A Multitude of Commitments

Loosely lashed together.

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Rage Induced by the Machine

I don't really use Facebook anymore. It's an open tab and an app on my phone, so I check it periodically out of habit, but it's not part of my basic rotation. I'm a millennial, so I started using Facebook in college, when it was limited to college. I didn't at all mind it expanding to "everyone" -- hey, I was graduating too -- and for quite some time it did exactly what I wanted it to do: served as a convenient vector to keep up with friends who had flung themselves around the country. And that would still be a nice use today -- I'd love to know what people are up to these days. So many cute babies! But alas, these days Facebook is essentially worthless. No, that's too tame -- it's actively malignant. When I open Facebook, it defaults to an algorithmic feed that maybe shows an actual friend's post once in every half a dozen. The majority of posts are either AI slop history lessons or, more often, polarizing political ragebait. The irony is there isn't a clear side to the ragebait, though for me it's mostly Israel- and antisemitism related. But it's invariably someone angry about something and expressing their position in the most inflammatory way possible. Every time I click through to read more, I feel myself becoming a worse person. And that's not even the bottom of the pit. God help me if I read comments. Even on the rare occasion I get a basically neutral news article or press release, the comments are just full of people being their absolute worst selves. In the wake of the San Diego shooting, here are some of the comment categories that stood out to me as repeated themes: On posts by Jews or Jewish institutions condemning the shooting, ostensibly Jewish people blasting the condemnation because Muslims have it coming and Jews should never defend them even from terrorist violence. On posts about how the shooter harbored antisemitic views, non-Jewish people blasting Jews for "making it all about you" (what?). On any post by anyone, saying this all traces back to Israel. Again, these were not isolates -- these were categories. I'd see comment after comment like this. The inescapable feeling was grief, anger, and despair over how awful my fellow humans are. It took effort to remind myself that this is not in fact all humans, it is a very limited and non-representative subset. But it was, again, damaging me to keep reading these. When one is swamped with instances of people being terrible, it makes you more terrible too. Even though I know that most people's responses to San Diego shooting are normal, it hacks your brain into thinking that this is how the world is. That's what Facebook is these days -- an algorithmic machine that tries its level best to make people the worst versions of themselves because that sort of person will engage more. Such a price would be too much to pay even if Facebook was useful as a catch-up tool with old friends -- which it isn't. And sure, to some extent this is a problem with all social media. But not like this. I actually like Bluesky, and Reddit has been decent since I stay away from politics. Facebook really seems to be in a category of its own (perhaps along with X/Twitter, which I don't use at all anymore) in terms of the intensity with which it pushes awful messaging. (It's one saving grace right now is that my reel algorithm is mostly handing me standup comedy clips from comedians I actually like. But to by honest, I suspect most of those clips are stolen bot reposts -- not the least because they're increasingly cutting off before the actual joke gets told. Even when you find something good, Facebook finds a way to make it awful). via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/KH2vxoG

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We Hate To Do The Number Limbo

I was just a bit too old to have ever been into Barney. It came out in 1992; I was born in 1986 -- six years old is right at the edge of its target audience. For some reason, though, the opening riff to "The Number Limbo" has stuck with me as I round forty years old, periodically popping into my head at random intervals like a parasitic ear worm. I actually didn't even know it was a "Barney" song until I googled it last night. It is a mystery how it burrowed into my subconscious, but it has found its place and it will not be dislodged. I was born too late to be into Barney itself, but I was also old enough to remember the absolutely mass social hatred people had for Barney. I'm not talking about six- and seven-year-olds performatively rejecting Barney to prove they're not babies. That's at least developmentally appropriate -- though the dirty secret they don't tell you is that this sort of performative rejection is actually a sure-shot indicator you're still a kid. One of my firmest beliefs about human development is that teenagers reject all their "kids" interests to prove they're adults because they're nervous they're not -- then they go off to college and realize the one thing they can be sure they have in common with their new roommate is that they both loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid. Actual adulthood is reached when one doesn't feel the need to prove it. Anyway, I digress. The Barney-hate we all saw was not the kid-appropriate version; it was society-wide and very much an adult phenomenon. And this practice -- I dunno. I don't like it. A society-wide propensity towards hating things whose primary sin is that they make a lot of people -- here, small children -- happy is not a phenomenon we should be proud of. Perhaps with Barney young parents have an excuse for the haterade. Nathaniel isn't quite at the age where he's consuming children's media, but I can imagine in a few years after hearing the theme song to Bluey or whatever for the 9554th time I will laugh bitterly at my "who is it hurting" naivete. But this phenomenon is larger than Barney or children's media. The exhausted young parents story doesn't explain why we all decided to hate Anne Hathaway for awhile. Or Guy Fieri. Or Richard Simmons (okay, homophobia can explain that last one pretty easily). The reality is, we do seem to pick out random pop culture figures who've done nothing wrong but be too earnest in making people happy and decide we're going to enjoy ourselves by collectively hating them. It is a society-wide digression towards adolescence and bullying behavior, styled (just as with actual adolescence) as a form of sophistication. We should be much more ashamed than we are of indulging in it. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/jFHBeGx

