulged their own spousal diaspora tragedies, and defended Lennon's "Imagine." Ryan Avent pined for an American version of the British pub, and movie spoilers are as old as Greek tragedies.
Cool ad watch here, fails of November here, MHB here, Malkin award here, 2010 in photography here, Yglesias award here, VFYW here, FOTD here, and your Dish Christmas guide here.
Tuesday on the Dish, Goldberg rejected the claim that he wants war with Iran, and incensed Andrew with his conflation of Israel with all Jews, while Andrew remained adamant that Iran remains as dangerous as ever. WaPo leaked the DADT report, and Andrew breathed a sigh of relief at how sane, fair and extensive the report was. Obama stepped up his support, military families were against DADT, and we rounded up the full web reax. A Dish reader chalked it up to McCain being old and out of touch but Andrew wasn't buying it. Kim Kardashian was going to die on Twitter to stop AIDS, civil unions still don't sound as good as marriages,and Orin Kerr had his doubts about Judge Stephen Reinhardt's place on the Prop 8 panel.
We kept on top of the Wikileaks story with Andrew's take on the Forbes cover story, Will Wilkinson's defense of the substance of the leaks here, and a rebuke to Assange here. Simon Jenkins opened the floodgates on what's wrong with American foreign policy, and George Packer and Greenwald debated whether governments have a right to secrecy. Bill Keller tried to justify Wikileaks to a former British diplomat, Fred Kaplan showed us the bright side of Obama's diplomacy from the leaks, and Sarkozy chased a dog chasing a rabbit.
Andrew weighed in on the federal pay freeze and his longview on Obama and the debt, and joined the Douthat/ Fallows debate on our ability to hold principles to account, no matter the president. Adam Serwer shut down Marc Thiessen on torture, Iraq got scammed, and Stan Collender argued fiscal hawks should praise TSA's body scanners. Fox News amped up its GOP presidential candidate production with the Fox Five, Mason Herron threw cold water on Christie in 2012, and we talliedprobabilities on Palin. McCain's former advisor begged Palin not to run, as did Pravda and four "educated Jews." David Sessions honored Alex Pareene with the hackiest religious pundits, a Harvard illegal immigrant mourned the DREAM Act, and Anderson Cooper was on fire.
Dan Ariely wrote your Christmas shopping lists, Reihan predicted Microsoft will rise again, and alcoholic whipped cream comforted us. Some readers don't like to take dates on bikes, while other readers were happy to bike their kids and spouses around. Readers photographed their own pictures of America, and Alexis Madrigal summed up Nick Denton's vision for the future of the internet. "Imagine" made the Shut Up And Sing contest, and readers added their two cents on Disney's cartoon omissions.
Voyeurs' doornob here, Yglesias award here, Hewitt award here, MHB here, FOTD here, VFYW here, poseur alert here, chart of the day here, and VFYW contest winner #26 here.
Redding, California, 7.30 am
Monday on the Dish, Andrew considered Beinart's assertion that Wikileaks might be the Starr Report of American foreign policy. Marc Lynch kept an eye on Al-Jazeera, and we tracked more reactions to the document dump here, and here. Andrew countered Goldberg's rejoinder on Israel's interest in attacking Iran, and wouldn't let him chalk it up to anti-Semitism. Fallows pwned Douthat along similar lines, Wikileaks revealed what Netanyahu wants, Ben Smith covered Israel's own version of Fox News, and the human element remained an important part of the peace process. And Andrew shook his fist at the spousal diaspora that only the U.S. perpetrates.
Palin was grateful on Thanksgiving for being able to drag her kids around on her book tour, but Bernstein still didn't think America was buying it. FrumForum wrote her Alaskan Cliff Notes so you don't have to watch, and Palin could have stopped Wikileaks since she almost stopped her own book leaks. Andrew weighed in on whether Republicans were sabotaging the economy, and was grateful for the Muslim fathers concerned about their extremist sons. Brian Curtis sounded the alarms on possible immigration subcommittee chair Steve King, and we got the Prop 8 update here. An education was expensive, but not as expensive as the exorbitant amount we spend on defense. Ending the marijuana prohibition could provide training wheels for legalization, states might be able to declare bankruptcy, and Medicare was moving quickly towards unsustainability.
