Zephyr Dear

I grew up in the Deep South– from the time when I was 10 years old until I was 22 I lived in a small town that was, culturally, very much like “Lower Alabama.” I’ve talked about my experiences growing up in this community before– how the media only really reported crimes committed by black people, how the town was still run by people in the KKK, how I was in a revival service where a black family was commanded to leave.

When Duck Dynasty first became popular, I was initially confused. I saw a few minutes of the show, watched a few commercials, casually flipped through a few of the books, and it just boggled me. I’d grown up knowing families that were virtually indistinguishable from the Robertsons– and I wondered why so many of the people I knew seemed obsessed with the show. I didn’t get it. I chalked it up to my experience with rednecks of the Duck Dynasty variety; to me, there wasn’t anything novel about it. I shrugged– just more reality television.

And then yesterday happened.

The GQ article “What the Duck?” went up Wednesday night, and some of the people I follow on twitter– in this instance, men and women of color, people like Rod– resignedly made the comment that it was doubtful that anyone was going to notice the blatant racism in Phil Robertson’s comments. They observed that the internet would probably explode over his bigotry (and I do not use that word lightly) and skip right over the racism. Women like Trudy have shown me how racism is constantly downplayed, ignored, and dismissed.

They were right.

When I woke up and went over my Facebook feed the next morning while eating my Frosted Flakes, my heart sank and my stomach twisted. I’d already read the original article, so I knew what he’d said, and the racism had leaped out at me. It broke my heart that many of my friends– and not just Facebook “friends” but real-life-relationships-with-meaning-friends– were posting endless streams of “I <3 you, Phil!” and “I support you, Phil!” and “Bring back Phil!” pictures and statuses.

I hoped against hope that none of them were really aware of what Robertson had actually said. I hoped that they were merely jumping on the bandwagon, that they all believed that Robertson’s comments had been mild and not a gross divergence from what most conservatives say or believe. I hoped that if I took the time to talk about his racism and his bigotry, if I gave them the original quotes from the GQ piece, that they would realize that Robertson was not an example they wanted to be lauding.

I was wrong.

But the biggest reason that it broke my heart, seeing all of that yesterday, was because not even a few years ago, I could have easily said the exact same things that Robertson did. And, looking back, I did say some of those things. I argued against gay marriage using the same ideas that Robertson expressed. I’d dismissed racism using the same exact methods. I’d done that. I’d been that person. Perhaps I hadn’t quite used the “coarse” language Robertson had– but it doesn’t matter how I said it. I’d spent most of my life erasing the brutality and horror of racism and bigotry.

So I spent all day yesterday trying to engage with people, trying to show them how what he said was so bigoted and racist. I gave them the quotes, over and over, tried to point out to those who were arguing that people were over-reacting to his comments and dismissing the issue as “irrelevant” that maybe you think it’s irrelevant because you’re straight. Maybe you think it’s not hateful because you’re white … But trying to point out that being blind to the suffering of black people under Jim Crow made me the racist one.

I gave up.

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I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field…. They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.

There’s already been enough commenting on the bigotry displayed in Robertson’s statements, and while talking about homophobia and anti-gay bigotry are important, I thought that most people understood that lumping gay people in with bestiality and terrorists is unloving– usually. Yesterday kind of shot that horse in the face, a bit. But, coming from the background that I do, I actually do understand why people don’t think the comment above was so bad. Look, he’s not racist! He’s identifying with black people! Or He’s not talking about racism. He’s talking about entitlement programs. It’s extremely frustrating, but I get it.

So, I wanted to try and do my best to succinctly explain why this comment was so horrifically racist.

First of all, Robertson is talking about growing up Louisiana, and he’s 67, which would have made him 22 the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. He was a teenager and a young man during some of the darkest days in the South, and in this comment he makes the claim that he “never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once.” He’s talking about a time when racial segregation was everywhere, Jim Crow laws were in effect, and lynching was so bad in the United States that Paul Robeson was able to argue that people in the US were committing genocide under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. Life for black people in the South was so brutal that nearly every black person who could get out of the South left– over 6 million people.

This is what Robertson was talking about when he said that he “never saw the mistreatment of any black person.” A few things are making this sort of statement possible. The first is that Robertson, because of his racial privilege, is capable of dismissing the  atrocities of pre-Civil Rights racism as completely non-existent. The second is something that most people in America have done– in order to ease our guilt, in order to glory in the “good ole’ days,” we have erased the stories of black people. We have looked into the eyes of suffering, and as a people, we have ignored it.

Instead, we have created a different story. We’ve created, together, this bucolic vision of white people and black people laboring side-by-side: both poor, both oppressed. We’ve bonded this cobbling together of nostalgia, and shared suffering, and catharsis and redemption, and we’ve used it to argue for a “post-racial America.” If we can take down the burning crosses, and bury the countless dead, and together exalt in “I have a dream!” echoing in the empty chambers of our hearts, then we can give ourselves absolution.

And, with our guilty consciences expunged, we can move on to ordering men and women of color to move on with us. That Jim Crow is over and gone. That racism doesn’t exist anymore. That they should join with us in the shared effort of the American dream. That they need to give up their Affirmative Action and other “entitlement programs” and stop “singing the blues.”

That’s why what Robertson said was so deeply racist. It wasn’t that he declared all black people inferior to white people. It wasn’t that he donned a white robe. It was that Robertson did what we have all done.

He closed his eyes.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: San Francisco Edition:

imo, it is a spectrum where even the non-randroids still have something in their masculine identities that is inescapably a bit individualist, conservative, if it is not outright sexist. but sure, the guys at the very top are rich and powerful and out of touch, and thus especially nasty.

Matt Yglesias has an excellent post on that odd column of David Brooks, which John already posted about. (Thanks to CT commenter Marcel for pointing me to the Yglesias column.)

David Brooks says:

We are in the middle of…a dangerous level of family breakdown.

David Brooks says:

It’s wrong to describe an America in which the salt of the earth common people are preyed upon by this or that nefarious elite. It’s wrong to tell the familiar underdog morality tale in which the problems of the masses are caused by the elites. The truth is, members of the upper tribe have made themselves phenomenally productive. They may mimic bohemian manners, but they have returned to 1950s traditionalist values and practices. They have low divorce rates, arduous work ethics and strict codes to regulate their kids. Members of the lower tribe work hard and dream big, but are more removed from traditional bourgeois norms. They live in disorganized, postmodern neighborhoods in which it is much harder to be self-disciplined and productive.

David Brooks says:

I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined. They raise their kids in organized families.

David Brooks says:

It’s not enough just to have economic growth policies. The country also needs to rebuild orderly communities. This requires bourgeois paternalism: Building organizations and structures that induce people to behave responsibly rather than irresponsibly and, yes, sometimes using government to do so.

David Brooks is getting divorced.

The general reaction to various revelations of spying by the US on its friends and allies, particularly in contexts such as trade negotiations has been “everyone does it” and “in any case, there’s nothing anyone can do about it”. And, as regards direct retaliation against the US, that’s pretty much right. The situation is a bit different for junior members of the Five Eyes¹, such as Australia. A case now being heard at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague could set a precedent that will make such spying a high risk exercise.
The background is a 2004 treaty between Australia and East Timor over the division of oil and gas reserves. It’s now come out, via a whistleblower, that while generously building a cabinet room for the new East Timorese government, the Australian government took the opportunity to bug it, thereby gaining a negotiating advantage. East Timor is seeking nullification of the agreement.

IANAL, but the case seems unanswerable. This would be criminal conduct in a commercial negotiation just about anywhere. But, leaving aside the legalities, it’s hard to imagine a more sympathetic plaintiff or a less sympathetic defendant. East Timor is one of the poorest countries on the planet, heavily dependent on Australia. Even in Australia at the time, and without any knowledge of the commercial espionage behind it, the agreement was widely criticised as unfair. Since then, the Foreign Minister at the time, Alexander Downer, has set up a consulting firm which has, as a major client, Woodside Petroleum, the main beneficiary of the deal. And, just the other week, Australian police raided the office of the Australian lawyer acting for East Timor, and cancelled the passport of the key witness.

In these circumstances, an Arbitration Court that found in favor of Australia might as well make a public declaration that it is for sale to the highest bidder. Whatever contortions of legal reasoning the Australian lawyers might come up with are unlikely to convince anyone except other lawyers. In the face of what looks like certain defeat, I’d expect the Australian government to settle out of court. But even that would be enough to expose every commercial agreement negotiated by a Five Eyes country to legal challenge, not to mention any other governments caught engaging commercial espionage in international negotiations.

There is every reason to expect more whistleblowers. While the unnamed whistleblower in this case, like Snowden and Manning, appears to have acted out of moral repugnance at his government’s actions against a desperately poor country, many more might come forward if enough money was on offer. And, in the context of international trade negotiations, the leverage provided by a threat to revoke earlier agreements could be huge.

