> From: Barrett Brown [mailto:
barriticus@gmail.com]<
barriticus@gmail.com%5D>
> Sent: Thu 2/12/2009 5:21 PM
> To: Hogan, Michael
> Subject: Re: Query from Barrett Brown
>
> Perhaps, for instance, Thomas Friedman's Ten Worst Predictions of the 21st
> Century?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Barrett Brown
> Brooklyn, NY
> 512-560-2302
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Mike-
> >
> > Okay, sounds good. But could it be ten of his bad predictions in general,
> > and not just of 2003? Several of the most significantly foolish
> predictions
> > are from other years, particularly 2001 and 2002. Let me know what you
> > think.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Barrett Brown
> > Brooklyn, NY
> > 512-560-2302
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Michael Hogan <
> >
Michael_Hogan@condenast.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Barrett,
> >>
> >> What about a shortish piece titled something like Thomas Friedman's Ten
> >> Worst Predictions from 2003?
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Mike
> >>
> >>
> >> On 2/11/09 12:04 PM, "Barrett Brown" <
barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Mike-
> >>
> >> Thanks for getting back to me. Off the bat, would you be interested in
> >> taking a look at a piece I'm about write on Thomas Friedman and how he's
> >> emblematic of the failures of American punditry in general? The bulk of
> the
> >> article would be a critique of his 2003 book *Longitudes and Attitudes*,
> >> which is itself drawn from his NYT columns from 2000 to 2002, and which
> is
> >> filled with a great number of failed predictions, weird contradictions,
> and
> >> vapid observations in general. For instance, he asserts in 2001 that
> Putin
> >> will be a great reformer for whom Americans should be "rootin'," claims
> in
> >> 2002 that the "bubble" of ethical lapses among corporate administrators
> has
> >> recently burst, claims in the same column that the terrorism "bubble"
> has
> >> burst as well, claims in 2003 that the very threat of a U.S. attack on
> Iraq
> >> " has already prompted Hezbollah to be on its best behavior in Lebanon
> (for
> >> fear of being next)," predicts in 2001 that many households will have
> dozens
> >> of web addresses for such things as refrigerators by 2005, and claims
> >> several times in 2001 and 2002 that the war in Afghanistan is over, that
> >> Afghanis do not really object to civilian casualties as long as the
> Taliban
> >> is overthrown, and that worries to the contrary constitute
> "hand-wringing"
> >> (and in the same column, he worries that the Bush Administration is not
> >> sufficiently concerned with public relations and asserts that "I have no
> >> doubt, for now, that the Bush team has a military strategy for winning a
> >> long war." In his more recent columns, of course, he criticizes those
> who
> >> held the exact opinions that he himself held.
> >>
> >> Let me know if this interests you, and if so I'll send it along to you
> >> first. The piece would be moderately humorous along the lines of the
> clip I
> >> sent you the other day.
> >>
> >> Thanks again,
> >>
> >> Barrett Brown
> >> Brooklyn, NY
> >> 512-560-2302
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Michael Hogan <
> >>
Michael_Hogan@condenast.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Barrett,
> >>
> >> Nice to hear from you and thanks for sending the clip. By all means,
> pitch
> >> away. We occasionally do get to assign stories on a freelance basis.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Mike
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 2/9/09 12:43 PM, "Barrett Brown" <
barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi, Mike-
> >>
> >> I understand that you're currently the online editor of *Vanity Fair*,
> >> and I wanted to get in touch to see if you'd be interesting in receiving
> >> some queries from me or perhaps have something you'd like to assign.
> >>
> >> I'm a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and author, and my work has
> appeared
> >> in *National Lampoon*, *Skeptic*, *McSweeney's*, *The Onion A.V. Club*,
> *
> >> Nerve*, and dozens of other publications, including trade, literary,
> >> regional, and policy journals. My first book, *Flock of Dodos: Behind
> >> Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny*, was
> >> released in 2007 to praise from Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School,
> Matt
> >> Taibbi of *Rolling Stone*, Cenk Uyger of *Air America Radio, *Bob Cesca
> >> of *The Huffington Post*, and other sources. I've also served as a
> >> copywriter for outlets like America Online.
> >>
> >> I've pasted a recent sample below; it's an article that will be
> appearing
> >> in the next issue of *Skeptic*.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Barrett Brown
> >>
> >> Brooklyn, NY
> >>
> >> 512-560-2302
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> *Adventures in Math and Marriage
> >> *
> >> *by Barrett Brown
> >> *
> >>
> >>
> >> Does the legalization of gay marriage really contribute to the decline
> of
> >> heterosexual marriage? A good portion of our fair republic's cultural
> >> conservatives seem to believe that it does, which is to say that it
> probably
> >> doesn't. But perhaps we should check anyway.
