Weekly Reading Roundup: May 6, 2012

I've tried this before, but on a daily basis.  Telling you everyday what I'm reading is a little overwhelming, but doing it on a weekly basis should be more manageable.  So, here's what I've been reading this week:

• The Newsonomics of Pricing 101 [Epicenter]:  Good article from Wired.com with some interesting data points that have been found from pricing of newspapers.  If you happen to find this topic really interesting, the same blog offers another good post about the pricing scheme of The Financial Times.  
• The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt:  At some point I became obsessed with the Pulitzer Prize.  I'm not sure why or when it happened, but I decided a few months ago that I was going to read the Fiction, non-fiction, and biography winners from this year forward (and as many going backwards as sounded interesting).  As has been written about extensively, there was no fiction award winner this year, but I ordered hard copies of the non-fiction and biography winners for this year the day they were announced.  I finished Stephen Greenblatt's "The Swerve" earlier this week.  I expect to have some thoughts on it in the future, but for now I will say that I found it very interesting.  I'm not sure how often books are awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer the same year they are released, but when a book garners that much acclaim, it's probably worth reading for the purpose of understanding the fuss.
• The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate by Robert Caro: Biographer Robert Caro's fourth volume of his Lyndon Johnson biography, Passage of Power, was released this week.  With that, I finally got Volume 3, Master of the Senate, off my bookshelf.  I'm told it's worth reading for the history of the United States Senate alone.  As for Passage of Power, former President Clinton reviewed it earlier this week for the New York Times and had nothing but good things to say.  Also, I failed to link to it back in April, but there was a great preview of the book that should get you motivated to read a 900 page book (and maybe even the first three volumes as well) about LBJ if you have even the slightest passing interest in American Presidential history.    
• George Will had a touching column at The Washington Post reflecting on his son Jon's (who has Down's Syndrome) life on his 40th birthday.
• Finally, a pair of gloomy articles about the economy.  Apparently, we're headed away from an ownership society, but that's ok because it allows for greater mobility.  Also, none of us are going to get to retire.  

Sifferlin on Going Overboard on Cardio

Alexandra Sifferlin says we're doing it all wrong and gives a few tips for better use of time at the gym.  Nothing groundbreaking here, but some good reminders:

• Make sure you're working out at a rate/resistance you can properly maintain good form.  According to Scott Danberg, of the Pritikin Longevity Center, "Hunching over or using a death-grip on the machine handrail because your incline or resistence is too high for you cheats your body and can throw off your alignment, jarring your spine, shoulders, and elbows."  Instead, he suggests holding on lightly with one hand and moving the other.  "Save the reading for after your workout..." 
• Decrease time and inscrease resistence: This is a good way to accomplish the same amount of work in far less time.  Just remember to follow the first tip and maintain good form (see above).
• Try different machines: Sara Haley of Global Reebok suggests, “Employing different planes of motion with lateral trainers like the Ultraslide and the Helix also prevent people from working the same muscles over and over."

Douthat on Christian Engagement in Public Affairs

I suggested earlier today in my thoughts on Ross Douthat's Bad Religion that his action steps for Christians engaging in public life were a little platitude-heavy.  Apparently it's been a common critique and he responded on his blog that he believes the late Chuck Colson may be a good model to follow on this:

We only have two parties in America, and to be active in politics inevitably requires identifying with one more than the other, and probably becoming directly involved with one or the other as well. But given how unlikely it seems that a political party in a fallen world would have a platform that comports precisely with God’s intentions for human affairs, any serious Christian should assume that there are places where his or her party is getting some important issue wrong, or at the very least giving it insufficient attention. And just recognizing those places or issues is not enough: The Christian Republican or the Christian Democrat has the obligation to focus on them as well, to prioritize them and call attention to them even when it annoys or frustrates their co-partisans, in order to demonstrate where their ultimate loyalties really lie.

In his work on behalf of convicted felons, the least Republican constituency imaginable, Charles Colson did just that — and made it possible for other conservative Christians to do the same. May he rest in peace.

Split or Steal

This is truly fascinating strategy.  Thanks Volokh Conspiracy for the link.

Douthat on Prosperity Gospel

I finished Ross Douthat's Bad Religion:  How We Became a Nation of Heretics over the weekend.  I'm not sure yet whether I'll write a full review of it, but in the meantime there were a couple things I thought he stated really well that I wanted to pass along.

The first is Douthat's conception of what a heresy is in the first place.  It's easy to dismiss the idea of heresy on the grounds that people are too quick to throw out the label as anything that deviates too far from their notions of theology.  The misapplication of a term though, shouldn't soil it.  The New Testament and further Christian history is filled with examples of false teaching being called out by apostles and church leaders.  It hasn't always been carried out in a way that was honoring to the faith they acted on behalf of, but that does not negate the need for such battles for the core of Christianity.   Says Douthat:

The goal of the great heresies, on the other hand, has often been to extract from the tensions of the gospel narratives a more consistent, streamlined, and noncontradictory Jesus.  For the Marcionites in the second century, this meant a merciful Jesus with no connection to the vengeful Hebrew God; for their rivals that Ebionites, it meant a a Jesus whose Judaism required would-be followers to become observant Jews themselves.  For the various apocalyptic sects that have dotted Christian history, this has meant a Jesus whose only real concern was the imminent end-times; for modes Christians seeking a more secular, this-wordly religion, it's meant a Jesus who was mainly a moralist and social critic, with no real interest in eschatology.