Last year a drug store chain in Canada, Shoppers Drug Mart, started playing Christmas music more than a month before the holiday.  Customers complained, perhaps, Tom Megginson suggested, because it is customary in Canada to wait until after  Remembrance Day on November 11 (a holiday honoring those who’ve died in wars) to start celebrating Christmas.

In response to complaints, Shoppers pulled the Christmas music and announced their decision on Facebook:

How might people interpret this decision?   Here’s a sampling of one type of response, collected by Megginson:

Notice that not wanting to hear Christmas in early November is conflated with not celebrating Christmas and that is conflated with a whole host of identities: not being a “real” Canadian and being non-Christian, non-white, an immigrant, and of a different “culture.”

For these commenters, the so-called War on Christmas is about much more than a competition between religious and secular forces, it’s also about the centrality of whiteness and a defense of “true” Canadianness against an influx of foreign cultures.  It is worth considering whether, in general, this debate is really code for racism and anti-immigrant sentiment more generally.

Photo by Petr Kratochvil. Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

I just got my power bill for Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, and while I was ready for a big number after switching from oil to a heat pump, I'm wondering if my PS4 and Xbox One weren't the real culprits. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, I can expect to pay $150 in the next five years on the Xbox One alone.

Read more...

Utah Is on Track to End Homelessness by 2015 With This One Simple Idea:

"In 2005, Utah calculated the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail stays for an average homeless person was $16,670, while the cost of providing an apartment and social worker would be $11,000."

What happens when, at the same time, the decline of Spanish construction is finally bottoming out, which causes a lower rate of job losses, while at the same time real wages take a small hit and four mainstream Spanish economist run a kind of regression on these data? Right. They not only conclude that the […]

Most ideas I learned from business books were useless. The rest were downright harmful. Intuition and experimentation have been the best guides.

The #1 assumption business books tend to make is that the purpose of running a business is to earn and increase profits. Some books really hammer on this point, as if you’re an idiot for disagreeing. I found my decisions and results to be the most idiotic when I bought into that model.

I just thumbed through such a book yesterday that someone had sent me in the mail. That book is now in the recycle bin. It will serve a greater purpose as a cardboard box, which is far healthier for all of us than letting someone else read it.

As soon as you walk into the office of a business that puts profits first, you can smell the oppression. It’s almost unfathomable that human beings would accept such a lack of freedom. I dread walking into places where everyone behaves like zombies. The vibe is so disgustingly creepy. No wonder the cartels have such a thriving business. I’d probably drug myself daily too if I had to spend years of my life in a cubicle.

Profits-first is a great mindset if you want to destroy your health, self-esteem, motivation, and relationships. I’d never want to work in such a place, nor would I ever want to subject others to such an environment. People deserve much better than to be treated like cogs in service of a machine.

There are much more empowering priorities for a business. Surely you can come up with something more exciting than, let’s make a bigger number than we did last year.

I rather like this one:

The purpose of business is to empower people to express and share their creativity, for the highest good of all.

It’s nonsense to believe that you can’t have a sustainable business if you don’t put profits first. In my experience it’s much easier to achieve sustainability if you refuse to demean yourself with a money-first attitude.

Instead of putting money first, put creative challenges first. Put growth experiences first. Put fun first. Put the opportunity to work with cool people first. Put contribution first.

I love running my business — so much — because I don’t put money first. Money is a consideration of course, but the bottom line is at the bottom for a reason, right where it belongs.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for nearly 20 years straight now. The years when I put money first were by far the most stressful and miserable ones. The years when I set out to express my creativity, improve my relationships, dive into fun co-creative projects, make a contribution, give more, stretch myself, and so on, were the years when I was the happiest and most fulfilled.

This longer time perspective helps me see that if I create stressful and miserable years for myself, it will eventually add up to decades of such memories, which means that in my older years, I’m going to feel awfully bitter about how I’ve lived. Fortunately I was able to nip that in the bud before I went too far down that path, so now the opposite is happening. I’m getting happier as I get older because I’m stacking up year after year of positive memories. Regardless of how much money I make or don’t make, I remember the fun projects, the creative flow, the intimate friendships, the collaborations, the heartfelt hugs, the people I helped, and so on. I don’t remember what my bank balance looked like.

Generating income from your creativity is great. Let it be part of the challenge. But don’t make money the central purpose of your work. Don’t do things just for money that you wouldn’t otherwise be inspired to do. It’s better to stick to your path with a heart, even if it means getting kicked out of your home because you can’t pay the rent. I’m speaking from experience since I did that once. At the time it was stressful of course, but as a memory it’s something I’m rather proud of, and as a story it helps encourage others not to settle for zombie-hood.

Follow your path with a heart, especially in business. Do real work that you find dignified and fulfilling, and you’ll end each year with a feeling of deep satisfaction, regardless of how much money you make. If you trust your intuition, act on inspiration, and take the time to build experience and positive relationships, you’ll find a path to sustainability sooner or later.

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Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Why we should end them:

According to IMF calculations issued earlier this year, global fossil-fuel subsidies in 2011 cost $1.9 trillion — fully 2.5% of global gross domestic product — and the biggest single source of subsidies was the United States. Eliminating these subsidies globally, the IMF said, would cut energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions a whopping 13%.

Fuel subsidies are terrible primarily because, by “reducing the cost consumers pay for oil, natural gas and coal, subsidies promote the wasteful use of these polluting — and, at least in theory, finite — resources.” But they can also be harmful in a multitude of other ways. For example:

Earlier this year, Iran devalued its currency — the rial — against the US dollar. But when it did the devaluation, it failed to compensate by raising the rial-denominated price of fuel. As a result, the devaluation reduced the price in real terms that consumers in Iran pay for fuel. The market responded swiftly and sensibly: Massive amounts of diesel fuel are being smuggled out of Iran and into neighboring Pakistan, where the price of diesel at the pump now is 10 times what it is in Iran. According to the IEA, 60,000 barrels of diesel fuel are being smuggled out of Iran, mainly into Pakistan, every day.

In RSA Key Extraction via Low-Bandwidth Acoustic Cryptanalysis [PDF], a paper by Daniel Genkin and Eran Tromer of Tel Aviv University and Adi Shamir, the authors show that a sensitive microphone (such as the one in a compromised mobile phone) can be used to infer a secret cryptographic key being used by a nearby computer. The computer's processor emits different quiet sounds ("coil whine...caused by voltage regulation circuits") as it performs cryptographic operations, and these sounds, properly analyzed, can reveal the key.

It's a pretty stunning attack, the sort of thing that sounds like science fiction. But the researchers are unimpeachable (Shamir is the "S" in RSA), and their paper is very clear.

The techniques they demonstrated certainly aren't viable for casual attacks. Still, as Wednesday's updates from GnuPG attest, they represent a realistic threat for people who use cryptographic software and devices in certain settings. The researchers outline several countermeasures application developers can implement to prevent computers from leaking the secret keys in acoustic emanations, namely a technique known as RSA ciphertext randomization. People who rely on cryptography applications should check with the developers to make sure they're not susceptible. In the meantime, end users shouldn't assume that running a computer in a noisy environment will prevent attacks from working, since acoustic emanations that leak secret keys can often be filtered.

New attack steals e-mail decryption keys by capturing computer sounds [Dan Goodin/Ars Technica]

Dylan Scott has some new reporting today suggesting that key health care industry players are pessimistic about the prospects for Medicaid expansion in the states that initially opted out under Obamacare.

Here's how one trade group official in a key state candidly put it:

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"Sometimes, I pick an argument with someone just to make them try and find a logical argument or at least to find an argument equal to my own. I find it intellectually stimulating and it’s fun to watch them lose. Then I want to apologise but I never do."

Amanda Ripley urges education policymakers to take boredom seriously:

When Gallup asked American teenagers to choose three words that best described their typical feelings in school from a list of 14 adjectives, “bored” was chosen most often—by one out of every two students. (“Tired” came in second, chosen by 42 percent of teenagers surveyed.) And boredom is global. Across 32 countries, nearly half of 15-year-olds said they often felt bored at school on average, according to a 2000 OECD survey. (Ireland did worst of all, with 67 percent of teenagers reporting frequent boredom, compared to 61 percent in the U.S.) …

The research on boredom in school is surprisingly scant—perhaps because boredom, unlike anger or defiance or other, less common schoolhouse emotions, does not directly disrupt the classroom. It is more of a latent virus, less likely to provoke adult interest. “Test anxiety has been examined in more than 1,000 studies to date,” Ulrike Nett and her colleagues noted in a fascinating 2010 study on boredom in school, “yet only a handful of studies have explored boredom.”

It’s that time of year again when studios make available PDFs of movie scripts for award season. As in years past, we will be tracking them and posting links as they become available.

Current total of scripts for download: 38.