> >>
> >> "[I]n the Netherlands and places where they have tried to define
> marriage
> >> [to include gay couples], what happens is that people just don't get
> >> married," evangelical kingpin James Dobson told a typically credulous
> Larry
> >> King in November of 2006. "It's not that the homosexuals are marrying in
> >> greater numbers," he continued, although obviously homosexuals are
> indeed
> >> marrying in greater numbers since that number used to be zero and is now
> >> something greater than zero, "it's that when you confuse what marriage
> is,
> >> young people just don't get married."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> If what James Dobson says is true, New Jersey is going to be in huge
> >> trouble, and Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage in 2004, must
> >> already be. Of course, James Dobson is wrong. But whereas James Dobson
> >> generally contents himself with simply being wrong in his priorities,
> >> sensibilities, instincts, historical perspective, theology, and manners
> -
> >> which is to say, wrong in a mystical, cloudy sort of way - he has here
> >> managed to be wrong in such a blatant sense that his wrongness can be
> >> demonstrated with mathematical exactitude. In fact, we should go ahead
> and
> >> do that. It'll be like an adventure - a math adventure.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> First, let's prepare our variables. *X *is any country "where they have
> >> tried to define marriage [to include gay couples]," as Dobson manages to
> >> term these nations with just a little clarification from us. *Y *is the
> >> all-important marriage rate among heterosexuals before country *X* has
> >> "tried to define marriage [to include gay couples]," and *Z *is the
> >> all-important and allegedly damning heterosexual marriage rate that
> exists
> >> after ten years of gay civil unions. Now, the Dobson Theorem, as we
> shall
> >> call it, plainly states that "if *X, *then *Y *must be greater than
> *Z.*" Or,
> >> to re-translate it into English, "if a nation allows for civil unions,
> the
> >> marriage rate among heterosexuals at the time that this occurs will be
> >> higher than it is ten years later," because the marriage rate among
> >> heterosexuals will of course decline for some reason.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Let us now test this Grand Unified Dobson Theorem, as I re-named it just
> a
> >> second ago when you weren't looking. Now, like most things with
> variables,
> >> the Grand Unified Christological Dobson Super-Theorem of Niftiness
> (which
> >> needed more pizazz) requires that *X *be substituted for various things
> >> that meet the parameters of *X -* in this case, northern European
> >> countries. Luckily, Dr. Dobson himself has provided us with some. During
> the
> >> Larry King interview, Dobson mentioned Norway and "other Scandinavian
> >> countries" as fitting the description. We'll also need values to punch
> in
> >> for *Y *and *Z.* These may be obtained from all of the countries in
> >> question, which have famously nosy, busy-body governments.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Conveniently enough, these numbers may also be obtained from the October
> >> 26th edition of the *Wall Street Journal *op-ed page. It seems that
> >> William N. Eskridge, Jr., the John A. Garver professor of jurisprudence
> at
> >> Yale University, and Darren Spedale, a New York investment banker, had
> >> recently written a book called *Gay Marriage: For Better or For Worse?
> >> What We've Learned From the Evidence*, and had chosen to present the
> >> thrust of their findings in op-ed form.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Denmark, the authors noted, began allowing for gay civil unions in 1989.
> >> Ten years later, the heterosexual marriage rate had increased by 10.7
> >> percent. Norway did the same in 1993. Ten years later, the heterosexual
> >> marriage rate had increased by 12.7 percent. Sweden followed suite in
> 1995.
> >> Ten years later, the heterosexual marriage rate had increased by 28.7
> >> percent. And these marriages were actually lasting. During the same time
> >> frame, the divorce rate dropped 13.9 percent in Denmark, 6 percent in
> >> Norway, and 13.7 percent in Sweden.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> As the Reader will no doubt have determined at this point, the Dobson
> >> Theorem or whatever it is that we've decided to call it is obviously
> bunk,
> >> since it stated that countries which allow gay civil unions will see a
> >> decline in the marriage rate among homosexuals, when in fact the
> opposite is
> >> true. But since we've already gone to the trouble of expressing Dobson's
> >> goofy utterances in the form of a theorem (or rather, since *I've* gone
> >> to the trouble - you were no help at all), we might as well punch in
> these
> >> figures just to make absolutely sure:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> *if X, then Y will be greater than Z
> >> *
> >>
> >>
> >> We punch in Denmark for *X, *Denmark's marriage rate in 1989 (*n*) for
> *Y
> >> *, and Denmark's marriage rate in 1999 (n + n(10.7)) for *Z*:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> *If Denmark, then n will be greater than n + n(10.7)
> >> *
> >>
> >>
> >> Well, that's obviously wrong, since *n *is not a greater number than *n
> *plus
> >> any other positive number*.* It is, in fact, a smaller number. If
> >> Denmark's policies reduce marriage, the residents of Denmark have yet to
> >> realize this and act accordingly.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Where is Dobson getting his information from this time? The culprit in
> >> this case may be *Weekly Standard *and *National Review *gadfly Stanley
> >> Kurtz, who took issue with Garver and Eskridge's preliminary findings
> back
> >> in 2004, before they were published (in fact, Kurtz weirdly dismisses
> them
> >> as "unpublished" not once but twice in the course of his article; now
> that
> >> they have appeared more formally, Kurtz will no doubt praise them as
> >> "published"). Confronted with statistics indicating that marriage in
> >> Scandinavia is in fine shape, Kurtz instead proclaimed that
> "Scandinavian
> >> marriage is now so weak that statistics on marriage and divorce no
> longer
> >> mean what they used to."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Brushing aside numbers showing that Danish marriage was up ten percent
> >> from 1990 to 1996, Kurtz countered that "just-released marriage rates
> for
> >> 2001 show declines in Sweden and Denmark." He failed to note that they
> were
> >> down in 2001 for quite a few places, including the United States, which
> of
> >> course had no civil unions anywhere in 2001. And having not yet had
> access
> >> to the figures, he couldn't have known that both American and
> Scandinavian
> >> rates went back up in 2002. As for Norway, he says, the higher marriage
> rate
> >> "has more to do with the institution's decline than with any
> renaissance.