The Simpsons jabbed Fox News again, Hitchens found time in his busy schedule to battle Tony Blair, and congressmen cited the bible on climate change. Andrew opted for his bicycle over the new Chevy volt, Kid Rock was the Monkees of today, and Alan Jacobs didn't want to be interrupted. Underdog brands win, internet stunts can only take you so far, some films are meant to be spoilers, and humans can't walk a straight line. Bono got his Shut Up day in the sun, and we had more entries here, MHB parody here, and a Hathos Alert entry here.
America in one photo here, slowest news day of the 20th century here, map of the day here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.
I really wonder what’s happening, subjectively, inside the heads of people who oppose repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Do any of them think they’re on the right side of history here? That people are going to look back from 2040 and say “if only we’d listened to John McCain thirty years ago?”
Joyner rebuts those service chiefs opposed to repeal:
Aside from seizing the opportunity to end a form of discrimination that will be looked upon with embarrassment in the not too distant future and complying with the wishes of the commander-in-chief, the fact of the matter is that wartime is when we can least afford to devote time and command attention to ridding ourselves of warriors whose only fault is being born with the wrong sexual orientation.
Last week Josh Barro called the deficit commission a success:
I view the Commission’s purpose as furthering a long-range process: driving an elite discussion about deficit reduction options so that, when the right economic time comes to actually close the budget gap, we have a clear vision of the steps we will need to take-and what compromises politicians will be willing to make. Viewed from this frame, the Commission has been a success, in part because it could not reach consensus and released several reports instead of one. These reports, and political players’ reactions to them, have helped to clarify those questions and identify a path toward budget sustainability.
[T]he debate over Simpson-Bowles — and the raft of alternative proposals the deficit commission’s efforts have summoned up — has been helpful, clarifying, and even occasionally surprising. Now we know that liberals can wax just as intransigent about entitlements as conservatives can about tax increases. We know what the left really wants, and what the anti-tax lobby would prefer. We know what Nancy Pelosi won’t stand for, and where Tom Coburn and Dick Durbin will consider compromising. We know where Paul Ryan and Alice Rivlin can find common ground. And we know that it’s possible for prominent right-wingers, Coburn now included, to stand up to Grover “better to risk a debt crisis than end a tax subsidy” Norquist, which is inherently good news for both conservatism and the country.
The perceptual bias in the [DADT] testimony to date is focusing on the risks and costs of changing the status quo. Will unit cohesion be compromised? Will the change undermine national security during wartime? This partially misses the point: the status quo is undermining national security far more than any change. The rigorous enforcement of DADT is preventing competent and patriotic soldiers from serving their country, particularly in high-demand positions like, say, Arabic translators. It's fine to say that repealing DADT might have some costs -- but those costs have to be weighed against the costs of continuing as is. And from what I read, those costs are serious to the country and debilitating to the affected soldiers.
Marc Lynch and John Nagl argue that we need to amp up our diplomatic efforts in Iraq:
America's contribution to dealing with these continuing problems [in Iraq] will be primarily political and diplomatic, not military. A commitment to drawing down military forces should not mean political disengagement. Iraq is as important to the interests of Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other regional players as it is to those of the US. Undoubtedly, those countries will continue to be deeply involved in Iraq whether or not Americans stay on the field.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee about the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on Capitol Hill December 3, 2010 in Washington, DC. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
Yglesias doesn't buy Matt Continetti's division of government spending into investment and consumption. He argues that "the political convention is to use 'investment' to mean 'spending I favor' whereas 'out-of-control spending' means 'spending I oppose'":
Medicare is obviously a heavy subsidy for old people’s consumption of health care services. But that, in turn, constitutes a heavy subsidy for medical-related R&D spending. America has the world’s most bloated health care sector but we’re also world leaders in pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical equipment, etc., and I doubt this is a coincidence. Any kind of in-kind social welfare provision is in part a form of industrial policy. In the classic Milton Friedman critique of the welfare state, this is a problem. But in the Continetti/Brooks/Salam reformulation of the critique, it ought to look more like a feature. I wouldn’t swing 100% to the “just send money” side of the argument, but on the whole I think Friedman has the better of the argument.