Newly added script: Labor Day

12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight)

42 (Warner Bros.)

All Is Lost (Roadside Attractions) NOTE: The script is 31 pages long with virtually no dialogue.

The Armstrong Lie (Sony Classics – documentary transcript)

August: Osage County (TWC)

Before Midnight (Sony Classics)

The Bling Ring (A24)

The Croods (DreamWorks Animation)

Dallas Buyers Club (Focus Features)

Despicable Me 2 (Universal – Click on “Screenplay”)

Enough Said (Fox Searchlight)

The Fifth Estate (IMG)

Frozen (Disney)

Fruitvale Station (TWC)

Gravity (Warner Bros.)

The Great Gatsby (Warner Bros.)

The Invisible Woman (Sony Classics)

Kill Your Darlings (Sony Classics)

Labor Day (Paramount)

Lee Daniels’ The Butler (TWC)

Lone Survivor (Universal – Click on “Screenplay”)

Monsters University (Disney / Pixar)

Mud (Roadside Attractions)

Nebraska (Paramount)

One Chance (TWC)

The Past (Sony Classics)

Philomena (TWC)

The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features)

Prisoners (Warner Bros.)

Rush (Universal – Click on “Screenplay”)

Saving Mr. Banks (Disney)

Short Term 12 (Cinedigm) NOTE: Hosted exclusively by Go Into The Story.

The Spectacular Now (A24)

Spring Breakers (A24)

Wadjda (Sony Classics)

The Way Way Back (Fox Searchlight)

We Steal Secrets (IMG – transcript)

The Wolf of Wall Street (Paramount)

Studios also make production notes available:

All Is Lost

August: Osage County

Blue Jasmine

Dallas Buyers Club

Despicable Me 2 (Click on “Production Notes”)

Fast & Furious 6 (Click on “Production Notes”)

Fruitvale Station

The Grandmaster

Gravity

Inside Llewyn Davis

Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Lone Survivor (Click on ‘Production Notes”)

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Mud

Muscle Shoals

Nebraska

Oblivion (Click on “Production Notes”)

One Chance

Philomena

The Place Beyond the Pine Trees

Prisoners

Rush (Click on “Production Notes”)

A special thanks to Wendy Cohen for tracking script downloads for us!

There will be more to come, so enjoy the bounty and honor the writing by reading these scripts! That is one of the keys to learning the craft.

Indiewire is running a nice series of interviews with actors in notable films from 2013. One that caught my eye was with Brie Larson who stars in one of my favorite movies this year Short Term 12. There are two big reasons why we need to listen to her. First, as screenwriters. Listen to what Larson has to say on how she goes about choosing a role:

Here is the key excerpt:

In order to feel like all of the time and the preparation… can be honest and continually inspired, and I can feel excited about what it is I’m doing, it just has to be something I’m willing to look at multiple times. I’m excited to read the script every day. I’m excited to talk about it and look into it.

I’m excited to read the script every day. I’m excited to talk about it and look into it. As screenwriters, we have a lot of goals. Getting people excited may be the single most important one.

Everything — concept, characters, plot, dialogue, scenes, transitions, themes, pace, tone, atmosphere, feeling — should combine to get readers excited. To compel a creative talent like Brie Larson to read a script like Short Term 12, a movie with a budget well under $1M, a figure likely less than costs for craft services on other movies she’s been in like 21 Jump Street, and say, “I’m excited to take several weeks of my life and make this wonderful little movie.”

When you assess one of your own screenplays, try imagining yourself as an actor/actress. Imagine having to commit months of time to one story universe, working with a production crew day after day, the hard slog of making a movie.

Is your script something you would want to read “every day”? Is it something you would be “excited to talk” about and “look into” weeks on end?

It’s a tough test. But it’s where the rubber meets the road: Can a script generate excitement in someone who reads it?

The second reason we need to listen to Larson: She is exceptional in Short Term 12 as these clips demonstrate:

It’s an immersive, completely convincing performance that won her the Best Actress Gotham Award.

What if you wanted to read a script that an actress like Brie Larson could get “excited” about? You can do that because Short Term 12 screenwriter-director Destin Daniel Cretton and the movie’s distributor Cinedigm have given Go Into The Story the exclusive rights to host the script here. Click the link. Download the PDF. And read the script.

You want to write a script that gets people’s attention? Write one that gets them excited.

You want a movie to get excited about? Watch Short Term 12.

For more of the Indiewire interview with Brie Larson, go here.

For the past several months, I’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into exploring 3D relationships with men and women as well as 4D relationships with women. These terms are defined on my Meeting in Person page.

As a quick summary… in our human relationships we have 4 basic ways of connecting with each other:

• physically (body)
• mentally (mind)
• emotionally (heart)
• purposefully (spirit)

A 3D connection means that we’re connecting strongly in 3 of these areas. A 4D connection means we’re connecting in all 4 aspects.

Holistic Connections

A 4D relationship is more than just the sum of its parts because there’s a synergistic effect when you connect with someone across multiple areas. For instance, a strong emotional (heart) connection can greatly improve communication (mind) as well as physical intimacy (body).

I’ve been impressed by the depth of relating that becomes possible with 3D and 4D connections. Communication is smooth and authentic. People lower their shields and share their true selves. Trust is high. Ideas are shared openly and magnified. Actions flow with less effort. Sex is better too.

One reason that some friends and I were able to create a new audio program in only 3 days last week (9-10 hours of very powerful content) is that we have 3D friendships (mind, heart, spirit). We share ideas with each other, including masterminding together for a full day earlier this year in Oslo. We share our concerns, our hopes, our failures, and our successes. We support and encourage each other to live empowered lives, to grow, to inspire others, and to serve the greater good.

Consequently, we worked very well together as a team, and we continue to do so as we prepare to launch our new audio program. We’ve had a fairly easy time making decisions by consensus where I’ve seen other teams fall into extended debate. I think we’ve done a good job of setting aside our individual egos and putting the best interests of the team, the project, and the value we wish to share first.

I really enjoy collaborative projects. Seeing someone as above or below me in some kind of hierarchy or command structure doesn’t feel good to me. There’s a special flow that arises when everyone on a team is on equal footing. If the relationships between team members are strong, synergy is high. When the relationships break down or weaken, falling back on a command-based structure can’t quite make up for the reduction in trust and flow. Such a team can still have a leader or manager, but people will only truly give their best efforts to support team members they genuinely like and respect, and fairness is essential to that dynamic.

To create more authentic 3D relationships in my life, the #1 key was to say no to partial matches. Those 1D and 2D connections can be oh-so-tempting to accept, but when I kept allowing them in, I wasn’t able to create enough space for the 3D connections to show up. This is typical of many personal growth challenges. We don’t get the golden prize until we stop chasing fool’s gold. Look how shiny it is! It’s close to real gold. Maybe it will eventually become real gold. There’s always hope, right?

How many people still show up at jobs they dislike, waiting for something better to come along? When they finally quit, that’s when the new opportunity finally comes through. Getting clingy with partial matches is a surefire recipe for stuckness.

Most of my 3D relationships are with other men, but I’m gradually developing more of these relationships with women too. An example would be Shereen Faltas. She and I first connected earlier this year and spent some time getting to know each other in Vegas and L.A. We’ve had some fascinating conversations together (mind), compared notes on some similar emotionally challenging situations we recently went through (heart), and since we love the idea of helping people wake up from the doldrums of corporate employment, we’ll be sharing the stage together at her upcoming event in L.A. called Awaken the Rebel: Live! (spirit).

4D Relationships

Even more intense than 3D relationships are the 4D ones. This means adding physical intimacy into the mix, along with cultivating strong mental, emotional, and spiritual connections.

This year I’ve only had the chance to explore a few 4D relationships, with varying degrees of depth and duration. They require more compatibility than 3D relationships, so in that sense it can be more challenging to find a solid match.

One of these 4D relationships is with my girlfriend Rachelle.

Physically Rachelle is as much of a cuddleslut as I am. When we’re together we love to touch and hold each other and share affection freely. We usually cuddle and make out several times per day. Sexually we’re as compatible as two people can get. We know how to turn each other on with ease, and we love to tease each other and play with the flow of sexual and emotional energy between us. We’re both very sex-positive people and enjoy the delightful pleasures of our physical connection without shame, fear, or guilt. We also enjoy playing with other partners now and then who have similar attitudes.

Mentally we enjoy deep conversations and extensive common interests. We’re both long-term vegans. We value service and creative self-expression more than money. We love to travel. We love exploring new museums together, going to plays, and taking long walks. We both have a quirky sense of humor and play together in the silliest ways sometimes. We like the same types of music and movies. We can be just as comfortable playing introverts as we are playing extroverts. We love sharing new learning and growth experiences together. Rachelle is my best friend, and I am hers, and we love and cherish that friendship.

