Running Chicken

Graphic by Hilary Stohs-Krause, NET News Is your political...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:54:02 -0600

Graphic by Hilary Stohs-Krause, NET News

Is your political preference based in biology?

The way you act is determined by your genetic make-up. Or is it? The last decade has seen more and more academics embracing the idea that there are biological indicators for human behavior, but to what extent remains hotly contested. In today’s Signature Story, NET News reporter Hilary Stohs-Krause looks at new research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the controversy surrounding it.

Saving Zelda

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:41:00 -0600

At the heart of a tour de force about the manifold problems in Legend of Zelda video games since the 1987 original, and how to make new iterations stronger, Tevis Thompson has the following insight about the idea of heroism upon which all of the Zelda games are based:

The point of a hero’s adventure… is not to make you feel better about yourself. The point is to grow, to overcome, to in some way actually become better. If a legendary quest has no substantial challenge, if it asks nothing of you except that you jump through the hoops it so carefully lays out for you, then the very legend is unworthy of being told, and retold.

This is precisely why I — like Thompson and like so many others — were captivated by the original game: There was so much space to explore, so much to do, and something of an uncertainty at times about how to proceed. And it’s why the whole concept of a heroic journey or adventure continues to resonate with so many people, within the world of video games (where the risks are obviously mitigated) and in life (where the risks remain but where the adventures are one’s own).

Interactive: Explore upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:03:11 -0600

Interactive: Explore upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases

"Really, who can resist a film about a pirate who prays, who keeps kosher and who observes most..."

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:24:00 -0600

““Really, who can resist a film about a pirate who prays, who keeps kosher and who observes most rules? A Jewish pirate who fights back, who doesn’t take it lying down, yet who doesn’t raid ships in the Spanish flotilla on the Sabbath - but waits until Monday instead.””

- Erol Araf, who is making just such a film:

There may not have been a Silverstein on the high seas in the 17th century, but there were swashbuckling buccaneers called Balthazar and Moses Cohen Henriques and - would you believe? - Rabbi Samuel Pallache. They pillaged and plundered Spanish navy vessels. Payback, if you will, for the murder and expulsion of many Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century due to the Spanish Inquisition.

More here (HT: Flavia Dzodan).

Meet the president before George Washington John Hanson didn’t...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:35:22 -0600

Meet the president before George Washington

John Hanson didn’t get the props his successor did. But for eight years, Hanson led the Continental Congress — the organization that led the United States in the days before the Constitution was hashed out. Hanson didn’t have the executive powers of the leaders who followed him, but he took his job quite seriously. “The load of business which I have very unwillingly and very imprudently taken on me I am afraid will be more than my constitution will be able to bear,” he wrote to his son-in-law days before he took power. Ultimately, the Articles of Confederation, which gave him his position, proved to be too weak for the job, so the founding documents got rebooted — and Hanson didn’t receive much more than a footnote in the history books. It’s such a small footnote, however, that there have been rumors on the Interwebs that he was actually the first black president (he wasn’t, it was a case of mistaken identity). But for one day, let’s honor this guy and remember him as the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo Entertainment System that eventually became the engine for this country.

A very happy Presidents Day to America’s least known executive!

It’s the fifth episode of The Hero Report; this week,...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:44:00 -0600

It’s the fifth episode of The Hero Report; this week, our guest is Drew Jacob. Inspired by the ancient epic poems, Jacob is planning his own heroic journey: He’ll be walking from the northern United States all the way to Brazil.

And, in this very special episode, my (almost) 2-year-old son makes an extended cameo, eventually explaining to all who will listen that he’d prefer to watch Elmo rather than continue to engage in a conversation about the role of the heroic quest narrative in classical epics.

Tell us what you think, discuss these issues with us on Twitter (Matt Langdon / Ari Kohen), and join us every Friday at 4pm Eastern on Google+ for our live broadcast (where you can interact with us while we’re on the air).

Want to make the podcast portable? Subscribe via iTunes (video / audio-only).

Serious Biblical Interpretation

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:40:11 -0600

One further word on the post I published this morning about whether or not the Bible necessarily regards conception as the beginning of human life, which has garnered a fair amount of attention. A number of people have pointed out that the English translation of the passage from Exodus, which the author I quoted doesn’t provide, says that there is no punishment to be meted out if the striken woman gives birth prematurely.

When it comes to this particular passage, the author I quoted thinks that miscarriage is an appropriate translation of the Hebrew; many Christians today — especially evangelicals, it seems — believe that premature birth is more appropriate.

