Is Your Doctor Becoming Obsolete?
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Saving Kids From Bullies By Emily Bazelon WILL SEE YOU NOW The Is Your Doctor Emancipation Becoming of Barack Obama Obsolete? By Ta-Nehisi By Jonathan Cohn Coates Inventing Marilyn Monroe By Caitlin Flanagan Why Romantic Comedies Are So Bad How Anthropologists Sell Vodka The New Chastity MARCH 2013 in Paris THEATLANTIC.COM MIDSIZE BUSINESSES ARE THE ENGINES OF A SMARTER PLANET FOR MIDSIZE BUSINESSES, REINVENT WITHOUT A REDEFINING MOMENT. 92% of midsize REINVESTING IN I.T. In the past, midsize companies say they LINK wanted a faster, more will invest in the organizations with big ideas cloud within the accurate way to measure were constrained by limited 92% next 36 months.* consumer sentiment. IT resources. Not anymore. Working with a powerful With the arrival of scalable, facial recognition solution Scale Flexibly aff ordable cloud computing, created by IBM Business sophisticated ideas for new Partner nViso in the IBM products no longer languish. SmartCloud, ™ LINK is Personalized customer now capturing respondent service generates incremental reactions to marketing sales. And new, revenue-rich messages in real time, via markets are being created home webcams. Scores are every day. generated every second for 7 emotions. And LINK gets its results up to 90% faster. Reduce Fixed Costs Speed Innovations to Market It’s shaking up industries and providing new opportunities In the past, a data-rich for new players, with many solution like LINK’s would pioneering midsize businesses have been impractical for a once again leading the way. midsize company. But in the Consider: 92% of midsize cloud, traditional research is companies say they will pilot history. And a new service or adopt a cloud solution has transformed a business. within the next 36 months. What can the cloud do for your midsize business? Get started by learning how Progressive companies like IBM and its Business Partners LINK Institute, the Swiss are helping midsize businesses consumer research fi rm with “We can assess reinvent themselves at 110 employees, are doing it a consumer’s emotive response ibm.com/engines/cloud right now. more accurately.” — Tim Llewellynn, LET’S BUILD A nViso CEO SMARTER PLANET. Extend Collaboration *2011 IBM Institute for Business Value/Economist Intelligence Unit Cloud-Enabled Business Model Survey. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, IBM SmartCloud, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. © International Business Machines Corporation 2012. CONTENTS 03.13 | vol. 311 - no. 2 92 FEATURES Inc. Will See You What really happened the Bullies Marilyn How companies have Now to William Spark- The inside account Anyone who thinks started using social Technology is about to man Jr., the census of the companies, the story of Marilyn scientists to probe revolutionize health worker whose body scientists, and Monroe doesn’t the deepest needs, care. How far will was found hang- hackers who are warrant such attention fears, and desires of automation go? ing from a tree in hunting for solutions doesn’t know much consumers Will doctors still Kentucky in 2009, the to the scourge of about it. By Graeme Wood be necessary? word FED scrawled online harassment By Caitlin Flanagan By Jonathan Cohn across his chest? By Emily Bazelon By Rich Schapiro SUNSET BOULEVard/cORBIS THE ATLANTIC MARCH 2013 3 CONTENTS 03.13 17 22 20 30 DEPARTMENTS DISPATCHES ENTERTAINMENT POLITICS SKETCH WORDPLAY From literature to ap- Perfect Poll of Sally Oren It Out pointment television, Have Web surveys The woman who Why sooo many people Conversation episodic storytelling f nally come of age? links Janis Joplin, Jimi are tossing extra letters is f ourishing. By Molly Ball Hendrix, and Bibi into text messages By Megan Garber Netanyahu By Jen Doll Question STUDY OF STUDIES By Jeffrey Goldberg HISTORY TECH POETRY Too Beautiful BUSINESS Emancipation By James Hamblin Alexis Madrigal talks By Campbell McGrath Why his reelection Shrinking Ad with Flickr co-founder matters even more BY DESIGN Why ever-tinier Caterina Fake. 89 Material By Christina Pugh than his election screens should make By Ta-Nehisi Coates A lamp that Facebook and Google CHARTIST runs on gravity nervous By Derek Thompson of the Student- Loan Crisis By Nicole Allan and Derek Thompson 4 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC CONTENTS 03.13 HIGHLIGHTS fRom 34 THEATLANTIC.COM DESIGN Restart Darhil Crooks, The Atlantic’s creative director, talks to editor Scott Stossel about redesigning the magazine. inteRACTIVE Calling All Readers See more answers to the Big Question, offer your own, and tell us what to ask next month. VIDEO The New Playground Emily Bazelon dis- 44 38 cusses online bullying with Atlantic Digital editor Bob Cohn. ON THE COVER THE CULTURE FILE THE OMNIVoRE tRaVEL BOOKS COMMENTaRY Boy Meets Girl Christopher Orr Groundhog Day the Minibar Images narrates scenes from On the 20th What happened to my Two beautiful new the best—and