It's a powerful endorsement of a new nation state in the Middle East, based on the 1967 borders - and a recognition, perhaps, that negotiating with the Israelis is about as fruitless as negotiating with Republicans. I hope the current talks can gain momentum, but if Netanyahu really digs in and settlements continue, I suspect more and more countries will start doing this. And if the Obama administration's patience runs out, I see no reason why the US shouldn't too.
Collins is onboard. That makes 60 votes, enough to override a filibuster, provided all of the Democrats can be kept in line. But Collin's vote comes with a big caveat, as Allahpundit notes:
Collins, at least, is sticking by the GOP’s plan to vote no on everything until a deal is reached on the Bush tax cuts. Brown’s statement doesn’t address the subject, but since he also signed the Republican pledge to make the tax cuts top priority, presumably he’s on the same page. Until something happens on taxes, this is all meaningless. Which brings us to the second qualifier: Will there be any time left in the lame duck to address DADT even after a deal on taxes is reached?
I hope the contest isn't closed, because the New Artist of the Year might have something to say about it. "Pray" is like a best-of compilation of everything sanctimonious, self-righteous and smug from all the other nominees, but the heaping dollop of Bieber is sure to push it over the finish line.
It’s so, like, awesome that he’s visited so many sick kids!
Kudos on following up on this from the perspective of the impact that DOMA has on couples with differing citizenships. However, have you considered the impact on military same-sex couples as well?
Military spouses face enormous challenges and pressures that very often go unrecognized. Of course, there's the worry and uncertainty when your husband or wife is deployed to a combat zone overseas. But even when your spouse is at home, there are still training exercises and schools he or she must attend which will effectively mean that you will be on your own for weeks or even months at a time. Beyond this, there's the normal rhythm of military life, with servicemembers moved to new duty stations, either at home or abroad, every few years. Usually, this means that the entire family packs up and moves, severing friendships, ending civilian jobs, taking kids out of school and so on.
To its enormous credit, the military has created extensive support for military families, from unit level family support groups (where civilian spouses provide support to each other) to assistance with job placement to complete medical coverage for spouses and children to access to chaplains. When it comes time to move, the service branch will pick up the tab for moving the entire family, and will ensure that it provides decent housing for that family at the new duty station.
Needless to say, none of these supports are available to same-sex couples (and likely wouldn't be even with the repeal of DADT, because of DOMA). As a result, in order to make a long-term relationship work, a same-sex couple must go to very great expense moving the civilian partner each time the military partner has a permanent change of station. There will be no assistance with either housing or employment. There will be no moral support of any kind. The civilian partner will be left entirely on his or her own.
In my own case, I knew exactly how impossible it would have been for me to carry on a long term relationship and a career in the Army. Yes, there are a few people who make it work, but it's incredibly hard when the relationship is constantly buffeted by the stresses of military life. It takes a truly extraordinary person to be the same-sex partner of an active duty member of the military. And so I generally carried on by myself - married to my career, as it were.
Repealing DADT alone won't fix this problem; at most it might allow same-sex partners access to family support groups. If gay men and lesbians are to be fully welcomed into the military, their families will need to be welcomed as well. That will require repeal of DOMA.
