Link Banana

In the forthcoming New York Times Magazine, Gershom Gorenberg explores how hard it is for some be recognized as Jewish in Israel.

In an era of intermarriage, denominational disputes and secularization, Jews have ceased agreeing on who belongs to the family, or on what the word “Jew” means. Ultra-Orthodox Jews increasingly question the Jewishness of those outside their own intensely religious communities. The flood of immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel deepened their doubts. In the Soviet Union, when someone with parents of two nationalities received identity papers at age 16, he could pick which nationality to list. A child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother could put down “Jew.” The religious principle of matrilineal descent was irrelevant.

Perhaps I’m alone in this, but I’d never thought that there was anything wrong with the way innovation is done. The Economist’s Tech.view column begs to differ:

But innovating the way industry does today—where problems go in search of solutions—is putting the cart before the horse. We should be doing it the other way round: finding the problem to which a known solution is an ideal answer. Matching inventions, discoveries and other bright ideas to problems this way would brilliantly streamline the process.

You’re probably aware that conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. died earlier this week. You may not be aware that he gave David Brooks a job because of piece of satire he wrote about the man. That and other details are in the best eulogy for him I’ve read.

“Buckley spent most of his infancy working on his memoirs,” I wrote in my faux-biography. “By the time he had learned to talk, he had finished three volumes: ‘The World Before Buckley,’ which traced the history of the world prior to his conception; ‘The Seeds of Utopia,’ which outlined his effect on world events during the nine months of his gestation; and ‘The Glorious Dawn,’ which described the profound ramifications of his birth on the social order.”

Portfolio has a pretty neat showcase of the five dollar bill through history, including the newest iteration. They also have some of those compulsary notes about its security features.

(via Daring Fireball)

Nicholson Baker tackled Wikipedia for the New York Review of Books. Before you groan and moan “first they discovered blogs, now Wikipedia,” read this:

Some articles are vandalized a lot. On January 11, 2008, the entire fascinating entry on the aardvark was replaced with “one ugly animal”; in February the aardvark was briefly described as a “medium-sized inflatable banana.”

The Economist is rather keen on celebrating the year of the potato:

Unlikely though it seems, the potato promoted economic development by underpinning the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century. It provided a cheap source of calories and was easy to cultivate, so it liberated workers from the land. Potatoes became popular in the north of England, as people there specialised in livestock farming and domestic industry, while farmers in the south (where the soil was more suitable) concentrated on wheat production. By a happy accident, this concentrated industrial activity in the regions where coal was readily available, and a potato-driven population boom provided ample workers for the new factories. Friedrich Engels even declared that the potato was the equal of iron for its “historically revolutionary role”.

I apologize for posting another kids-being-awesome video, but I just can’t resist.

(via clusterflock)

Turns out the plan to suspend talks earlier this week worked. We should all be glad for that.

Kenya’s rival politicians have signed a peace deal to end the violent post-election crisis in which hundreds died.

President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga agreed to form a coalition government after weeks of wrangling, mediator Kofi Annan said.

But in his decision, he writes a New York Times Op-Ed more substantive than most the Times runs — that may be unfair, but this is definitely good.

WATCHING the 2008 presidential campaign, you sometimes get the feeling that the candidates — smart, all of them — must know better. They must know we can’t fix our economy and create jobs by isolating America from global trade. They must know that we can’t fix our immigration problems with border security alone. They must know that we can’t fix our schools without holding teachers, principals and parents accountable for results. They must know that fighting global warming is not a costless challenge. And they must know that we can’t keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals unless we crack down on the black market for them.

The vast majority of Americans know that all of this is true, but — politics being what it is — the candidates seem afraid to level with them.

The Chronicle of Higher Education covers some interesting research about why university professors tend to be liberal.

They found that in a variety of ways, conservative students were less interested than liberals in subject matter that often leads to doctoral degrees, and less interested in doing the kinds of things that professors spend their time doing.

For example, liberal students reported valuing intellectual freedom, creativity, and the chance to write original work and make a theoretical contribution to science. They outnumbered conservative students two to one in the humanities and social sciences — which are among the fields most likely to produce interest in doctoral study. Conservative students, however, put more value on personal achievement and orderliness, and on practical professions, like accounting and computer science, that could earn them lots of money.

The Woessners also found that conservative students put a higher priority than liberal ones on raising a family. That does not always fit well with a career in academe, where people often delay childbearing until after they earn tenure.

Since all internet users have probably seen one, if not both, sides of the Matt Damon-Sarah Silverman-Jimmy Kimmel-Ben Affleck rectangle, the awkwardness necessitated by the New York Times’s status as “a family paper” reaches for the absurd:

One vulgar word describing the coital relations between, on the one bed, Ms. Silverman and Mr. Damon, and on the other, Mr. Kimmel and Mr. Affleck, was repeatedly bleeped out for the broadcast of each video.

Several scenes from the videos also required pixelation.

(via Vulture)

For The American, Laura Vanderkam reviews what seems a pretty interesting (and controversial) book.

There’s just one problem, says Robert Bryce: “Energy independence is hogwash.” In his new book, Gusher of Lies, Bryce challenges the notion that America can ever be totally “independent” of the global energy market. It is neither practical nor desirable, he argues. Repeated ad nauseam as a campaign slogan, the concept of energy independence keeps us from having an honest discussion about globalization, economics, and foreign policy. Americans will be best served by embracing global interdependence, and getting government out of the energy business as much as possible.

K. A. Dilday’s thoughts on the difference between “black” and “African-American” are useful to a country that too often fears to discuss it. (Though I think she may misunderstand the original purpose of the latter term, which I was taught Jesse Jackson pushed for as a reminder of the dark history of forced emigration from places unknown, not as a way to exclude more recent black immigrants.)

