Greg Sanders

Answering the blogosphere’s questions

From Paul Krugman:

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.

This reminded me of Laura Bush’s remark on carnage in Iraq:

And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this.

I propose modifying an existing word and calling such people ‘Daffy’ after the un-empathetic avian.  He’s made multiple such pronouncements, but here’s my favorite.

Daffy: Poor old Bugs. But, anyway you look at it, it's better HE should suffer. After all, it was me or him, and obviously it couldn't be me. It's a simple matter of logic. I'm not like other people, I can't stand pain, it hurts me.

 It does pain me to compare Alberto Gonzales to such a noble waterfowl, but being one of the ‘other people’ I can handle pain on occasion.

Image source: http://looneytunes.kidswb.com/

Hundreds dead and for what?

With Israel’s attack now in its third day, I thought I had to address it.  Ezra Klein does an excellent job of summarizing the narratives about who started it. Hamas did end the temporary ceasefire and launched ineffective rocket attacks.  At the same time, due to Israeli blockade, the situation in the Gaza strip were worse in June than at any time since the 1967 occupation and have subsequently degraded (hat tip Yglesias).  Blockades are also acts of war under international law.

Hamas isn’t nearly as well armed as Hezbollah, but I’m going to predict that a ground occupation will prove to be an expensive and ultimately low return strategy.  At best it will involve losing solders, meeting a few superficial objectives, and then withdrawing to the status quo.  At worst it will involve a reoccupation of Gaza and in turn a dramatic aggravation of Israel’s demographics problem.  There are about 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza versus the 2.4 million in the West Bank.  The total population of Israel is 7.1 million but only about 5.4 million of that population are ethnically Jewish. 

So, if you’re worried about maintaining a Jewish state without Gaza you’ve got 5.4 million Jews and about 4.1 million of everyone else.  With Gaza you’ve still got 5.4 million Jews, but almost 5.5 million of everyone else.  Now Palestinians don’t get a vote in Israel’s elections and neither ‘Jews’ nor ‘everyone else’ are a unified block.  But as is practically always the case, the economically developed Israeli population is growing slower than that of the destitute Palestinians.  Without Gaza Israel has a trend problem, with Gaza the problem is has already arrived.

More after the cut.

Solidarity

If you believe in that sort of thing, do you think people from a range of religions can get into heaven?  As a recent Charles Blow op-ed in the NY Times discussed, at least sixty five percent of Americans do (Hat tip Dave C. for sharing this).  I’ve actually discussed this Pew study before, but subsequent to the initial results they went back to determine what people meant by other religions.  Here’s the results to that query.  Short version, some 60% of Americans first and foremost think that Catholics, Protestants, and to a slightly lesser extent Jews are covered.  At around 50% Muslims, Hindus, and Agnostics are also good to go.  I’m actually a bit surprised Muslims didn’t do a bit better given the whole monotheism thing.  Happily even Atheists get more than 40% of the population, presuming they’d be interested in heaven were it an option.

I like Blow’s analysis:

One very plausible explanation is that Americans just want good things to come to good people, regardless of their faith. As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: “We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.” He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell. In fact, in the most recent survey, Pew asked people what they thought determined whether a person would achieve eternal life. Nearly as many Christians said you could achieve eternal life by just being a good person as said that you had to believe in Jesus…

Now, there remains the possibility that some of those polled may not have understood the implications of their answers. As John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said, “The capacity of ignorance to influence survey outcomes should never be underestimated.” But I don’t think that they are ignorant about this most basic tenet of their faith. I think that they are choosing to ignore it ... for goodness sake.

Having been through Sunday school, I’m well aware of the range of views regarding justification.  The short version of the official Lutheran view is justification via faith alone, but that good works are the fruit of such a faith.  The simplest way of reconciling that view is probably just to consider faith sufficient but not necessary, it still disagrees with some of the verses but doesn’t undercut the doctrine of forgiveness. 

In any event, Douthat had an eloquent post up where he argues on the meaning of Christmas and the larger Christian story:

It recounts a series of events that, if real, tells us something profound about the nature of God, and His relationship to His creatures, that we couldn't have been expected to understand or accept in precisely the same way without the Gospel narratives.

Of course a philosopher could have come up with the formulation that God is Love without the assistance of the Gospel According to Saint John, just as Aristarchus of Samos could draw up the heliocentric hypothesis without the assistance of a telescope.

Similarly other people duplicated the invention of the telescope and a love centric philosophy similarly doesn’t require a god at all.  Nonetheless, this, and the specific prominence of forgiveness, is the core appeal of Christianity for me.  Douthat correctly points out that the emphasis on love enhances the critique that there is too much suffering in the universe for good omnipotence.

In any event, for all of these flaws, the emphasis on love seems to have convinced a large percentage of those surveyed that good people will basically be okay, regardless of what the official theological line is.  I for one take that as a tiding of comfort and joy.

Should we assassinate Robert Mugabe?

Richard Cohen argued we should a couple weeks ago, perhaps by use of a Predator drone.  He’s a bit more oblique, hoping to merely inspire his flight by circling his house, but the basic idea is the same.  I may have been fairly sympathetic to this position back in college where I was actively interested in the connections between technology and interventions.

A comment from Stephanie Zacharek’s review of Valkyrie shows my worries now.  Valkyrie is a film about a plot to assassinate Hitler (I have no compunctions on that front):

The operatives knew that it wouldn't be enough just to assassinate Hitler, or Hitler and SS leader Heinrich Himmler. They would need to take control of the government as well, and their chief tool for doing so would be Operation Valkyrie, a contingency plan that, as the movie explains it, had been conceived by the German military as a way to contain civil unrest in the event of Hitler's death, or if his power were somehow compromised.

It’s been a while, so I’m having some trouble with finding the primary sources, but back in March Mugabe lost an election, he made some relatively conciliatory statements but met with his senior advisors and shortly there after took a harder line.  As I understand it, those senior advisors control the military are Mugabe’s power base along with the gangs of armed youth that are the his Zanu-PF party’s militia.

Mugabe’s death has a good chance of leading to a civil war, many of his people are in it for self-interest and violence is their way of life.  This isn’t to say that they couldn’t be cowed or defeated by an organized opposition with support from neighbors, but that if not handled properly, removing them from the scene will be even bloodier than their current abuses.  The legacy of easy former Soviet State revolutions can prove a mirage for outsiders.  In those cases fragile regime collapsed once it became clear through public displays that the state could not or would not effectively crack down.  Showing that an outside power can kill the President does not reveal the same information about the state of the country.  Remember, there is no charismatic leader in Burma, but the regime persists nonetheless.

