On a special Olympics edition of Foreign Entanglements, Rob speaks with Nick about the 1980 US Olympic boycott, and how Reagan cleverly used the boycott against Carter. Rob explains why the Cold War-era Olympics were so much better than they are now. Rob and Nick next talk “Medalball,” where national teams try to game the medal system. Is China soon to be the dominant Olympic power? Given the impetus toward national glory, Rob wonders why some nations limit women’s participation. They chastely examine the free-for-all sex orgy known as the Olympic Village. Finally, Nick and Rob advocate for some recognition of the Israeli athletes slain during the 1972 Olympics.
Guest-hosting on The Posner Show, Gabriel talks with Sarah Senk, a professor who studies trauma, about the shooting in Colorado and the immediate calls to not “politicize” the massacre. Gabriel and Sarah compare the shooting’s aftermath with the reaction to another “national collective trauma,” 9/11. They next discuss technology in the classroom: Has it improved pedagogy and the learning experience, or is it all hype? Gabriel gets sentimental for a pre-technologized education, but concedes that technology has its educational uses as well.
On Friedersdorf, the conversation kicks off with Mark discussing his column on purity balls, where fathers pledge to protect the chastity of their daughters. They next talk about Mark’s profile of David Frum—are Frum’s politics a psychological reaction to his famous mother? Conor disagrees with Frum’s dismissal of libertarianism, but thinks he deserves credit for publicly changing his mind at some cost to his financial well-being. The two go on to consider what the goal of parenting is, and the thing that parents in Mark’s neighborhood fear most. They discuss the good and the bad (but mainly the good) of the sexual revolution, and Conor argues that society should stigmatize absent fathers.