Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2621

Awkward Family Pet Portraits

by Chris Bodenner

Inspired by the mega-popular Awkward Family Photos, Buzzfeed gets pet specific. Our favorite Portland pet photographer sends us an original, seen above.

Photographer - Pets - Shopping - Visual Arts - Recreation

The Fear Tax

by Patrick Appel

Seth Godin reflects on it:

We pay the fear tax every time we spend time or money seeking
reassurance. We pay it twice when the act of seeking that reassurance
actually makes us more anxious, not less.

(Hat tip: Schneier)
















Seth Godin - Accounting - Business - Tax - United States

Yglesias Award Nominee

by Chris Bodenner

"Last week, after the announcement that [Right Wing News:] is sponsoring Homocon, people started asking me why RWN chose to promote that event. After all, I'm against gays in the military, I'm a strong supporter of Prop 8, and I'm very much in favor of a Federal Marriage Amendment. So, why back a gay group that doesn't agree with me on any of those issues? ...

[T:]here's a world of difference between saying, "This is the RepublicanParty's position on this issue" and saying...

Can Church Be Hip? Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

Dwight Ozard, one of my best friends (who has since died of cancer), wrote an article in 1997 when he was editor of Prism Magazine, "America's Alternative Evangelical Voice," that relates to this topic of Hipster Christianity. The piece was entitled "Rethinking Church To Rescue The Gospel," and I pass it along because I love this line:

For those of us who still believe in the church, our job is not its defense, but its reform...What will that mean? I'm not...

Existential Threats

by Patrick Appel

Marc Lynch's contribution to the Iran-Israel debate is worth reading in full. A taste:

Israel, according to Goldberg, wants the world to share itsperception of the Iranian threat and to act in concert. But again, ifIsrael's leadership genuinely believes that Iran poses the greatestexistential threat that Israel has ever faced, and that it needs theworld to accept its perspective that it is the world's problem and notjust Israel's, then why has it taken so many steps over the...

Bloggers for Sale

by Conor Friedersdorf

The Daily Caller has the story: 

"It's standard operating procedure" to pay bloggers for favorable
coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP
estimates that "at least half the bloggers that are out there" on the
Republican side "are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales."

In California, where former eBay executive Meg Whitman beat businessman Steve Poizner in a bitterly fought primary battle in the campaign for governor, it...

"I Am Speaking To You As An American"

by Chris Bodenner

Drawing parallels to Woodrow Wilson's cowardice on women's suffrage, Richard Just finds Obama's record on marriage equality "illogical and cynical":

Obama argues that he is against gay marriage while also opposingefforts like Prop 8 that would ban it. He justifies this by saying thatstate constitutions should not be used to reduce rights. (His exactwords: "I am not in favor of gay marriage, but when you're playingaround with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who...

Elites and the Tea Party

by Conor Friedersdorf

There is no single impulse that explains the Tea Party movement, but among its various catalysts, this one is noteworthy:

Our new meritocratic masters have been more conspicuously smart than wise. They know a lot, but don't know what they don't know. Their self-regard as the modern Americans who are the "natural aristocrats" Jefferson looked for has left them with an exaggerated sense of their own noblesse, and a deficient awareness of their corresponding oblige. Their...

Iraq's Porn Trade

by Chris Bodenner

Tarek El-Tablawy traces its ebb and flow since the 2003 invasion.

Iraq - Middle East - Warfare and Conflict - Recreation - Pornography Parodies

Anti-Muslim Activity At Ground Zero

by Chris Bodenner

This video, posted earlier, is an interesting contrast to this one:

A man walks through the crowd at the Ground Zero protest and ismistaken as a Muslim. The crowd turns on him and confronts him. The manin the blue hard hat calls him a coward and tries to fight him. Thetall man who I think was one of the organizers tried to get between thetwo men. Later I caught up with the man who's name is Kenny. He is aUnion carpenter who works at Ground Zero. We discussed what a...