CONTROVERSY BUSINESS TALKING POINTS TRUMP’S A horrible How Hillary NEW summer for explains FRIENDS? Hollywood her defeat p.6 Rep. Nancy p.38 p.17 Pelosi

THE BEST OF THE U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA A state of shock Rebuilding Florida after Irma’s historic devastation p.4

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Editor’s letter “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his sal- Perhaps. But this is where paychecks, motivated reasoning, and ary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair said this tribal politics enter the picture. As Ron Brownstein points out nearly a century ago, but it continues to explain much, including in CNN.com this week, the U.S. can be divided into “high car- many Americans’ adamant refusal to accept the reality of climate bon” and “low carbon” states. High carbon states produce large change. In the past three weeks, two monstrous hurricanes of his- amounts of oil, gas, and coal, and rely on industries that burn toric intensity devastated large swathes of Texas, Florida, and the lots of fossil fuels. They are invariably “red” or Republican. Low Caribbean. Climate change didn’t cause Harvey and Irma, but carbon states, located mainly on the coasts, have economies that climatologists suspect a warming planet made these killer hurri- depend mostly on financial, service, and information-age compa- canes more destructive. (Total damage: upwards of $200 billion.) nies. They are blue. In red states like Wyoming, North Dakota, It’s simple physics: Hurricanes draw their energy from warm and Texas, the per-capita carbon dioxide emission levels also are ocean waters, and the Gulf, Caribbean, and southern Atlantic are much higher, because they’re largely rural and people rely on significantly warmer right now than their historic norms. Warmer cars and machinery. In 2016, President Trump carried 20 of the air also can carry more moisture. Harvey dumped more rain on 21 states with the highest per capita carbon emissions. In these Houston—about 50 inches—than any storm in U.S. history. Irma states, the implications of accepting climate change are under- howled at 180 mph for 37 hours, a record, and was the second standably alarming—more alarming, evidently, William Falk Cate gory 4 storm to hit the U.S. in three weeks. Coincidence? than even two Cat e gory 4 hurricanes. Editor-in-chief

NEWS 4 Main stories Florida pummeled Editor-in-chief: William Falk by Irma, as the Managing editors: Theunis Bates, Caribbean digs out from Carolyn O’Hara Deputy editor/International: Susan Caskie devastation; Bannon’s Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell Senior editors: Harry Byford, Alex war on the GOP Dalenberg, Richard Jerome, Dale Obbie, Hallie Stiller, Frances Weaver 6 Controversy of the week Art director: Dan Josephs Photo editor: Loren Talbot After cutting a deal with Copy editors: Jane A. Halsey, Jay Wilkins Democrats, will Trump’s Chief researcher: Christina Colizza Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin, pivot to the left last? Bruno Maddox 7 The U.S. at a glance VP, publisher: John Guehl Seattle mayor resigns VP, marketing: Tara Mitchell Sales development director: over abuse allegations; Samuel Homburger CEOs golf with Trump Account director: Steve Mumford Account managers: Shelley Adler, Alison Fernandez 8 The world at a glance Detroit director: Lisa Budnick A deadly earthquake Midwest director: Lauren Ross A Florida Keys resident at the spot where his trailer once stood (p.4) Southeast director: Jana Robinson in Mexico; Pyongyang West Coast directors: James Horan, Rebecca Treadwell lashes out over sanctions ARTS LEISURE Integrated marketing director: Jennifer Freire Integrated marketing managers: 10 People 22 Books 28 Food & Drink Kelly Dyer, Caila Litman Sharon Osbourne on Marketing design director: Joshua Moore Kurt Andersen’s tour of The perfect pub chicken, Marketing designer: Triona Moynihan her marriage to a serial Research and insights manager: Joan Cheung crackpot America by way of Chicago Marketing coordinator: Reisa Feigenbaum cheater; Michael Moore’s Senior digital account manager: war with elites 23 Author of the week 30 Travel Yuliya Spektorsky Programmatic manager: George Porter ‘America’s librarian’ Trekking the monasteries Digital planners: Jennifer Riddell, Talia Sabag 11 Briefi ng of northern Tibet writes her fi rst novel Chief operating & financial officer: Presidents possess almost Kevin E. Morgan unlimited power to grant 24 Art 31 Consumer Director of financial reporting: Five better ways to wake Arielle Starkman pardons. But they haven’t The centuries-old fury of EVP, consumer marketing & products: always used it wisely. Kara Walker up in the morning Sara O’Connor Consumer marketing director: 12 Best U.S. columns 26 Film Leslie Guarnieri BUSINESS HR manager: Joy Hart Democrats’ religious test Jennifer Operations manager: Cassandra Mondonedo for judges; why Trump Lawrence 34 News at a glance Adviser: Ian Leggett may legalize ‘Dreamers’ lives out a Apple unveils a $999 Chairman: John M. Lagana nightmare iPhone; Nordstrom’s no- U.K. founding editor: Jolyon Connell 15 Best international Company founder: Felix Dennis columns in Darren clothes store Myanmar’s silence as Aronofsky’s 36 Making money Mother! Rohingya are driven out The wild world of ‘initial Visit us at TheWeek.com. coin offerings’ For customer service go to www 16 Talking points .TheWeek.com/service or phone us How Russia used 38 Best columns at 1-877-245-8151. Facebook; why terrorism Sharon Hollywood’s horrible Renew a subscription at www .RenewTheWeek.com or give a gift persists; Clinton settles Osbourne summer; Amazon’s cynical at www.GiveTheWeek.com.