By popular demand, my 1988 piece on the then-budding young Rhodes Scholar who has now ascended to be head of ABC News. This time, much more legible:
Current Rhodes Scholar Benjamin B. Sherwood II's nervous eyes and carefully goofy warmth suggest a lifetime of manic achievement. Simultaneously elusive (at Oxford he would only give me an off‑the‑record interview) and overbearing ("Let's do lunch sometime; I’ve been looking forward to meeting you"), he is perhaps the archetypal Rhodes scholar, the ultimate in a long line of centerless resume featherers. This is his story ....
Ben, now 24, had his eye on the Rhodes from an early age. The son of a well-connected Beverly Hills lawyer, he was educated at the Harvard school in Los Angeles – southern California’s premiere prep school – and grew up in the shadow of his equally driven elder sister, who won a Rhodes in 1981. According to a friend, his parents actually paid slightly older children to play with their offspring as a way to inculcate social precocity and thus, perhaps, speed up their fellowship preparation. (Mrs. Sherwood confided to a family friend that she intended to write a book, "How to Raise a Rhodes Scholar.") By the time he entered Harvard College with the class of 1985, Ben was for primed for résumé battle in the big leagues; already he stood out among his peers. As a 1986 Los Angeles Times interview put it just after he won the Rhodes, "Ben Sherwood… has had to work hard to fit in with others his own age while darting in and out of a more adult world, that tended to find his enthusiasm quite charming.” Yes, that is the word: enthusiasm. "He never lost his excitement about learning something new,” remembers an older former employer.
But as the Times hinted, Ben's enthusiasm had provoked some teasing from classmates. 'It was a common bond among my classmates at Harvard, hating Ben Sherwood," notes one of his more affectionate former friends. "Ben is one of the most hated people alive," agrees Clark Freshman, a Harvard classmate and, as a Marshall scholar, a fellow Oxonian. "It's bizarre. People actually make an effort to dislike him." Others put it more gently: 'When you think Ben Sherwood, you think funny stories, you think asshole, you think 'Thank God I'm not him,' " says a friend.
But through it all, Ben has held steady. "I'm reluctant to make waves when sitting in a group of classmates when one person says something I disagree with," Ben ventured to the Times. "And Machiavelli, who is widely misunderstood, said that in the long run it's not very important to be popular, because popularity is fleeting, but respect is permanent." Some say that Ben himself is widely misunderstood, that his enthusiasm can encompass a humorous sense of fun, To the Times he confided shyly that he plays chess with a computer; has tried sumo wrestling in Japan; speaks French, Russian end Chinese (well, a summer course at Andover); and won a disco-dancing competition with his grandmother. He also has a penchant for magic tricks and mime.
None of this, mind you, has anything to do with endearing himself to the overweeningly well-rounded men and women who make up the Rhodes Selection Committees. At the Harvard Crimson Ben’s enthusiasm quickly came to the fore: as a freshman he immediately declared his intention to be its president (the paper’s equivalent of editor in chief) and wrote more stories to qualify for a position on the paper in his first semester than any other freshman. Once he'd acquired the nominal title of editor (like every other reporter who makes the staff), he wrote only a handful more pieces. Why the sudden withering of his journalistic passion? "He realized he didn't need the Crimson," explains a fellow editor, "and he had his active three moments for his resume."
Indeed, a miraculous series of prestigious internships followed: two stints working for the Los Angeles Times in its Washington and Paris bureaus, each of which was completely unconnected with his family's close friend, publisher Tom Johnson; a summer at CBS in New York (among the references on his résumé have been Walter Cronkite and Don Rather, and featured prominently on his Oxford wall is a photo of Ben hugging Diane Sawyer on the CBS Evening News set); and the time spent covering the Jesse Helms - James Hunt 1984 Senate race for the Raleigh News and Observer.
Fellow reporters at the Times still remember Ben's enthusiasm. "He was a young man going on 65," one of them recently said. "He really worked his buns off." Ben boasted to a close friend afterward, "I walked in and asked how many articles [someone else had] written as a summer intern. They said five. So I said 'Right, I’ll write more, then.' And I did." Back at Harvard, Ben's enthusiasm subsequently fastened on rugby. Asked why he had a sudden interest in this obscure British sport, he explained that it was "to lock up my Rhodes.” Although he was on the team, his closest friend at the time cannot recall him playing a single game. (His teammates valued his contribution so much that at their annual cookout they chose to strip him nude and funnel beer down his throat‑ a ritual Ben apparently took as an affectionate form of hazing.)