Douthat's notion of heresy (that I don't think is necessarily meant to be a complete definition, but rather a description of some of the heresies he deconstructs in the book) reminds me of a concept from C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters where Screwtape explains to his understudy Wormwood that the best way to deceive is to do imbed untruths within a larger set of agreed upon truths (paraphrased).  Heresy rarely takes the form of a completely untrue statement, but rather is often a disproportionate weight being placed upon one element of a whole picture to the exclusions of the others that are supposed to live in tension with the part that is being stressed.  One example he gives is the so-called "prosperity gospel" and the idea that God necessarily blesses the faithful with material wealth and physical health. In this, Douthat lands a blow against  the so-called "Prosperity Gospel" that is just really well stated:        

At its best, the prosperity gospel can be well-meaning, open-handed, and personally empowering; and it thrives as few other forms of Christian faith do in the soil of modernity. But like many forms of liberal Christianity, the marriage of God and Mammon half-expects somehow to undo the Fall, through the beneficence of Providence and the magic of the market. Int its emphasis on the virtues of prosperity, it risks losing something essential to Christianity-skipping on to Easter, you might say, without lingering at the foot of the cross.

There's a lot in this book, almost certainly enough to merit another blog post.  One point he makes is that American Christianity was at its best in engaging society in its efforts with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's.  Since then, Christianity has attempted to be that kind of force and has at best been ineffective and at worst turned into just another group that politicians seek to target for money and votes.  Douthat ends the book with some thoughts on how Christianity can reclaim its core and engage society in that way again.  I think I like some of his ideas, but many of them are so vague that I'm left not sure what they actually mean (i.e. being political without being partisan).  I've had Michael Gerson's City of Man sitting on my bookshelf for a while, I might give it a quick read and come back and address this issue at a later time.

Does Romney Have a Mormon Problem?

Joseph Niphenberg at First Things, noting the results of a recent Pew Research poll, thinks Romney's Mormonism will be a non-issue with evangelical voters:

Much ink has been spilled (if that’s still an intelligible expression in this digital age) about the likely evangelical resistance to voting for Mitt Romney.  But, to my mind, the recent Pew poll paints a different picture.  Here’s what we learn:

• Protestants favor Romney over Obama 51-43.

• White non-Hispanic evangelicals favor Romney over Obama 73-20.

• White non-Hispanic mainline Protestants favor Romney over Obama 50-42.

• Weekly church attenders favor Romney over Obama 56-38.

• White non-Hispanic evangelical weekly attenders favor Romney over Obama 80-16.

In other words, the most religiously observant white evangelicals are more likely–indeed, significantly more likely– than their less observant brethren to say they’re going to vote for Romney. (Evangelicals who attend less than once a week favor Romney over Obama 58-31.) 

Need I say more?

I think you might.  It would be helpful to know the fervor of their support, which would answer questions of voter turnout, campaign contributions, and people who will be the volunteers for these campaigns.  It would also help to add some context.  Let's look at each of these categories from the last time a sitting President was running for reelection, the 2004 race between George W. Bush and John Kerry.  Reality is that a Republican needs to sweepingly win religious voters if they hope to attain the Presidency much like a Democrat needs to sweepingly win, say voters who are members of labor unions to win the Presidency.  Anyway, some comparisons:  

• Protestants favor Romney over Obama 51-43.  They favored Bush over Kerry 59-40

• White non-Hispanic evangelicals favor Romney over Obama 73-20. They favored Bush over Kerry 78-21

• White non-Hispanic mainline Protestants favor Romney over Obama 50-42. They favored Bush over Kerry 55-45

• Weekly church attenders favor Romney over Obama 56-38. They favored Bush over Kerry 58-41

• White non-Hispanic evangelical weekly attenders favor Romney over Obama 80-16. Weekly attending evangelical Protestants favored Bush over Kerry 82-18. 

In every category the author cites concerning voting among certain Christian (voting) groups, Romney is doing less well in 2012 than Bush did in 2004.  It certainly is true that Romney holds close to Bush with Evangelicals, but he falls by at least five percentage points in every other category.  Romney may not have an Evangelical voter problem (though in the context of a close race, even a two point drop is significant), but he certainly has a Christian voter problem.  It doesn't necessarily follow that Romney's Mormonism is the factor causing his numbers to be lower among Christian voters than Bush had in 2004, but it isn't accurate to say that Romney's commanding leads in these categories is evidence of his Mormonism being a non-factor.      

That said, a July 2008 Pew Forum study shows Romney doing significantly better among some of these groups than John McCain was doing roughly at this time in 2008.  This might have been the better argument to make than citing raw numbers showing how much better Romney is doing than Obama with certain voters naturally disposed to favor the GOP nominee.

Running Against the Supreme Court

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court hearings last month on the Affordable Care Act, there was a strong contingent of experts weighing in to suggest that losing this battle might actually give the President something to run on to energize the base.  That is, he could "run against the Court" and promise to appoint the kind of Justices who would never let this kind of thing happen again.  Jared Goldstein had a post yesterday at Balkinization suggesting it won't work:

No president can effectively run against the Court because sustained public attention cannot be captured by a fight between the President and the Court. To generate media coverage, a President needs an opponent who will fight back. Of course, the Court is not in a position to engage in public debate of the sort that is typical in our politics. The Court and its members do not make TV ads. They give infrequent speeches and rarely appear on the Sunday talk shows, Fox News, the Daily Show, and Leno. The Court’s participation in public debate is limited almost entirely to the issuance of infrequent pronouncements in the usually bloodless language of law. This is not the stuff of a political campaign. President Obama could speak out against the Court every day, but it will not generate media coverage and public attention if he is the only one doing the talking.

No, the Justices are not going to go on Conan and argue with the President, but that doesn't mean a repeated line of criticism can't be made that effectively will be taken as truth without somebody to refute it.  It may not be the high drama that the news agencies would prefer, but somebody will respond just as others (even if not Bush Administration officials) have responded to the Obama Administration as they blame the Bush Administration for the slowness of the economic recovery.