That said, revolutionary leaders are a special case, one happily departing this mortal coil.  Thus, while I don’t think that Mugabe’s could hold power for long, his successors could certainly make their departure bloody.  Is that blood worth it?  Not our choice to make, I leave that to the people of Zimbabwe.  At present the opposition has committed to non-violence and I respect that.

Photo of police brutality during a 2007 protest from Sokwanele – Zimbabwe used under a Creative Commons license

Merry Christmas to all that celebrate it

And to all a good night.  I’m personally quite grateful to have the chance to spend it with people I want to be with and in a place I want to be.

I keep hearing good things about Milk

Latest review via Hathor Legacy.  Anyhow, anyone in the area want to see it?

Follow-up to charitable comments

Got a few comments on my “more charitable” post. Since I’m content light, and I fell asleep before managing to reply, I’ll just address them in a new post.

First, my finacee helpfully pointed out that my linking scheme made it seem as if the book was titled: “"Who Really Cares, Here's Ezra Klein Summing Up the Results."  I actually wouldn’t be shocked to see a blogger book with a title like that, I’d be surprised to see it sell though.

On a more serious note, first Mecha quite effectively zings the blood comment: “I wonder what would happen to the ratio if, say, a certain class of people who just happened to trend liberal could not give blood. Like, say... people who have had gay male sex and are willing to admit it.”  Err… yes, I blame the influence of hospital prescribed narcotics for not thinking of that myself. 

I don’t know if it would be enough to sway things, but the Kristof article already mentioned that homosexuals ranked high in terms of giving, so they’d probably have a disproportionate impact and should certainly be mentioned when citing that factoid in any event.  I’m presently blood banned from surgeries and had been for a year because of visiting the province with Ping An village in China which is apparently a malaria risk.  But those, unlike the restrictions on gays, are fair enough.

Next point key line, summarizing a bit: “'Conservatives are more likely to be pushed to give money to their churches' as a metric of 'good', which certainly might want to be weighted against all of the bad things that societal pressure can cause.”  I’d acknowledge that but we’ve already won the ‘all in’ argument as it were.  More liberal counties, states, and countries are generally better places to live if you’re poor (albeit with serious affordable housing problems).  Going by charitable giving vs. charitable giving, liberals are taking on a tougher fight.  But I think it’s a worthwhile one to consider, if we can win this one, then we can completely destroy the argument that regardless of moral merit of the restrictions, traditional social controls lead to better behavior.

Last point: “Finally, on the religious point, charity is giving to others for their benefit, and not yours. Not, essentially, paying dues.”  I know I’ve given on occasion to non-religious causes I support with not so much a happy heart as one that just wants to pay my bit and have the fundraiser go away.  Similarly from personal observation I think that bigger regular donors to Churches often are not those motivated by fear of punishment or the like (Not sure if that’s true of massive one time gifts).  I would buy that probably those that put the most emphasis on tithe or go to hell are probably the least like to be charitable with intakes, but I’d generally just prefer to measure charitable output. 

s a person who generates because they love so much a better person than one who gives because they think what goes around comes around?  Probably, but I’m a bit too utilitarian to really care.  My ideal measure would be to see how much the charity directly helped people, but that’s pretty hard to judge, let alone across categories.  That said, it would be interesting to see some data on why people think they give and as you say to cross-reference motive with the output.

Image of offering tray by Daniel Hoye used under a Creative Commons license

Which side is more charitable?

The Arthur Brooks of AEI has a book called Who Really Cares, here’s Ezra Klein summing up the results:

[It] cites data showing that "households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals." Every so often, his findings are trumpeted as proof that conservatives are more genuinely compassionate than liberals. And that's exactly what Nick Kristof did over the weekend.

But the difference can be explained in one word, and it's not "compassion." It's "religion." A recent survey from Google similarly found that self-identified conservatives gave more to charity than did self-identified liberals. But they also found that "if donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do."

If liberals give only slightly more after religious organizations are excluded, then I’m guessing liberals are giving less over all even after you account for the fact that a good percentage of religious donations essentially go to member services.  Ezra talks a bit about what really counts as charity, there’s a good argument that we’re overvaluing donations to the Ivies and that sort of thing.  They aren’t adding that many more students so better Ivies are not going to help the poor that much even if they do a good job of expanding need-based aid.

Anyhow, I think Ezra gets it wrong when he queries what really counts.  I think it is fair to exclude funding spent on overhead, fund-raising, and member services.  However beyond that we’re best off categorizing into the type of benefit provided rather than arguing what counts.

Beyond that, I think there’s a few ways to consider this:

1. Getting averaging the percentage given by household rather than dividing the amount given by the number of households.  Doing it the latter way emphasizes how much the rich give.
2. Beyond that, apply the Widow’s Mite principle.  Giving out of scarce funds counts more than giving of abundance.  Breaking down to compare similar income quartiles or perhaps by how household income compares to the poverty rate.
3. Include state and local taxes that get spend towards charitable ends.  We vote both with our ballots and our feet, choosing to live in a higher tax but better service providing community is a charitable choice.

Kristof does note that apparently conservatives give more blood, which is about as equitable of a measure as there is out there.  So I’m guessing that liberals won’t necessarily out perform conservatives even under some of these criteria.

Health care innovation!

Many hospital beds have neat features like being able to rise to essentially chair like stature or lay down like a full bed.  The tricky part about this is pillows.  Pillows in an upright bed tend to fall down when the patient leaves the bed and returns or even just adjusts the altitude of the bed.  Patients are also typically not that mobile, and so require the aid of another to sit up and put the pillows back in position.

I think the solution here is to make bed pillows that work like lazy boy pillows.  They could either have cases that wrap around both sides or perhaps can be clipped to the back of the bed.  In either case, it would save a lot of trouble without really requiring new tech.

At this point, I’m fairly mobile and mostly content to leave my pillows at the bottom of the bed, but this issue has annoyed me before.

Slow posting for a week or so

I’m doing some field study of the American health care system and so am going to be posting fewer entries for the next week or so.  Might have some guest author posts, depending on the availability of my fiancee and friends.

Eli Lake exposes U.S.’s unsavory ties

Over at TNR Eli Lake accuses the Baghdad shoe thrower’s station of supporting the often violent Sunni resistance in Iraq.  However, when he says we defeated that movement, he should really say we co-opted.  The Sunni Awakening did involve defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq and certain other dead enders, but critically it also involved gaining the support of some who had been fighting against us. If the reporter had ties with AQI or something that would be big news, but this seems like it just reflects the complexity and violent fragmentation that happens in a civil war.  After all, we work with these people.

