Wow

Leon Wieseltier has launched a scathing attack against Andrew Sullivan in The New Republic. He begins with an Auden quote Sullivan glibly highlighted a couple of weeks ago about the difficulties of explaining the doctrine of the Trinity to TNR readers. (As both an avid TNR reader and a Christian, the closest I have ever come to apprehending the doctrine of the Trinity was during an abstruse lecture by a friend on the works of Meister Eckhart, which is a pretty shaky high point. Perhaps I would understand it better if I stopped reading The New Republic?) From there, he dives right into what he obviously considers Sullivan's deep-seated problem with Jews, which permeates his writing about Israel, Palestine and the war against global jihadism.

The article is lengthy, and to pick quotes piecemeal would be to create an incomplete, flawed picture of the broadside. For those of you who are interested in this kind of thing (and presumably those of you who aren't have stopped reading by now), it's worth reading in its entirety. While there are bits I find unpersuasive (I think Wieseltier's denial of Jewish fundamentalism is a distinction without a difference, and I think he maligns Obama by describing him as "enchanted" with Muslims, rather than simply interested and respectful), on the whole he makes a strong argument for a shallowness of thought on Sullivan's part about Jews, Israel and Palestine.

He concludes:

There are decent and indecent ways to advocate change. About the Jews, is Sullivan a bigot, or is he just moronically insensitive? To me, he looks increasingly like the Buchanan of the left. He is the master, and the prisoner, of the technology of sickly obsession: blogging–and the divine right of bloggers to exempt themselves from the interrogations of editors–is also a method of hounding. Of course, it is impossible to know what is in a man’s heart; but on the basis of what Sullivan has written, I would urge him to search his heart. Such a reckoning would involve more than the “my bad” efficiency of internet introspection. I do not expect to see it. If explaining the Trinity to readers of The New Republic is not easy, imagine how hard it will be to explain all this.

As to the central question at hand, I think Wieseltier is being unfair to Sullivan (and also too easy on Charles Krauthammer). I have been a regular reader of Sullivan's writing in a variety of settings for over a decade, and I do not think he is a bigot, at least as far as Jews are concerned. However, I do think (as Wieseltier writes earlier in the piece) that Sullivan confuses his feelings with ideas.

Anyone who reads Sullivan for very long will begin to notice when he's gotten a bee in his bonnet about something. The most recent, and utterly unmistakable example, is Sarah Palin. Now, make no mistake. I think Palin is a disgrace, and the prospect of her further political ambitions is genuinely terrifying to consider. But Sullivan's approach to her borders on the unhinged, and his adulation for Levi Johnston creates the kind of embarrassment that moves one to avert one's eyes. (Dude, he's not going to write a book, and even if he does it will make no difference.) Prior to the advent of Palin's run for the Naval Observatory, he directed his loathing toward Hillary Clinton. (It seems a distant memory now, but his hatred for her was no less intense for its lack of staying power.) To a lesser extent, his obsessions with such things as legalizing pot or (heaven help us) the attractiveness of beards are similarly irksome.

In some cases, this has been a service to our political discourse and understanding. In particular, his coverage of the Iranian protests was yeoman's work, and deserves to be lauded. His exploration of the debate around late-term abortion following the Tiller murder is another such example. But when he feels strongly about a subject, and his emotions take over, his thinking becomes shallower and his tone becomes more strident in equal measure. This same belligerence typifies his talk show appearances, which is one reason I don't watch them. (Also, my cable is disconnected.)

Wieseltier mistakenly ascribes to bigotry what he more correctly describes as shallowness and emotionalism. When Sullivan gets upset, as often as not his thinking becomes muddled and his tone gets uncivil. Witness his immature and unfortunate decision to careless toss around the word "retard," a bloggy way of giving Palin the finger (again). I don't think Sullivan hates the Jews, or Israel, or is guilty of the kind of casual anti-Semitism of which Wieseltier accuses him. I think he's just mad, and sloppy, and has a bigger forum for his thoughts than is good for him.