Emotionally we’re deeply in love with each other. We share our feelings openly and freely, even when it brings tears to our eyes. We frequently tell each other how lucky we feel to be in each others lives. We gush appreciation and gratitude for our relationship. We avoid the trap of taking each other for granted. We emotionally comfort, support, encourage, and uplift each other. The abundance of love and warmth that flows through our relationship is just amazing. Simply thinking of Rachelle makes me feel very loved. Even when we’re in different cities, we frequently send loving reminders to each other.

Spiritually Rachelle and I came together to help each other explore a powerful and challenging path of growth. We both wanted to stretch ourselves by exploring an open relationship. We wanted to explore our sexuality in some very non-vanilla ways. We wanted to open our hearts and share all aspects of ourselves without holding back. We willingly entered into a long-distance relationship, whereby we’re together about 6-7 months out of each year and in different cities the rest of the time. We wanted to explore more of the world together. We had a strong shared purpose in coming together.

After almost 4 years in a relationship together, I feel more in love with Rachelle than ever.

Despite the long-distance aspect and the growth challenges we take on together, my relationship with Rachelle feels effortless. It flows so easily and naturally. I think one reason is that we both held out for what we wanted instead of settling for something else, so when we first got together, it was one of those “you had me at hello” situations. We let ourselves fall in love together with grace, ease, and lightness. We enjoy each other immensely.

One strength of our relationship is that Rachelle and I have a high capacity for forgiveness. One of us will occasionally frustrate the other, but it’s generally easy for us to let go of negative emotions and get back to love. One reason is that we enjoy each other’s touch so much that if we ever feel tempted to “punish” each other, we also have to deprive ourselves of what we most enjoy, so that doesn’t last very long. It’s pretty difficult for us to feel frustrated with each other when we simply let go and cuddle. In that sense you could say we’re positively addicted to being in love with each other; it’s like a gravity well we can’t escape. Additionally, spending time apart, sometimes as much as 2-3 months at a stretch, always gives us the opportunity to miss each other and to long for each other’s company again.

Is our relationship perfect? As exaggerated as this may sound, I’d have to say yes, it is. More accurately, it’s perfect for me. The love and the depth of connection we share is so strong and bright that I genuinely feel that what I most desire in this part of my life is exactly what I’m experiencing. Our relationship has its share of challenges, but since I accept those challenges instead of resisting them, the challenges just enhance the beauty of our connection. I have what I want here, and I love it!

4D Relationships and Growth

Since sharing growth experiences is a big part of our relationship path, Rachelle and I decided to stretch ourselves next month by doing something we’ve never done before.

We’ll both be speaking at our friend Johnny’s annual Successfulness workshop in Vegas. That by itself is something we’ve both done before. But this time we’re going to speak together about something we’ve never shared publicly before, which is the D/s play aspect of our relationship. This includes demoing some of the things we do to increase the emotional, sensual, and sexual intensity of our connection.

In a long-term relationship, there’s a tendency for intimacy to increase while intensity diminishes. To avoid that situation, Rachelle and I put a lot of energy into keeping the intensity of our connection high. We do specific things to renew and intensify the feelings we have for each other pretty much every day, even when we’re in different cities. We don’t allow our connection to become too boring or routine. We’re always spiking the energy back up. And since we’ve been together for almost 4 years, we’ve become very good at this.

Until now this has always been a private part of our relationship, not something we normally do in front of other people, except occasionally in a silly or playful way around close friends. Otherwise we’ve never shared this part of our connection in front of an audience before. Doing so will likely be an emotionally intense experience for us… and possibly for the other people in the room as well.

Additionally, we’re not planning on pre-scripting what we share, so we’ll be sharing and demonstrating whatever arises from spontaneous inspiration in the moment.

The reasons we want to lean into this experience are varied and complex, but the main reason is that we feel this would take us to the edge of our comfort zones and possibly beyond. We want to explore that edge together. Sharing these kinds of growth experiences is one of the reasons we’re in each other’s lives.

I’d also like to encourage and challenge others not to ignore the intensity aspect of their relationships. Long-term intimacy is beautiful, but keeping the passion and intensity alive can make the connection even stronger.

A 4D relationship isn’t static, and it’s not always comfortable. When you really connect with someone in this fashion, you’ll surely be leaning into new growth experiences, some of which may surprise you.

Multiple 4D Relationships

Let me also share some thoughts about another edge of my comfort zone in this particular area.

Up to this point, when I’ve explored other 4D connections, these explorations usually happened while Rachelle and I were in different cities and with women who lived outside of Las Vegas. Because of this, the physical aspect of these other connections has been temporary; it lasts while we’re in the same cities, and after that we have the option to stay in touch online… and to reconnect in person again when we happen to be in the same city.

Consider this the 4D version of the “100-mile rule”, which is a rule that some people in open relationships use. It means that you can connect with other people as long as you and your primary partner are at least 100 miles apart.

But as I keep leaning in this direction, it’s predictable that eventually the streams will cross.

On the one hand, exploring multiple 4D connections in the same place at the same time is exciting. But it’s also outside of my comfort zone. I’ve never done it before. I can’t predict how it will turn out.

The growth-oriented part of me really wants to lean into this. It seems like a significant mental, emotional, and social challenge. There’s a lot that could go wrong.

The comfort-oriented part of me wants to be lazy and just relax into the security of my wonderful-as-is relationship with Rachelle and not complicate things.

In the end I’ll choose the path of growth because it’s what I always do. It’s why I’m here.

Rachelle knows this about me. It’s one of the things she loves about me. She knows I’ll keep leaning into new growth experiences and won’t allow myself to settle for comfort and security. And she knows I want to share that journey with her. I feel very lucky to have her in my life. Not many women could handle being in a relationship with someone who lives the way I do.

Finding women interested in exploring 4D connections together actually hasn’t been that difficult. They tend to just show up in my life spontaneously, and I expect that to continue. But what woman has the courage to delve into this while Rachelle is physically present too? I don’t know, but I’d love to meet her. So would Rachelle.

Perhaps what I find most appealing about 4D connections is that they’re intensely transformational. It’s impossible to explore such a connection with someone and not emerge a different person from it. Since I love growth experiences, I’m drawn to explore 4D connections like a moth to a flame, partly because of this transformational effect. When I connect deeply and intimately with another person, I feel awake, alive, and aware like never before.

Where’s the edge of your comfort zone in relationships? Do you see value in leaning into that edge? Or would you prefer to play it safe?

---

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

I’m in Salon today responding to the “men’s rights activists” who spammed Occidental College’s anonymous sexual assault reporting form this week.  I, um, compare them to myself as a child:

I thought I failed fourth grade.  It’s funny now that I’m a tenured professor at an elite college, but it wasn’t funny then.  I lived a 45 minute walk from school and I ran home that day, tears in my eyes, clutching my unopened report card in my fist.  I don’t remember much from my childhood, but I remember sitting on my front stoop and opening that horrible envelope.  All Es for “excellent.”  Huh.

Looking back I realize that my sense that I’d failed was based on how my teacher treated me.  She was the first adult who didn’t talk to me in a baby voice like I was the most specialest little girl in the whole world.  She treated me like a small adult instead of kissing my ass.  But it was terrifying because my ass had been kissed by everyone around me my whole life and, when I was demoted to “regular person” without any special privileges, it felt terrible and unfair.  I was being persecuted.

See how special I was? I’m the one with the inflated sense of self.

The men attacking Occidental’s survivors are feeling something similar to me in fourth grade.  They’re angry that “women are being listened to… They’re mad because they’re not the only ones that matter anymore.”  They’re no longer being treated like they’re the most specialest little girl in the whole world.

It hurts when privileges are taken away, no matter how unearned.  But that doesn’t make it okay to be an asshole.  Just sayin’.

PS – Thanks Ms. Singh!

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

"The Super Awesome Micro Project", as this has become known, is not a special effect. That really is a life-size car made out of LEGO, and it really is being powered by an engine made out of LEGO.

Read more...

The newest chapter of the Assassin's Creed series gives me some of the things I've always wanted in a video game: a heroic fantasy that lets me control a warrior fighting against slavery. Part of it happens in Haiti, where my parents were born. Characters talk in Antillean Kreyol, the mosaic tongue made of French and West African words that I heard while growing up. But, mostly, it reminds me of going to church with my mother. It makes me happy and sad at the same time.

Read more...

Welcome to Wonkbook, Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas's morning policy news primer. To subscribe by e-mail, click here. Send comments, criticism, or ideas to Wonkbook at Gmail dot com. To read more by Ezra and his team, go to Wonkblog.

The Fed's tiny taper is getting all the attention. But Ben Bernanke didn't just pull back his monthly bond buy yesterday. He also extended the Fed's primary stimulus policy of incredibly low interest rates.

