New Yorker magazine alert thread

Huh, this friend has a Wikipedia entry, and I have now learned he was interviewed for a New Yorker article.

The Gladwell/DDT article exaggerates the effectiveness of DDT and has lead to a lot of right wing cranks writing nonsense. Mosquitos were becoming resistant to it around the time it got stopped being sprayed, and the replacement chemicals that were just as good if not better. Right now bug nets really are the best way to fight it.

some posts about it here, mostly going on about it not being "banned" which can be skipped: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/category/ddt/

Gladwell wrong? =0

W/E Malcolm Gladwell just gets off on flipping you over on your back like "You think it's one way, but it's another! BLAOW!"

But all the bad stuff about DDT, its effectiveness and/or dangers, were discovered after the US more or less stopped using it, no?

I just read the Christian Marclay profile from a few months ago. Good stuff.

But all the bad stuff about DDT, its effectiveness and/or dangers, were discovered after the US more or less stopped using it, no?

the version i'd heard was that it was the anti-DDT stuff in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" that brought about the US ban (eventually).

Many of the younger female staff writers are kind of rowr, is this some kind of NYC thing.

uh

JUST SAYING.

No but I mean it's not hard to figure out why that might happen

Who are we talking about? Lauren Collins? Ariel Levy?

Larissa Macfqurharar?

the version i'd heard was that it was the anti-DDT stuff in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" that brought about the US ban (eventually).

Isn't that in the piece I noted? Where DDT was well on its way to ending malaria, then along comes "Silent Spring" to put the end to that, even though the scientific verdict was out?

oh, i get you now-- but the "bad stuff" about DDT was already (in the process of being) discovered, no? else she wouldn't have had anything to write about.

I thought she was warning about what might happen, which she weighed heavier than the menace of malaria, which killed millions and made me massively alliterative. I could totally be wrong, but I could have sworn at the time of "Silent Spring" there was no definitive, or close to definitive, verdict on DDT, but the book was so effective that (rich, western) people didn't want to wait to find out what could happen.

silent spring also spawned a mainstream middlebrow ecomovement, the value of which is up for grabs but is kinda important nonetheless

rachel carson went to my high school

/max

xposts

the impression that i got - and this is based almost entirely on listening to the guardian science podcast a month ago - was that she, while she was a biologist working for the US govt, heard from various scientific contacts that the mass use of pesticides on fields in the US was having a terrible effect, and that effect was travelling up the food chain, and that was what she wrote about. but, yes, i didn't get the impression that she was particularly thinking about the use of DDT to specifically combat mosquitos who spread malaria.

Lauren Collins, Wendell Steavenson, and Julia Ioffe.

here is another link about DDT and malaria control: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3186

That was a good piece, despite too much Hitler bait. However, it misses the point, at least rhetorically. Carson turned out to be right about resistance to DDT as well as its dangers ... but those weren't determined for several more years, if not decades. At the time of "Silent Spring," as I understand it, her warning was just that, a mostly unfounded warning.

Now, to argue for renewed DDT use, yeah, that would totally go against reason and science. But back then she effectively marshaled support with worst case scenario predictions. To our benefit! But if that New Yorker article was at all accurate, it sounds like the ban went into place right when that guy was making real progress on the anti-mosquito front. fwiw.

sounding the batuman klaxon: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/07/african-drumming-in-istanbul.html

lazy ass magazine on vacation all summer

just read the mosquito article - pretty exciting and promising stuff, and agree with balls's assessment itt

Anyway mosquitos are part of the food chain so, y'know, beware unintended consequences and whatnot. What will the bats eat?

― quincie, Sunday, July 8, 2012 3:36 PM (5 days ago)

the article goes out of its way a couple times to mention and cite that mosquitos, especially this particular species which is non-native to north america, aren't really essential parts of any food chain. i'll be interested to read further about this but it seems like the potential benefits pretty far outweigh the risks

a follow-up of sorts (free): http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/mosquitoes-and-nimbyism.html

mosquitos are worthless horrible people and should be banished from the earth if at all possible

2 good pieces in this week: forensic linguistics article (which is kinda pro forma but has an interesting subject) and the strongman competition article (which is great all around)

cool, hello cottage reading.

strongman 1 is not paywalled btw & yes, v good - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/23/120723fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all

forensic linguistics piece has a great detail about the early life of one its main subjects that's just kinda thrown in there but when you read it you're like WTF

ha yes

forensic linguistics article (which is kinda pro forma but has an interesting subject)

I agree with this. I found it a little disappointing, but only because it's something that's so ridiculously up my alley that I wanted more from it. But what, I dunno.

it literally took me 30 mins to remember what the wtf fact is & i read that article earlier today but yes v otm

goddammit you guys I was all happy with skipping the strongman article >:[

can we have a separate david grann alert thread? then i can stop checking this one.

I agree with this. I found it a little disappointing, but only because it's something that's so ridiculously up my alley that I wanted more from it. But what, I dunno.

― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:28 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all the cases were fascinating, the article couldve just been composed entirely of examples of past linguistic detective work and it wouldve been p fn sweet

strongman story is v v good.
this fucken guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEvpNMdOK6I

the dude lifts a half a ton and his nose starts bleeding i mean wtf

six foot eight, 430 pounds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXr4es-KAs0
hi dere just lifting a car

nice loins, djp!

just pressing 285 pounds over my head while he's standing.
with one arm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vv6EJBUCbc

that kind of stuff astonishes me really; this guy may be the strongest man who ever lived. what i want is video of him kicking over fire hydrants and throwing kindergartners like footballs but he seems to not be evil, which is a shame.

The Afghan Civil War article is great, eff the haters.

man this is fascinating:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/07/jose-rodriguez-on-torture.html

the guy's logical leaps i mean. "it's cool, it's totally as okay as using drones!" not really a winning argument.

I like that Afghan piece. Somehow I found it more engaging than a lot of other pieces on the same subject. It's also very immediate now, like "holy shit, we're really leaving, and the country is really going to fall apart, and there's really nothing we can do"

Afghanistan is always more on the verge of falling apart than not. When was the last time that country was considered stable?

Strongman article was great, first fun and informative New Yorker read in a while.

"the guy's logical leaps i mean. "it's cool, it's totally as okay as using drones!" not really a winning argument."

Yeah he's basically insane.

i liked that Obama bio review that Lapore did.

man this is fascinating:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/07/jose-rodriguez-on-torture.html

the guy's logical leaps i mean. "it's cool, it's totally as okay as using drones!" not really a winning argument.

― , Blogger (schlump), Friday, July 20, 2012 9:53 AM (11 hours ago)

i actually thought he held his own pretty well, or at least stuck to his script. he's scum of course, but he wouldn't be able to authorize the torture he did if there weren't a legal structure in place to all but shield from accoutability these actors and literally allow them to write their own rules as they go along, and their victims would have some legal recourse if the courts or congress had a spine; in the eyes of the law (at the time), the torture he oversaw was m/l analogous to the al-awlaki hit - both were signed off by the OLC, which is legally binding. there may be varying shades of moral justification, but both are/were ostensibly legal. it's a matter of political will and values, and we were lacking both at the time. still some work to be done obv