This, I suppose, is where knowing Hebrew helps a bit because the English translation could refer to healthy premature birth … or to miscarriage. Like the author I quoted, I believe that miscarriage is more appropriate. Here’s why:

In the Hebrew, the word employed in this passage in Exodus is יצא, which means “went out.” The much more common word, in Hebrew, would be ילד, which means “bore,” “begat,” or “gave birth.”

Now, יצא is used in other birth stories in the Torah — such as in Genesis 25:25 and Genesis 38:28. In both of those instances, however, the mother is giving birth to twins and it’s important to know which one came out first in order to establish the birthright. In pretty much every other instance of birth in the Torah, ילד is the word that’s used.

If the author(s) meant to use the word that signified a healthy birth in Exodus 21:22-25, why not use ילד … unless a healthy (albeit premature) birth was not the intent of the author(s)?

Having said all of this, I should point out that I’m not a rabbi. But I do happen to know a dozen or so, and some of them occasionally read this blog. Perhaps they’ll weigh in too.

Iranian warships dock at Syrian port after crossing Suez Canal

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:12:00 -0600

Iranian warships dock at Syrian port after crossing Suez Canal:

The warships reached the Syrian city of Tartous, northwest of the capital Damascus, after crossing the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea.

The crossing was the second in a year by Iranian warships, Iran’s navy chief said.

Last February, the Iranian frigate Alvand and the supply ship Kharg entered the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, for the first time since 1979.

Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari told the official news agency IRNA that the latest initiative was to show Iran’s naval power and “deliver the message of peace to the nations of the region and the world.”

… because nothing can “deliver the message of peace” quite like warships.

More and more, I feel like I’m watching the beginning of what will end up being a bad hockey game that’s going to feature more fighting than hockey. Iran and Israel are opposing wingers who are jawing at each other before the puck even drops, trying to goad one another into dropping the gloves. The puck drops, these two clowns go after each other, the refs can’t effectively break it up, and before you know it, even the goalies are swinging at one another at center ice.

I won’t stretch the analogy any more than I already have, except to say that I hope we can find some officials who can put a stop to the nonsense before it really gets started.

The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:46:01 -0600

The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal:

In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal.

Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.

Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it does.

That’s new. If you had asked American evangelicals that same question the year I was born you would not have gotten the same answer.

That year, Christianity Today — edited by Harold Lindsell, champion of “inerrancy” and author of The Battle for the Bible — published a special issue devoted to the topics of contraception and abortion. That issue included many articles that today would get their authors, editors — probably even their readers — fired from almost any evangelical institution. For example, one article by a professor from Dallas Theological Seminary criticized the Roman Catholic position on abortion as unbiblical. Jonathan Dudley quotes from the article in his book Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics. Keep in mind that this is from a conservative evangelical seminary professor, writing in Billy Graham’s magazine for editor Harold Lindsell:

God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: “If a man kills any human life he will be put to death” (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22-24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense. … Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.

Christianity Today would not publish that article in 2012. They might not even let you write that in comments on their website. If you applied for a job in 2012 with Christianity Today or Dallas Theological Seminary and they found out that you had written something like that, ever, you would not be hired.

At some point between 1968 and 2012, the Bible began to say something different. That’s interesting.

Victims of State Terrorism No Longer on Their Own

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:59:04 -0600

Victims of State Terrorism No Longer on Their Own:

Mental health professionals in Argentina have accumulated such a wealth of experience in treating victims of state terrorism that they are now sharing it with colleagues across the country’s borders.

Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, which like Argentina were under the yoke of military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, now have access to the experience of mental health professionals here by means of a growing body of written material on how to provide assistance for survivors of torture and relatives of victims of state repression.

HT: Flavia Dzodan.

Bon Iver has posted a new video on the band’s YouTube...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 08:53:52 -0600

Bon Iver has posted a new video on the band’s YouTube page featuring frontman Justin Vernon and drummer Sean Carey performing five of the group’s songs on dueling grand pianos. The video was shot at the stunning AIR Studio’s Lyndhurst Hall in London and show Vernon and Carey facing each other on opposing pianos as they work through stripped bare versions of “Hinnom, TX,” “Wash.,” and “Beth/Rest” from Bon Iver, “Babys” from the Blood Bank EP, and the single “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

As my friend Michael Tofias pointed out in an email message today, Sean Carey is “clearly an unsung hero of bon iver.”