Previously, the Fed had promised to hold to its low rates until unemployment hit 6.5 percent. But given the sharp drop in the number of people participating in the labor force, 6.5 percent unemployment may not mean what once hoped it would mean. So on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced that they will likely continue keeping rates this low until "well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6-1/2 percent."

"That's the right call," says Matt Yglesias, "and it means Ben Bernanke will be wrapping up his term as Fed chair with a move in the right direction."

But Congress is wrapping up Ben Bernanke's term as Fed chair with a move in the wrong direction. The Fed's lower rates are supposed to allow Congress to borrow more money right now to help the unemployed. Instead, Congress is letting unemployment benefits lapse at the end of this month. Ben Bernanke can lead a horse to water. But he can't make them stop screwing the unemployed.

This has been a central challenge of Bernanke's term. He can make it possible for Congress to borrow at almost nothing to get the economy moving again. But he can't make them do it. Since basically 2010 Federal Reserve policy has been getting more stimulative even as Congress has become a larger and larger drag on the economy.

In May, Bernanke warned that "the expiration of the payroll tax cut, the enactment of tax increases, the effects of the budget caps on discretionary spending, the onset of sequestration, and the declines in defense spending for overseas military operations are expected, collectively, to exert a substantial drag on the economy this year" and that “monetary policy does not have the capacity to fully offset an economic headwind of this magnitude.”

There's an alternate history of the last three years in which Bernanke held rates low and Congress used the opportunity to rebuild America's infrastructure, passed a huge tax cut for businesses that hire new workers, helped state and local government reinvest after the vicious cuts forced by the recession, and wiped out the payroll tax until further notice. That's a world where millions more Americans have jobs today. And it's a world Bernanke did everything he could to help Congress create.

Wonkbook's Number of the Day: $10 billion. That's the amount by which the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets U.S. monetary policy, will reduce its monthly bond purchases in January, which had run at $85 billion in 2013.

Wonkbook's Graphs of the Day: The paths of the uninsured, and where the uninsured live.

Wonkbook's Top 5 Stories: (1) Ben Bernanke's final play; (2) budget deal passes; (3) how the NSA needs reform; (4) Obamacare is like O'Hare; and (5) estimating the shale gas boom.

1. Top story: Exit Bernanke and bond-buying. Enter Yellen and the taper.

Fed to scale back stimulus by $10 billion. "Next month, the Fed will scale back its support from $85 billion a month to $75 billion — cutting $5 billion each from mortgage and Treasury bond purchases. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the program will probably continue to shrink in “similar, moderate steps” at future meetings and end altogether late next year. But he cautioned that the pace is not predetermined; instead, it will depend on the progress of the recovery. Officials could skip “a meeting or two” if they are disappointed in the economic data, he said...Officials also stressed that the decision does not affect the central bank’s commitment to keeping short-term interest rates near zero. The Fed on Wednesday said rates will probably remain low well after the unemployment rate reaches 6.5 percent — stronger language than it has used in the past. The central bank also said it is unlikely to raise rates while inflation is below its target of 2 percent." Ylan Q. Mui in The Washington Post.

Primary source: The FOMC statement.

Liveblogs: The Washington Post and The New York Times did it live.

Explainer: 5 key takeaways from the Fed's monetary policy statement. Jon Hilsenrath in The Wall Street Journal.

Bernanke hands off the challenge of tapering to Yellen. "The Federal Reserve's decision Wednesday to begin reducing its signature bond-buying program removes one big item on Janet Yellen's to-do list when she likely takes the reins in February, but she is still inheriting a job with numerous challenges...Now that the Fed has begun to wind down its bond-buying program, it will fall to Ms. Yellen to decide if economic conditions warrant continuing to pare the purchases or not. She will also have to decide whether and how to tweak the Fed's promises to keep interest rates near zero for a long time if the economy fails to recover as the Fed now forecasts. And she will also have to decide how to respond if inflation remains stubbornly below the Fed's 2% target." Victoria McGrane in The Wall Street Journal.

@BCAppelbaum: Bernanke: "We've seen meaningful cumulative progress in the labor market."

The Fed is cutting back on its money printing — and Wall Street is thrilled. "Why are markets so buoyant as the Fed take its first baby step toward tighter monetary policy? The most clear-cut explanation is this: The $10 billion taper was accompanied by steps to reassure markets that Uncle Ben (or Aunt Janet) are going to keep flooding the economy with cash, taper notwithstanding. In its policy statement, the Fed said that it will continue buying bonds and will "employ other policy tools as appropriate" until the job market has "improved substantially." That was accompanied by a wee hint of a step in a dovish direction: In projections released in September, three of the Fed's 17 policymakers thought that interest rate hikes would be warranted in 2014. That number fell to two in December, and the number who thought rate hikes would wait until 2016 rose from two to three." Neil Irwin in The Washington Post.

But the change to policy is supposed to be neither a tightening nor a loosening of policy. "Bernanke indicated during today’s presser that today’s changes — the most important being the start of tapering and the language strengthening the forward guidance — were meant to neutralise each other in terms of their impact on the overall accomodativeness of monetary policy." Cardiff Garcia in The Financial Times.

Might a metaphor help? "It was a bit like a mother warning a child that she would gradually reduce the number of bags of M&Ms he could eat every week, but, at the same time, reassuring the boy that his supply of Snickers bars would be uninterrupted, and might even be stepped up if he started to lose weight. Wall Street’s reaction indicated that it was perfectly happy with its revised diet, which will still be rich in sugar." John Cassidy in The New Yorker.

@MattZeitlin: at least three fed reporters have bernanke's basic hair beard combo, but so far none have the yellen 'do

The Fed's taper may rough up these five countries. "The “fragile five”, economies identified by Morgan Stanley as particularly vulnerable due in part to large current account deficits, are once more in focus. The central banks of Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey have been busy hiking rates to counter plunging currencies. But governments have yet to tackle the difficult domestic reforms, including tax and labour, to free up their economies and attract the long-term investment they need not least as all five face elections in 2014." The Financial Times.

In another sort of monetary policy, Britain is moving towards plastic money. "As a new technology, plastic bank notes, becomes more popular around the world, people will have to get used to money that is slipperier but less grimy and harder to fold into origami cranes but more likely to survive washing machines...Others, although not the United States, are expected to follow suit. The reason is simple enough: Plastic — or polymer, as it is called — holds up better than paper. It is also a lot harder to counterfeit." Ian Austen and Nathaniel Popper in The New York Times.

@Goldfarb: With his abundant critique of fiscal policy as too tight, one wonders whether Bernanke is still a Republican.

Housing starts hit a 6-year high, and that's the kind of news that justifies a taper. "The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that housing starts jumped 22.7 percent last month from October, the biggest increase since January 1990, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.09 million units. That was the highest level since February 2008...Economists, who had expected housing starts to come in at a rate of 950,000 units in November, raised their fourth-quarter gross domestic product estimates by as much as two-tenths of a percentage point on Wednesday to as high as a 2.3 percent annual rate." Reuters.

Quotes: 7 New Yorkers who are about to lose their unemployment insurance talk about what it's like. Sulome Anderson in New York Magazine.

IRWIN: This is how history should judge Ben Bernanke. "At a time when there was a sense of economic despair across the country, when official Washington was immersed in a kind of fatalism, unwilling to take on the hard task of trying to coax growth out of a stagnant economy, he was different. He didn’t have the perfect tools for the job, but he searched his academic knowledge of how economies work, and used what he did have to try to put America’s jobless back to work. Bernanke’s chairmanship has been a fight for the idea that good policy can make people’s lives better, and he has exhibited the courage to take risks to make it so." Neil Irwin in The Washington Post.

@ObsoleteDogma: If this presser doesn't end with Bernanke taking a selfie and Yellen photobombing him, I'll be disappointed.

WESSEL: Bernanke made the Fed more open. "Twenty years ago, the Fed didn't even disclose when its policy committee had decided to move interest rates, let alone explain why. On Wednesday, the central bank issued a 694-word statement as well as economic forecasts stretching to 2016. Then Mr. Bernanke spent 67 minutes fielding questions from reporters on live television on everything from the reasons inflation is stubbornly below the Fed's target." David Wessel in The Wall Street Journal.

PETHOKOUKIS: Fed remains in growth mode, despite taper. "If stock market’s initial mega-bullish reaction is any gauge, then the Bernanke Fed’s decision to, effectively, refrain from reducing monetary stimulus is good for US economic growth. And it probably is. Although the Federal Open Market Committee did announce it was reducing its monthly bond buys to $75 billion from $85 billion, at the same time policymakers also strengthened their commitment to keeping interest rates low for a long time." James Pethokoukis for the American Enterprise Institute.

Music recommendations interlude: The best music of 2013, according to: NPR, The Guardian, Pitchfork and Spin.

