Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2591

About My Job: The Mathmetician

by Conor Friedersdorf

A reader writes:

I'm currently a Ph.D. candidate in pure mathematics, and in my free time I like to think about how mathematics and mathematicians are portrayed in popular culture.  Usually, both are portrayed poorly.  For example, if everything you knew about a mathematician you learned from films like A Beautiful Mind or Pi, it would not be entirely unreasonably for you to assume that mathematicians are socially maladjusted and crazy.  Of course, the reality is much...

Judging A Book By Its Title, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

Jamelle Bouie reviews Kos's new book, American Taliban:

Like Liberal Fascism, American Taliban is anotherentry in the tired genre of "my political opponents are monsters."Indeed, Moulitsas begins the book with the Goldbergian declaration that"in their tactics and on the issues, our homegrown American Taliban arealmost indistinguishable from the Afghan Taliban." And he fills theremaining 200-plus pages with similar accusations. In the chapter onpower, Moulitsas writes that "the...

Health Care And November, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

Nate Silver is in the same ballpark as Bernstein:

Health care dominated the political discourse for about nine months; it
seems implausible that it hasn't played some role. But [Jay Cost:] hasn't
offered much in the way of proof — nor is there much of it to be had:
overdetermined phenomena usually beget underdetermined attempts to explain them.

Nate Silver - Health care - United States - Politics - Health Care Reform

Engagement Gifts, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

A reader points me to this Cary Tennis post on engagement rings from several years back:

We all know that in spite of social progress menstill make more money than women and thus wield more power. Sorequesting that he buy this ring, although it sounds old-fashioned, mayalso be her way of asking that he recognize this continuing social andeconomic inequality; the act of buying the ring is a symbolic giving upof his unfairly derived power, a laying himself bare. It is also...

The Evolutionary Case For Monogamy: Heartbreak, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

Christopher Ryan lays into McArdle's critique of his book:

Got that? Humans aren't like bonobos because we're not like bonobos. No way! So there! Case closed.

Inaddition to this somewhat embarrassing "reasoning," it's pretty clearMs. McArdle hasn't read even the first half of the book very closely.Pages 77 and 78 contain a table listing some of the major similaritiesbetween humans and bonobos, many of them unique to these two species.Hard to imagine how she managed to miss...

Can Church Be Hip? Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

I'm not sure if you've covered anything other than Christian music here (I may have missed some other posts), but for many Jews, especially Jews from an Orthodox background (me included), a Matisyahu concert is a much more spiritual experience than a synagogue service. And his work stands on its own as excellent reggae as well.

Matisyahu talked about his faith with the A.V. Club in 2006:

AVC: Some have talked about your video for "Youth" and yourlive show...

In Defense of Feeling Entitled

by Conor Friedersdorf

In my post on how professional elites are recruited and hired, the line I wrote that's getting the most attention is as follows:

Though it isn't defensible, it is unsurprising that a lot of people who eschew offers to work at these firms, favoring public sector work instead, imagine that they are making an enormous personal sacrifice by taking government work. The palpable sense of entitlement some of these public sector folks exude is owed partly to how few of 'our best...

Boys in Afghanistan

by Conor Friedersdorf

Joel Brinkley writing in The San Francisco Chronicle:

Western forces fighting in southern
had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man
walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested
he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young
Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military
investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't
understand."

All of this was...

Malkin Award Nominee

by Chris Bodenner

"Progressives and Islamists are indeed on the same side. Their common
disdain for Christianity explains why left-wing judges in America find
any inkling of Christianity in the public square unconstitutional,
while Islamist judges in the Middle East deem it executable. Their common view that life is expendable explains the left's
embrace abortion-on-demand and why the Islamists don't hesitate to
deploy their own children for homicide bombings," - Gary Bauer.

Midd...

How Our Professional Elites Are Hired, Cont'd

by Conor Friedersdorf

Thanks for all the e-mails about America's professional elite and how they're hired. One frequently offered remark: the economic slowdown means that things aren't as lavish as they once were. Below the fold, a selection of other reader responses.

A reader writes:

I'm currently employed by one of these "elite" organizations--a corporate law firm ranked among the top 10 most prestigious in the country, year after year.  I came in at the height of the boom in 2007, when the...