| Wednesday, September 8 Marianne Leone on Grief and Timelines "Five years ago, I found my 17-year-old son dead in his bed," writes the actress in The Boston Globe. According to the "proposed" fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the Wire covered earlier debate on this here), "apparently five years is too long to be manifesting the symptoms of sadness." Rather, the appropriate period for experiencing sleeplessness, sudden crying, and other signs of grief is a mere two weeks. Leone resents having her continued mourning categorized as an illness, and quotes C. S. Lewis's character in the film Shadowland: "The pain now is a part of the happiness then. That's the deal." Says Leone, "if the shrinks think that's a major depressive disorder, they're the crazy ones, not me." Jonah Goldberg on the Market Economy Goldberg rebuts the prevailing progressive wisdom that "the financial crisis discredited 'market fundamentalism' and created a burning need for a more cooperative society where 'we're all in it together.'" Such a view misunderstands the market economy, argues the National Review writer, which is "the greatest communal enterprise ever undertaken in the history of humanity." Even "the simple act of collecting and combining the ingredients of a pencil involves the cooperation of thousands of experts in dozens of fields." The market economy, which Goldberg defends, rests on "unfathomably vast amounts of harmonious cooperation," he says. Feisal Abdul Rauf on the Plan for the Cordoba House After months of remaining relatively quiet as the furor surrounding the proposed "Ground Zero mosque" reached a fever pitch, the Imam and chairman of the initiative explains his plans for the Cordoba House in a New York Times op-ed. The center, which takes its name from a city in Spain where "Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages," aims at bridging the inter-faith divide while also remaining "authentic" to the individual culture of each religion. It will house separate prayer spaces for each faith, a swimming pool, classrooms and a memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks. Rauf will also soon outline the financial backers for the center, and plans to seek support of the 9/11 victims' families as the process moves forward.
Marie Myung-Ok Lee on Life as an 'Anchor Baby' The conservative clamor to re-examine the 14th amendment in order to "revise" the idea of birthright citizenship misses the point, writes the author in The Los Angeles Times. Lee, who was born in the United States to Korean parents, explains that "as a so-called anchor baby, my existence did nothing to resolve my parents' situation; if anything, it only added to their stress." The convoluted process that her parents went through to immigrate, which stemmed from the quotas first established in the 1924 Naturalization act, only served to cement an "awful period of uncertainty, instability and stress, which included being swindled by a number of 'immigration lawyers.'" It wasn't until 1965 when Lyndon Johnson passed a new immigration act, that her parents finally became citizens.
Holman Jenkins on Apple TV's High Hopes The latest $99 Apple TV set-up will be merely a "hobby" (Steve Jobs's term), figures The Wall Street Journal columnist, until the tech-giant can deliver the holy grail to TV viewers: "to watch anything we want whenever we want, for a single monthly price." And that won't happen anytime soon as long as multisystem operators (such as Comcast) refuse to partner with Apple in favor of developing their own online strategy. Right now, Apple can't command the fees that these large companies already claim monthly from their customers. He concludes: "Think about the implications: Broadband was supposed to blow up the infrastructural advantage of the old-style MSOs, but it also means the MSOs can sell their existing programming lineups to millions of new customers...without lofting another satellite or laying another inch of cable."
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