(Video via All Songs Considered.)

Inside #Politics

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:15:15 -0600

Back in May 2011, I wrote a post that complained about the sad state of the Tumblr Politics tag; I wrote another in July 2011 because I thought there ought to be somewhere to feature more global political content. There’s been a whole lot more written about the tag over the past few days, largely because of one editor’s behavior, but I’ve avoided wading back in because a) I’d already expressed my thoughts and b) my readership outside of Tumblr is significant and has absolutely no use for such posts.

But now it seems there’s been a major shake-up, all of the tag’s editors have been thanked for their service … and I’ve been made an editor myself.

Despite my complaints about the tag, I should note that the idea of the Tumblr tags is certainly not in and of itself a bad idea; indeed, it could be a very good idea. As I wrote almost a year ago now:

For my part, I generally like the idea of tags. A good tag, used well, could foster a sense of community for people from very different backgrounds who all share a common interest. Indeed, I think they can provide a way to find new and interesting material to read and also introduce people to new authors they wouldn’t otherwise have found. I’ve begun to follow the Tumblr blogs of several people entirely as a result of the Politics tag; I also recognize that I’ve benefitted from the tag, as a few editors have chosen to feature my writing there with some regularity.

Looking at the new group of editors, I see some friends that I’ve made entirely from interacting via Tumblr (like Squashed and PoliticalProf, whose secret identities I promise only to reveal for a tidy sum) and even one of my real-life students, Justin Green (which means that the number of Politics editors from Nebraska is shockingly disproportionate; expect a lot of promoted content about corn, cattle, and the “I-Option” offense).

Of course, I’m also a bit sad that some of my other friends are no longer editing the tag. I think Ilya Gerner, Jeff Miller, Torie DeGhett, and Naum Trifanoff did some great work, all while a whole lot of people were yelling at them. I’m also sad to note that amongst the new slate of editors, you won’t find people of color, women, or anyone who lives outside the United States; I think that’s a very serious omission by the Tumblr staff, especially given the amount and the quality of political blogging on the Tumblr platform by people of color, women and non-Americans. There’s also not much ideological diversity. Say what you will about the previous slate of editors, at least you always knew you’d get a healthy dose of the Mises Institute with your morning coffee.

But here’s what I’ll say about my upcoming run as an editor:

I have the ability to promote up to ten posts each day. I’ll be looking to promote original content, reasoned argumentation, and a genuine mix of material from across the ideological spectrum; I also tend to like posts about human rights and posts about parts of world beyond America’s borders. You will always know that I promoted a particular post because I’ll “Like” it right before or right after I promote it. Some days, I’ll use all ten of my promotions and some days I won’t. I have a full-time job as a professor of political science and I have a family that I like very much … so you can be sure that I’ll miss some interesting posts that I would have ordinarily promoted.

Admittedly, I don’t follow very many Tumblr blogs because I like to read all of the things that are written by the people I follow, but I’m always open to suggestions for new blogs I really ought to be reading. Indeed, I’m very happy to hear from you about the workings of the tag, about the posts I’ve promoted, or with suggestions for things I ought to promote. Feel free to let me know about posts that you’ve written, so long as they conform to the standards I set out in the previous paragraph; I promise I’ll take a look as soon as I can. Use the Ask or the Fan Mail feature, send me a tweet, or find me on Facebook; I’m generally pretty accessible and, so long as you’re polite, very happy to hear from you.

Poverty and Terrorism

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:39:42 -0600

Poverty and Terrorism:

A new article in The Journal of Politics (gated) — ”Economic Conditions and the Quality of Suicide Terrorism” (draft 2009, ungated) by Benmelecha, Berrebia, and Klora — examines one of the connections between poverty and terrorism:

This article analyzes the link between economic conditions and the quality of suicide terrorism. While the existing empirical literature shows that poverty and economic conditions are not correlated with the quantity of terror, theory predicts that poverty and poor economic conditions may affect the quality of terror. Poor economic conditions may lead more able and better-educated individuals to participate in terror attacks, allowing terror organizations to send better-qualified terrorists to more complex, higher-impact terror missions. Using the universe of Palestinian suicide terrorists who acted against Israeli targets in 2000–06, we provide evidence of the correlation between economic conditions, the characteristics of suicide terrorists, and the targets they attack. High levels of unemployment enable terror organizations to recruit better educated, more mature, and more experienced suicide terrorists, who in turn attack more important Israeli targets.