Academically, Ben soldiered for a solid A‑ average, and by his junior year there was only one obstacle between him and the Rhodes: another supremely enthusiastic man in his class from Los Angeles who would be formidable competition for the Harvard endorsement for the southwestern district. Fired with competitive spirit, Ben decided to take a year off to discover himself. Working for the United Nations for three months on the Thailand ‑ Cambodia border was a burden for the Beverly Hills prodigy, but he bore it well (happily, it also fulfilled the Rhodes's community-service requirement). He reminisced to the Times, "I had the distinct impression [my friends] expected me to come back from this experience and reject the country club and the house and the family and the servants and the Hollywood Bowl. I could have done that. And it would have been outrageous. …When I look at poor people, I don't feel guilty that I have what I have. Nor does any sense of guilt necessarily motivate me to give immunizations to Khmer Rouge babies on the border in Thailand. What does motivate me to do things is a sense of duty."
And enthusiasm. "I guess it was kind of funny being on the Thai‑Cambodia border with him and discussing strategies for getting fellowships," says another relief worker (according to this source, the border was crawling with resume‑padders). When Ben returned to Cambridge in the fall of 1985, he took a refugee‑camp sign to a store to have it framed. It hung on his wall next to the Diane Sawyer photo. Ben was so sure he would make the cut and get a Rhodes interview that he is rumored to have made his plane reservations to California a month in advance.
In the winter of 1985, when Ben finally won the Rhodes, latent anti-Sherwood sentiment erupted in a splurge of telephone wailing. One classmate had to renege on his promise to commit suicide if Ben got the Rhodes. "I remember people calling one another up when he got it and saying, 'My God! There's no justice in the world!’ " recalls a schoolmate. "People were dumbfounded,' an acquaintance says, "not simply because he got the Rhodes but because he planned and executed getting the Rhodes. He'd devoted his life to it. When he got it, we lost all hope." At the Harvard reception for the Marshall and Rhodes scholars, Ben leaned over to a friend and whispered the classic contemporary assertion of self‑dramatizing hubris. "Imagine," he said, "if a bomb fell on this place tonight."
Since then, friends say, his enthusiasm has been tempered by a new mellowness. Well, perhaps. Last summer he worked in Washington at the World Bank. Now, in contemplating his return to the United States from Oxford, he has been studying circulation figures of various newspapers to target the right reentry point. Let's see‑ which newspaper has produced the most Pulitzer prize winners?
Fallows' readers try to parse the bitter career end of the Arizona senator.
I wish I understood McCain. I thought I did once, but it seems increasingly clear that he is a man of near-suicidal vanity and misjudgment (remember suspending his entire campaign to deal with Lehman Brothers, or the insanely reckless selection of an unvetted Palin) and defined by grudges. Much of his shift to the center in 2000 and after was, it now seems obvious, an attempt to sabotage the man who defeated him, George W. Bush. His conduct in the last two years seems very similar with respect to Obama, despite Obama's early attempts to persuade and coopt him.
He's not homophobic. Very close members of his staff have been gay. His longtime chief-of-staff, Mark Buse, was and is openly gay. But perhaps buried in this psyche is something generational. McCain grew up in a world where homosexuality was never spoken of, and subsequently tolerated with radioactive discretion. Gays were objects of pity and sometimes personal affection - but never seen as full equals. And the notion of a core American icon - the American soldier - being equated with gayness - in the open - is something perhaps beyond his amygdala to process.
The alternative explanation for his recent behavior is fathomless cynicism and hollowness. It's important to remember how this torture victim, in 2006, agreed to acquiesce to the CIA using the same torture techniques once used on him on other prisoners.
