Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 386

“Eat Anything You Want, Just Cook It Yourself”

Michael Pollan’s advice on eating healthy:

The Absolutism Of AA

Brian Palmer explores how proponents of chemical therapies for alcoholism conflict with the abstinence-based approach of support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous:

Many patients and doctors have grumbled for years about the religion inherent in the Alcoholics Anonymous process: Half of the 12 steps involve God or “a Power greater than ourselves.” In recent years, however, the complaints have turned scientific. Some doctors who specialize in treating alcoholism have leveled a pair of accusations against the organization. First, they claim that AA has obstructed the spread of medications to treat alcoholism. Second, they claim that the group stubbornly resists evidence that some alcoholics are better suited to a life of moderate drinking than to complete abstinence. Domenic Ciraulo, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and an advocate of the medication and moderation approach for some alcoholics, said in 2010, “We have nothing against AA, but they have something against us.” Writing in the Washington Post earlier this year, National Institutes of Health clinical researcher Markus Heilig attacked AA’s “uncompromising” philosophy of “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”

The Physics Of The Flying V

Scientists have figured out how and why birds stay in formation:

[F]lying in a V isn’t just about staying in the right place. It’s also about flapping at the right time. As each bird flaps its wings, the trail of upwash left by its wingtips also moves up and down. The birds behind can somehow sense this and adjust their own flapping to keep their own wings within this moving zone of free lift. “They trace the same path that the bird in front traced through the air,” explains Portugal. Imagine that a flying ibis leaves a red trail with its left wingtip as it moves through the air. The right wingtip of the bird behind would travel through almost exactly the same path. “It’s like walking through the snow with your parents when you’re a kid,” says [Steven] Portugal. “If you follow their footprints, they make your job easier because they’ve crunched the snow down.”

This is a far more active process than what Portugal had assumed. “We thought they’d be roughly in the right area and hit the good air maybe 20 percent of the time,” he says. “Actually they’re tracking the good air throughout their flap cycle. We didn’t think they could do that. It’s quite a feat.”

Thinking About Brain Death

Noting that “it appears that Marlise Muñoz has never been declared dead,” Gary Greenberg explains how brain death is determined:

A doctor can’t always determine whether the brain is truly dead. The diagnosis is made the old-fashioned way: by careful observation. A doctor checks to see whether the eyes are responsive to light or touch; she pricks the nailbeds to discern whether the pain registers; she tests muscle reflexes; she determines whether the buildup of carbon dioxide triggers spontaneous breathing if the ventilator is shut off; and she may use an electroencephalograph to detect electrical activity in the brain. (However, even a dead brain may produce some voltage.) If all the findings are negative, then the declaration is made.

Even then, the doctor can be wrong. Patients declared dead have begun to breathe on their own, after the machines were withdrawn; organ donors have shown signs of life, even as their organs were being removed; and, in at least one case, the harvest was aborted and the patient eventually went home, neurologically impaired but decidedly alive. And there are cases, well-known among transplant doctors and ethicists, in which people have taken home “dead bodies” that have gone on to live for long periods. In one case, a three-and-a half-year-old boy whose brain was destroyed by infection was taken home by his mother, who cared for him for twenty years in her basement before he finally died, from cardiac arrest, in 2004. Evidently, the body does not always fall apart in the absence of its maestro.

Recent Dish on the Muñoz case here, here, and here.

The Best Of The Dish Today

And there you have it from the Salt Lake Tribune. Utahns – I repeat: Utahns – are now equally split – 48 – 48 – on marriage equality for gay couples. More to the point: in the wake of a judicial ruling holding that Utah’s ban on civil marriages for same-sex couples was unconstitutional, only 52 percent of respondents backed the state’s appeal, with 40 percent opposed and 8 percent unsure. That’s a very evenly divided state. It will be harder, after these results, to argue that the state court’s mandating marriage equality is a grotesque act of “judicial tyranny.”

The revolution, in other words, is not decelerating; it’s accelerating. And in the red states now.

In other news, we discovered the following about Benghazi:

Various versions of the talking points do not suggest the White House edited them to cover up references to Al Qaeda or to manufacture evidence of a protest.

So the entire campaign against Susan Rice was a pack of lies. Can we just repeat that so that McCain and Butters can get it into their thick, pomaded heads?

I pondered the new document on human sexuality by a group of leading German theologians – prompted by Pope Francis’ invitation to a new dialogue on the family in modernity. This poem by William Stafford stopped me in my tracks the way all great poems should. Christie is doing just fine; we gamed out the looming marijuana legalization battles; and we kept you up to date with the progress so far of the Dish’s renewals.

The most popular post of the day was our renewal results post; runner-up was “And So It Begins …?” on the church, change, and sexual morality.

See you in the morning.

The Forty-Niners Of The 21st Century

Jonnie, a trucker, struggles with isolation and uncertainty in North Dakota as the economic prospects of the Bakken field fail to live up to the hype:

The NYT captions:

Jonnie’s story calls into question whether hard work and courage can eventually bring a decent living in contemporary America — a longstanding promise this nation makes to its citizens. As it happens, we can’t all be winners. Not even in a boomtown.