Distinguishing between American black people based on their ancestors’ arrival date ignores the continuum of experience that transcends borders and individual genealogies and unites black people all over the world. Yes, scientists have shown that black means nothing as a biological description, but it remains an important signal in social interaction. Everywhere I travel, from North Africa to Europe to Asia, dark-skinned people approach me and, usually gently but sometimes aggressively, establish a bond.

The Daily Intelligencer brings the positive but provisional news that Snoop Dogg may be thinking hard about hip-hop’s tendency to misogyny.

At Monday’s Hip-Hop Summit Action Network awards gala at Capitale, honoree Snoop Dogg repented for some of the harsh language he’s used against women in his songs. “I’m not trying to do anything to offend nobody, but y’all’ve got to understand, I’m from the East Side,” he said. “I worked hard to become a man on my own. My mother showed me how, but she couldn’t really teach me how to become a man. My father wasn’t there. I never knocked him for that. But the playas that I learnt from, they taught me the wrong way. … It wasn’t until once I got older and got married and had a daughter and had kids and started to realize that now my music is starting to swing in a different direction, because I understand that I was wrongfully taught.”

The Economist profiles the reality of Iran’s Potemkin village politics which it so often ignored as people love to hate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On paper, the 290-seat majlis looks like any other parliament. It drafts laws, ratifies treaties (such as on nuclear non-proliferation) and debates the annual budget. In theory it can remove cabinet ministers and impeach the president for misconduct.

In practice, it plays second fiddle to the Guardian Council. Its dozen members are directly or indirectly appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei; they vet all candidates and can veto parliamentary legislation. In 2003 the majlis passed legislation to limit the constitutional authority of the Guardian Council—which predictably rejected it.

E. O. Wilson’s dream, as announced at TED a few years ago, is similar to a Wikipedia of animals. Though I don’t know or care much about zoology, it’s neat to see this thing go online — even if they seem rather unprepared for the volume of traffic they’re getting. As it explains itself:

EOL is an unprecedented global effort and we want you to be a part of it. Natural history museums, botanical gardens, other research institutions, and dedicated individuals are working to create the most complete biodiversity database on the Web, but without your help it cannot be done.

I already gushed about Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over the Sea once this month, so I’ll just say that Taylor Clark “profile” of the enigmatic Jeff Magnum is good and interesting and worth a read:

Mangum’s continued silence has angered some fans, who accuse him of being selfish or “indifferent to his talent,” as if musical ability comes with some sort of obligation to society. At least once a year, someone writes a hoax message from Mangum and posts it online—generally throwing in some fanciful verbal junk to bilk fans into believing it’s the genius himself wielding the keyboard. Some have announced forthcoming records or tours, while others have revealed the long-hidden sources of Mangum’s misanthropy; they’ve all been debunked. All we really know for sure is this: According to his record label, Mangum now lives in New York City. He recently married filmmaker Astra Taylor. Friends say he still creates art and that he seems “very happy.” If he has plans to record more music, he hasn’t told anyone.

I know I know. George Clooney isn’t really “The Last Movie Star.” But when I finally got around to looking at the Time cover story, I thought it was great and carefree in the way that Joel Stein seems to do better than anyone else.

Clooney hit traffic, his assistant called to say, on his way back from visiting his girlfriend in Las Vegas. He’s wearing faded jeans, black laced boots and a zip-up sweater, and he looks less like a movie star than a normal, un-Botoxed 46-year-old unmarried guy coming over for dinner, but he also looks like he’s excited to be here because wherever he is, George Clooney’s also there. He hasn’t brought any wine, and I worry that this guesting thing is just not going to work out. I offer him a glass of red, and he suggests that we sit on the couch, and soon we’re talking about real estate, and it’s fine, and next thing I know, he’s getting a tour of the house. A tour of the house? The man owns a mansion in L.A. and a 15-bedroom villa in Italy! Why don’t I just show the Oscar-winning actor the tape of me in my high school production of Bye Bye Birdie? But he’s nailing this guest role: “I love old houses like this.” “You kept the original stuff.” “It’s nice to have a guest room.”

(via brijit)

Unlike Wired’s Chris Anderson who counter-intuitively argues that it’s greener to read that magazine in print, Slate’s Green Lantern says — as do I — that’s unlikely.

The greener choice would be to read the paper online, correct?

The Lantern believes so, but the environmental difference between dead-tree newspapers and their online editions is a lot smaller than you might imagine. In fact, there are learned experts who contend that traditional newsprint ultimately comes out ahead, at least in terms of net carbon-dioxide emissions. Though the Lantern disagrees with some of the assumptions these contrarians make, it’s worth exploring their arguments in order to better understand how hard it is to calculate a product’s cradle-to-grave impact.

The New Republic does the unexpected: asks what white supremacists think of Obama’s success and possible succession to the Oval Office. The answer: not much of interest, although there’s some fun speculation:

But there may be one more factor at work: hatred overload. It’s a testament of sorts to Hillary Clinton that, by virtue of her cartoonish image as a leftist man-hating shrew, she manages to arouse more vitriol among white supremacists than a black man. Meanwhile, white racists absolutely despise John McCain for his support of George W. Bush’s immigration reform plan, which they view as a dire threat to America’s European-based culture. “I don’t think Obama will be any more negative for the United States than Hillary or John McCain,” explains Duke. “In fact,” he added, “we probably have less preference for a European like a John McCain or a Hillary who has betrayed our interests, our heritage, our rights.”

… Who knows, maybe David Duke can form the oddest MySpace group of all time: Klansmen for Obama. Now that would be post-racial.

(via Slate)