worst— anniversary of the most trusted traveling cofee-table books— romantic comedies. beloved comedy, it’s companion? except one isn’t really time to recognize the By David Samuels a book By Benjamin Schwarz VIDEO Photograph by flm as a profound Bart Cooke; work of contemporary CINEMA Firewater 3-D model by metaphysics. BOOKS Watch bartenders ignite their favorite Gael Langevin By James Parker Romantic Comedies Under Terror flaming cocktails. DRink So Bad? In 1937, the city was The long decline from both an artistic Toasted Katharine Hepburn to capital and a The drama (and Katherine Heigl slaughterhouse. sometimes danger) By Christopher Orr By Benjamin Schwarz of the faming cocktail By Wayne Curtis 6 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC Editor’s Note THE ART OF IDEAS N 1857 THE PRINTED WORD was unopposed,” Channel, Dr. James Hamblin, writes the editors of this magazine mused, a bit wistfully, our Study of Studies—an analysis of “ how academic surveys complicate one in 1957, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Atlantic another— while Jen Doll, of our news . “Books and magazines were a necessity site, The Atlantic Wire, delivers the f rst for the thoughtful, and reading aloud was an evening installment of our language column, pastime.” On that centennial, as the editors unveiled Wordplay. a “much more inviting” design of the magazine, the We have more clearly delineated the competition seemed to them to have grown substan- sections of the magazine by collecting tially more f erce. The printed word had to contend our book reviews and other cultural “with radio, television, the picture book, and—a new coverage in a new Culture File. Longer I books essays, together with short fic- and demanding rival—the long-playing record.” tion, will continue to run at the back Yet, as the decades waltzed by with founding ethos of The Atlantic, and this of the magazine, behind the feature varying grace, The Atlantic proved able has turned out to be a good thing, today stories that are The Atlantic’s editorial to perform its own role quite comfort- as in 1957, given all the forms and means foundation. ably alongside not only the aggressive LP, of expression that are clamoring for your The new design is the work of our but the EP, the 45, the reel-to-reel, the attention (though still not creative director, Darhil eight-track tape, the cassette, the com- drowning out the poor LP, Crooks. He set out to cre- pact disc, and—so far, touch wood—the let alone radio, television, ate a look that is as elegant, MP3 and streaming audio. How? or the picture book—maybe provocative, and accessible Partly by not changing. The purpose because, in testament to the as the prose—or, at least, as of The Atlantic as expressed by the edi- suppleness of human intel- we aspire for the prose to 1912 tors in November 1957 is its purpose now. ligence, technologies have be. One of his nods to our “We still believe, as did our founders, that a way of supplementing, heritage is his decision to the free competition of ideas has made rather than simply replacing, bring back our colophon, this country what it is,” the editors wrote. one another). the image of Poseidon that To advance these ideas, and with them With this issue, we appears on this page. In one the American project, they wanted to have redesigned and re- of our more shocking rede- create a home for ambitious, fractious structured the printed mag- signs, in 1947, The Atlantic writers. azine to, we hope, more for the f rst time presented And The Atlantic has also thrived, powerfully present stories a large image, rather than in part, by changing. To promote the for you to think about and 1947 simply a table of contents, competition of ideas, The Atlantic now argue with. To give more on its cover. For that cover, has three Web sites and conducts doz- scope to the expertise and interests of the image was our original colophon, ens of live events a year. Our “printed” our growing staff of writers, we have also shown on this page. If you compare words are also conveyed digitally, on added several features to the Dispatch- the old version with the new, I think the Web and on tablets and phones. We es section, alongside the short essays you’ll see evidence both of continuity are reaching a far larger audience than and character sketches you are accus- and of f tting change. we ever have. Optimism about change— tomed to. For example, this month the impatience for it—was part of the radical editor of TheAtlantic.com’s Health —JAMES BENNET LEHMAN MATT COLOPHON: TOP 8 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC THE ATLANTIC MEETS STACEY SNIDER, CO-CHAIRMAN AND CEO, DREAMWORKS THE PACIFIC JESSICA JACKLEY, FOUNDER, PROFOUNDER AND KIVA CHRIS COX, VP OF PRODUCT, FACEBOOK This past fall, The Atlantic Meets the Pacifi c gathered some of the world’s most brilliant scientists, business leaders, tech trailblazers, and political pundits to examine the breakthroughs poised to transform technology, health, energy, media, and beyond.