I’m also told by my friend Monica that the reporter works with an American site that does reporting out of Baghdad so that suggests he’s not that much of a hardliners.

 

The Trouble With Matt Yglesias on Kosovo

I tend to agree with Yglesias often enough that I worry whether I’m actually adding an value.  Heck, I’ve got a copy of his book Heads in the Sand and gave it a rather positive review.  That said, the one area I tend to disagree with him his humanitarian intervention, specifically on Kosovo.  Quoting myself from the review:

[T]he book elides some potential faults within the liberal internationalist camp. The disagreements go back to Kosovo which in other venues Yglesias has treated it as legitimate but considers it a bad model for the future. Kevin Drum, operating from within the liberal internationalist tradition, demurs and offers support for Kosovo that I personally find compelling.

When I asked him about Kosovo in a session on his book at the New America Foundation, he basically said that there’s no real point arguing about a special case when we’ve got bigger issues to focus on.  Fair enough, but in a post on The Trouble With Genocide Prevention Yglesias never mentions Kosovo but sets up a dichotomy that calls it unilateral:

But then whenever anyone suggests that the U.S. commit itself to following international law and not using non-defensive military force absent a UN Security Council authorization, people show up insisting that we need to maintain the right to unilateral non-defensive war in order to stop genocide. Then whenever humanitarian emergencies break out, we do nothing to stop them.

Not surprisingly Jon Chait over at TNR vehemently disagrees with Yglesias arguing the Kosovo case and that no U.S. government has ever committed itself to giving the UN a veto.  I think the later point is weak, the US has historically reserved the right to do a lot of stupid thing.  Happily, there is a middle ground commonly discussed in international relations circles: requiring the support of the UN or a regional organization.  Rather than treating Kosovo as a special case, this is a rather straightforward standard that gets both Kosovo and Iraq right.  No major regional org supported the war in Iraq, NATO didn’t even come close.

More after the cut.

December 16th Link round-up

Spencer Ackerman notes that Muntader al-Zaidi, the guy who threw his shoes at President Bush, is still being interrogated in Baghdad by the Maliki government which probably means he’s being tortured.  Sounds like he’s got a lot of credibility on the streets though so I’d expect Maliki to back off once they realize they can’t effectively discredit the guy.

Also, my friend Lirazel (let me know if you want a link) who answers the question of whether people ever throw shoes in a non-insulting manner:

I did a little poking... in addition to tying shoes to the vehicles of the newly married as a symbol of fertility, apparently in the North of England the wives of fishermen used to throw old shoes at their husband's departing boats as a charm to bring them back safely!"

Robert Wright and Joel Achenbach did another fun blogging heads on Thanksgiving.  Good for people that like banter.

Apparently the presence of the American flag tends to strengthen nationalism more than patriotism in Americans.  Those findings come courtesy of the Lee Sigelman. Wonder if that’s true of other flags.  Also, before I acknowledge the validity of the nationalism/patriotism distinction, I’d like to see more research about how much of the population just have patriotism.

Brad Delong notes that even with perfect information, traders tend not to be rational in their valuing of assets.  Why?  Because if you buy an overpriced good, you can still make money selling it to someone willing to buy it at an even greater mark-up.  Apparently the people who make the most money are those that buy a lot at the beginning of declining resources a sim and sell mid-way through.  Momentum traders, those who buy when things rise and sell when they fall, do worst.  In other words, now is probably a good time to buy stock.

No place like Home

The Playstation 3 just debuted a new social networking based interface.  Basically think second life, avatars wandering around, private rooms, but instead of hordes of customizability you get integration with arcade games and tools for co-op.  Penny Arcade tour it apart for things like pointless scarcity, apparently the bowling lanes fill up and there’s lines for arcade games, not to mention loading screens.

Part of the problem is technology, but as the third panel in the comic wants, there’s a real problem with unwanted attention and personal space.  As the MTV News crew found, females get a constant and obnoxious level of attention.  More from Tracey John:

Wanting to bust a move myself, I left my avatar doing “The Robot” and went to the (real-life) kitchen to grab a snack.

But when I returned, I had some unusual encounters…

Still doing “The Robot,” I had four male avatars dancing around me. One asked where I was from; others said, “hey baby!!!” and “i like your ***s” (censored by PlayStation, but you can guess what that meant). Another asked “will u marry me?” All this without me having said a word to anyone. I had also received three friend requests from players that were not immediately present…

From what I’ve heard there’s a certain amount of this in the background of most MMOs.  Trouble here is that it’s consistent enough to move to the foreground.  This could be because it’s just starting out or could be the demographics of the PS3 Home community are just different.  Anyways, sounds like they need to do some combination of safe spaces and a complaint system.

Parting gifts

Well, I suppose this basically bookends Bush's involvement in the war in Iraq: from the tearing down of Saddam's statue to this:

As several commenters note on various sites, the President does seem surprisingly agile.  I hope the Iraqi journalist in question won’t end up with more than a slap on the wrist.  I expect there will be a whole lot of Iraqi journalists actively following this so that will help his odds. But, while he didn’t actually hit, I think his actions and words got his point across: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog.” 

Yglesias asks a logical question about the coverage:

Is it possible that there’s a region somewhere where throwing shoes is a compliment?

I did some asking around and a colleague told me that at many punk rock concerts, throwing a shoe is considered a sign of your high opinion of the ban.  Interesting if true.  That said, I think we can safely rule out that possibility in this instance.

Update: Stephen Totilo notes that Bush might have trained for shoe dodging using the Wii Fit.  Alternately, as an online friend pointed out, he may just be good at Quick Time Events.

Pro-Herpes social conservatives?

Currently, social conservatives are trying to defund Planned Parenthood.  The standard liberal response to this is to point out that abortion represents only 3% of Planned Parenthood services.  Ross Douthat pushes back against that noting that they do still perform 250k abortions a year.  He goes on to defend social conservatives against the pro-herpes charge.

But telling people who are against abortion that they're "pro-herpes" because they don't support channeling three hundred million public dollars a year to America's largest abortion provider is the equivalent of me accusing a fierce and moralizing anti-theist like Sam Harris of being "anti-education" because he doesn't want his tax dollars being used to, say, fund the Catholic school system. [emphasis mine] The phenomenon of an institution that does good with one hand and evil with another is a familiar one in human history - even Hezbollah does a lot of impressive humanitarian work, I believe - and it does not by any means follow that those who oppose the evil are morally obligated to support the institution anyway just because it does other, less morally problematic things besides.