Top opinion

KLEIN: Ryan-Murray budget deal doesn’t show the two parties can compromise, it shows they can’t. "Ex-Sen. Judd Gregg made an argument that's become common in Washington. The deal, he said, showed there was a path forward in which the two parties could compromise and work together. It was a place to start, not a place to end. I disagree completely...Ryan and Murray struck the best deal they could without compromising on anything either side really cared about. But that just goes to show that doing anything significant requires compromise. This deal doesn't show that Congress is finally working again. It shows that the two parties have accepted that it's broken." Ezra Klein in The Washington Post.

SOLTAS: Can MIT cure long-term unemployment? "If there is a way out of America’s crisis of long-term unemployment, it's possible nobody has a better chance of finding it than a new team of five researchers based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their project, the Institute for Career Transitions, will take a data-driven approach to figuring out the best way to help the long-term unemployed land jobs. The research is the first of its kind; with 4.1 million Americans who have unable to find work for more than six months, it couldn’t be more important...[T]he team has designed what a scientist would call a randomized controlled trial to test whether support in the job search can help the long-term unemployed find work, and if so, what kind of support has the greatest impact." Evan Soltas in Bloomberg.

BERNSTEIN: Budget deal's impact is only a blip. "It’s important, however, to use this little deal to make a broader point: policy makers have done serious long-term damage to an important part of the budget that has few defenders and many defunders: NDD, or nondefense discretionary spending. The new budget agreement has almost an imperceptible impact on that development." Jared Bernstein in The New York Times.

CARROLL: Conservatives see the light on deductibles. "The revelation that many plans in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges have high deductibles has put many of the law’s conservative opponents into a corner: Once in favor of high deductibles, these critics of Obamacare are suddenly worried about the risk to consumers. The data show why their new position makes more sense." Aaron Carroll in Bloomberg.

Opinion poll: Is big government, big labor, or big business the greatest threat? Record number in U.S. (72 percent) answer with "big government." Jeffrey M. Jones in Pew Research.

SUROWEICKI: Deadbeat governments. "[T]hough plenty of states and cities have managed to maintain healthy pension funds, in many places pension costs are eating up huge chunks of the budget. New Jersey’s and California’s pension funds are both in deep holes. San Diego now spends more than twenty per cent of its operating budget on pensions; San Jose spends a quarter of its budget on them. Illinois needs to come up with nearly a hundred billion dollars just to pay off obligations it is already committed to." James Suroweicki in The New Yorker.

ORSZAG: Government jobs shouldn't be soul-killing. "Federal employee satisfaction and commitment are at their lowest point since the survey began in 2003. Published by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte Consulting, the survey covers 97 percent of the 2.1 million U.S. federal workers...Job satisfaction has fallen for three years in a row. And it’s easy to understand why: Public servants have been demoralized by years of partisan bickering in Congress and by the furloughs they have had to take as a result." Peter Orszag in Bloomberg.

WILLIAMSON: Inequality does not matter. "Incomes among the bottom half of earners are not stagnating because of increasing inequality; inequality is increasing because incomes among the bottom half of earners is stagnating...High incomes at the top do not cause low incomes at the bottom, or vice versa. To assign economic agency to the abstraction that is inequality assumes the opposite." Kevin D. Williamson in National Review Online.

DIONNE: The Republicans' fight has just begun. "What makes the tea party rebellion peculiar is that its champions have lifted strategy and tactics to the level of principle...The showdown involving the two conservative power centers is not the only dispute that matters. There are crisscrossing divisions between foreign policy hawks and non-interventionists; between those who care passionately about social issues such as abortion and gay marriage and those who would play them down; between purist libertarians and pro-business pragmatists; and between supporters and opponents of a more open policy on immigration." E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post.

Engineering interlude: A train that never stops for passengers.

2. Senate passes Ryan-Murray budget deal

Ryan-Murray passes Senate in 64-36 vote. "Congress declared a holiday truce in the budget wars Wednesday, sending President Obama a blueprint for funding the government through 2015...[L]eaders of the congressional spending committees immediately began working on 2014 appropriations — the first in two years — to distribute about $45 billion in extra cash to federal agencies...Afterward, senators voted overwhelmingly to end debate on a defense bill that sets Pentagon policy and military pay levels. A final vote to approve the National Defense Authorization Act was scheduled for Thursday, with hopes rising that the chamber also would approve several pending nominations and head home Friday." Lori Montgomery in The Washington Post.

Nine Republicans voted in favor. "The bill drew support from a lukewarm band of backers, as members of both parties complained about its limited scope. Republicans wanted the legislation to do more to curb spending; Democrats were disappointed it didn't renew expanded unemployment benefits that are to expire before the year's end. Nine Republicans voted with all 55 members of the Democratic caucus for the bill: GOP Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota, Susan Collins of Maine, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John McCain of Arizona, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Rob Portman of Ohio, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Three other Republicans—Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Jeff Flake of Arizona—voted Tuesday on a procedural motion to cut off a Republican filibuster, but voted against the bill Wednesday." Janet Hook in The Wall Street Journal.

How Patty Murray sold Democrats on the budget deal. "Wonkblog obtained the document Murray has been circulating among Senate Democrats, and it's an interesting read. In short, the case she makes is that Democrats got a bit and gave up very little. In particular, she argues that Democrats preserved their fundamental negotiating positions: no changes to entitlements absent tax increases, no changes to sequestration without revenues, no restoration of defense spending without unwinding an equal restoration of domestic spending." Ezra Klein in The Washington Post.

Senate Democrats to make eleventh-hour push for tax extenders. "Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to ask the Senate to continue 55 tax incentives for another year by unanimous consent, the aide said. That request was expected as soon as Wednesday afternoon, though the timing is now in flux. Republicans would object to that request, a GOP aide said." Bernie Becker in The Hill.

Ooh look Ma interlude: The Washington Post just launched a news explorer, "Topicly," which pulls together the news by topic.

3. What the NSA reform panel recommends

Panel urges new curbs on surveillance by U.S. "A panel appointed by President Obama to review the government’s surveillance activities has recommended significant new limits on the nation’s intelligence apparatus that include ending the National Security Agency’s collection of virtually all Americans’ phone records. It urged that phone companies or a private third party maintain the data instead, with access granted only by a court order. The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies also recommended in a wide-ranging report issued Wednesday that decisions to spy on foreign leaders be subjected to greater scrutiny, including weighing the diplomatic and economic fallout if operations are revealed. Allied foreign leaders or those with whom the United States shares a cooperative relationship should be accorded “a high degree of respect and deference,” it said." Ellen Nakashima and Ashkan Soltani in The Washington Post.

Primary source: The NSA review board's report. The Washington Post.

Explainer: Who’s on the panel reviewing the NSA’s actions? Terri Rupar in The Washington Post.

The TLDR version of what the NSA recommended. "Some of the recommendations include specific steps to be taken or suggest changes to structures and procedures—that there be a public-interest advocate to “represent privacy and civil liberties interests before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court”; that phone records be held by phone companies and not the government; that tech companies not leave vulnerabilities in their products that allow the N.S.A. slip in—but most of all it argues for a change in thinking. The thirty-page executive summary might be further condensed to a few sentences: Don’t do things just because you can. Tell people what the rules are. Remember that “security” doesn’t just mean chasing terrorists—it “refers to a quite different and equally fundamental value,” spelled out in the Fourth Amendment: “The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Stop shutting down debate by muttering about a “balance” that needs to be struck between security and freedom—they are not on opposite sides of the scale. Start thinking about privacy." Amy Davidson in The New Yorker.

Another report is due in late January. "A group formed to protect Americans’ civil liberties said Wednesday it is releasing its investigation into the National Security Agency’s vast data-collection program in late January or early February, marking yet another set of recommendations for President Barack Obama to consider in revamping U.S. intelligence gathering. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, a government agency formed in the wake of the 9/11 Commission, said after it releases its initial investigation into the bulk data-collection program it will issue a separate report on the government’s procedures for spying on the online communications of groups located outside the U.S." Jared A. Favole in The Wall Street Journal.

How the NSA just cost Boeing a whole lot of dough. "Brazil has chosen Sweden’s Saab to supply its next generation fighter jet, snubbing France and the US and handing the small Scandinavian defence company one of the emerging market’s biggest defence deals. Analysts said the contract may be the biggest casualty yet for the US in a bitter dispute with Bras lia over revelations from the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of extensive spying by Washington in Brazil, including on President Dilma Rousseff and her staff...After nearly 20 years of stops and starts, the award of the $4.5bn contract to Sweden is a bitter loss for Boeing of the US and Dassault of France, which until recently were seen as the more likely winners." Carola Hoyos and Joe Leahy in The Financial Times.

GIFs interlude: Mitt Romney ironing a suit while wearing it (why is this viral?).