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The Honorable Jo Perini-Abbott

  There are bigger electoral fish to fry tonight, but I do want to give a congratulations to my friend and colleague Jo Perini-Abbott, who looks set to win a seat on the Multnomah County Circuit Court. While we'll be sad to be losing her at Lewis & Clark, she will make a fine addition to the bench. I also want to give a quick shoutout to her opponent, John Casalino. By all accounts (including Jo's), he is a fine attorney and also would have made a solid judge. While I supported Jo, I cannot tell you how nice it is to fill out a ballot when the race isn't "Norma Reasonabola versus Dixie McRapist in a nail-biter!" There are three other local contested judicial elections this cycle, and in at least two of them there were a multitude of really strong candidates to choose from (those two races are heading to a run-off).  The third race is a bit of an odd duck with an incumbent facing controversy (it's ... a long story), but the challenge to her doesn't seem especially ideologically-motivated. The incumbent, Judge Adrian Brown, has clashed with our local DA, but her challenger is a public defender who suggested that frustration with Judge Brown is present on all sides of the bar. In any event, Brown appears to be losing by a very wide margin. But I don't want to focus on that. I want to focus on a great candidate notching a win, in an election that speaks to the depth of respected and diligent public servants we have in our community. How lucky I am to live in such a place. Congratulations! via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/0sRnZSa

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Magic Words in Malign Times

You've probably heard of the shooting at a San Diego Islamic center that killed three people, along with the two shooters (who reportedly killed themselves). Early reports suggest that this was a White Supremacist attack. I have little to say about this save the obvious -- that this is a despicable act of Islamophobic terror and that it flows directly from the cavalcade of anti-Muslim rhetoric and action that has emanated from the top levels of our government and society. That the perpetrators will never face true justice only underscores their monstrosity. Whatever comfort and support I can give to the victims and their loved ones, I extend it, even as I know I can do little. I do want to note one other thing. I read the statement on the attack from my local Jewish Federation. It is, of course, horrified -- there was never any doubt of that. But it does not say the word "Islamophobia" or "Islamophobic".  In fact, other than naming the site of the shooting, it doesn't mention "Islam" or "Muslim" at all. The shooting is presented as emblematic of "the threat facing religious communities in America"; it underscores the need for "security funding to help protect all houses of worship and faith-based institutions nationwide." I am not one to police statements such as these to see whether they have or omit certain "magic words". The tenor of the JFed's statement is clear enough; and if it speaks in universal language, well, I'm not a cheerleader for the overextension of the "all lives matter-ing" complaint. However, there are others out there who do make a habit out of scouring for magic words, and who work themselves up into very high dudgeon when a statement that seems on face perfectly appropriate doesn't use a certain specific word or phrase or framing.  If such individuals wish to be truly equal opportunity in their critique, then they should have no problem with anyone who rakes the JFed over the coals for its omission. But if they think that would be unreasonable, and that the JFed deserves better than that, then I hope they'll consider extending similar grace to others in turn. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/W0BCNOz

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Of Course Dobbs Didn't Completely "Return Abortion to the States"