> >> Much of the increase in Norway's marriage rate is driven by older
> couples
> >> 'catching up.'" It's unclear exactly how old these "older couples" may
> be,
> >> but at any rate, Kurtz thinks their marriages simply don't count, and in
> >> fact constitute a sign of "the institution's decline." So Kurtz's
> >> position is that Norwegian marriage is in decline because not only are
> >> younger people getting married at a higher rate, but older people are as
> >> well. I don't know what Kurtz's salary is, but I'm sure it would piss me
> off
> >> to find out.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Kurtz also wanted us to take divorce. "Take divorce," Kurtz wrote. "It's
> >> true that in Denmark, as elsewhere in Scandinavia, divorce numbers
> looked
> >> better in the nineties. But that's because the pool of married people
> has
> >> been shrinking for some time. You can't divorce without first getting
> >> married." This is true. It's also true that Denmark has a much lower
> divorce
> >> rate than the United States as a percentage of married couples, a method
> of
> >> calculation that makes the size of the married people pool irrelevant.
> >> Denmark's percentage is 44.5, while the United States is at 54.8.
> >> Incidentally, those numbers come from the Heritage Foundation, which
> also
> >> sponsors reports on the danger that gay marriage poses to the
> heterosexual
> >> marriage rate.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Still, Kurtz is upset that many Scandinavian children are born out of
> >> wedlock. "About 60 percent of first-born children in Denmark now have
> >> unmarried parents," he says. He doesn't give us the percentage of
> >> second-born children who have unmarried parents, because that percentage
> is
> >> lower and would thus indicate that Scandinavian parents often marry
> after
> >> having their first child, as Kurtz himself later notes in the course of
> >> predicting that this will no longer be the case as gay civil unions
> continue
> >> to take their non-existent toll on Scandinavian marriage.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Since the rate by which Scandinavian couples have children before
> getting
> >> married has been rising for decades, it's hard to see what this has to
> do
> >> with gay marriage - unless, of course, you happen to be Stanley Kurtz.
> >> "Scandinavia's out-of-wedlock birthrates may have risen more rapidly in
> the
> >> seventies, when marriage began its slide. But the push of that rate past
> the
> >> 50 percent mark during the nineties was in many ways more disturbing."
> Of
> >> course it was more disturbing to Kurtz. By the mid-'90s, the
> Scandinavians
> >> had all instituted civil unions, and thus even the clear,
> long-established
> >> trajectory of such a trend as premature baby-bearing can be laid at the
> feet
> >> of the homos simply by establishing some arbitrary numerical benchmark
> that
> >> was obviously going to be reached anyway, calling this milestone "in
> many
> >> ways more disturbing," and hinting that all of this is somehow the fault
> of
> >> the gays. By the same token, I can prove that the establishment of the
> *Weekly
> >> Standard* in 1995 has contributed to rampant world population growth.
> >> Sure, that population growth has been increasing steadily for decades,
> but
> >> the push of that number past the 6 billion mark in 2000 was "in many
> ways
> >> more disturbing" to me for some weird reason that I can't quite pin
> down. Of
> >> course, this is faulty reasoning - by virtue of its unparalleled support
> for
> >> the invasion of Iraq, the *Weekly Standard* has actually done its part
> to
> >> keep world population down.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Why is Kurtz so disturbed about out-of-wedlock rates? Personally, I
> think
> >> it would be preferable for a couple to have a child and then get
> married, as
> >> is more often the case in Scandinavia, rather than for a couple to have
> a
> >> child and then get divorced, as is more often the case in the United
> States.
> >> Kurtz doesn't seem to feel this way, though, as it isn't convenient to
> feel
> >> this way at this particular time. Here are all of these couples, he
> tells
> >> us, having babies without first filling out the proper baby-making
> paperwork
> >> with the proper federal agencies. What will become of the babies?
> Perhaps
> >> they'll all die. Or perhaps they'll continue to outperform their
> American
> >> counterparts in math and science, as they've been doing for quite a
> while.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
>
>
>