On admitting ambivalence about special needs kids

Sorry to go on and on about special needs issues, but I did want to comment on a post Andrew Sullivan made, after quoting a reader who again questioned Sarah Palin's mothering abilities. He said:

If his Down Syndrome does not severely effect [sic] his ability and he is able to read, he will read his mother's autobiography and learn that she questioned if she could love him. He will read interviews that his mother considered even for a split second to terminate her pregnancy, he will become aware that many consider his mother a hero for not terminating her pregnancy - thus knowing that among her fans he is considered beautiful but somehow a burden. She needs to start treating him quietly as a child who will grow into a man. She needs to learn to advocate for him and not allow him to be a victim of satire when it suits her and a victim of discrimination when it can get her attention.

And she needs to stop using him as a political prop. A child with such needs should surely not be hauled around half-naked in front of flash photographers to promote a book tour, or be routinely referred to in speeches for applause lines. It's unseemly. But then so much about this person is.

I have written before that Sarah Palin is using her child as a means. I also dislike the way she holds him up as a badge of moral honor, and I hate the way crowds cheer her for it.

But one thing I don't think she needs to apologize for: admitting her ambivalence about becoming a mom of a special needs kid. I will tell those of you who have never been through it: finding out your child will have special needs is an absolute body blow. The first few weeks after I found out were the worst of my life. We can all pretend that it isn't, and we are expected to. Doctors have been counseled not to express sorrow on giving a diagnosis of Down syndrome. This is not psychological reality, and the more we pretend it doesn't exist, the more isolated parents receiving such a diagnosis feel.

My son will never be able to read and understand what I write about him. But his brother will, and I've thought seriously about that. And Trig Palin might. What will he think? If she has surrounded him plenty of unconditional love, and he feels secure and adored by his family, he'll be able to deal with the fact that his parents were once ambivalent about his existence. Many people whose parents hadn't planned on their arrival have dealt with this.

Honesty is a good policy. While some private things should never be revealed, I don't think people should be criticized for admitting the questioning of such a difficult road.

It's like a Kafka story, really

A late-breaking development in the Limbaugh-Emanuel-Palin Retard(ed) Imbroglio of '10 (or LEPRIOT, as I will now call it).

[Side note: We have scintillatingly inept DC-area local news teams. During our recent insane snowfall, the local news broadcast (ineptly) around the clock. There were thousands of risible technical difficulties ("Oh, sorry. We can't seem to connect to Chuck reporting from outside Pizza Palace in Alexandria. Let's go to Eleanor in Bethesda...oh, no. Can't reach her either...Here's some footage shot by a viewer stupid enough to be driving out in the snow." etc). Some of the most enjoyable TV I've seen in a while. What amused me most was they kept calling the storm "The Blizzard of Oh Ten." But I digress.]

So the latest claim in LEPRIOT is from Sarah Palin (h/t Andrew Sullivan). Not only did she brush off Limbaugh's use of "retard." She denied it.

I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel has been reported, did say that. There’s a big difference there. But again, name-calling, using language that is insensitive, by anyone, male, female, Republican, Democrat, is unnecessary. It’s inappropriate. Let’s all just grow up.

Um.

Here's what Limbaugh said:

Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are looney tunes. And I’m not going to apologize for it, I’m just quoting Emanuel. It’s in the news. I think their big news is he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge. (Emphasis and disgust at immaturity mine)

Actually, he did indeed call a group of people with whom he does not agree "retards." And he went one step further. He actually called cognitively disabled people "retards." On what planet is that not actually MORE insulting?! Only Planet Palin.

Which is the Kafkaesque bit. Sarah Palin has it set up so any criticism of her redounds to her credit. You can try to argue something, point out where she's wrong, point out her mistakes. Use logic. And nothing will ever get through. I think what conservatives don't understand is it is THAT which drives progressives so insane. Not the hunting. Not being pro-life. But the inability to even have a conversation that makes sense; to use similar standards of judgment about claims that are made. She actually has different truthmakers!