After a brief delay, the Supreme Court stayed (over dissents from Justices Thomas and Alito) the latest Fifth Circuit gambit to try and take mifepristone off the market. There's plenty to talk about, and plenty of others will talk about it. But I did want to flag one talking point in the dissent that stood out to me for its hackishness. Justice Alito described the Dobbs decision as having "restored the right of each State to decide how to regulate abortions within its borders." Allowing mifepristone to be sent through the mail, consequently, "undermine[s]" the Dobbs ruling insofar as it permits abortion medication to be sent to states that have sought to ban it. The immediate problem with this logic is obvious: Dobbs did not completely "return abortion to the states." Dobbs held that there was no federally-protected constitutional right to an abortion. But there could be myriad ways the federal government might pass regulations on abortion -- for example, via its power to regulate the safety and distribution of pharmaceuticals. This point is not novel. Scott Lemieux wrote today that "making mifepristone available through telehealth 'undermines' Dobbs only if the holding was not that the Constitution was silent on abortion but that the Constitution is hostile toward abortion. Louisiana has never had any jurisdiction over the federal drug approval process." But what I haven't seen flagged yet is just how quickly the dissenters abandon this farkakteh position that they obviously don't believe in the first place. Because you know far you'll have to look in U.S. Reporter to find a Dobbs Justice emphasizing ongoing federal authority on the subject of abortion? Approximately one page, to Justice Thomas' dissent, where he contends that the mailing of mifepristone is illegal nationwide under the Comstock Act! Whatever else one might say about that argument, it is precisely an assertion that federal law continues to have a say on abortion. Which -- of course conservatives believe! There's never been any doubt of that! Or more precisely, there's no doubt of that in circumstances where the federal government might seek to assert authority to limit abortion access, rather than protect it. As always, the actual meaning of any Supreme Court precedent for the Court's conservatives is whatever they want it to mean, for however long it is convenient for it to carry that meaning. When the Supreme Court in Callais confirmed the continued vitality of the Allen precedent, that commitment lasted approximately two weeks. That's an anemic showing, but it is no match for the one page the ultra-right faction took to travel from insisting that Dobbs forecloses federal regulations on abortion to insisting that federal regulation already makes the distribution of abortion drugs illegal. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/XTInrm9

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Fighting AI Slop in Academic Publishing

The prominent academic pre-print repository arXiv has reportedly announced stiff new penalties for authors who submit papers with AI-generated hallucinations (e.g., fake citations). Violators will be subject to a one-year outright ban on submissions, and an indefinite requirement that any future uploads must have been accepted by a "reputable peer-reviewed venue". This is as good a prompt as any for why I am slightly -- slightly -- more optimistic about the ability of academia to fend off the tsunami of AI slop compared to other entities in the business of generating texts. One problem with AI slop in, say, the news space is that it's essentially impossible to impose meaningful sanctions on violators. It's essentially spam bots -- if one site gets delisted, another springs up in its place. The spammers don't care specifically about the reputation of this website or that (usually fake) author. The main goal is to get their text out in the world; it doesn't matter so much who it's attributed to (except insofar as that can aid the text getting more readers or otherwise embedding itself in the algorithm). But academics are differently situated. True, an academic might have an incentive to look super-productive, and so an unscrupulous version of me might be tempted by the prospect of being to produce dozens of (low-quality, but cross-cited) papers in a short-period of time. But crucially, it's important that I be the one credited for all this productivity and all these citations. If I'm blacklisted from a bunch of journals, that's a genuine deterrent in a way that banning a spam bot is not for your typical spammer. Penalties like those that arXiv proposed exact meaningful costs that draw (ironically enough) on the self-interested nature of academics (if the only thing we cared about was getting our research into the world, without worrying about the credit, this deterrent wouldn't work). Academics need to put our own name on articles to get credit for articles, and that means that where we are found out to be misbehaving, there can be punishments which stick to us. For my part, I am generally a strong proponent of strong punishments -- including blacklists -- for academic authors who submit AI slop to journals. This isn't to say there are no abusive uses of AI that wouldn't circumvent these reputational deterrents. I can think of two in particular. The first is papers with fake authors which over-cite other articles by a real academic. Banning the fake authors would not exact costs on the real-world wrongdoer (the real academic whose presumably using some mill to generate the fake articles to goose his or her own citation counts). That said, where one can credibly ascertain that the over-cited scholar is the "real" author and that they've created a Potemkin article as a means of abusing a citation racket, they still can be subject to meaningful sanctions. The second possible problem is articles which falsely claim to be authored by a real academic (who actually had no affiliation with the piece), hoping to trade on his or her genuine reputation to boost the reach of the slop article. This practice is especially dangerous because -- consistent with the above promotion of punishing the authors for bad AI practices -- it risks engendering false accusations. It appears that John Smith wrote a bogus AI-generated slop piece, so blacklist John Smith -- except John Smith actually had nothing to do with the piece; some scammers slapped his name on it. This could be a significant problem, though I'll note its scope is limited again by the fact that the main benefits of publishing a "bad" AI-generated article have to at some point accrue to a "real" author, and so eventually whichever co-author is the actual malign actor behind the charade should be able to be sussed out. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/IKjtP1y

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How Parenting Changes Politics

