Timothy Egan reminds us of the famous Thomas Jefferson line in his Outposts blog today: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” But Egan is quick to reports both sides of the story: “Jefferson also said the only reliable truths in newspapers were the advertisements, and that he was happiest when not reading the papers.”
It’s no secret that newspapers are in deep trouble. Almost 1,000 jobs were eliminated in the American newspaper industry this week. Yet, newspaper Web sites attracted more than 66 million unique visitors in the first quarter of 2008 — a record, and a 12 percent increase over a year ago, according to a Nielsen Online analysis. And forty percent of all Internet users visit a newspaper site, reports Egan.
The problem is, nobody has figured out how to monetize news on the Web. Someone who is coming close is blog queen Arianna Huffington. Here she explains how to fix the newspaper business model.
Last summer, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy became a New York Times bestseller, accumulated mixed reviews, and a deep and intense loathing from Alan Derschowitz. The book, as you probably know, argues that the Israel lobby exerts a discouragingly strong hold over U.S. politics and policymaking, and argues that it was the Israel lobby that got us into war in Iraq.
The book concludes that obeying the U.S. Israel lobby is neither in the best interest of the U.S. nor in the best interest of Israel. Recently, the Dutch TV station VPRO International has made a documentary about it.
Big Think interviewed half of the book’s writing team, Professor of International Relations at Harvard University Stephen Walt, and one of the major detractors of their argument, Former Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross.
Ross criticizes Mearsheimer and Walt’s arguments as ideologically rather than factually driven. He argues that U.S. went to war in Iraq because of the president, not because of any lobby. He argues that lobbies hold no sway over the executive branch and that significant other reasons led the U.S. to initiate war:
Walt clarifies that the U.S. provides more financial and military aid to Israel than to any other country. He thinks this is problematic since Israel is not a poor state and it’s not in the best American interest. Although Israel faces more serious security problems than European countries because of its religious status in a primarily Muslim region, its existence is under no real threat because of its significant nuclear holdings. He likes that there is a Jewish state, but he thinks that the Israel lobby has exaggerated the dangers that said state faces:
Here are what other foreign policy experts say about the interests of Special Interests.
Yale Forestry Professor Gus Speth argues that special interest groups hold too much power in Washington. He wants to fight against them as much as possible:
Senator Ted Kennedy argues that interest groups should be accountable to the individual people it represents and not those who provide the funding:
AARP CEO Bill Novelli thinks that lobbies hold the real power in the U.S. Congress. Lobbies think in terms of groups, not individuals:
On Israel, Professor of Law at Harvard University Alan Dershowitz thinks that we should criticize Israel, but that criticism should be fair and not fall prey to a bigoted double standard:
Legendary German filmmaker Fritz Lang made many classic films, both in Germany and Hollywood. His reputation was so golden that even though his Dr. Mabuse films criticized fascism while the Nazi party was coming to power, he was invited to be Hitler’s personal filmmaker. Lang responded to the offer by leaving the country.
The most iconic of his films is Metropolis, which inspired science fiction films for decades, with flying cars and art deco robot that influenced the design of C3PO.
But watching the film itself has been a confusing experience–about 25 percent of the film has been lost since it’s 1927 release. In restored versions, title cards have attempted to fill in the blanks, but following the plot is still a challenge.
The science fiction blog io9 reports on the delightfully shocking discovery of the missing footage. The German film preservation group, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation reports that the missing scenes have turned up in Buenos Aires, even though they had been thought lost forever.
Film lovers everywhere are eagerly anticipating the day when they can get the full Metropolis experience.
Dan Glickman, the President of the Motion Picture Association of America spoke with Big Think about the classic films that inspired his love of movies. He went on to discuss the Hollywood Legends of today, including Stephen Spielberg, who knows a thing or two about science fiction himself.
The CarpetBaggerReport, a political blog, recently highlighted the possibility that Obama may blunt his political edge as he tries to gain wider appeal. But the post was also intended to reassure Obamaniacs that their hero is hardly selling out. The subtext: Obama is politician, and like any politician, he plays to win.
Or does he?
Obama’s recent emphasis on his faith, and his friendly advances toward Christian groups do not represent political pandering as much as they reflect his actual beliefs.
Big Think spoke with Kay Warren, the wife of influential evangelical preacher Rick Warren, about the place and time for an evangelist to approach a potential convert with “the word of God.” Her position echoes the devout of any faith, “I think I have the answer, and I would like to share it with you.”
This past week, the “axis of evil,” a locution Bush started using six years ago, has been altered for the first time. North Korea’s officially off the US terror watch list (and out of the axis) — leaving just Iran and Iraq. And now, the term is more controversial than ever.