Michael Scott notes that the flood of job seekers into the oil-rich region has caused housing costs to skyrocket:

The Bakken Region has seen its working population swell by 70% since 2010. While the economic trend has been a boost to fortunes, a chronic shortage of living accommodations for transient workers has led to a serious imbalance in the housing supply/demand equilibrium. The result: home and rental housing costs that boggle the mind and terrify the wallet, sending many arriving workers into hysterics as they try to find a place to rest their heads at night. There is frequent talk of workers that are forced to live in their cars while earning $100,000 a year. Trailer parking spots can be found for rates that have escalated to $800 a month, and hotel prices are even higher; a one-night stay can be $300, or even more.

When You’re Old And Gay

Responding to an AP story about a new gay-friendly housing complex for low-income seniors in Philly, J. Bryan Lowder touches on the special challenges our gay elders face:

[E]ldercare is also a matter of economic justice. The responsibility that [chairman of the Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Fund Mark] Segal articulates is easy to forget in the era of gay marriage, in which same-sex couples are increasingly able to consolidate their wealth and plan for their retirements and estates in ways that older generations just couldn’t. And regardless of whether gay elders found life partners or not, the hard truth is that, as Segal mentions, simply being queer and out in previous decades often had severe—and long-term—consequences on an individual’s finances.

But the most unconscionable aspect of this issue—and the one that affordable elder housing is ideally suited to prevent—is the pressure many LGBTQ seniors feel to go back into the closet after a lifetime of openness. This kind of retreat can seem necessary in traditional nursing homes and retirement communities as queer residents are forced to reintegrate with their less tolerant age-group. Imagine the pain of having to police your behavior or refrain from discussing a partner who has passed in your own home—it’s barbaric. Hopefully, other cities will take a cue from Philadelphia and work to create accommodations for our elders that afford them the peace and dignity they deserve.

A Poem For Thursday

“An Archival Print” by William Stafford:

God snaps your picture—don’t look away—

this room right now, your face tilted

exactly as it is before you can think

or control it. Go ahead, let it betray

all the secret emergencies and still hold

that partial disguise you call your character.

Even your lip, they say, the way it curves

or doesn’t, or can’t decide, will deliver

bales of evidence. The camera, wide open,

stands ready; the exposure is thirty-five years

or so—after that you have become

whatever the veneer is, all the way through.

Now you want to explain. Your mother

was a certain—how to express it?—influence.

Yes. And your father, whatever he was,

you couldn’t change that. No. And your town

of course had its limits. Go on, keep talking—

Hold it. Don’t move. That’s you forever.

(From Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by William Stafford © the Estate of William Stafford. Reprinted by kind permission of Graywolf Press. Photo by Ethan R.)

Who’s To Blame For Benghazi?

Serwer summarizes the Benghazi report released Wednesday:

The report, which the committee approved by a voice vote, concluded that the attacks could have been prevented and makes several recommendations for improving security of U.S. diplomatic facilities in areas where U.S. personnel are likely to face threats. It also faults the State Department for not responding to repeated requests for increased security at the facility, and for ignoring incidents prior to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack that indicated Americans there were at risk. The report also states that Stevens himself rejected two offers from General Carter Ham, the head of the U.S. military’s Africa command, for military protection the month before the attacks. The report concludes that the attacks were “likely preventable” had warnings about the “deteriorating security situation” been heeded.

He points out a few notable debunks. Such as:

Various versions of the talking points do not suggest the White House edited them to cover up references to Al Qaeda or to manufacture evidence of a protest.

Amy Davidson notes that the Benghazi tragedy “was more than a single misjudgment”:

The talking-points controversy was always strangely misdirected—in part because, as this report makes clear, there is a lot that was substantively wrong with the way things were managed in Benghazi.

That is true particularly if the subject of discussion is Hillary Clinton. She does not come out well in this report, in any part, although the Republican minority is more florid in its criticisms. The State Department made mistakes when she was its leader. One of the findings is that nothing changed even when “tripwires” meant to prompt an increase in security or suspension in operations had been crossed, and people in the Department knew it.

Aaron Blake interprets what the report means for Hillary:

The p-word — “preventable” — is what stings most for Clinton. The report says, conclusively, that State’s failures contributed to the deaths of four Americans on Sept. 11, 2012. And Republicans can and will say that people died because of those failures.

At the same time, the report doesn’t detail whether any of these warnings or requests actually reached Clinton’s desk. Had it done so, then she really would have been in trouble. While Clinton was, ultimately, the buck-stopper at State, she is more able to distance herself from the problems identified by the Senate report if it doesn’t specify that she was directly aware of them.