Admitting the possibility

Ye gods! The same day I confront the anti-vaccination know-nothings, I am forced to address a scientific challenge to my own belief systems. The irony, people. The irony.

From the Times:

The ongoing debate over sex education has been rekindled by a provocative new study suggesting that teaching abstinence can delay the start of sexual activity among inner-city youngsters — if it is freed from the moralistic overtones and ideological restrictions that were the hallmark of abstinence-only programs under the Bush administration.

[snip]

The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association, was led by a husband-wife team at the University of Pennsylvania. They randomly assigned 662 African-American students in grades six and seven to one of four different programs — an eight-hour abstinence-only program stressing the benefits of delaying intercourse; an eight-hour safer-sex program stressing condom use; a comprehensive intervention that covered both abstinence and condoms; and a control group that offered health information unrelated to sexual behavior.

The only program that successfully delayed the start of sexual activity was the abstinence-only instruction. By the end of two years, only a third of the abstinence-only group had engaged in sexual intercourse compared with almost half of the control group.

I, like many others who specialize in the care of adolescents, have taken a dim view of so-called "abstinence-only" sex education programs. In fact, I co-authored a position paper (PDF) for the Society of Adolescent Medicine in which we argued against funding for such programs. During the previous adminstration, the programs in question tended to be fraught with ideological language, and to encourage an unrealistic goal of abstinence until marriage. We also argued that such programs were ineffective, and left adolescents unprepared for informed decision-making about contraception and disease prevention when they made the very common decision to engage in intercourse.


The abstract for the study indicates that the program praised by the Times was free of value-judgement language, and advocated for a delay in "sexual debut" (an adolescent medicine term of art I find equal parts amusing and disturbing) until a point of greater maturity, but not necessarily marriage. Apparently, participants in both the abstinence-only and the condom-use focused groups used condoms to an equal degree when they did eventually have sex, which is an encouraging sign, though it does raise the question about where the participants in the former group got their information about contraception.


One thing I think I should make clear is that I always, without exception, include abstinence in my discussions with adolescent patients that have not yet become sexually active. I consider it the standard of care to do so, and I think most conscientious providers do the same. The beef is not with advocating for abstinence per se, but in denying adolescents information about contraception that they will eventually need to stay healthy.

Without access to the full-text of the article (which, thanks to the particular online subscriptions of my hospital, I cannot get) I can't fully evaluate the study. Certainly, the abstinence-only program seems to have been effective at reaching its goal of delaying sexual activity. In addition, the kids enrolled who did become sexually active apparently used condoms to the same degree that kids in the condom-use education program did. I'm not sure how to account for that, which confounds my interpretation of the study.

If appropriately-developed abstinence programs can delay the onset of sexual activity, then of course I think we need to incorporate them into our approach to sex education in general. However, it's also important to keep in mind that some participants in all programs ended up having sex (as is reliably the case, despite the protestations of the famously non-abstinent) and in those circumstances it's important to be sure that teenagers know how to keep themselves free of unintended pregnancy or STIs. I remain skeptical that abstinence-only programs really meet the needs of all adolescents, but am willing to see what further study shows.

2666 : pages 103-159

I am not sure what to think so far.

Or, perhaps, I am not entirely sure what I think of the novel as a whole thus far. I have plenty of opinions about various elements of the novel. (More on that in a bit.) However, after having made it through the entire first section, I'm still making up my mind about 2666.

Up until the very end of the section, I wasn't loving it. In fact, I was beginning to wonder what all the adulation was about, and was getting a little peeved (similar to how Avery Edison seemed to feel about Infinite Jest midway through Infinite Summer, as I recall). And while I'm still not loving it, the very last bits of The Part About the Critics have had something of a transformative effect on how I feel about the book in general. What remains to be seen is whether or to what degree there is interrelation between the various sections of the book, and if later sections will inform or lend more clarity to this one, or if they stand relatively apart from each other.