It's a cliche to say that becoming a parent changes your politics. But maybe not in the same way for everyone. Parenting, I think, amplifies one's protective instincts. It accentuates vulnerability -- there's this tiny baby, who you want all the best things for, but whom you are painfully aware is dependent on not just you but the whole world to determine the trajectory of his or her life. You want to keep your child safe, and yet you know that it's not ultimately all up to you (or your child, for that matter). It's one of those banalities that feels ridiculous but is true; that it's almost impossible to imagine loving and caring about someone more than the baby in your arms. There are some people for whom that protectiveness manifests in a form of conservatism -- suddenly becoming a lot less willing to "risk" harms befalling their child (where "risk" is less "letting them climb a tree" and more "letting them attend school with the riff-raff"). But for me, at least, this overwhelming, almost painful sense of protectiveness unlocked a new level of empathy. That feeling of terror at the thought of something terrible happening your baby -- the omnipresent Geiger counter of fear? Every parent has that. Every child (and I include here adult children) has loved ones who feel that way about them too. To see something bad happen to another person -- for them to be in a position where they need help and can't get it -- it hits me like a tidal wave; oddly, not fully on their own behalf, but on behalf of those who love them. I both can't and can imagine how that would feel if it happened to Nathaniel. And all the clever rationalizations and political machinations that explain why this suffering or deprivation or injustice or explosion is the just one wither in the face of that crushing wall of empathy. The other day I had an idea for a painting series (that is, if I were a talented artist, which I am not), which was to take classic depictions of war and battle and replace all the faces of the soldiers with those of babies. The thought of the painting makes me want to shut my eyes to and run away from my own imagination (which, from an artistic standpoint, is a good sign -- good art makes you feel things after all -- but is less pleasant when one can't create and just has to live with it in your own mind). Each man charging, rearing, falling, crying, in agony, lying still -- they are all someone's baby. No matter what side they're on, they have loved ones grieving for them. How can we not do everything in our power to avert such grief? It is an awful experience even to imagine it, much less to live through it. Even if the rational part of me can fathom -- barely -- that this cannot always be the absolute number one priority, boy should it put one hefty thumb on the scale. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/edwzQUu

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Between "One-Sided" and "Equating" Part II

A few days ago there was a dust-up at the Park Slope Food Coop after a member, during a coop meeting, stated that "Jewish supremacism is a problem in this country." Following an outcry, the store's general manager condemned the remark, along with that of a different member who decried "Arab supremacy" in the context of speaking out against October 7 and criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood. I read that sequence and thought "that's about as satisfactory an outcome as I could hope for." Whatever theoretical or academic justifications one can use to validate either "Jewish supremacism" or "Arab supremacy", if you want to take the temperature down in these sorts of settings you have to clamp down on that sort of thing. If one isn't okay, then the other isn't either. If anything, it is nicely convenient that both phrases were used, as it lets the coop leadership make clear that there position is one of principle, not a backdoor means of showing favoritism to one group at the expense of another. But I knew my satisfaction would be another's ill-temper, and so it is here. I wasn't surprised, of course, to see that the coop's pro-Palestinian activists were going to the mat for their right to assail "Jewish supremacism." And unfortunately, I also wasn't surprised to see others complain that to condemn the phrase "Arab supremacy" may as well have nullified the condemnation of the phrase "Jewish supremacism". For coop member Ramon Maislen, who condemned the comments allegedly made by Huarachi last week, Szladek’s email created a false equivalency between the two remarks. [....]  Maislen said he believed Szladek’s email “completely minimizes what Jewish people are feeling at the coop.” “I don’t think there’s much coded language around Arab supremacy that I’m aware of,” Maislen said. “So I think it’s very, very disappointing when you see an email go out after such a mask-off moment for the hatred within the anti-Zionist movement, and to have the general coordinators basically, completely, make it some sort of like equality between the two statements.” On Thursday, Coop4Unity, an anti-BDS coalition at the coop that Maislen serves as an organizer of, issued a press release calling on [coop General Manager Joe] Szladek to “issue an unequivocal condemnation of antisemitism,” arguing that his previous email created a “false moral equivalence that members say dilutes the gravity of what occurred.” “In his statement, General Manager Szladek cited a separate member’s use of the phrase ‘Arab supremacy’ — offered in the context of referencing October 7th and the Muslim Brotherhood — and presented it as a parallel offense to the ‘Jewish supremacy’ remark that drew crowd applause,” the release read. “Coop4Unity argues this is a false equivalence that obscures rather than addresses what took place.” Ah yes, "false equivalency" -- a sin most heinous. Except, that is, when one doesn't do it -- for then one is committing the equally grievous sin of being "one-sided". I wrote on this subject five years ago, and it remains resonant today. But unfortunately, I feel as if things have gotten worse rather than better.  And -- morality aside -- this is such a dumb hill to die on. Is it really so important that one be able to rail about "Arab supremacy" that you'll risk undermining a condemnation of people going on about "Jewish supremacism"? Take the win! This whole logic is how you get backed into a corner of being mad at people for saying the JDL is bad, when what one should do is be delighted anytime someone says "JDL is bad" and be ecstatic at the opportunity to negatively polarize your constituency against them and their apologists. The Park Slope group had the opportunity to set the polarity of the debate as "mainstream coop members versus people who are livid that they can't hurl 'supremacist' charges at ethnic minorities", and they squandered it. Again, I think the ethics are bad here, but I'm almost madder at the tactical idiocy of it all. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/fnsvTb2