There’s a rather key flaw in that argument.  Namely, that Sam Harris presumably supports public schools.  If he doesn’t, than yup, he anti-universal education.  So if you oppose abortion but favor making contraception available then this Sam Harris defense works for you.  The defense doesn’t work if you: opposes contraception, exclusively support ineffective and dishonest abstinence only education efforts, or try to cut family planning services under Medicaid.

So does the defense work at all?  More after the cut.

Training one’s bluff skill

46% of men surveyed admit to lying about what they’ve read to impress a partner.  Matt Yglesias is surprised the percentage isn’t higher:

I wonder if you see a substantial difference based on educational attainment here. It seems to me that college (at least as we did it at Harvard) largely consists of lessons on how to pretend to have read various books. How many section discussions of British Moralists 1650-1800 (by far the best introduction to the subject!) did I bluff my way through?

I’ve certainly bluffed my way through many a class, although I typically made an effort.  But even in grad school, when I actually was diligent and studious, I found that getting through all the material was really dang hard and I read faster than the average person, that said I have friends, and a person I’m marrying, who are faster than I. 

That said I don’t recall ever lying about what I read to impress a friend or potential romantic interest; I’m inclined to just ask for more detail about it or mention something I have read.  Makes for easier conversation really.

Anyways, I do actually think college could do with more training on how to get through the material.  Either by teaching us better skimming skills or speed reading.  To the degree that neither are trained, many will simply learn to bluff.  Not that bluffing isn’t a valuable skill in its own right, but we currently have an over-abundance of sources of BS.

I think I had that operation done in… 2002? Summer maybe? The name started with a V.

Ezra Klein provides a compelling parable:

If you walked into a bank and asked to open an account, and they opened a huge ledger book and began paging to your letter in the alphabet, you'd gape for a second, walk out, and call your friends. Or maybe you'd Twitter the experience. It is the 21st Century, after all. What you wouldn't do is use that bank.

But what we'd never allow with our money is constantly endured with our health.

I can personally testify to this.  I’ve spent a lot of time around hospitals this year and have often had to repeat information about what I’ve had done, including stuff that took place at that very hospital.  I found that some of my older records were even lost to the ages because the doctor didn’t retain them.  Particularly in the diagnostic phase, I spent much of my time recounting, with medium fidelity, my health history.  With the assistance of my parents, we have a pretty good file on me, this has got to really suck for those who aren’t good record-keepers or don’t have assistance from one. 

So far I’ve dealt with one of the 20% of the physicians that had extensive electronic records.  Took an extra hour or so the first time I saw him, but every subsequent time has been much faster and I haven’t had to pull open my datebook.

Electronic medical records are part of Obama’s stimulus package.  That makes sense, it will apparently cost about $50k per physician to implement it and that spending will probably be mostly in the U.S.  Happily, we should recoup that investment within two years:

[Duplicate paragraph deleted]

The evidence is clear on this score: Electronic health records not only save money, they save lives. The remarkable achievements of the Veteran's Health Administration are largely the work of VISTA, their electronic health records architecture. Indeed, the Commonwealth Fund found that the savings from EHRs are considerable:

This is basically a classic public goods problem.  The benefits are dispersed, costs are concentrated, and standards are needed.  Happily Obama is actually doing something about it.

Turns out love isn’t all you need

What happens when a leader of a major evangelical movement points out that same-sex marriage isn’t really driving divorces?  As Michelle Cottle discusses, they get fired:

The fallout was pretty much what you'd expect. For his honesty, Cizik was rewarded with such a shit storm of outrage that he wound up stepping down as VP of the NAE yesterday…

And, really, who can blame Dobson, Land, et al? Cizik gave voice to a fundamental truth. I mean, if religious conservatives paused in their ongoing campaign to impose their religious views on the entire populace long enough to consider the possibility that gay marriage is not, in fact, the biggest, baddest threat to Traditional Marriage, they might have to ponder what the real threats actually are. And where would that leave them?--particularly since most churches long ago stoped giving people a hard time about the sin of divorce. No, much better to keep shrieking about gays and hope for the best.  

In other news from the religious world, the Vatican just put out a new statement on bioethics.  It’s actually a bit less hypocritical.  Of course, they’re still anti-contraception in a way that completely ignores the way the body’s natural rejection rate of fertilized eggs.  Instead the new consistency comes in opposition to fertility treatments:

The sweeping 32-page document, which comes from the Catholic Church's highest rule-making authority and has the approval of Pope Benedict, warns about the moral dangers of a variety of procedures, including the freezing of unfertilized eggs and embryos, the injection of sperm directly into eggs [emphasis mine], and the genetic testing of embryos to identify those with defects.

Glenn McGee, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Bioethics… said prenatal genetic testing is extremely common in Catholic hospitals and that Catholics make up a huge percentage of in-vitro fertilization patients.

It’s not every day you get to witness the birth of a beautiful baby wedge issue.  After we get universal health care through, we should definitely make the point of inspiring regular debate about whether we’ll pay for invitro fertilization.  It’s a tricky issue, and one those primarily concerned with fertility and those troubled by the embryo issues can fight about for years to come.  Unlike stem cells, these aren’t hypothetical cures, they work now, sort of, although repeated treatments are often necessary.  I’m guessing a lot of people are going to be angry.

[Update: William Saletan has an article up about the frozen embryo issue.  He doesn’t actually mention the papal decree so I’m guessing the timing is coincidental. Not endorsing everything he says, but I thought it was interesting reading.]

Shooting lame ducks

Ezra Klein passes on a good idea from Mark Nikolas:

Yesterday, the auto company bailout bill passed the House by a margin of 237 to 170. One member voted "present" and 26 members didn't bother to vote. After checking the roll call vote, I noticed that more than half of 26 non-voting members were those who either lost their re-election bid, opted not to run, or left their job for a new one, in the case of Rahm Emanuel…

Ezra’s comment:

No work, no pay. We tend to get rid of Congressmen by defeating them for reelection. But it would be nice if we could fire them, or at least not compensate them for work they aren’t doing.

Pro-rating sounds good for me.  Although firing before the election can lead to its own problems.  Rep. Al Wynn (D-MD) was rightfully defeated in the party primary and then buggered out early to make more money as a lobbyist.  So we had to have a special election which certainly cost more than his salary.

After the general, the trick is shortening the lame duck period.  Perhaps more on that later, but there’s no real modern need.  If we just legalize shadow cabinets, candidates can have some of their key cabinet picks ready pre-election.  Sure there’s reasons to wait, but shortening the lame duck period means that if you want your cabinet approved fast you’ve got to submit them for vetting pre-election.  Second, the 2000 election problem, recounts do take time.  However, that can be fixed just by upgrading our electoral infrastructure.

