Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 405
December 20, 2013
Christmas Hathos Red Alert
Dan Savage reviews Palin’s new book introductory chapter on Christmas. You know you wanna click through. Money quote:
This paragraph about gun shopping in December of 2012—one first grader at Sandy Hook was shot 11 times—ends with Palin bragging about her tits. I’m not kidding.
Snark vs Smarm, Ctd
Richard Lea contributes to the debate spurred by Tom Scocca’s essay:
Not even Scocca is really arguing for snark. Instead he’s arguing for the licence to adopt a negative tone when you confront “smarm”, which he defines as a “kind of performance” that takes on “the forms of seriousness, of virtue, of constructiveness, without the substance”. Scocca assembles examples from literature and politics of smarmy doublespeak – and who could possibly be in favour of that? – where practitioners short-circuit dispute about real issues by claiming any criticism is merely personal attack and suggests that those who argue against snark are really concerned about preserving their own status.
But he’s not really arguing about snark at all, as becomes clear when he admits that “the complaints against snark are not entirely without merit”.
Some snark is harmful and rotten and stupid. Just as, to various degrees, some poems and page-one newspaper stories and sermons and football gambling advice columns are harmful and rotten and stupid. Like every other mode, snark can sometimes be done badly or to bad purposes. …
Instead we need to steer a course between snark and smarm, to remember that it is enormously hard to write a good book, and to engage with the book, which has eventually been written on its own terms. Those terms are, of course, subject to criticism themselves, but we have to remember that we’re not in Hollywood. In a world where US publishers produce more than 300,000 titles a year – not to mention the 390,000 US titles published directly by their authors – the duty to “review books negatively” that Dowd upholds is constrained by limits of time and space. Confronted with a bad book, we should say it’s bad, of course, and how and why, but unless it is important or dangerous, why bother to confront it at all? Why not find something better to review? If we renounce snark, then the negativity we permit ourselves must have a point, and must be balanced with generous explorations of those few books that aspire to something interesting and manage to match those aspirations with at least a little success. Otherwise we’re not really talking about literature at all.
Tweets Of The Day
Marriage Equality is legal in Utah for about an hour. We are at the office now. The DA just walked in and is having a meeting. Updates soon
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Line out the door now in Salt Lake. A celebration of love and joy. pic.twitter.com/POpWx5e0mQ
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
We are not married yet. This is so new. The clerk doesn't have clearance… Yet
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Everyone in the office is so supportive
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Wany is processing our application at this second!! pic.twitter.com/kAmjHYMmfv
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Application fee is paid for
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
This is happening pic.twitter.com/uTuq1peV9m
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Wany just got pulled away by the DA…. They are trying to stop this from happening
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Husband and husband….in Utah.
pic.twitter.com/E91zhTj8MR
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Michael proposed to me in the summer but I never thought we would have a marriage certificate from Utah. This is the best Christmas gift.
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
@fakedansavage thank you!! It happened so fast but we are so happy!
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
This is the pro-family movement. An outpouring of love, commitment, and dignity in Salt Lake City today. pic.twitter.com/fgHpLCOqSN
— Seth Anderson (@jsethanderson) December 20, 2013
Carbon Tax-Breaks
Why we should end them:
According to IMF calculations issued earlier this year, global fossil-fuel subsidies in 2011 cost $1.9 trillion — fully 2.5% of global gross domestic product — and the biggest single source of subsidies was the United States. Eliminating these subsidies globally, the IMF said, would cut energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions a whopping 13%.
Fuel subsidies are terrible primarily because, by “reducing the cost consumers pay for oil, natural gas and coal, subsidies promote the wasteful use of these polluting — and, at least in theory, finite — resources.” But they can also be harmful in a multitude of other ways. For example:
Earlier this year, Iran devalued its currency — the rial — against the US dollar. But when it did the devaluation, it failed to compensate by raising the rial-denominated price of fuel. As a result, the devaluation reduced the price in real terms that consumers in Iran pay for fuel. The market responded swiftly and sensibly: Massive amounts of diesel fuel are being smuggled out of Iran and into neighboring Pakistan, where the price of diesel at the pump now is 10 times what it is in Iran. According to the IEA, 60,000 barrels of diesel fuel are being smuggled out of Iran, mainly into Pakistan, every day.
