Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2574

Mental Health Break

by Chris Bodenner

Neetzan Zimmerman features an impressive chap:

Scott Bradlee pays homage to the birth of Billboard's radio airplay coverage in the 1920s with a Roaring Twenties-style medley of this week's top 10 pop songs:

#10 Magic - B.o.B ft. Rivers Cuomo
#9 Just the Way You Are - Bruno Mars
#8 California Gurls - Katy Perry
#7 Cooler Than Me - Mike Posner
#6 Right Above It - Lil Wayne Ft. Drake
#5 Dj Got Us Fallin' In Love - Usher ft. Pitbull
#4 I Like It - Enrique Iglesias ft. Pitbull
#3...

Death by Drone, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

Tim Heffernan joins the debate:

I am not sure why [Poulos:] thinks it's better to have our people rather than our robots do ourkilling — because it's more honorable? Produces fewer civilian deaths?Both are reasonable and both are debatable, but I won't speak for himand instead hope he will explain. In any case, to me the reason toprefer human to robotic war is a cold and brutal one: because it bringswar home to the citizenry in the form of the dead and wounded, and...

Not Another Space Cake

by Zoe Pollock

Chef Frederick Nesbit caters to an under-served clientele. He began Cannabis Catering after his friend's diabetic mother was diagnosed with cancer.

I would bring back edibles [from the dispensary:], but they're so high in high-fructose corn syrup that she was high off sugar rather than being medicated.

High-fructose corn syrup - Cancer - Sugar - Health - Food additive

"Lumpenizatsiya"

by Zoe Pollock

Scott Horton reports on the burgeoning democracy in the Kyrgyz Republic, after a revolution broke out in early April:

"We are witnessing the process of 'lumpenizatsiya,'" one former president of the Kyrgyz bar, who had been aggressively critical of each of the prior governments, told me. When I asked what he meant by this curiously Marxist coinage, he explained, "It's the process whereby the reins of government are seized by waves of people who are progressively less educated...

About My Job: The Photographer

by Conor Friedersdorf

A reader writes:

I don't really have a job, per se, I have a career, as a freelance photographer. Everybody in commercial photography is going backwards, even Annie Liebovitz, who was formerly in the category of a wealthy photographer but isn't so much anymore.

The main thing my clients don't understand is the overhead of running photography business. Digital has replaced film in the commercial photography world, but professional digital cameras and lenses are very...

Poem For Labor Day

by Zoe Pollock

"Sovereign Joy" by Rodney Jones, from the Atlantic Monthly in 2005:

On the John Deere he felt inaugurated,
freshly minted, risen to eminence.
He could hit the left foot brake, square-
pirouette at the floodgate, and follow
the creekbank back to the barn. He knew
where liveth and when goeth and how
lift harrow and turn governor down.
He had studied paradise—this came close,
making a vow always to live right
and perfect corners he'd cheat by littles
until he went in an oval, round
and...

Sick Bucket Of The Universe

by Zoe Pollock

Vaughan Bell reports on visions of a psychedelic future, by imbibing a muddy brown brew known as yagé:

In a hut, in a forest, in the mountains of Colombia, I am puking into a bucket. I close my eyes and every time my body convulses I see ripples in a lattice of multi-coloured hexagons that flows out to the edges of the universe.

Bell's spirit quest was in response to an article in September's Nature Reviews Neuroscience, which tries to assess the growing research on...

The Case for Local Control

by Conor Friedersdorf

Nick Gillespie reflects on the folks at the Glenn Beck rally:

For much of the new century, and certainly for all of thepast three years, there has been nothing but uncertainty in theeconomy and a good degree of uncertainty in the political arena.The people we talked to felt something like cogs in a machine whoseshape and size they didn't even understand. They were not rabidxenophobes or racists or even haters in general, but they werepissed off that their individual...

Page Six Power

by Zoe Pollock

The glory days of New York's gossip scene may be coming to an end thanks to internet competition, but the eternal allure of the biz remains as strong as ever:

"The thing about gossip is, if you know it, you're in the know, and most people want to sit next to you," says Paula Froelich, the fiery, 10-year veteran of Page Six... "For the people who stick their nose up at it, I laugh my ass off. Complete governments have changed because of gossip. Everyone wants to sit next to...

Faith In The Army

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by Zoe Pollock

Marcia Coyle reports that "for the first time in more than 30 years, the U.S. military has allowed an enlisted Sikh soldier to maintain his religiously-mandated turban, beard and hair while serving in the Army." James Joyner reacts:

The ultimate objection, really, is cultural.  As Nick Tankersley puts it, "Turbans and beards? Not in my military." I was part of that culture long enough to share that visceral reaction.  But my rationality allows me to see it for what it is and...