Getty (2) Getty scores with Sanders (p. 10) city shakedown

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 4 NEWS The main stories... Florida pummeled by Hurricane Irma What happened Post. The “economic toll”—in the form Millions of Florida residents began return- of “disruptions to business, increased ing to their storm-battered homes this unemployment, crop losses, and property week, after Hurricane Irma tore through and infrastructure damage”—could put the state causing extensive flooding, the bill as high as $100 billion. But hope- widespread power outages, and billions fully the devastation wrought by Irma— of dollars’ worth of property damage. and by Hurricane Harvey, which hit The record-breaking storm, which also Texas only two weeks earlier—will shake pummeled the Caribbean (see next page), Gov. Scott and other Republicans out of prompted some 7 million people to their stubborn denial that climate change evacuate the Sunshine State. After making poses a serious threat. While individual landfall in the Florida Keys as a Cate- storms cannot be attributed to global gory 4 hurricane, Irma barreled northward warming, scientists say, higher tempera- tures will make destructive hurricanes up the peninsula’s western side, covering Surveying their broken home in the Keys the whole width of the state. While Miami “more common and severe.” was spared a direct hit from the eye, the 420-mile-wide storm still caused widespread damage elsewhere. The Keys were devastated, What the columnists said with a quarter of homes destroyed and another 65 percent dam- There has never been a storm “quite like Irma,” said Robinson aged. Overall, up to 13 million people—two-thirds of Florida’s Meyer in TheAtlantic.com. It retained hurricane strength for 11 population—lost power. Utility companies warned it would be days, spent a record three days as a Cate gory 5 storm, and whipped weeks before electricity was fully restored. up 185 mph winds for 37 straight hours—longer than any cyclone in recorded history. In addition, Irma formed in the Atlantic, “a Irma weakened to a post-tropical depression after moving north part of the world that usually does not produce huge hurricanes.” out of Florida, but continued to unleash high winds and heavy rainfall. A million people lost power in Georgia and the Carolinas. To limit the impact of future storms, the government should stop By Wednesday, the death toll across the whole region stood at 30, “tempting people into hurricanes’ paths,” said Nicole Gelinas in including eight residents of a Hollywood, Fla., nursing home who the New York Post. The National Flood Insurance Program has were left without air-conditioning in extreme heat. “We’ve got a provided heavily subsidized coverage that encouraged millions of lot of work to do, but everybody’s going to come together,” said people to build homes near coastlines. Some properties have had Florida Gov. Rick Scott. “We’re going to get this state rebuilt.” to be rebuilt several times—all on the taxpayers’ dime—and with extreme weather on the rise, the program was already $24.7 billion What the editorials said in debt before Harvey and Irma. Why is the government spending “We’ve come a long way [since] Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” said billions of dollars “keeping people in harm’s way”? the Miami Herald. Back then, many Florida residents failed to take the warnings seriously. This time, residents sensibly “stocked up, Climate change is causing more extreme weather, said Paul Krug- boarded up, or pulled up stakes and hit the road.” Irma “could man in The New York Times. But under President Trump, every easily have been worse,” said the Tampa Bay Times. Had the senior government official dealing with the environment is a storm’s eye directly hit our city instead of veering away, the storm “know-nothing, anti-science conservative.” Environmental Protec- surge would have been catastrophic—half the population lives less tion Agency chief Scott Pruitt insisted this week that even discussing than 10 feet above sea level. Now the priority is to restore power: global warming now would be “insensitive.” Really? We are being In hot, humid Florida, air-conditioning is a “public health issue.” governed by people “completed alienated” from science and a rational assessment of what the evidence is telling us. “This willful Irma will require “a long recovery period,” said The Washington ignorance is deeply frightening”—and dangerous.

