In the World
Another fight about who's picking a fight
So, who's playing politics with reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act? Sen. Schumer and the Democrats, or Sen. Grassley and the Republicans?
Well,
probably both. Yes, Democracts would love to bolster the narrative that
Republicans don't care about women, even though Grassley et al. object
to new provisions added to the VAWA, not the existing law. And yes, by
threatening the whole bill based on objections to small parts of it,
some Senate Republicans (not all of them) reveal that while they may in
general favor services for domestic violence victims, it's not exactly a
top priority to them.
Of course both Senators Chuck are playing politics. That's their game, especially in leap years.
Happy 50th birthday, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan released his first album 50 years ago this week. That
self-titled debut is not the Dylan record anyone listens to most--it
includes only two original tunes--and as Andy Greene details, it was not a smashing success. But it opened the door for Dylan to come back just months later and record The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which propelled Dylan's staggering career.
Telling both sides of the (misguided, patronizing) story
As I've said before, the objectivity-fetishizing conventions of straight news reporting make me crazy. It's not just the odd philosophical throwback of implying that reporters can somehow avoid writing as particular people situated in particular contexts. It's also the convoluted copy, in which even plain facts can't be stated plainly if they happen to be unpopular.
So I was glad when NPR released its new ethics handbook, in which among other things the network states that it favors "truth" over "the appearance of balance" and adds that "if the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports."
Don't call me, I'll e-mail you
I certainly don't hear from as many PR people as David Roberts does, but
when I do hear from them it tends to annoy me for most of the same
reasons it annoys him: no hyperlinks, buried ledes, missing background
info, generally little evidence that the sender knows what I do or cares
if I consider his or her pitch. I particularly enjoyed item #6 on his
list of tips.
What not to take from the "Why I left ______" articles
Two similar pieces are getting a lot of play this week: James Whittaker’s blog post about why he left Google and Greg Smith’s op-ed about why he left Goldman Sachs. Both talk of their high level of company loyalty and enthusiasm in the past. Both bemoan the changes in their respective corporate cultures that led them to leave. Neither seems all that hopeful about his company’s future.
What neither of them does, however, is demonstrate that the problem is that Google/Goldman Sachs used to care about more than just making money but doesn’t anymore.
Whose religious freedom?
Michele Chabin reports that Israeli postal workers are refusing to deliver Hebrew-language New Testaments. Mark Silk asks an interesting question.
Colbert on "do" process
Colbert for the civil-libertarian win.
Links? Links.
Here are some things I read recently but didn't get around to blogging about.
My cat hides dead mice. What else is he hiding?
My wife and I have been joking with our neighbors lately about TV ads that a Super PAC supporting their cat, Kobie, might run against our cat, Owl. Now Scott Simon's reporting on an ad someone actually made.
Links? Links.
Here are some things I read recently but didn't get around to blogging about.
Do grain subsidies make Americans consume more calories?
Christopher Shea highlights a new study that analyzes the effect of U.S. grain and soy subsidies on the American diet. The study's abstract leads with its contrarian, we're-taking-on-Michael-Pollan angle:
Many commentators have speculated that agricultural policies have
contributed to increased obesity rates in the United States, yet such
claims are often made without any analysis of the complex links between
real-world farm commodity support programs, prices and consumption of
foods, and caloric intake.
Forty-eight senators voted for this?
So, the Blunt amendment got killed in the Senate. And good riddance: you wouldn't know it from the L.A. Times's writeup, but the measure was a good bit broader than a reversal of the Obama administration's contraception mandate (which itself would have been nothing to celebrate). From the amendment text (pdf):
A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the
essential health benefits package...on the basis that it declines to
provide coverage of specific items or services because...providing
coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying
for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the
religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other
entity offering the plan.
In other words, essentially a line-item veto of whatever the boss is morally opposed to, based on church teaching or otherwise.
"People who don't have money don't understand the stress"
So Bloomberg talked to some rich Wall Street types
about dealing with the impact of reduced bonuses. All populist
eye-rolling aside, I think this quote from Michael Sonnenfeldt--founder
of Tiger 21, a "peer-to-peer learning group for high-net-worth investors"--actually makes some sense:
Sonnenfeldt said [Tiger 21] members, most with a net worth of at
least $10 million, have been forced to “re-examine lots of
assumptions about how grand their life would be.”
While they aren’t asking for sympathy, “at their level, in
a different way but in the same way, the rug got pulled out,”
said Sonnenfeldt, 56. “For many people of wealth, they’ve had a
crushing setback as well.”
Sure--you don't have to be destitute to experience the disappointment of unmet financial expectations.
Links? Links.
Here are some things I read recently but didn't get around to blogging about.
Another Ash Wednesday, another jelly-bean binge
Like a lot of Protestants, I've never been one to take the fasting element of Lent all that literally. But while I never set out to intentionally do the opposite, it sometimes seems to happen.
This morning, I ate half a bag of jelly beans. I haven't done that in years. Then, with my brain exploding with sugar and my mouth with fantastic artificial flavor, I remembered what day it is. It's as if I got the Fat Tuesday memo a day late, and also missed the part about using up perishable bad-for-you food, not junk you couldn't spoil if you tried.
Eco-theology in the news?
The new Century editorial
offers that if the Republicans nominate Rick Santorum for president,
his regular rhetoric about poverty might challenge President Obama to
engage him on it--giving voters a chance to hear two different analyses
of the problem instead of, you know, not hearing about it all.
Somewhat more quixotically, I've found myself wondering whether there's an opportunity as well in Santorum's recent claim that environmentalism amounts to a "phony theology." Stephen Prothero's reaction is to challenge Santorum's desire to draw who's-a-real-Christian lines; Rachel Tabachnick's is to trace the "phony theology" line to the influence of the Cornwall Alliance.
Good
points both, but what interests me here is that Santorum's comments
point to one of the basic theological questions for Christian
eco-engagement: Is the emphasis on human membership in the wider
creation or on human responsibility for it?