4. Obamacare is like O'Hare: Lots of delays, but you get there eventually.

Health insurers extend deadline for first premiums. "Insurance companies, worried about potential chaos next month as people begin seeking coverage under the federal health care law without completing the necessary paperwork, have agreed to give consumers an extra 10 days to pay their first-month premiums, according to a statement from the companies’ trade group on Wednesday...A bigger deadline looms on March 31, the last day for most people to obtain coverage for all of 2014 through the federal and state exchanges." Reed Abelson in The New York Times.

Primary source: Here's the statement from the insurers. Sarah Kliff in The Washington Post.

Graphs: The paths of the uninsured. Where the uninsured live. Josh Keller in The New York Times; Matthew Bloch, Matthew Ericson and Tom Giratikanon in The New York Times.

Minnesota shows the door to its insurance-exchange manager. "The head of Minnesota's health insurance marketplace resigned Tuesday after facing criticism over the troubled rollout and a questionably timed vacation in Costa Rica. April Todd-Malmlov submitted her resignation during an emergency closed session of the government board of MNsure, Minnesota's version of the insurance exchange that's tied to the federal health care overhaul. She had been under increasing pressure over insurance sign-up problems and failed to get a vote of confidence from Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton last week...Assistant Commissioner for Health Care Scott Leitz will serve as the interim executive director for MNsure until the agency can find a permanent replacement for Todd-Malmlov." Elizabeth Stawicki and Catherine Richert in Kaiser Health News.

Turmoil continues in state health exchanges. "At least four of the 14—Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota and Oregon—have had serious technical problems, and all four have now replaced directors less than three months after opening their exchanges...Officials in some of the 14 states running their own exchanges said they were seeing a recent surge of interest...New York state officials said they have seen a 34% increase in enrollment this week compared with last week. Kentucky's health exchange has brought on 50 extra people to handle consumer calls." Amy Schatz in The Wall Street Journal.

Demand for insurance is still rising. "If November had an Obamacare surge, consider this the December deluge. California averaged 15,000 daily enrollments early last week, about double the sign-ups the state had in early December. New York is now seeing about 4,500 residents choosing plans each day and, in Connecticut, the number is hovering around 1,400...The rush comes before a Dec. 23 deadline to purchase coverage that would begin on Jan. 1. While open enrollment does run through the end of March, the Dec. 23 deadline could be especially important to those who currently purchase coverage and don't want to fall into an insurance gap -- and those who have anticipated the health-care law's insurance expansion. While states did expect a last-minute rush, some report being taken a bit off guard by how quickly it happened." Sarah Kliff in The Washington Post.

Poll shows skepticism of health reform coming from the uninsured. "Fifty-three percent of the uninsured disapprove of the law, the poll found, compared with 51 percent of those who have health coverage. A third of the uninsured say the law will help them personally, but about the same number think it will hurt them, with cost a leading concern." Abby Goodnough and Alison Kopicki in The New York Times.

Urban interlude: Traffic organized by color.

5. The shale gas boom

Here’s how the shale gas boom is saving Americans money. "New research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) suggests that shale-gas benefits might be much, much bigger than we think. The study estimates that the natural gas boom is now saving the average U.S. household $425 to $725 a year. That's enough to blunt most of the impact from, say, the expiration of the payroll tax cut back this past January." Brad Plumer in The Washington Post.

Ukraine is a key opportunity for natural-gas diplomacy. "Whatever the results of the current demonstrations, breaking free of Russian dominance over the long term may prove a challenge for Ukraine. The country remains dependent on Russian natural gas as an energy source, and the Russian government has shown itself quite willing to use this energy leverage as a political weapon. In fact, Russia recently announced a deal to bolster the current pro-Russian Ukrainian government by providing loans and cheaper natural gas...[B]y undercutting Russia's natural gas based market power, more gas exports would further America's national security interests as well." Josiah Neeley in The Week.

Reading material interlude: The best sentences Wonkblog read today.

Wonkblog Roundup

Here’s how the shale gas boom is saving Americans money. Brad Plumer.

In New York, Uber’s price surge isn’t a problem. Other cities might be different. Lydia DePillis.

You have never actually used a Styrofoam cup, plate or takeout box. Lydia DePillis.

How Patty Murray sold Democrats on the budget deal. Ezra Klein.

The Fed is cutting back on its money printing — and Wall Street is thrilled. Neil Irwin.

Ryan-Murray budget deal doesn’t show the two parties can compromise, it shows they can’t. Ezra Klein.

California is averaging 15,000 Obamacare enrollments each day. Sarah Kliff.

Insurers are giving Obamacare shoppers more time to pay. Sarah Kliff.

This is how history should judge Ben Bernanke. Neil Irwin.

Et Cetera

Longread: How John McCain turned his clich s into meaning. Mark Leibovich in The New York Times.

Both Ryan and Rubio see their odds of a 2016 nomination slipping away. Paul Kane in The Washington Post.

Republican Pa. Gov. will support law to ban employer discrimination by sexual orientation. Jon Hurdle in The New York Times.

Got tips, additions, or comments? E-mail me.

Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams.

New Comic!

All of these tips have been really useful to me. I have had checklists for my day that included ‘get out of bed once’ and ‘shower’, and when I couldn’t do anything because my head was so screwed up and I could get one of those done, it was a pretty big accomplishment.

Designating an official asker is pretty important. That person is trusted to only ask that when they’re concerned and never use it as a joke or an insult. It can be your reality check for whether you’re ok or not.

Also, I really believe in the therapeutic power of hyperbole, and the people I love know that when I get going they should just  go with it. Working through a rough episode is so much less stressful when you don’t have to argue with someone at the same time. And somehow, actually verbalizing the crazy stuff that my brain is saying helps in a really ridiculous way helps me process.

I think there’s lots more of these. Anyone else out there have some tips? Maybe I can draw those too! Maybe you could draw some also….

I have to say I’m befuddled by the firing of Phil Robertson, he of the amazing paterfamilias beard on Duck Dynasty (which I mainly see via The Soup). A&E has a reality show that depends on the hoariest stereotypes – and yet features hilariously captivating human beings – located in the deep South. It’s a show riddled with humor and charm and redneck silliness. The point of it, so far as I can tell, is a kind of celebration of a culture where duck hunting is the primary religion, but where fundamentalist Christianity is also completely pervasive. (Too pervasive for the producers, apparently, because they edited out the saying of grace to make it non-denominational and actually edited in fake beeps to make it seem like the bearded clan swore a lot, even though they don’t.)

Now I seriously don’t know what A&E were expecting when the patriarch Phil Robertson was interviewed by GQ. But surely the same set of expectations that one might have of an ostensibly liberal host of a political show would not be extended to someone whose political incorrectness was the whole point of his stardom. He’s a reality show character, for Pete’s sake. Not an A&E spokesman. So here’s what he said – which has now led to his indefinite suspension (but he’ll be in the fourth season, apparently, which has already wrapped):

“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong … Sin becomes fine. Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men … “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right … “

This is a fascinating glimpse into the fundamentalist mind. You’ll notice that, for the fundamentalist, all sin – when it comes down to it -  starts with sex. This sexual obsession, as the Pope has rightly diagnosed it, is a mark of neurotic fundamentalism in Islam and Judaism as well as Christianity. And if all sin is rooted in sex, then the homosexual becomes the most depraved and evil individual in the cosmos. So you get this classic statement about sin: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there.”

This emphasis is absolutely not orthodox Christianity. There is nothing primary about sexual sin as such in Christian doctrine. It sure can be powerfully sinful – but it’s not where sin starts. And to posit gay people as the true source of all moral corruption is to use eliminationist rhetoric and demonizing logic to soften up a small minority of people for exclusion, marginalization and, at some point, violence.

If you think I’m hyperventilating, ask yourself what the response would be if in talking about sin, Phil Robertson had said, “Start with Jewish behavior …” The argument would be totally recognizable, once very widespread, and deeply disturbing. What we’re seeing here – and it’s very much worth debating – is how fundamentalist religion seizes on recognizable, immoral minorities to shore up its own sense of righteousness. You can gussy it up – but it’s right there in front of our nose.

Then Robertson says something that tells us nothing except he has never had an honest conversation with a gay person about what it is to be gay.

He simply assumes that all men must be heterosexual, and that making themselves have sex with another man must be so horrifying it mystifies him:

“It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”

No, it isn’t logical if it were a choice for a straight guy. But it isn’t. All we’re seeing here is the effect of cultural isolation. The only thing I find objectionable about it – and it is objectionable – is the reduction of gay people and our relationships to sex acts. Mr Robertson would not be happy – indeed, rightly be extremely offended – if I reduced his entire family life and marriage to sex with a vagina.

But look: I come back to what I said at the beginning. Robertson is a character in a reality show. He’s not a spokesman for A&E any more than some soul-sucking social x-ray from the Real Housewives series is a spokeswoman for Bravo. Is he being fired for being out of character? Nah. He’s being fired for staying in character – a character A&E have nurtured and promoted and benefited from. Turning around and demanding a Duck Dynasty star suddenly become the equivalent of a Rachel Maddow guest is preposterous and unfair.