It wasn’t all bad QWhen Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida, every coastal QPhilip Osborn never knew he community needed help—including Florida’s underwater had a sister until he moved in next QA Chicago Girl Scout is bring- inhabitants. At least two manatees were caught by surprise door to her. After living in Florida ing joy to soldiers, one box of last week when the force of the Category 5 hurricane’s winds for years, Osborn recently moved cookies at a time. Last year, Giada sucked the water away from Tampa’s shores, leaving the crea- back to a Michigan retirement Gambatese, 9, sold 13,061 boxes tures stranded in the shallow home to be closer to his family. of cookies for donation to the marshes that remained, un- His new neighbor, Marilyn Meyers, Gift of Caring Program, which able to move. The 500-pound adopted at birth, had spent the puts together care packages for sea cows proved difficult to past few decades searching for her military families. This year, she lift, so passersby and local biological family—so when she was determined to beat that goal, law enforcement banded heard that someone with the last and reached out to her veteran together to roll them onto name Osborn had just moved in, grandfather’s President’s Club for a tarp and drag them 100 she started investigating. After con- help. All told, the military organiza- yards to the surf. “[We] said firming small bits of family history, tion helped her shift 30,120 boxes. ‘1-2-3’ and pulled them back they were shocked to discover they “Giving is good,” says Giada, who to the channel,” says citizen were siblings. “I’ve always wanted hopes to up the ante to 100,000 helper Marcelo Clavijo. “They to be an older brother,” says Os- boxes in 2018. Stranded, then saved both swam off.” born. “It’s divine intervention.” Reuters, Michael Sechler/AP Michael Reuters, Illustration by Fred Harper. THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Cover photos from Getty, Everett Collection, Getty ... and how they were covered NEWS 5 Caribbean reels from hurricane’s wrath What happened What the columnists said More than a dozen Caribbean islands lay in Irma has laid bare the awkwardness of colo- ruin this week after Hurricane Irma devas- nial rule, said Kate Maltby in CNN.com. Rav- tated the region, killing nearly 40 people and aged areas such as St. Martin and the B.V.I. turning lush paradises into post-apocalyptic are “an ocean away from their old imperial wastelands. The storm struck with Cate gory 5 masters.” When disaster strikes “and citizens force, with wind speeds of 185 miles per hour, begin to die, many begin to question why bringing punishing waves and lashing rain rescue decisions are being made from Paris, that flooded cities and towns across Cuba, London, or The Hague.” Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Barts, and beyond. Wide swaths of the U.S. “The wild isolation” that made these islands and British Virgin Islands were reduced to Surveying the devastation in St. Martin ideal for honeymoons “has turned them rubble; in some areas, Irma leveled 90 percent into cutoff, chaotic nightmares,” said Anika of the buildings. Amid the chaos and desperation were widespread Kentish and Michael Weissenstein in the Associated Press. Irma reports of looting and other crimes. On Tortola in the B.V.I., as snapped their “fragile links to the outside world,” pounding airports, many as 100 “high-risk” prisoners broke free, seized weapons, and decapitating cellphone towers, and strewing boats like litter on land. roamed the island, as British Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Dun- The immediate concern is “access to safe drinking water and shelter,” can warned of “the complete breakdown of law and order.” On said Matt Reynolds in NewScientist.com. Meanwhile, stagnant and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, National Guard troops patrolled contaminated water bring disease-carrying mosquitoes and cholera— the streets and the Coast Guard helped evacuate vacationers to which overwhelmed Haiti after Hurricane Matthew last year. cruise ships bound for Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was spared the worst of Irma’s fury, but the storm still Many of the islands are territories of distant European nations, knocked