A.I. Intimacy, Ctd
Christopher Orr considers Her the best film of the year:
Her is a remarkably ingenious film but, more important, it is a film that transcends its own ingenuity to achieve something akin to wisdom. By turns sad, funny, optimistic, and flat-out weird, it is a work of sincere and forceful humanism. Taken in conjunction with [Spike] Jonze’s prior oeuvre—and in particular his misunderstood 2009 masterpiece Where the Wild Things Are—it establishes him firmly in the very top tier of filmmakers working today. Like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—of which Her is a clear descendant—Jonze’s film uses the tools of lightly scienced fiction to pose questions of genuine emotional and philosophical weight. What makes love real: the lover, the loved one, or the means by which love is conveyed? Need it be all three?
Dana Stevens’s take:
Her isn’t, in the end, a political or socio-cultural satire, much less a nostalgic tract about the need to throw away our devices and truly live. It’s a wistful portrait of our current love affair with technology in all its promise and disappointment, a post-human Annie Hall.
Brett McCracken compares the protagonist to the operating system:
Theodore earns a living communicating emotion for a populace presumably deficient in the art. In this world, communication itself has become a necessary nuisance. You need it to live, but it’s devoid of pleasure and avoided whenever possible. Other people write intimate letters for you; your OS writes your e-mails, makes your calls, chooses and buys presents for your goddaughter, and navigates dicey dynamics with divorce lawyers.
Theodore is paid to know people better than they know themselves, to dig into their quirks and nuances to best capture how and what they love. This is also, of course, what Samantha does for Theodore. In this and many other ways she is a mirror for him, a reflektor (to use a neologism from Arcade Fire, who provide the soundtrack for the film and whose latest album is in part about connection in the digital age).
A bit from Angela Watercutter’s review:
Jonze imagines a future where we trust our devices more than we do today — and we trust them a lot already. Think about how many secrets we tell them in the form of sexts and selfies, Snapchats and private e-mails. Increasingly, the love we get day to day comes in form of “hearts” on Instagram and Likes on Facebook. Would it really be so weird if the machines themselves got in on the conversation? They’ve been listening in all along; maybe it’s about time they piped up.
In Her – like our hyper-connected lives today – it’s possible to fall in love with someone you can’t touch, and to feel it every bit as much as you would with someone who’s there in flesh and blood.
Kurt Loder’s bottom line:
The movie has more on its mind than the old question of “What is love?” In a bracingly original way, Jonze suggests that whatever the future of digital evolution might hold in store for human romance, the danger of heartbreak will always remain, along with its attendant torments of desperate yearning and unfocused jealousy. “You helped me to discover my ability to want,” Samantha tells Theodore. Want what, he wonders.
Related Dish on the film here.
What If Fewer Young People Buy Insurance? Ctd
Obamacare won’t collapse if somewhat fewer young Americans sign up for coverage. Jonathan Cohn examines the big picture:
None of this means that unexpectedly low enrollment from healthy people would be a good thing—or without consequences. Premiums would rise, potentially increasing the cost of federal subsidies and/or premiums for people buying coverage without federal tax credits. But the increases would not be disastrous. And that’s a pretty good lesson to remember. People tend to talk about Obamacare as if it’s going to be a ringing success or a total catastrophe. In reality, it’s likely to be a mix of good and bad news, with lots of variation from state to state, and with lots of unanswered questions that linger for months and even years.
Philip Klein reframes the death spiral debate:
[W]hat’s been largely lost in the ongoing discussion about whether a death spiral can happen is that there isn’t one Obamacare “risk pool” and thus, there isn’t one potential “death spiral.”
In reality, there are 51 different risk pools (for each state plus the District of Columbia), which means 51 chances to get things right, as well as 51 possible death spirals.
It’s perfectly possible that come March 31 – the current end of the open enrollment period – evidence will show a bit of both. That is, some exchanges may be viable, and some may find themselves in deep trouble.
Larry Levitt of Kaiser looks ahead:
I expect a mixture of stories at the beginning of January. There will likely be reports of some remaining errors in the back-end transmissions to insurers, with some people thinking they’re enrolled when they’re not. And, as I said, some people will be surprised by which providers are or are not in their plans. Some people may also start to discover that they have enrolled in plans with modest premiums but high deductibles, which may not cover their more routine medical expenses. At the same time, we’ll start hearing many more stories than we have to date about people who have signed up and getting help that wasn’t available before. That will include people with pre-existing conditions who have been locked out of insurance before, or low- and middle-income people who are getting tax credits that make coverage much more affordable. What we’ll start to see in January are the real effects of the law, rather than the more hypothetical ones we’ve been talking about up until now.