What Phil Robertson has given A&E is a dose of redneck reality. Why on earth would they fire him for giving some more?

(Photo: Phil Robertson of ‘Duck Dynasty’ as a guest on ‘Good Morning America,’ 5/7/13, airing on the ABC Television Network. By Fred Lee/ABC via Getty Images.)

Planet Money graphed it. They had to start their chart at $3 trillion because otherwise “you wouldn’t even be able to see it”:

Matthew O’Brien approves of the Fed’s decision:

[T]he Fed will “taper” its purchases from $85 to $75 billion of bonds a month. And it will keep doing so in $10 billion increments next year as long as the recovery stays on track. But it will try to inject just as much monetary stimulus as it’s taking out by strengthening its promises. The Fed now says it will likely keep rates at zero “well past” the time unemployment falls below 6.5 percent, especially if inflation stays below its 2 percent target.

Markets approved. Stocks jumped, bonds didn’t fall, and expectations of future rates barely budged. In other words, Bernanke finally convinced markets that tapering isn’t tightening, even though he said it was a few months ago. Neat trick.

Daniel Gross’s take:

[T]he Fed isn’t really putting on the brakes. It is just taking its foot off the gas pedal a tiny bit. And as Bernanke passes control of the steering wheel to Janet Yellen, it’s still going at a very rapid clip.

Cassidy comments on the Fed’s other announcement, “that it would most likely keep interest rates at their current record-low levels even after the unemployment rate falls below 6.5 per cent—a figure it had previously identified as a possible threshold for rate hikes”:

That was a shift in the dovish direction. As if to emphasize it, Bernanke insisted that the taper itself did not signal a move toward a more restrictive policy, saying, “This is not intended to be a tightening…. We do not think there is an inflation problem, or anything like that.” To the contrary, Bernanke stressed that he and his colleagues were concerned about the inflation rate being too low: it’s currently running at about one per cent, well below the Fed’s target of two per cent. The Fed chairman even raised the prospect of the central bank further loosening its policy stance, saying, “If inflation does not show signs of returning to its target, we will take appropriate action.”

It was a bit like a mother warning a child that she would gradually reduce the number of bags of M&Ms he could eat every week, but, at the same time, reassuring the boy that his supply of Snickers bars would be uninterrupted, and might even be stepped up if he started to lose weight.

Ezra wishes that Congress had worked with Bernanke instead of working against him:

There’s an alternate history of the last three years in which Bernanke held rates low and Congress used the opportunity to rebuild America’s infrastructure, passed a huge tax cut for businesses that hire new workers, helped state and local government reinvest after the vicious cuts forced by the recession, and wiped out the payroll tax until further notice. That’s a world where millions more Americans have jobs today. And it’s a world Bernanke did everything he could to help Congress create.

 

Tips from me to you!!!

Aaron Sankin marvels at the ease of purchasing job references online:

For a small fee, CareerExcuse.com promises to not only craft an elaborate lie based on your exact job specifications but to see it through for as long as necessary. The site will provide a live HR operator and staged supervisor, along with building and hosting a virtual company website –complete with a local phone number and toll-free fax. CareerExcuse will even go so far as to make the fake business show up on Google Maps.

There are some lines CareerExcuse won’t cross. The service won’t impersonate an already existing company and refuses to recommendations for fields where someone’s life could be at stake, as with firefighters, private military contracting, and doctors, for example. And the company won’t secure a loan you otherwise couldn’t get. But after that, it’s all negotiable. CareerExcuse will offer references for vendors and landlords. For a time it was even creating phony LinkedIn profiles for the companies it created.

And this is legal? Update from a reader:

You need to read their FAQ:

Is misinformation on a resume illegal?
No, Since a resume is not a legal document, it is not illegal to misrepresent on a resume.

Can I get caught and fired?
We can’t guarantee that you wont and not liable if you do. If you get the job in the first place … we did our part. It’s up to you to act responsible after you get the job.

The question was more rhetorical.

Lara Bazelon discusses the problem of false eyewitness testimony, which puts more innocent people in prison than you might think:

[A]ccording to Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia and the author of Convicting the Innocent, eyewitness misidentifications have played a leading role in nearly 75 percent of 250 convictions overturned by DNA evidence between 1989 and 2010. In more than one-half of those exonerations, the eyewitnesses start off unsure, a “glaring sign” of potential trouble as Garrett puts it, yet appear to become increasingly certain over time. This often corresponds with police practices like suggestive photo arrays, lineups, and even well-intentioned comments like “Good job!” after a witness makes an identification, however tentative. All of this can cause “contamination” of memory, Garrett says so that “there is no way to know after the fact whether the eyewitness could have actually picked the person with any degree of confidence.” …

[C]ourts, prosecutors, and juries routinely take eyewitness testimony at face value. Garrett describes as “toothless” the standard the Supreme Court set in 1977 for admitting eyewitness identifications as evidence: “Even in cases with eyewitnesses who were drunk, half blind, observing someone at night, from a distance, it is almost impossible to find examples where appellate judges say it was error” to allow jurors to hear their testimony, he says.

Update from a few readers:

In her article, Bazelon identifies what is a serious flaw in the criminal justice system in the US, but she is pointing to what is only one part (eyewitness testimony) of the larger problem that is police and prosecutorial misconduct.

We all saw how police and the local District Attorney in Sanford “investigated” the killing of Trayvon Martin as a justifiable homicide, allowed Zimmerman to wash evidence from his hands, etc. So it was not surprising (though a sickening miscarriage of justice) that the murderer walked free. Eyewitness testimony in that case also was conflicted and unreliable, but for different reasons. But in the end, Kash Register, the wrongly convicted innocent man in Bazelon’s story, was exonerated by, wait for it …. eyewitness testimony that was ignored and not followed up on by the police and prosecutors.

Another:

In response to your post, I thought y’all might enjoy Dr. Elizabeth Loftus’ plenary talk from the Psychonomic Society’s 2013 annual meeting on memory and false memory. She is one of the, if not THE, pioneers in this area of research. Her talk was really great – she covered faulty eyewitness testimony, did a small example of studies of this nature with the audience, and talked about her more recent research on testimony from a period of great stress. She worked with SERE participants and their doctor and it’s fascinating. Here’s the link to the whole video. It shows her presentation side by side. For the mini study example, see around 27:10. For the SERE discussion, see around 37:30. For her discussion on doctoring political memories, see around 48:30. Finally, she talks about implanting false memory, and it’s terrifying (around 53:30). She poses the question of whether this type of research is leading is in an ethical direction.

Cover by Noelle Stevenson!


Cover by Emily Partridge!


Cover by John Keogh!

kateordie:

ryannorth:

Today is the release of my new comic book series, called The Midas Flesh! YOU GUYS, THIS IS AMAZING.

It’s based on this Dinosaur Comic but is way more awesomer, if you can even believe that. It’s written by me and drawn by Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline, who you probably know because we’re also the team that creates the Adventure Time comic! And now we are also working together on this new crazy story about King Midas in space, featuring dinosaurs!

Pictured above are three of the covers by the amazing Noelle Stevenson, the amazing Emily Partridge, AND the amazing John Keogh!

You can read the first few pages here, you can read early reviews here or here and NOW THAT YOU ARE ASSUREDLY HOOKED, you can pick the book up at your local comic book shop or direct from the publisher, Boom, who is offering both this first issue or a subscription to the entire eight-issue series, which includes a free print! THE PRINT FEATURES EMILY’S DINOSAUR IN A SPACESUIT, JUST FYI.

Go enjoy the preview and then maybe pick up this book because it is going to be a CRAZY STORY and I can’t wait to share it with YOU.

AHHHH

I have read this and can assure you: it is awesome.

“A big reason why CEOs are about to rake in big year-end bonuses even though their sales are lousy (after all, America’s vast middle class and poor aren’t earning enough to buy much) is CEOs been using their companies’ cash, plus whatever they can borrow at rock-bottom interest rates engineered by the Fed, to buy back their own shares of stock. This maneuver raises the price of the remaining shares, thereby giving the CEOs – whose pay is tied to share prices – huge rewards. This year, the 30 companies listed on the Dow Jones industrial average authorized $211 billion in buybacks, lifting the Dow (and CEO pay) to record heights. This $211 billion could have gone instead to American workers in the form of higher wages – which would have come back to companies in the form of higher sales. McDonald’s, for example, spent $6 billion on share repurchases and dividends last year, the equivalent of $14,286 per restaurant worker employed by the company. It’s a vicious cycle as long as CEO incentives are directed toward raising share prices rather than sales, and as long as the economy is organized around the stock market rather than good jobs.”

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Robert Reich, of course

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/RBReich

(via memophile)