The reason? Rove threatened him with full-scale opposition to his nomination in 2008 if he persisted in opposing torture, and Rove, for good measure, wanted to use torture as a key wedge issue in the 2006 mid-terms. I don't know how a torture victim can subsequently support the same thing being done to others. I don't know he sleeps at night knowing that he is responsible for tying human beings up for hours on end in excruciating stress positions - especially when he knows firsthand how horrifying this is. But I do know that such a man has lost his soul in the process.
And that is why this week is not the first time that I have felt a great deal of contempt for him. But it's also personal this time - because I know so many servicemembers who serve and have served with great honor, even with the knife of DADT stuck firmly in their backs. By possibly being the one man insisting on keeping that knife in them and twisting it, he has gone from being contemptible to being despicable, an enemy of the American soldier he is so proud publicly to support.
Bruce Bartlett thinks so. He is against the Simpson-Bowles plan:
[T]heir preoccupation with reducing statutory tax rates without regard to the overall impact on effective rates has caused them to endorse a tax reform that would on balance substantially raise the tax rate on capital, reduce saving and investment, and hence economic growth
Adam Serwer tries to comprehend the GOP's strategy on DADT:
[B]y blocking repeal and allowing a judge to declare the policy unconstitutional, Republicans could sidestep the argument over an unpopular policy by turning it into one about unelected judges imposing their will on the electorate.
That strategy may seem cynical, but it ultimately fits the die-hard opposition strategy Republicans have deployed for the past two years. If DADT repeal is inevitable, they might as well make sure it occurs on terms most favorable to them -- and that means being able to argue about the tyranny of activist judges, rather than the straightforward injustice of preventing patriots from serving openly simply because of who they are.
They disgust and sicken me. They should disgust and sicken every non-bigot or non-cynic in the country.
I just want to point out again that the current Democratic proposal for extending tax cuts is a tax cut for everyone who pays taxes. The cut off rate is for income over $250,000 (or $1,000,000, or whatever). But people who earn over $250,000 will still get a tax cut on their first $250,000 of income.
... if you want to talk about the policy proposal in terms of what will happens to the amount of taxes people are paying right now, it is correct that people earning over $250,000 will pay more taxes come January 1 if the Democratic plan passes, but only on income beyond $250,000. So if you make $250,001 a year, your tax rate will only increase on that last $1. But again, if you want to talk about extending the Bush tax cuts, the Democratic proposal ensures that those tax cuts will be extended to everyone for their first $250,000 of earned income.
And has now reached a career pinnacle as the new head of ABC News. I mention this because my October 1988 Spy Magazine piece on him remains one of the more tenaciously passed-around pieces I have ever written. Here it is. Click to read it at a larger size:
Ryan, like many conservatives, prefers to reside in an alternate universe in which the Affordable Care Act is not a budget saver but a massive drain on the federal budget (like, say, the prescription drug entitlement he supported.) The Bowles-Simpson commission examined the issue and sensibly concluded that building up the cost-saving devices in the PPACA would save money, and tearing them down would cost money. Ryan can't accept that. You can negotiate with somebody who has different preferences than you do. But negotiating with somebody who inhabits a different reality is very difficult.
In testimony today Army Chief of Staff George Casey and U.S. Marine Corps Commandant James Amos stated their worries about repealing DADT during a time of war. Greg Sargent emphasizes that "the current repeal proposal gives Defense Secretary Robert Gates the leeway to implement repeal on a flexible timeline that would work for [the Service Chiefs]:"
These men are concerned about the timetable of implementation of repealing DADT. But they generally support the goal, and they generally trust Gates to take their concerns about timing into account if repeal does become a reality. It's an important distinction that shouldn't get lost.
Felix Salmon eyes the 9.8 percent unemployment rate:
Right now, the unemployment rate is rising and therefore news, which means that people are at least paying attention to it. If it just bogs down, over the long term, somewhere north of 8%, then at that point the policy debate loses all urgency, and unemployment gets added to the long-term fiscal outlook as something which really ought to be addressed but never is.