out the power grid, brutally “exposing the island’s decrepit complicating relief efforts and leaving many residents feeling infrastructure,” said Luis Ferré-Sadurní in The New York Times. abandoned. Surveying damage in St. Martin and St. Barts, French With the U.S. territory mired in recession, efforts to modernize its President Emmanuel Macron promised “to rebuild not just a new oil-burning electrical plants “and diversify energy sources have life but also a better life.” British foreign secretary Boris Johnson mostly come to a halt.” Privatizing the public utilities could be a toured the B.V.I. and Anguilla amid widespread criticism that Lon- solution—but it’s a divisive issue with stiff union opposition. What- don had been slow to respond. “We are feeling very much like the ever the strategy, for Puerto Ricans, “Irma was a close call”—and a stepchild,” said Anguillan lawyer Josephine Gumbs-Connor. call to action before the next disaster strikes. Bannon says firing Comey was a major mistake What happened What the columnists said Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon declared war Bannon’s “hostile takeover of the GOP is just getting started,” said on the Republican Party and characterized President Trump’s Jonathan Tobin in NationalReview.com. The Breitbart boss is decision to fire FBI Director James Comey as the biggest mistake reportedly plotting primary challenges against four sitting Repub- “in modern political history,” during an incendiary, wide-ranging lican senators. Those fights will suck “tens of millions of dollars” interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes this week. Bannon, who departed from the GOP’s coffers, said Matt Lewis in TheDailyBeast.com, the White House in August, accused Senate Majority Leader giving a boost to Democrats in 2018. But maybe that suits the alt- Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan of “trying to right provocateur just fine. From his “revolutionary” viewpoint, nullify the 2016 election”—blaming them for failing to repeal he believes “he must first destroy the GOP, then save it.” Obamacare and warning that establishment Republicans will be “held accountable” if they do not do more to enact Trump’s Bannon cultivates the image of a “street fighter” turned Trumpist populist, economic-nationalist agenda. Asked by Charlie Rose intellectual, said Jamelle Bouie in Slate.com. But his “economic if he would use his alt-right digital platform, Breitbart News, to nationalism” is a smoke screen for white nationalism. When “go to war” with the GOP, Bannon replied: “Absolutely.” asked by Rose to defend himself from charges of racism, Bannon denied immigrants had helped build America and claimed it was Bannon also shed light on the inner workings of the Trump “built on our citizens”—a deceitful revision of U.S. history. “As administration—revealing that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for Bannon’s alleged tactical genius?” He has helped Trump ac- “was not looked at for a Cabinet position” because he didn’t complish “nothing, save a low and sinking approval rating.” show enough loyalty when a leaked Access Hollywood tape dur- ing the 2016 campaign showed Trump boasting about sexually Bannon’s most telling comments involved Mueller, said Paul assaulting women. Bannon also hinted that Trump’s son-in-law Waldman in WashingtonPost.com. Trump’s campaign mastermind and adviser, Jared Kushner, encouraged Comey’s dismissal in hinted that if the special counsel is delving into the president’s May. He characterized that decision as a huge error that led to shady business dealings, the chances he’ll “find something fishy the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who has since or even criminal are very high indeed.” And Bannon character- expanded the Russia investigation to include Trump’s financial ized Trump’s firing of Comey as a grievous error—implying it was dealings and potential obstruction of justice. Without Comey’s worse than Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, or “any firing, said Bannon, “we would not have the Mueller investiga- number of decisions Richard Nixon made.” If it’s worse than tion and the breadth that clearly Mr. Mueller is going for.” those, “it can only mean that it could end Trump’s presidency.” Getty