Stuff White People Eat

Ta-Nehisi Coates stereotyping of white people as cucumber eaters has been bouncing around for a few days when Brad Delong reminded me of something.

Matthew Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias: The Cucumber Factor: Ta-Nehisi Coates is getting ready to foreswear the smear against white people that we eat cucumber. And yet just yesterday here in Finland where the white people are twice as white as back home (Nordic ancestry + subarctic winter = pale), I was in fact served a sandwich of cucumbers and cheese on a croissant.

And here in Vienna while seated next to Dani Rodrik I was just served not a cucumber sandwich but an egg salad sandwich on white bread with the crusts removed.

When I caught an intra-China flight, I got a meal of a ham sandwich on white bread, crusts removed, with mayo.  It really felt like they were aiming for American or European cuisine but went so far over the top that they produced something entirely new.

 

When I went to an event with Jennifer 8 Lee on her book the Fortune Cookie chronicles, I mentioned this particular story.  She said that she loved those sandwiches, although while they weren’t horrible I don’t really see the appeal.  I then suggested that it would be only fair if they were called “General Washington’s Sandwich” or something like that.

Picture of a similar sandwich by ulterior epicure used under a creative commons license.

Soft landing

Michelle Cottle over at TNR gives a short summary of how I’m feeling about the bailout:

Like many Republicans, I don't believe for a second that the taxpayers' billions will "save Detroit." I see this more as a way to provide a kinder, gentler, more gradual death for at least one of the Big 3. Still, I'm not sure I could vote against the bailout--no matter how unpopular--with so many more jobs on the line.

There’s some global over-capacity in the car manufacturing industry. Some consolidation is going to be necessary and some of the American automakers are in far worse position than their foreign competitors.  Based on what I’ve read I’m guessing GM goes down; I won’t weep for it.  That said, I hope we can get it’s stronger divisions and new projects bought out by other companies.  That will still mean job losses but even a successful industrial policy won’t save all legacy industries.

I for one welcome our new blimp-based overlords (Except for Ron Paul)

Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias are both puzzled by a mention that Gates is looking to cut big weapons programs and perhaps instead put money to smaller more experimental ideas like sniper blimps (hat tip my friend Monica who emailed me to ask about this).

Some Army officials are pushing development of a small blimp equipped with an automated high-powered sniper rifle that could provide a form of inexpensive but effective air support for platoons in Afghanistan.

So what’s up with that?  I can’t just the idea on the merits, I don’t know enough, but here’s what I think they’re going for:

• Cost savings.  Blimps are probably relatively cheap to keep in the air versus planes or helicopters.
• Mature technology.  I’m not sure about the survivability on a blimp, but it’s nothing that new and innovative.  The sniper thing may not be practical, but putting a sensor package up there shouldn’t be a problem at all.  Similarly remote piloting should be easier than remote piloting a plane or helicopter.
• Close air support.  This would be an army project designed to work closely with ground troops.  If they’re cheap and not trivially easy to shoot down, we can afford to lose a fair number of them in exchange for greater effectiveness on the ground.  The nice thing about close air support is that we’re a hell of a lot less likely to blow up a wedding when the shots are called in by ground forces rather than someone above the clouds.

So, assuming independent technical revenue verifies that these three features can be provided, this seems like the sort of crazy idea that’s worth making a prototype or two to test out.  We’d be much better off trying a bunch of small scale stuff and seeing what works than by trying to innovate with top of the line multi-function systems.

Photo of a random blimp by  Cranky Media Guy used under a creative commons license.

Bit of follow-up on the Douthat post

Mecha pointed me to another key part of Drum’s post that I must have skimmed over.  Specifically a post by Steve Benen:

Indeed, the evidence of conservative willingness to "compromise" on abortion is surprisingly thin. In 2005, for example, pro-life and pro-choice Democrats crafted the Prevention First Act, which aimed to reduce the number of abortions by taking prevention seriously, through a combination of family-planning programs, access to contraception, and teen-pregnancy prevention programs. Dems sought Republican co-sponsors. Zero -- literally, not one -- from either chamber endorsed the measure.

The bill never got out of committee (this was back in 2005 when Republicans controlled both Houses and thus the agenda) so no vote count is available.  Also, while the immediate ban in South Dakota was defeated there are other laws on the books that could lead to a ban:

• Louisiana, Utah, and Guam have post-Roe laws that have been found unconstitutional but are still on the books.  More states have old pre-Roe laws that might go back in forth.
• Louisiana, Mississippi, and both Dakotas states have laws would automatically ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned.

So getting into the hard ball politics of this, the Republicans probably kept that bill in Committee because they knew it would give political cover to pro-life Dems and pro-choice Dems in districts hostile to reproductive rights.  If it came to the floor, I suspect it would get some votes, but it matters that the Republicans can keep party line discipline on such an issue.  We should expect such discipline to continue in the future.

Similarly, pretty much every political movement tries to achieve all their goals if they think they can.  I tend to think that banning most drugs is a poor public health policy, but if I can just get the ban on pot (in small quantities at least) lifted I’d be a happier camper.  If we get to the point where our prison population is cut dramatically than the issue loses most salience for me.

So the claim of willingness to compromises means that if they try for it all, and lose, then they might accept that loss.  What Douthat is saying is that no middle ground available under Roe is good enough for him to say “fine, I give up.” 

Does he provide compelling evidence of that?  I think he does point to signs of popular support for compromise, but the idea that “crisis pregnancy centers” and “post-abortion counseling” are some sort of compromise position is ridiculous unless those centers are handing out contraception.  I think that might change, abortion attitudes are relatively static when broken down by age, but younger people are more open to contraception.  At this point, politician pro-lifers with proven willingness to cut deals to reduce the number of abortions are called Democrats.  Until the Republican party can’t maintain its discipline on contraception issues there’s no reason to trust there’s a faction we can make a deal with. 

I actually have some trust for Douthat and think he means what he says, but he’s not the one we’d be cutting a deal with.  I think the best hope of getting a faction that would break the party-line would be substantial increases in the number of women in positions of power in the Republican party.  Palin’s certainly not a compromiser, but with the shrinking percentage of white guys in the population the Republicans are going to have to start doing better with women if they want to staunch their demographic bleeding.  Regardless, these are all hypothetical possibilities, none of them are worth giving up Roe for.

Good riddance

Glad to hear that Obama had the sense not to offer Illinois’s gov a bribe to get his favorite appointed to the Senate.  Here’s hoping the rumor that Rahm Emanuel dropped a dime on him is true (Hat tip, commenter over at Coate’s blog). 