There’s also this piece, posted yesterday by Brad Parks at the Monkey Cage, which looks at another one of the connections between poverty and terrorism:

Since 9/11, the USG has promoted foreign assistance as a useful tool for combating global terrorism. Indeed, the case for foreign aid is often made on the basis of its presumed efficacy in preventing terrorism. But, until recently, the evidence supporting these claims was rather flimsy.

Formal models of the aid-terrorism relationship suggest that aid may prevent terrorism when it is targeted in ways that promote human capital through education (Azam and Thelen 2008; Bueno de Mesquita 2005). However, many of these theoretical arguments have not been subjected to careful empirical scrutiny because of insufficiently granular data.

A recent article by Joseph Young and Michael Findley seeks to correct these weaknesses. AidData’s detailed activity coding methodology allows the authors to disaggregate aid figures by project purpose. In their analysis, Young and Findley include separate measures of education aid to test the specific argument that aid targeted to education may prevent terrorism. They are also able to examine the potentially substitutable effects of general budget aid, health aid, and aid tied to counterterrorism.

Here is a brief summary of their findings:

Does foreign aid reduce terrorism? We examine whether foreign aid decreases terrorism by analyzing whether aid targeted toward certain sectors is more effective than others. We use the most comprehensive databases on foreign aid and transnational terrorism—AidData andITERATE—to provide a series of statistical tests. Our results show that foreign aid decreases terrorism especially when targeted toward sectors, such as education, health, civil society, and conflict prevention. These sector-level results indicate that foreign aid can be an effective instrument in fighting terrorism if allocated in appropriate ways.

HT: Michael Tofias.

Earlier today, I wasn’t sure if I had the patience to keep...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:27:32 -0600

Earlier today, I wasn’t sure if I had the patience to keep watching HBO’s “Luck” … and I made my feelings known on Twitter.

But then one of the actors from HBO’s “Luck” replied and said it would be worthwhile. So, yeah, I think I’ll keep watching.

There are a bunch of things about the internet that I find really, really fascinating and fun. This is one of those things.

All of the fuss on Twitter about Bon Iver’s win at the...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:47:00 -0600

All of the fuss on Twitter about Bon Iver’s win at the Grammy Awards was pretty great, though my friends at Short Form Blog clearly did the best job of all by capturing it with this delightful image.

I can’t help wondering, though, why Bon Iver was eligible to win in the “Best New Artist” category at the 2012 Grammy Awards. I’ve been listening to Justin Vernon’s dulcet tones since 2008.

Does this just make me especially awesome or does it highlight the complete irrelevancy of the Grammy Awards? Maybe a little bit of both?

Mormons apologize for posthumous baptisms of Wiesenthal's parents

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:41:03 -0600

Mormons apologize for posthumous baptisms of Wiesenthal's parents:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has apologized for “a serious breach of protocol” in which the parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized as Mormons.

[…]

The Wiesenthal baptisms violated a 1995 pact in which the church agreed to stop baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims.

I thought for the better part of an hour about how to express the way I felt about all of this. The best I’ve got is “Yuck.”

HT: Michael Tofias.

"Tehran denies any involvement and accused Israel of attacking its own embassies as part of a..."

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:40:00 -0600

“Tehran denies any involvement and accused Israel of attacking its own embassies as part of a “psychological war” against Iran.”

- In class yesterday, I came up with what I thought was the zaniest possible conspiracy theory about the recent bombings in India, Georgia, and elsewhere … only to have a student immediately point out that the Iranian government was way ahead of me.

markcoatney: myimaginarybrooklyn: Penguin Horror...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:52:28 -0600

markcoatney:

myimaginarybrooklyn:

Penguin Horror Classics.

Please be real. Please be real.

Well done, internet. I hadn’t seen this before —...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:45:00 -0600

Well done, internet.

I hadn’t seen this before — though it’s not exactly brand new — and anything that involves both “The Godfather” and “Arrested Development” needs to appear on this blog.

(via Josh Sternberg; click to embiggen).

In this week’s episode of The Hero Report — which...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:14:00 -0600

In this week’s episode of The Hero Report — which might be my favorite episode in this podcast’s young life — we debate the importance of success to heroism. Does a hero need to be successful and what do we mean when we talk about success?

We also spend a few minutes discussing Whitney Houston’s death, Chris Brown’s success at the Grammy Awards, and what heroic intervention in those cases might look like.

Want to make the podcast portable? Subscribe via iTunes (video / audio-only).