Since I'd like to end on an up note, I'll start with the aspects that I didn't like. I thoroughly dislike Pelletier, Norton and Espinoza. (In so far as Morini is given much definition, I like him well enough, I suppose.) They're horrible, arrogant snobs (see page 112, for example), and they seem utterly wrapped up in parsing the minutiae of their insular existence and entanglements with each other. It feels as though Bolaño doesn't like them much, either, and I assume they're meant to be proxies by which he expresses for literary criticism in general. I was heartily sick of them by page 159, and up until that point wondered why they were worth writing about in the first place.

And yet, upon reaching the very end of the section, and watching Pelletier and Espinoza as they realize that they have spent their lives reading and discussing one man's work, and have flown across the world to find him, only to come painfully close and fail, I began to understand the point of The Part About the Critics. It illustrates, quite movingly in retrospect, lives approaching but never achieving greatness, lives of those who do not themselves create but build their lives on the creations of others. While this is depicted by Bolaño as fundamentally exploitative (at least to my reading), there is a poignancy and tragedy to it. (I felt that Pelletier's holing up in the hotel and reading the same Archimboldi novels over and over was especially sad.) If that is the only point of the first section, it is a point well-made. Not enough, as of yet, to justify the novel's reputation for greatness, but not a bad beginning, either.

There was one bit, however, that I unambigiously loved. It comes on page 123, following a somewhat rambling, deeply metaphorical discussion of literature and criticism by Amalfitano. On my first reading, I feared that Bolaño had veered dangerously close to Pynchon territory, and was using mantic, inscrutable language absent any real meaning. A second, slower reading actually changed my opinion, and the images Amaltifano uses to represent the different media, their audiences, and the truths they try to convey are striking, unsettling and durable. However, as much as I enjoyed the imagery of the passage itself, the following conclusion is what made me truly love this bit:

"I don't understand a word you've said," said Norton.
"Really I've just been talking nonsense," said Amaltifano.

Delightful. Easily the funniest, warmest moment in the book thus far. While I don't think Amaltifano actually was talking nonsense, his wry, self-effacing response is perfect. Further, I think Bolaño is using Norton as a proxy for readers a bit confused by the heavy metaphor, and is showing a little bit of sympathy. Over at the main discussion page, Maria Bustillos has said that the warmth of the narrator's commentary is the emotional center of the book for her. I had a similar reaction to this passage, and am optimistic about the next Part, when we get to spend more time with the character who has uttered my favorite line so far.

"Nevertheless, it moves"*

"My, my, my. One wonders what Jenny McCarthy will make of this," thought I.

The medical journal which originally published the discredited research linking autism and MMR has now issued a full retraction of the paper.

The Lancet said it now accepted claims made by the researchers were "false".

It comes after Dr Andrew Wakefield, the lead researcher in the 1998 paper, was ruled last week to have broken research rules by the General Medical Council.

My opinion about vaccine refusal is something I have made plain, here and elsewhere. By creating an environment in which illnesses, once fleetingly rare, have a chance to reestablish themselves in the pediatric population, the health care Luddites within the anti-vaccine movement have made the world a less safe and healthy place. Not only have countless studies debunked any link between vaccines and autism, now the study that started the hysteria in the first place has been repudiated as junk by the journal that originally published it.

Of course, none of this will actually make any difference to the people who have clawed their way into continuing relevance because of their campaign of disinformation. Ms. McCarthy, pneumatic queen of them all, will doubtless continue to sell her books and peddle her particularly telegenic brand of snake oil, despite the crumbling of the cornerstone in the facade of her legitimacy. I'll get to that in a minute.

I came across the BBC article linked and quoted above by way of an article in Salon. Rahul Parikh, a fellow pediatrician, writes:

Rather than dig for details, many reporters rely on "balance" instead. My favorite comment about this comes from, of all people, Arianna Huffington. Sometimes, she says, there simply aren't two sides to a story. Evolution, for instance. Or global warming. And given the weight of scientific, legal and ethical evidence against anti-vaccinationists, you'd think Huffington would heed her own rhetoric. Yet there was her Web site, with stories turning Wakefield into a martyr and twisting innuendo into medical fact. And it's not just HuffPo -- CNN, in a report on Wakefield, added "balance" to its coverage by featuring Kim Stagliano, the co-founder of anti-vaccine group Age of Autism. [Ed: Ironically, I can think of at least one person who would dispute the one-sided nature of the global warming question.]