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 6 NEWS Controversy of the week Trump’s debt deal: The beginning of a centrist pivot?

“The pivot is real,” said Ben Domenech in radioactive, and his plummeting poll numbers and the TheFederalist.com, “and it’s spectacular.” When gathering storm of the Russia probe have Democrats President Trump summoned congressional leaders salivating at the prospect of regaining control of the to the Oval Office last week for talks on raising House in next year’s midterms. Schumer and Pelosi the debt ceiling, few expected much more than will be willing to deal with Trump if he makes con- a photo op. Instead, Trump stunned cessions on a few issues—such as lifting the threat Washington by striking a deal with of deportation from the “Dreamers.” But they Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer won’t help him save his floundering presidency and Nancy Pelosi that raised the debt Schumer, Pelosi: Now they’re ‘Chuck’ and ‘Nancy’ by reinventing himself as a centrist. ceiling for three months and provided an $8 billion aid package for victims of Hurricane Harvey. House If Trump does make concessions to the Democrats to get some- Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thing done, said Cheryl Chumley in The Washington Times, were reportedly “livid”; they had wanted a “clean” bill raising the Republicans will “have nobody to blame but themselves.” Their debt limit for 18 months, so that Democrats couldn’t use a possi- infighting kept them from repealing Obamacare, and they’ve made ble government shutdown as leverage until after the midterm elec- it clear they won’t fight to fund the president’s promised border tions. But Trump wanted to make sure a shutdown fight wouldn’t wall. And yet they call Trump “treasonous” for cutting a deal to get in the way of his handing out hurricane aid, and like Bill keep the government operating? Please. The president’s supporters Clinton, he will benefit from “triangulating” between the two par- “don’t care” how he puts some wins on the board, and “it seems ties. Remember—Trump was a New York City Democrat for most only sensible that Trump might as well wheel and deal with the of his life, said Peggy Noonan in WSJ.com. He blames Ryan and Democrats—because the GOP sure isn’t working with him.” McConnell for failing to deliver him any big legislative “wins,” and may look for more opportunities to work with “Chuck and Congressional Republicans tried to work with Trump, said Nancy,” as he now calls his new Democratic pals. Michael Gerson in The Washington Post, but he’s provided abso- lutely no leadership on health care or any other legislative issue. Don’t expect Trump to turn into a centrist independent, said That’s because this president “has no discernible political phi- Benjamin Hart in NYMag.com. Trump is not about to abandon the losophy,” and navigates from one moment to the next by means “tens of millions of aggrieved white people” who elected him, or the of “instincts, reflexes, and prejudices” that are governed only by far-right agenda they elected him to enact. His deal with Democrats his own immediate self-interest. McConnell and Ryan reluctantly arose out of an impulsive quest for a few days of good press and decided to support Trump on the gamble that his political inexpe- revenge on Republican leaders, not from some brilliant long-term rience would let them set the agenda. That was a huge miscalcula- strategy. Besides, Democrats “are in no mood to throw Trump any tion. He could care less what the GOP wants. If Republicans don’t lifelines,” said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. His anti-immi- now establish an “identity apart from Trump,” they will become grant virulence and race-baiting have made the president morally “complicit in their own humiliation and irrelevance.”