We spoke to David Frum, former Bush speechwriter and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, about Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech. Frum is generally credited with coining the phrase — here he is both contemplative of his role as speechwriter and regretful of the way “axis of evil” has been used, most notably when it comes to US policy towards Iran. A president’s words must match his actions, he says:
It’s easy to compare Bush’s mistakes to the ones JFK made, even if Iraq is different than the Bay of Pigs. Ted Sorensen, JFK’s speechwriter and close adviser, reflects on JFK’s admission of guilt in the matter. Sorensen also looks to Robert McNamara as an extraordinary politician who has become comfortably repentant in his old age:
Americans are beginning to speak out about the deplorable state of the American health care system, catapulting health care into a central role during this election season.
When economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman spoke to Big Think about his view of the United States’ health care system, he said, “This is a crisis. We had a problem even in 1999 with a booming economy… but now it’s much worse. And there’s no sign that it’s going to heal itself spontaneously, so we need to do something.”
The ProCPRBlog reports that a recently released surveillance video depicts the death of a woman who waited in a Brooklyn emergency room for almost 24-hours without receiving treatment. Ignored by hospital staff, she eventually slid onto the floor and died. In addition to blatant negligence, there is evidence that the staff attempted to cover up the details of the woman’s death by manipulating her medical records. For many, the health care system is not only broken; it doesn’t even exist.
Krugman’s solution? In a perfect world— Medicare for every citizen. In an improved world—Americans would be able to buy into public health plans without having to rely on private insurers.
Harvard Professor Pardis Sabeti is not only a Rhodes scholar, a Ph.D, and an MD, she is also lead singer of "Thousand Days," a critically acclaimed alternative rock band. She credits New Order with getting her into alternative music in the late '90s, and says that when she's working really hard--on, say, genomics research--she has an album that functions as the soundtrack for the project. Her Ph.D. thesis? That was Nine Inch Nails. College tests, Soul Coughing. And a band that's "about to explode," Frightened Rabbit helped her get Sebati through a grant application. See what other bands inspired Dr. Sabeti to work hard and be brilliant.
Robert Butler, the President and CEO of the International Longevity Center, told Big Think that 100 years from now, we still won’t be able to completely stop the affects of aging, but our descendants will be celebrating their 120th birthdays by going out dancing.
Butler doesn’t expect any magic pills, but believes that medical advances will allow us to slow the aging process and delay the onset of disease. Exposure to sun and smoking will still cause wrinkles, he adds, so we’ll still have to take care of ourselves.
The sci fi blog io9 writes about a BBC News story that shows that the greatest advances in medicine in the past 60 years are commonplace procedures now, but were the stuff of science fiction back in 1948. Just as cochlear implants and reconstructive surgery made the leap from writers’ imaginations to reality, the idea of healthy, active 120 year olds won’t seem so unusual to our grand kids.
New York magazine writer Phil Weiss thinks that modern marriages are laden with too many expectations — being best friends, perpetual hot sex, profitable business partnerships. But in the face of these demands, and in the midst of a highly eroticized popular culture, Weiss recommends a “broadening” of society’s sexual sophistication levels.
One guy who takes this kind of advice to heart, is billionaire playboy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who lives in the fast lane and rolls with the likes of Prince Andrew and Donald Trump. Epstein is clearly not cut out for monogamy. In fact, what he really likes is his very own Slavic sex slave.
Sadly for Epstein, those days are now over. His new penthouse is a Florida jail, where he will spend 18 months following a conviction for paying a number of underage girls for naked massages in his mansion that sometimes led to sex, according to the Telegraph.
Admittedly, Epstein is a creep. Maybe one day he’ll settle down with a nice girl. But according to Weiss, the feelings will probably not go away.
Instead of following the lead of stress-free English majors, many college students slog through their biology, physics and chemistry courses, land those straight As, graduate — and go into other fields. “A lot of the people who have gone out and done important things were trained as scientists,” says Harvard physicist Lisa Durham, author of Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions, which was included in the New York Times’ 100 notable books of 2005. But all is not quiet on the scientific front, Durham says, even though this is what she considers a golden age: “There is a general fear that that won’t continue . . . that people won’t take it as seriously; that if there are budget cuts that’s where it will happen,” she says. How can we make sure students stick with science?
The geniuses across the pond at Durham University’s Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre have a solution to this. They’ve determined that the hard sciences are called that for a reason (and it’s an understatement) and brave and crazy students who enroll deserve additional credit, according to Wired’s Science blog.
This educational research group proposes a sliding grading scale that would equalize the disparate efforts of happy humanities majors and those weighed down with the knowledge of their own molecules. Britain’s national testing services does not agree with this brainstorm, possibly because they know that the only reason to major in physics is to complain/brag to the hordes of humanities buffs about how impossible the subject is, secretly basking in the glory of how smart you look, even if you’re failing. At this point, the U.S. would do better plugging a fabulous life chained to a lab by skipping the extra credits and offering free cheeseburgers to the first 100 converts.
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