Also congrats to Republican Representative-elect Cao.  First Vietnamese-American in Congress, that’s pretty cool.  The indicted Rep. Jefferson perhaps can now use some of his freezer space for ice cream as comfort food.

Finally, I hope we can resolve some of the issues around Rep. Rangel sooner rather than later.  I haven’t been following them that closely, but the tax loophole thing definitely looks worse than the tax charges. To be clear, even if he is guilty, he’s not accused of anything quite as shady as the governor or Rep. Jefferson are indicted for doing.  But Ways and Means is one of the most powerful positions in the House, we don’t need a repeat of the issues that helped lead to our loss in ‘94.

Blogroll addition: Ross Douthat

With Democrats on the upswing, I figure now is  good time to be magnanimous in victory.  I’m adding an “opposition” category to my blog roll for those I read on the other side.  I may add a few more or switch over a couple writers, as any furtive alliances with libertarians may well breakdown once Bush is out of office.  Anyways, if someone is their, take it to mean that I consider them worth reading don’t impute their views to me.

Anyhow, my main disagreement with Douthat is that he’s a social conservative, although to my knowledge he’s never said anything against same-sex marriage.  Primarily he focuses on being opposed to abortion rights.  He recently had an op-ed where he argued that opposition to abortion wasn’t what sank the GOP ticket in 2008.

The public is amenable to compromise: majorities support keeping abortion legal in some cases, but polling by CBS News and The Times during the presidential campaign showed that more Americans supported new restrictions on abortion than said it should be available on demand. And while some pro-lifers would reject any bargain, many more would be delighted to strike a deal that extends legal protection to more of the unborn, even if it stopped short of achieving the movement’s ultimate goals.

But no such compromise is possible so long as Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey remain on the books…

But so long as the Supreme Court remains closely divided, and a post-Roe world remains in reach, the movement’s basic political task must remain the same. Not because pro-lifers are absolutists who reject compromise, but because any real compromise will always depend on overturning Roe.

Kevin Drum agrees that seeking to ban abortion didn’t sink the ticket, but adds an important caveat.

The truth is more prosaic: pro-life activists have done exactly what you'd expect them to do. They've pushed for the most restrictive possible laws they can get away with, and in many states they've succeeded in making abortion de facto unavailable. If Roe were overturned, compromise would be the last thing on their minds.

That said, while they’ve managed to drive doctors willing to perform abortions out of South Dakota, Denise Ross over at TNR looks into why they keep failing to pass a ban, regardless of whether it would pass constitutional scrutiny.

While it's generally agreed that South Dakotans haven't dramatically changed their view of themselves as "pro-life," Rhoden isn't the only one who thinks the well is poisoned. Blanchard, the political science professor, contends that the rapid-fire repeats of the issue have hurt pro-life efforts in South Dakota. "By making the [2006] bill so extreme, they made the right-to-life movement look like a bunch of nuts," he says. "Coming back two years later without any rest from the issue and producing a more moderate bill--but only a little more moderate--they may have permanently altered people's view of them as just a bunch of busy bodies."

Practically speaking, if at some point Roe vs. Wade proves unsustainable I do think people like Douthat would be willing to make some sort of good faith compromise.  That said, I don’t trust many of his compatriots whose eagerness to also take out contraception shows that they’re basically in a zero-sum game with feminists.  That said, the abortion rights movement is best off not compromising aside from safe, legal, and rare and trying to push the medical technology as far as possible so that if Roe breaks down it will be as easy as possible to provide services to poor women in restrictive states.

Quote of the Day 12-08-08

From Kate Harding on Michael Savage:

But dude, when you have a thought that includes both your mom and S/M? That's probably a thought you want to keep to yourself.

Context.

The difference between national interest and national security

So, does the U.S. still care if Osama bin Laden is alive or dead?  Robert Baer argues no in Time and Hanna Ludqvist over at Democracy arsenal disagrees with him and argues yes.

The most interesting part of Baer's piece comes at the end, however, when he asks:

But what if bin Laden really is dead, buried under a hundred tons of rock at Tora Bora or so weakened that he might as well be dead? Indefinitely crashing around Afghanistan and Pakistan's wild, mountainous tribal region on a ghost hunt cannot serve our interests. The longer we leave troops in Afghanistan the worse the civil war there will become. One day Obama will need to give up the hunt — declare bin Laden either dead or irrelevant. He has more important enemies to deal with, from Iran to Russia.

Baer seems to be saying here that terrorism, specifically from al Qaeda and the Af-Pak region, is no longer the greatest threat to the United States. Wow, that's bold. Also wrong, according to CIA director Hayden, who also said last week that "If there is a major strike on [the United States], it will bear the fingerprints of al Qaeda" and that al Qaeda "remains a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced... The war is far from over." While the United States has not been attacked since 9/11, Europe has and numerous al Qaeda plots have been uncovered. Those al Qaeda actions came from safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Part of this is a discussion of the importance of Bin Laden.  I don’t buy that he’s irrelevant, though he may well be dead and we should continue to raise that issue regularly.  Either he’ll release another video at some point or we can work on making him much more irrelevant by encouraging speculation as to his survival.

That said, regardless of the best tactics in handling that particular villain, it is rather odd to think of a group like Al Qaeda, ruthless though they may be, as the greatest threat to the U.S.  In determining a threat, you’ve got to balance odds of a problem with magnitude.  Russia’s nuclear arsenal means it’s still the greatest magnitude threat, but even with Putin’s nostalgic turn full fledged conflict is fairly unlikely.  Same with China.  The magnitude of a potential Al Qaeda attack is definitely much smaller, but unlike any nation at the moment they’re actually likely to throw all they can at us.

That said, even after 9/11 it seems fairly odd to think that a bunch of guys primarily living in the mountains of Afghanistan are really the main thing the U.S. needs to be worried about.  Between fixing the economy and defeating Al Qaeda, I think it’s safe to say that the economy is the higher priority.  The trouble is that national security often acts as a trump card in debates.  We don’t have an industrial policy, because that would be an affront to capitalism, except when it comes to defense. 

Often people try to challenge this view by describing environmentalism or economic prosperity as a security issue.  However, that still leads to a warped definition of our national interests.  We’re a superpower that spends as much on our military as the rest of the world does and the number block is the EU, not China or Russia.  A monomaniacal focus on security is more likely to cause problems like Iraq than to make our lives even marginally safer.  I think liberals and progressives ultimately have to be willing to talk about America’s national interests and that security issues will generally make the top 10 but not necessarily the top three.