December 19, 2013
The Best Of The Dish Today
Big Duck/Beard Day here at the Dish – but I have to give the prize of this culture war explosion to Rush Limbaugh. It really is a quote of the year:
Well, I just found out what a butt plug was. I didn’t even know.
Yeah, right. You want to know what I think? Leave. Phil. Robertson. Alone. Or stop using rednecks for ratings.
Three posts worth revisiting: a haunting avian Face of the Day; the (misleading) stats on teen pot use; and why that Obamacare “death spiral” is largely hype. Bonus late-night link: Pareene’s genius Mike Allen parody.
The most popular post? A&E Cannot Bear Very Much Reality. Second? My Deep Dish essay on the meaning of Pope Francis: Untier of Knots.
See you in the morning.
(Photo: California Academy of Sciences diver George Bell wears a Santa Claus suit as he dives in the Academy’s Philippine Coral Reef tank on December 19, 2013 in San Francisco, California. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Last-Minute Shopping: Give The Dish!
[Re-posted from earlier today]
A reader asks:
Quick question … Is there a way to purchase a subscription for a friend as a Christmas gift?
You’re in luck! Tinypass, our e-commerce partner, just released an updated version of our gifting service, in time for Christmas. Now you can schedule the delivery of a gift subscription to the day. Just buy it now and have it automatically emailed to your friend or family member on Christmas Day. You can also add a personalized message to the gift email. Just go here to fill out a quick form for a one-year gift subscription – which, remember, is a one-time purchase that won’t recur next year. The price is just $19.99 – or more if you want to give a little extra to the Dish this year.
And if you’re one of our 35,000 Dishhead free-riders, who still haven’t subscribed, why not give yourselves and us a present? Subscribe here. One who did last week:
Uncle. I give up. You win. I purchased a subscription. It was never about the money. Twenty bucks for a full year of Dish? Are you kidding me? Worth every penny and then some. I’ll pay the twenty bucks for the same reason that I subscribe to the New York Times. In some way you and your colleagues have become indispensable to my daily routine. And I don’t like being blocked once I’ve filled my quota. And I can’t STAND another fucking window popping up asking me to subscribe.
Stop those pop-ups and get rid of all those house-ads by subscribing here. We also have a monthly option of $1.99 for those who don’t want to spend twenty bucks upfront. Another new subscriber writes:
After reading this morning, the new posts, the continuing threads (especially about miscarriage and lying about Santa), I realize that I land on the Dish for my daily dose of Sanity. Sane people, having Sane thoughts, having Sane questions and conversations. Daily. I love the Dish so much that I am looking forward to renewing my subscription in February. That’s a new concept for me: looking forward to renewing a subscription. Bless you people. Bless you for what you have managed to create and sustain. The Dish is better than church.
Obama Rights Drug War Wrongs
The president is commuting sentences for eight victims of unfair crack sentencing laws:
Obama said he was granting clemency to the eight inmates and commuting their sentences, and that he would also give pardons to 13 convicts who have already been released. He said he would retroactively apply new sentencing guidelines and drug laws to the eight convicted felons who are still serving time, and six will be released by April 17. Under current law, Obama said, “many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society.”
Sullum applauds Obama for using his clemency power and hopes that he will exercise it more often in the future:
Families Against Mandatory Minimums estimates that 8,800 federal crack offenders are serving prison terms that could be shorter if they had been sentenced under current law. As of today, Obama has used his clemency power to help 0.1 percent of them.
Obama nevertheless deserves credit for acting, albeit belatedly and timidly, on his avowed belief that thousands of people in federal prison do not belong there. In addition to issuing these commutations, he has endorsed the Smarter Sentencing Act, a bill co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) that would allow some crack offenders convicted before 2009 to seek shorter sentences. But as Obama demonstrated today, he does not have to wait for congressional action. It is completely within his power to free any federal prisoner whose sentence he deems unjust. If he exercises that power a little more, he will not be in danger of going down in history as the least merciful president ever.
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