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Things People Blame the Jews For Volume LXXVIII: Lack of Pedophilic Incest Options

There is a paradox at the heart of this series. Its core premise is that if one looks hard enough (and honestly, not too hard), one can find someone blaming the Jews for anything. But precisely because of that, its almost uninteresting when the blamer is some complete internet rando. It's more "fun" when it's someone of at least marginal import or influence. Our character today does have an X blue check, but that doesn't mean anything nowadays -- it's literally just an indicator that your content is paid promotion. So it probably is a complete rando. But some complete randos manage to transcend their humble origins and deserve their moment of spotlight. And so here, I present a man earnestly complaining that if it weren't for Israel, he'd have a baby sister he could groom. Blech. This also demonstrates one of the oddities of this series, which is that sometimes the Jews are falsely "blamed" for something that's actually good. Way before this series ever started, I remember finding a quote by the President of Sudan blaming Jews for ... causing people to protest against the Darfur genocide. Probably not entirely attributable to us, but also, I wouldn't ashamed if it was. Likewise, I actually don't think the Jewish State is why this man can be an incestuous pedophile, but if you're going to give away the credit, hey, I'm not going to object too loudly. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/P4RMytB

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"Everybody Knew" vs. "Not My Story To Tell"

Earlier this week, a flurry of sexual misconduct allegations emerged against Democratic Rep. (and California gubernatorial candidate) Eric Swalwell, including at least one woman (a former staffer) who alleges that Swalwell raped her while she was intoxicated. I don't think there's any question that Swalwell must drop his campaign for Governor and resign from the House. Testimony is evidence, and a bunch of people have now come forward to testify as to a pattern of misconduct by Swalwell. In a court of law, it's possible that more evidence would be necessary to secure a conviction, but the assignment of political power and opportunities does not and should not obey the federal rules of evidence. I have no interest in dwelling on this point beyond that. Shortly after the story broke, I saw several journalists and DC insiders immediately chime in with some version of "open secret" or "everybody knew". And that, in turn, caused many people to emit the "hmm" emoji, since if all these journalists and insiders already knew ... why wasn't the story ever reported? To that, the counternarrative I heard (ironically, from someone who was giving "hmm" vibes but also was trying to cabin it) was a variation of "not my story to tell." The women in question had told the stories, but in confidence; they had made clear (up until now) that they did not want to go public, and the persons they told it to felt obliged to respect that choice.  And so we face a quandary: when nobody talks about what everybody knows, therein lies the space for known abusers to run free. But to take it upon oneself to override the wishes of the victim and put them and their trauma under an inevitably horrible spotlight -- that is a great and terrible thing to do. I don't think the confidant's silence can be chalked up always or solely to a desire to preserve an omerta protecting the powers-that-be. There's more to it than that. So how do we resolve that quandary? What are our instincts as between the competing force of "everybody knew" and "not my story to tell"? Kate Manne in her work has written about her own experience being abused by a powerful older man, how she begged those she confided in not to pursue, and how now, in hindsight, she wishes that her confidants had not listened to her and spoken out. That instinct, perhaps, is what motivates mandatory reporting laws (such as the ones professors like myself are often subject to). Without necessarily disagreeing with her stance, the issues no doubt land differently for the victim in the moment or in hindsight versus the confidant they report to. Anyway, I'm curious what others think on this, and how it should be resolved. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/RQsmqOa

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How To Be Honored By Friends