Losing Afghanistan

Via Kevin Drum, apparently most of the additional troops arriving in Afghanistan next year are going to be dedicated to defending Kabul.  Drum elaborates:

Two years ago, the main complaint was that, sure, Kabul was safe, but it was just a small island of security in a vast sea of lawlessness. Today, we're apparently close to losing even that small island…  Baghdad was considered so central to Iraqi security that if it could be pacified, it would make an enormous difference in the rest of the country too.

That's not true of Afghanistan. Obviously Kabul has to be safe, but it doesn't play the same outsize role that Baghdad does in Iraq.

Anyways, I recently attended a Chatham House rules event on Afghanistan and I was similarly discouraged by what I was hearing there.  From what I learned there, it sounds like there was no intention of switching to a more confederated organization for Afghanistan and that we were were generally going to keep flowing the majority of aid dollars through the central government.  Our loyalty to the Karzai government apparently doesn’t run both ways, and we’re up against a much smarter foe in the Taliban than in Al Qaeda in Iraq.

If we want to be able to exit on anything like favorable terms, the incoming administration is either going to have to abandon the war on opium production (possibly by offering a deal like Turkey has) or start moving to a con-federal model.  I don’t think even a substantial increase in resources is going to cut it.

U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Michael Bracken used under a creative commons license.

Review: Quantum of Solace

I’m a bit late to this party, but as a big Bond fan I had to throw one up anyways.  The film is fun and shows that Casino Royale wasn’t a fluke, although it wasn’t as good as that film.

Strong points: Craig’s Bond and Dench’s M really made this movie, their scenes together sparked and the relationship between the characters drove the best elements of the city.  Seeing Matthias and Felix back was also great and underlined the parts of the plot that worked best. I love Sienna and am happy to see it in films.  I once spent a lovely evening lost in that city and imagine the rooftops would be even trickier to navigate.  Notably, the films continue to do rather well from a feminist perspective, making the one villain a serial rapist was unnecessary, but the ultimate resolution worked well.  The story and politics of the film were a bit surprising: the US role is plausible enough and I’ve always had a soft spot for the obliquely mentioned Evo Morales.  I’m with Yglesias in liking the dynamic though noting agree that there were some silly bits.  I disagree with him about the name, they use Quantum right.  Revenge basically provides relief, but in the smallest unit that can be measured.

Weak spots: My main complaint is with the hyperactive camera work.  I have no objection to setting up parallels between the action and something else going on nearby.  The problem is that the camera moved to quickly, by the time I’d reoriented myself the scene changed again.  The action all looked great, just give me longer cuts please!  The parkour scene in Casino Royale was so great in part because I could understand the difference in style.  The choreography was all good, it doesn’t need the cameraman shouting at me to reinforce it.  Finally, the main villain didn’t really grab me, he had enough dynamism to be a chief lieutenant perhaps, but that’s about it.  Happily, the film also built up a longer term villain who in Austria proved to be the smartest of his group.

But is it really Bond?  I say yes.  My thoughts on Craig’s characterization after the spoiler warning cut.

A Revolution in Criminal Affairs

There’s a great quote in the new CDI book, America’s Defense Meltdown, from the second chapter by Col. Chet Richards.

Much of what is hypthesized as “Fourth Generation Warfare”  -- state versus nonstate groups or “transnational insurgencies" – fall into [the law enforcement] category and so does not represent a new form of warfare so much as an evolution of crime.  Our opponents in these conflicts are not organized military forces or even insurgent units fighting to overthrow a government, but have more the form of transnational criminal cartels, albeit sometimes with an ideological or religious veneer. [Emphasis mine]

On that topic, Douglas Burgess argues in a NY Times Op-ed (Hat tip, my friend David) that piracy is terrorism.  I think the ‘enemies of the human race’ talk is a bit much, pirates often have the courtesy of at least ransoming rather than slaughtering their victims, but being able to prosecute them under universal jurisdiction makes a lot of practical sense.

For another relevant discussion, opium production in Afghanistan is one of the key revenue sources for the Taliban.  Happily cultivation is down 19% according to the latest UN report.  Patrick Barry over at Democracy Arsenal takes it upon himself to read beyond the executive summary and finds a key reason in addition to suppression efforts and weather:

Second, and most importantly, the dynamics of farm prices. As (Afghan) supply has once again exceeded (world) demand, prices for opium (both fresh and old) are down 20% in nominal terms (and much more at constant prices).

I’d heard at least a year ago that production was exceeding world demand but that prices weren’t falling yet.  That seemed rather odd to me, I’m guessing that prices are stickier in illegal markets.

However, I think that the Taliban doesn’t fall under the straight criminal framework.  They do want to govern Afghanistan and it guides their actions.  Noah Shachtman over at the Wired danger room notes that the Taliban is dropping some of the crazy puritanical stuff and is focusing on anti-occupation efforts.  Al Qaeda in Iraq hasn’t does this, and that’s part of what caused the Sunni Awakening and why everyone hates them.  This is via Ackerman who notes that the Taliban is probably trying to avoid their mistakes and that this will make it harder to split them a la the Awakening.

And the breakup is official

The Status of Forces Agreement passed Iraq’s presidency council (which basically gives the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds each a theoretical veto).  For more on the SOFA, here’s my earlier post.

Cable news, getting dumber

Disturbing news via Kevin Drum from CJR:

CNN, the Cable News Network, announced yesterday that it will cut its entire science, technology, and environment news staff, including Miles O’Brien, its chief technology and environment correspondent, as well as six executive producers. Mediabistro’s TVNewser broke the story.

24 hour news is really a medium that decreases the value of the information that flows through it.  I think the competition from the web has generally made this trend worse, not better. 

What we really need is a news station with an on demand model.  Users set their preferences and a default length and it selects the most recent coverage available on certain those topics.  Viewers could be pinged when there’s a new segment.  When news is actually breaking you can stream live segments.  Also, since the user is customizing what they get, you can better target adds and have more detailed viewership numbers.

I don’t think those better numbers would reveal a lot of pent up demand for good news.  People care a lot about stupid celebrity stuff.  But this model would let me get what I actually want from the news and let those who want celebrity news get it to.  Obviously the tech isn’t there for basic cable, but it’s certainly there for the net and it may be there for on-demand cable.

Reproductive rights round-up

First off, Amy Benfer over at Salon’s Broadsheet discusses a NY Times article with an obnoxious writer but a subversive photographer.  The piece in question is about surrogate motherhood and it underlines a lot of the class issues involved.

The issues involving surrogacy seem relatively straightforward to me.  As I generally see it described, reproductive rights first and foremost focus on the person bearing the child and deal with the source of the genetic material and of the fetus secondarily.  This does mean that females are the primary beneficiaries of said rights, at least until we develop artificial wombs or a way to splice in seahorse DNA.  That said, I don’t think that, absent considerations of bearing the child, providing the egg is actual deemed a more protected activity than providing sperm.