First Read doubts Benghazi will hurt Clinton as much as Bridgegate hurts Christie:

Hillary Clinton has 20 years on the national stage (including a thoroughly litigated presidential bid in ’08) to balance out a bad story, while Christie is still making his first impression on the national stage. And of course, a third difference is that no Democrats believe the worst about Hillary (and might try to take advantage of it) when it comes to Benghazi, while the same isn’t true for Christie. Plenty of Republicans, particularly conservatives who were never enamored with Christie in the first place, do believe the worst about Christie and the bridge.

Eli Lake focuses on the report’s criticisms of Gen. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, :

An addendum to a scathing report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Benghazi signed by six of seven Republicans on the committee singles out Dempsey for “failures in leadership.” Specifically, the six Republicans fault Dempsey for failing to have a plan to respond to an attack on Benghazi given the ample intelligence showing the desire of terrorists to attack Americans there, and for allowing General Carter Ham, who was the combatant commander for Africa Command, to not know the CIA maintained an annex in Benghazi near the U.S. temporary mission.

The Republicans slam Dempsey for failing to send more military support from the region as the attack was unfolding. “General Dempsey’s attempts to excuse inaction by claiming that forces were not deployed because they would not have gotten there in time does not pass the common sense test,” the senators write. “No one knew when the attacks against our facilities in Benghazi would end, or how aggressive the attacks would be.”

And Benen finds that the GOP hasn’t changed its tune:

Given the latest report, which reinforces the previous reports, are Republicans finally prepared to move on to some other alleged conspiracy? Of course not.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) saw the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee and said, “It should be clear, even to my critics by now, that Benghazi is bigger than Watergate.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) added, “I’m familiar with cover-ups throughout history, the Pentagon Papers, Iran-Contra, all of them. This is gonna go down as the greatest cover-up in history because the president and Susan Rice both knew it was an organized terrorist attack and deliberately sent Susan Rice to tell the American people it was not.”

It doesn’t matter that they’re wrong; they don’t care. They start with the conclusion and try to work backwards to find evidence that satisfies their goal.

The Dems’ Montana Maverick

Benjy Sarlin profiles Brian Schweitzer, the former governor preparing to run against Obama’s record in the next presidential primary:

Schweitzer’s scorn for Obama has led him to hatch a surprising plan. After turning down a run for Senate this year and settling into a new job as a mining executive, the ex-governor surprised observers by announcing his interest in a possible run for president in 2016. He’s since visited Iowa, the kickoff caucus state, to rail against Obama’s “corporatist” health care law and to criticize Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic frontrunner in 2016, for voting to authorize the Iraq war when she was a New York senator.

A Schweitzer presidential candidacy would be a long shot by any measure. He has no national profile and a heterodox political persona that’s served him well in rural, libertarian, and energy rich Montana but doesn’t necessarily sync with the average Democratic primary voter. Clinton, while still undeclared, is such an overwhelming favorite that donors-in-waiting are already competing for territory. But what Schweitzer does have is a message that’s unique in the likely Democratic field. The former governor is gambling that Democrats won’t just want an alternative to Clinton in 2016–they’ll want a complete and total rejection of the Obama presidency.

Ezra questions Schweitzer’s strategy:

More interesting than Schweitzer’s lack of praise for Obama are his extremely specific criticisms.

He loathes Obamacare and believes it should be replaced by a single-payer health-care system. He calls the NSA revelations “un-effing-believable.” He says the Obama administration “just haven’t been very good at running things.” It’s an outline of where one extremely savvy politician thinks the left might be unhappy with Obama — and, by extension, Hillary Clinton.

But Schweitzer didn’t become governor of right-leaning Montana by accident. He’s skeptical of gun control and likes to shoot at things in campaign ads. He’s a big believer in coal production and expanded oil drilling. He’s the sort of red-state Democrat that the party thought was key to its future in 2005 but whose political appeal has been diminished by the rise of Obama’s younger, more multicultural majority.

Bouie adds:

If Schweitzer is an unlikely choice for the Democratic nomination, it has less to do with his low national profile, and everything to do with his pronounced Obama-skepticism. Black voters have their concerns with the Obama administration, but the president is held in high esteem. Which is to say that, if you’re going to distance yourself from the administration, you have to do so without without attacking Obama as a figure. Otherwise, you’ve alienated African Americans and crippled your bid for the nomination.

Kilgore sees Schweitzer alienating the entire party:

At a time when Democrats are frantically trying to hold onto control of the Senate, Schweitzer talked about running for Max Baucus’ seat and then bailed. Next thing you knew, he was talking about running for president. Most Democratic activists think they need a viable Senate candidate in Montana more than they need an openly anti-Obama presidential candidate. From that perspective, Schweitzer looks narcissistic, and that’s not a personality trait likely to ignite a crusade.

Maybe I’m just wrong. I met Schweitzer back when he was running for the Senate in 2000—before he had any national ideological profile at all—and thought he was an odd but intense man afire with self-regard. Some fans out West have long thought he had some personal magic along with the right positioning to win red states. If he keeps going to Iowa, we’ll soon know if that activist-rich state gives him traction—or a strong heave-ho.

Recent Dish on Schweitzer here.