I've occasionally commented on the weird "honors" I get from nutty lunatics who hate me. Sure, they're extreme, and sure, they openly detest me, and sure, they probably are mentally ill. But on the other hand, do my friends place me in a group of some of the most illustrious legal scholars of the 21st century? Do my friends dedicate whole websites to declaring me a "disgusting Zionist punk" (it's still up!)? My enemies, I've often quipped, seem to have a far higher opinion of me than my so-called friends do! It is in that light, though, that I'm especially pleased about two presentations I gave over the past week -- the first at the Washington State Judiciary's appellate conference, and the second at Reed College. Both talks were wonderful in their own right. But it was equally exciting who I shared the program with. In Washington, I followed directly after none other than Erwin Chemerinsky. And at Reed, I was part of a "free speech" program headlined by Cass Sunstein. Those are pretty big names -- ones fit, I daresay, for even the most discerning ramble from a damaged personality blasting off email screeds about Jewish perfidy. So thanks to all my friends and supporters, for finally catching up to my enemies. I'm profoundly grateful. (But in all seriousness -- I am profoundly grateful. It is awe-inspiring to seriously keep company like that). via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/dCYjoaU

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Food Poisoning

I had food poisoning this weekend. Did I miss anything important? I was all ready to write a very TMI blog post regaling you with the dirty details of my day -- which was exactly as miserable you might expect -- but I finally thought better of it. I will relay one story though (Yeah, it's a little gross. Feel free to skip this one). As you know, when you throw up you can sometimes taste what food item it is that's coming back up. For me, last night, it was a donut. At first, I was annoyed that that was what was being regurgitated. What a waste of a perfectly good donut! But then I thought (and this was all occurring while I was hunched over the toilet), "well, if I have to throw up anything, isn't the donut the best thing to throw up? After all I already tasted and enjoyed it -- that's the fun part! All that's happening now is I skip the nutritional impact!" And I was very pleased with myself for approximately two seconds, before I realized that I just invented an eating disorder from first principles. Whoops. (Later in the day it happened again -- I was marveling at the fact that stuff kept coming out of me even as I wasn't putting any food into me, and I caught myself wondering how much weight I must have lost over the course of the day. The answer was: less than you'd think! Becoming violently ill is in fact not a good weight loss strategy, to say nothing of a general healthy living strategy, and I don't recommend it at all!). via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/jzow71k

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The 1001 Faces of the Permacold

Nathaniel is in daycare, and I have a cold. This is a sentence that is true today, was true the first week we sent Nathaniel to daycare, and has been true virtually every day in between. I had heard about that permacold -- that as a parent you just spend the first X number of years of your child's life sick as he brings every single mildly transferable virus home with him. I had heard about it, but didn't quite believe it. Nathaniel stayed home with us for his first year, so he wasn't really affected, and so neither were we. It was all rumor and legend. And just as we miraculously missed the travails of having a baby who wouldn't stay asleep, maybe we'd miss this too. Maybe all the terribles of raising a little one are rumors and exaggeration! Nope. This one hit. And the interesting bit about the permacold is that it makes you vividly aware of all the different types of colds one can have (because one is essentially speed-running them in a rapid and never-ending cycle). Sometimes you have a dry cough, and sometimes it's a productive cough. Sometimes you're congested beyond belief, and sometimes your nose won't stop running. Sometimes your throat is scratchy, and sometimes it's swollen. Sometimes your teeth hurt, and sometimes you snore just from breathing. It's not that any of these symptoms are novel or unfamiliar, exactly. It's just that normally they're spaced out weeks or months apart. To oscillate between all of them in 24 hour shifts is very disorienting. And the bonus irony is that Nathaniel is basically unaffected by any of the diseases he vectors into the house. He coughs and sneezes and has a runny nose, but it never really bothers him all that much. It's mom and dad who are shambling around the house like the night of the living dead. Even when he gets sent home from daycare for something more serious, like pink eye or hand-foot-mouth disease, we're the ones who really end up suffering while his behavior barely changes at all. Objectively, I know that's far better than the alternative. Subjectively, it's tough not to feel a twinge resentful. Jill was out tonight to see a play, so I got to put Nathaniel to bed (Jill and I share the nighttime routine, but the very last part of it is Jill's time). He hadn't gotten the best nap in (and the nap was late -- from 4:15 - 5:15), so I was a bit nervous. But I did my best solo version of the nighttime winddown process, and Nathaniel was very obliging. I gave him his kisses and told him how much I loved him, and he snuggled up against me and rested his head on my chest. I put him down to sleep, and he went right down, and all is right in the world -- no matter how much I cough. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/e7mB5zj

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Pricing In Synagogue Attacks