It seems like the easiest way to deal with surrogacy within this framework is to say that any deal to act as a surrogate does not abrogate the pregnant person’s reproductive rights.  In essence, contracting a surrogate is a crapshoot.  You could get treated as a normal creditor, if they don’t go through with it you get most of your money back unless the person goes bankrupt or something.  Presumably most arrangements would involve a large payment once the deal is done.

In the period immediately after giving birth, I suspect a reproductive rights framework would allow the surrogate to keep the child (again with breach of contract provisions kicking in).  Beyond that we go up to four actors: child, pregnant person, genetic material contributors, and whoever raises the child.  At that point, I don’t think the reproductive rights framework is particularly helpful.

Anyways, so does this kinda suck for people hiring a surrogate?  Yes, but at least it provides them a predictable environment. 

The other post of interest is one that I have a harder time discussing.  Michael Berube, who has a child named Jamie with down syndrom, has a post up discussing a rather civil argument he’s having with Peter Singer who thinks he’s closer in spirit to some rational alien than the average person with relevant genes.  It’s well worth reading and funnier than you might expect.  Earlier on Berube had done a post on how he reconciles rights for the disabled with reproductive rights including an earlier one more focused on the Terry Schiavo debacle.

The short version as I see it is opposition to mandatory genetic testing, providing those that do test accurate and often encouraging data about environmental conditions, government support to improve prenatal and natal care, but ultimately preserving the right of the pregnant woman to ultimately make what call she will.  That said, preserving said right doesn’t necessarily preclude condemning things like sex selection as legal but bad.

Enough about radicalism

Tariq over at POMED summarizes Robert Satloff’s complaint about Kristin Lord’s public diplomacy report.

He says, “In the post-9/11 era, the purpose of public diplomacy is not some amorphous desire to have America better understood or even the more pointed objective of winning the support of international public opinion for U.S. foreign policy…Today, that mission is how to identify, nurture and support mainstream Muslims in the ideological and political contest against radical Islamism….there is none of this in the Brookings report…”

POMED’s summary notes of the event in question can be found here. [Emphasis mine]

Biden made a reference to radical Islam as well at the press conference where the new national security team was revealed.  I think the radical-moderate distinction is not a sound nor a useful one.  Generally speaking it becomes very easy to dismiss anyone whose agenda is problematic for the status quo as a radical.  However, while we’re rarely going to agree with genuine radical Islamists, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re our enemy.  The problem are violent radicals both Islamist and otherwise.

It’s also important not to conflate all violent non-state actors, but in this case we’re talking public diplomacy and not military or even economic strikes.  Encouraging non-violence as a tool is a good general rule.  Of course, we should also be promoting values like democracy which are typically at odds with radical Islamism but often are at odds with ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders as well; e.g. our dear allies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

A non-profit future for journalism?

Joel Achenbach, great Washington Post journalist and often lonely defender of the current papers raises an interesting idea in his latest post.

"... no nonprofit -- and no for-profit -- news media organization in the U. S. today can match the audience growth of National Public Radio (NPR), which began in 1970 and now has thirty-six bureaus in the U.S. and worldwide and approximately thirty million weekly listeners, double what it had a decade ago. NPR news reaches audiences around the world through broadcast, satellite, and digital radio, as well as through online, mobile, and on-demand services. Today NPR has seven hundred employees and its programming is heard on more than eight hundred independent public radio stations nationwide; its flagship programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, are the top and fourth most listened-to radio programs in America. Thanks in substantial part to a huge bequest by Joan Kroc, NPR's operating budget is about $144 million today, with total assets exceeding $436 million. It is hard to believe that at the end of 1983, it had only about two million listeners and was $7 million in debt. In the late 1990s and again, especially after September 11, NPR turned some kind of significant corner, becoming a primary news source for millions of Americans."

Could the big papers become non-profits? That's way above my pay grade. But we need to do something -- before it's really over.

I think many periodicals already take this model.  I’m fairly certain the Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, and the Washington Independent are all non-profits; not sure about The New Republic.  Jack Shafer approached this idea from another angle: bashing the Newseum:

Of all the slow-moving targets that bleed profusely when you hit them, can there be a fatter, slower, juicier bull's-eye to sight your scope on than the $450 million Newseum, the four-years-in-the-building, seven-story, steel-and-glass monument to journalistic vanity just anine iron away from Washington, D.C.'s National Mall?

Avoid the gilded disaster that is the Newseum. Avoid paying the $20 they charge for admission. I want the Freedom Forum to sell off their monument valley installation and use the proceeds to actually support journalism. Like endowing a newspaper, for instance.

I think non-profits may be the future of many forms of journalism.  Does this mean the death of the daily print paper?  Perhaps, I don’t think I’ve seen any non-profits managing a daily print schedule and if as non-profits they can’t do nearly as many ads, I don’t see that changing.  Probably a few big good papers will be able to keep it up and a lot of smaller lame ones will as well.  For quality journalism not at one of the top 5 papers, you might have to go to the net, periodicals, or perhaps some sort of on-demand printing solution enabled by new tech.  E-book readers may be a bit help for this.

I hope Achenbach actually does put a good bit of thinking into what can and can’t be done on a non-profit model.  I’m sympathetic to some of the MSM bashing, but the Post won a lot of Pulitzers of late for good reason.  Because we need to figure this stuff out before some of the capacity is sold off or destroyed.

Race and DnD, how problematic?

Ta-Nehisi Coates linked to a piece on race and DnD by Chris Van Dyke.  As a side note, I think the comments on Coates blog are the most interesting of the bunch.

Anyhow.  Here’s my take.  First, he scores a lot of points against first and second edition.  I won’t complain that he has done much on fourth, it’s less than a year old, but third edition has been out for a decade.  The current company, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) does play up the legacy, so some such shots are fair enough.  But to critique where the game normally is today, you’ve at least got to talk about 3rd edition.  But enough concern trolling, I think there’s three or so key points that strike true and are worth addressing:

• Few PCs of color in illustrations.
• Racial stats
• Sub-human intelligent races

This is fairly geeky and long, so I’ll put the rest under the cut.  Also may come back later to look at some of these issues in MMORPGs, but this post is already too long.  [Update: It came up in the comments on the original piece so I should put in a plug for Stephen Erikson’s  series which starts with Gardens of the Moon.  Among other things, he effectively subverts the whole skin-color morality thing while building a compelling world that actually feels rather different than Tolkien.  Sadly a lot of the American cover art is generic, British/Canadian versions are better.]