Scott Brown is going to support repeal. Steve Kornacki saw this coming. He explains further hurdles:
With Mark Kirk's swearing-in last week, Republicans now have 42 seats in the Senate, so Democrats need two GOP votes to break any filibuster (at least for the next few weeks). But if Brown is willing to buck his party, it could be a sign that the chamber's few other moderate Republicans -- essentially, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and maybe Richard Lugar and the retiring George Voinovich -- are willing to cross over, too. ... And even if a few of those Republicans do end up voting to kill a filibuster, there's still the matter of conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin (both of whom will face reelection in GOP-friendly states in 2012) and Mark Pryor and and Blanche Lincoln; some or all of them could conceivably side with the GOP.
Civility is not a synonym for lack of principles or lack of passion. They are entirely separate categories. Civility has to do with basic good manners and courtesy, the respect we owe others as fellow citizens and fellow human beings. It is both an animating spirit and a mode of discourse. It establishes limits so we don’t treat opponents as enemies. And it helps inoculate us against one of the unrelenting temptations in politics (and in life more broadly), which is to demonize and dehumanize those who hold views different from our own.
I have been trying to think of a comparable senior public figure who, in the later stages of his or her career, narrowed rather than broadened his view of the world and his appeals to history's judgment. I'm sure there are plenty (on two minutes' reflection, I'll start with Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh), but the examples that immediately come to mind go the other way.
George C. Wallace, once a firebrand of segregation, eventually became a kind of racial-healing figure near the end of his troubled life. There was something similar in the very long and winding path of Strom Thurmond (or Robert Byrd). Or Teddy Kennedy, who sharpened the ideological edge of his rhetoric as the years went on, but who increasingly valued his ability to work with rather than against his Republican counterparts in the Senate. Barry Goldwater went through the same evolution from the opposite starting point. Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, different kinds of peaceniks by the end. We know that for humanity in general, the passing years can often make people closed-minded and embunkered in their views. But for people in public life, it seems to me, surprisingly often the later years bring an awareness of the chanciness and uncertainty of life, the folly of bitterness, the long-term advantage of a big-tent rather than a purist approach.
John McCain seems intentionally to be shrinking his audience, his base, and his standing in history. It's unnecessary, and it is sad.
Get a cot. Here's Ezra Klein describing Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley's proposal for filibuster reform:
...senators could no longer filibuster the motion to proceed to debate on the bill because that, after all, leads to less debate. They also couldn't filibuster amendments, as that also leads to less debate and consideration. The opportunity to filibuster, rather, would be at the final vote, when there is a completed piece of legislation to debate.
Once a filibuster has started, Merkley would like to see it resemble the public conception of the practice.
So rather than a private communication between members of the two parties’ leadership teams, it would actually be a floor debate -- and a crowded one. The first 24 hours would need five filibustering senators to be present, the second 24 hours would require 10, and after that, the filibuster would require 20 members of the minority on the floor continuously. Meanwhile, there would have to be an ongoing debate: "If a speaker concludes (arguing either side) and there is no senator who wishes to speak, the regular order is immediately restored, debate is concluded and a simple majority vote is held according to further details established in the rules. ... Americans who tune in to observe the filibuster would not see a quorum call, but would see a debate in process."
That's more like it. More drama too - which means more responsibility for creating it.
"What could be better than giving every human being on the planet the capacity to subvert all established authorities and institutions, private or public, tyrannical or meritocratic? What would be better, I submit, is lucid self-awareness about how much our liberty depends on the existence of stable, functioning institutions to protect it against those who long to extinguish it in the name of sundry anti-liberal theological and ideological projects," - DiA.
"So what does the Corner-reading crowd think of Twitter? Do you follow? Do you think it's an advance or decline? Sometimes I wonder as I'm flirting with being a twit," - Kathryn Jean Lopez.