I first heard of the attack on the Temple Israel Michigan synagogue from one of my students after my morning class. The attack has been variously described as a "shooting" or a "car-ramming" attack; from what I can tell the terrorist had a ton of explosives in his car that he was hoping to set off via crashing his vehicle into the synagogue building. He was shot dead by security, and thankfully he seems to be the only fatality. It's been reported that the synagogue also runs a preschool that was in session at the time of the attack. I, of course, am also the parent of a baby who currently attends preschool/daycare at his synagogue, under a set up that is very similar to that of Temple Israel. We also have security posted outside the building on a daily basis; we also have a gate set up one needs to "swipe" into (twice!) in order to access the interior of the building.  It is very, very easy to imagine that our synagogue and our preschool could have been the target of this attack. In fact, the other day I was idly imagining (in the way parents do) just such an attack on my synagogue, in circumstances where Nathaniel was present. And what was striking to me about my thought process -- both in the imaginative space, yesterday, and in responding to the very real attack in Michigan, today -- was how numb I felt to it. It should feel terrifying. I should be terrified. But my reaction was alarmingly muted, as if I've just "priced in" the possibility of attacks like this. This is what it means to live as a Jew. I don't know. I can't say I mourn not feeling overwhelmed by crippling anxiety and fear. But also, what does it say about me that I'm past feeling anxious and fearful? And this isn't, to be clear, a sound assessment of actuarial risk -- that would give me too much credit. It's something more quiescent -- an atrophication of any sense that security and safety is something I could ever expect to have for me and my family. That feeling -- or lack thereof -- well, I don't think it's a good thing. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/qhDNfWc

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Mayweather Pacquaio II Announced

Well, it's happening. Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao are set to rematch their 2015 fight, which Mayweather won by unanimous decision. The match is scheduled for September 19th in Las Vegas, and will be carried by Netflix. Like any red-blooded boxing fan, I hate this. Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs) and Pacquiao (62-8-3, 39 KOs) are both pushing fifty years old. To say neither is in their prime is an understatement. The fight defines soulless cash grab (and I would know). Rumors have abounded that Mayweather, in particular, has gotten into money trouble, and with the first fight grossing over $400 million dollars, this smacks of a way to get one or both gentlemen's bank account back into the black. In terms of the fight itself -- well. After all the hype and hullabaloo surrounding the first fight, Mayweather ended up winning quite handily. And while some of that has been chalked up to Pacquiao being injured ahead of the match, I genuinely believe that in their primes and at their peak, Floyd Mayweather was a better fighter than Manny Pacquiao. I was not surprised at the outcome then, and had they run it back a year later with a fully recovered Pacquiao, I would have expected much the same result. But as I said -- we are now nowhere near anyone's prime. And to the extent either fighter has even gestured at remaining active in the sport, it's Pacquiao. After dropping a clear decision to Yordenis Ugas in 2021, Pacquiao came back to fight Mario Barrios to a draw last year. Sure, Barrios may be someone who a prime Pacquiao would've torn apart, but he's a real fighter, not a total pushover, and Pacquaio at least could still keep up with him. Mayweather's last sanctioned fight (against Conor McGregor) was in 2017, his last fight against an actual boxer was against a basically shot Andre Berto in 2015, and his last fight against an opponent who had any chance of challenging him was ... Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather's been feasting on exhibition-circuit joke fights for a decade, but it's been a long time since he's had to do anything halfway serious in the ring. The reality is that, while we've got some idea what this version of Manny Pacquiao has for us, we have no idea how much Floyd Mayweather Jr. has left in the tank. During his career Mayweather was known if nothing else for always being in fantastic shape. He may have liked to flash cash and showboat in the runup to fights, but he never let the distractions distract him. Is that still true at 49? Is he fully present? Is he taking this fight because he genuinely wants to be back in the ring and feels he's capable of putting on a show, or because his debts finally piled higher than his pride? (And that doesn't get into the more basic question of whether, even if Mayweather genuinely still has the hunger, is his body still there?) I'm not interested in this fight. As a boxing fan, it offends me that the most attention our sport gets are these senior circuit tours and whenever Jake Paul steps into the ring. Terrence Crawford deserves all the attention and money of this fight twice over. But if there is one thing I can say in its favor, it's that I'm genuinely not confident who will win. I guess that's something. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/FZ3A1h5