It is indeed somewhat perverse that Arianna Huffington would be holding forth on media probity. It was in Huffington Post that Jim Carrey's painfully dishonest anti-vaccine piece appeared, which is what led me to write my guest post for Ordinary Gentlemen in the first place. Madame Huffington is complicit in the ongoing promulgation of a lie, and a dangerous one.

But let's get back to Jenny McCarthy. How has her organization reacted to the news that one of their shining stars is more than a little bit tarnished? How do you think it reacted?

A statement from Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey
Los Angeles, February 5, 2010

Dr. Andrew Wakefield is being discredited to prevent an historic study from being published that for the first time looks at vaccinated versus unvaccinated primates and compares health outcomes, with potentially devastating consequences for vaccine makers and public health officials.

It is our most sincere belief that Dr. Wakefield and parents of children with autism around the world are being subjected to a remarkable media campaign engineered by vaccine manufacturers reporting on the retraction of a paper published in The Lancet in 1998 by Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues.

The retraction from The Lancet was a response to a ruling from England's General Medical Council, a kangaroo court where public health officials in the pocket of vaccine makers served as judge and jury. Dr. Wakefield strenuously denies all the findings of the GMC and plans a vigorous appeal. [emphasis in original]

Friends, this is so painfully absurd that I almost pity these cretins. England's General Medical Council is the body that registers physicians in the United Kingdom, analogous to the various state boards of licensure in this country. It is no more a kangaroo court than, say, the American Bar Association. When faced with the incontrovertible fact of their champion doctor's fraudulence and venality, McCarthy and Carrey instead attack the legitimacy of the body that keeps quacks and frauds from practicing in Britain. The reanimated corpse of Louis Pasteur could rise from the grave to denounce their position, and they would stick up for rabies. Truly, they are beyond help.

However belatedly, I am glad Lancet has issued the retraction. Better late than never, I suppose, though the harm has already been done to an appalling degree. As for McCarthy, Carrey and the remainder of their ilk, one imagines they will release their vice-grip on their particular brand of insanity at roughly the same time that California slides into the Pacific.

* For those of you who want to know what the hell this means, it's a reference to a (probably apocryphal) story about Galileo. When forced by the Inquisition to recant his theory of a heliocentric solar system and an orbiting Earth, supposedly he muttered "Nevertheless, it moves" under his breath. It took the Catholic Church a mere 300+ years to admit its error.

To my friends, the Democrats of Illinois

That is, those of you who voted in the primary. Ahem...

What the hell is wrong with you? Did you learn nothing from the Rod Blagojevich fiasco?

Honestly, I'm too baffled and horrified to come up with any commentary. I'm just going to provide the link and the lead paragraphs, take an Advil, and lie down:

Well, the incumbent Democratic governor won his primary in Illinois, which more often than not is a good thing for the incumbent's party in a major race. Except...

His new running mate--the candidate for lieutenant governor--has admitted he was on anabolic steroids in 2005, and he's accused of holding a knife to a woman's throat in that year (he denies that this is true). And the woman had pled guilty to a prostitution charge. And his ex-wife had previously alleged the candidate had choked her.

And the candidate says he won't drop out of the race.

Scott Lee Cohen, the pawnbroker and candidate for lieutenant governor who is at the center of all this controversy, won his place on the Democratic ticket independent of any help from either of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn and challenger Dan Hynes--both of whom say they didn't know about any of this until they read it in the papers.

But after winning his primary on Tuesday, as Quinn won the nomination for governor, Cohen and Quinn are joined on the ticket: when Illinois residents cast their ballots, they will vote for governor and lieutenant governor as a package--just as everyone in America does for president and vice president. They cannot vote for Quinn without voting for Cohen: the two are linked. There is only one box to check.

Update: Whew. Never mind.