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Everywhere and Nowhere

Phoebe Maltz Bovy has an interesting column up on yet another "another anti-Zionist Jewish literary manifesto" that's circulating in Canadian literary spaces.  The theme of the manifesto is a familiar one: that there is "no room in the Jewish literary establishment for work that sees Palestinians as human, their grievances as legitimate, their oppression horrific, their resistance justified." The writer presents the world as drowning in a particular sort of novel about Jews, one "lamenting the antisemitism on university campuses when that antisemitism is actually just pro-Palestinian sentiment," a superindulgence that is choking off other (better, more important) stories about Palestinian rights. On this point, Maltz Bovy notes that the manifesto author doesn't actually cite examples of the offending books he has in mind (despite the fact that they are apparently so omnipresent that they deserve an "enough is enough" jeremiad). And then she makes an important observation, one that I want to pick up on: In thinking ahead to future books coverage, I recently found myself combing all summer 2026 publications available to Canadian readers, in search of Jewish content, preferably but not necessarily Canadian. Search terms came up short, as they will so I went for full, painstaking combing. And there was almost nothing Jewish, along with nothing-nothing Canadian Jewish. (I have since learned I may have missed a children’s picture book that ticks both boxes. My apologies.) The books that are everywhere are actually nowhere. This is reflective of a point I've observed before -- a mismatch between a widespread perception (even among many Jews) that Jews are everywhere in our culture, to the point where we are dominating the space and sucking out the oxygen, and a reality that Jews are frequently nowhere -- not represented in the places they supposedly dominate, not especially heard at all. Even if you think about Hollywood, there are of course a ton of Jewish writers and actor ... but a lot fewer Jewish stories than one might think. In my White Jews article, I wrote that the politics of Jewish invisibility is predicated on a presumption of Jewish omnipresence. Jews are not heard from because everyone assumes they have already heard from Jews—heard enough, perhaps heard too much, perhaps it is time to allow others to talk. Because Jews are thought to be everywhere, the possibility that there is in fact a gap or quietude around Jews becomes almost inconceivable. After all, if there is one thing Jews are not, it's "quiet." If you're Jewish, everyone is going to think you're centering yourself if you say anything at all. There's no escaping it. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/duNmga8

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That Train Is Arriving On Schedule

One of my recent hobbyhorses has been to raise the alarm at one of the single most self-destructive trends I've witnessed in contemporary Jewish political activism: the pivot away from coalitional work with allies to tackle all forms of hatred and bigotry in favor of a far narrower focus on purely Jewish concerns.  This move is sometimes justified with the rhetoric of "put your own mask on before helping others", the idea being that the threats Jews face now are simply too acute for us to divide our attention and allocate resources to the needs of our peers. But this new Look Out For Number One strategy is staggeringly short-sighted, for a host of reasons.  The one I've mostly concentrated on is that it fails to account for the obvious fact that Jews are a small minority, and if we're justified in ignoring the needs of others to concentrate solely on our own self-interest, others are justified in doing the same to us. In a democratic system where one needs 51% of the vote, and Jews are ~2% of the population, that is an obvious losing strategy. But Paul Horwitz flags another problem (that again, should have been obvious from the get-go): allowing hatred for other minority groups to seep into the political mainstream inevitably ends up bolstering antisemitic hatred as well. As he puts it: Unsurprisingly, given their opposition to anything like liberal pluralism and religious freedom, when unhinged Christian nationalists start going after one faith, it’s rare that they will stop there. A good deal of the time, they won’t have started there either. Horwitz's hook is a recent incident involving Carrie Prejean Boller, then serving on President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, haranguing Jewish witnesses about their views on Israel/Palestine and defending antisemitic conservative activists Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson (Prejean Boller was later removed from the commission but refused to resign herself, saying she would "would rather die than bend the knee to Israel"). There was a fair amount of conservative shock to find gambling in their establishment, but Horwitz notes that the conservative "religious liberty" ecosystem that Prejean Boller is a part of and that reflects the membership of Trump's commission has long promoted Islamophobia of the most rabid sort (see, e.g., the hearings over the "Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act"). The antisemitism that is coming further into focus now is the natural extension of the Islamophobia that has been prominent and largely unchallenged for many years now. Indeed, research has consistently found that the best predicator of antisemitic views is whether the subject holds other racist and bigoted views targeting other minorities. Again, none of this is surprising. It is the flip side of the advice Fanon got from his philosophy teacher: "When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you." For us Jews, we might say the same thing: "When you hear someone insulting the Muslims pay attention; he is talking about us." The point being that, if you're looking to head off antisemitism, you can't afford not to care about other tides of bigotry and illiberalism that may be cresting. The "people who sincerely adhere to these views," Horwitz observes, "are hardly going to be satisfied with one enemy or one minority to threaten and deny basic constitutional rights." Even where they didn't start by talking about Jews, they'll get there. That train, as a different wise commentator put it, is never late. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/gh1oFBA