Good week for: Only in America Democrats embrace Monkey business, after plaintiffs in a long- single-payer health bill QA mayoral candidate in running lawsuit over a “selfie” taken by a Charlotte, N.C., listed being smiling Indonesian macaque named Naruto At least 15 Democratic sena- “white” as one of her quali- tors, most of them presidential fications. Kimberley Paige reached a settlement, assuring that 25 percent hopefuls, lined up to support Barnette described herself as of future proceeds from the smiling monkey’s Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) this “Republican & smart, white, famous picture will go to groups dedicated to week as he introduced legisla- traditional,” prompting GOP protecting his species and his habitat. tion that would expand Medi- leaders to distance them- Slinging suds, after Oliver Strümpfel of Germany beat his own care into a universal health selves from her campaign. world record by carrying 29 full steins of beer using just two insurance program. Sanders Barnette also pledged to crack hands. The beer and glasses weighed 152 pounds. has introduced single-payer down on demonstrations, health legislation three times Real news, because “they scare people.” after conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh told his before, but he has never had a listeners that dire forecasts of Hurricane Irma’s impact were a liberal co-sponsor. This time, a roster QAn entire Iraqi-American media plot to create “fear and panic” and “advance this climate of influential senators put their family was arrested in Wichita change agenda.” He had to cancel his Friday show and flee Florida. after the father tried to depos- names on the bill, including it a large check from the sale Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bad week for: Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), of their home. Sattar Ali sup- Sen. Ted Cruz, who blamed an unnamed staffer for “screwing plied verification documents and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). while depositing the $151,000 up’’ and hitting the “like’’ button on Cruz’s official Twitter account Democratic leaders declined chec k, but bank officials had for a pornographic video. “It was not me,’’ Cruz said. to endorse the measure, say- him arrested and handcuffed. Loving your dog too much, after an Arkansas government ing they wanted to focus on Police also detained his worker pleaded guilty to spending $200,000 of public money to protecting Obama care; the weeping wife, 15-year-old buy her pug a dog tuxedo, sequined throw pillows, and pet insur- bill has no chance of passing daughter, and 11-year-old son. in the GOP-led Congress. Re- ance, among other items. publican Sen. John Barrasso “I would expect this in the London sewer workers, who began using high-powered jet 1950s,” said Ali, an engineer (R-Wyo.) said Sanders’ bill has who moved to the U.S. in hoses to break up a giant “fatberg”—a 250-yard-long, 130-ton mass become a costly “litmus test 1993, “not now.” of congealed cooking oil, used diapers, wet wipes, and other refuse for the liberal left.”

that is blocki ng a major sewer pipe. “It’s a monster,” said an official. Slater/Caters News (2), David Getty

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 The U.S. at a glance ... NEWS 7

Seattle Washington, Michigan, and New York City, Washington, D.C., Mayor resigns: Seattle Pennsylvania and Shanksville, Pa. Mayor Ed Murray resigned GOP retirements: Three moderate House 9/11 remembrances: Family members, this week, hours after a Republicans in competitive districts have survivors, and fifth man—Murray’s announced that they will not be seeking first responders younger cousin— re-election next year—raising fears among gathered in three came forward GOP lawmakers that Democrats will take sites across the to accuse the those seats in the 2018 midterms and Northeast this Democratic politi- possibly wrest back control of the House. week to com- cian of sexually Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) started the mini memorate the Murray: Abuse scandal abusing him as exodus last week after announcing he 16th anniversary a child. Joseph wouldn’t seek an eighth term because he of the 9/11 ter- Paying tribute Dyer, 54, told The Seattle Times that was tired of the “dysfunction, disorder, and rorist attacks. Murray forced him to have sex in the chaos” on Capitol Hill. Dent’s district was A total of 2,977 people were killed when mid-1970s, when they shared a family won by former President Barack Obama planes hijacked by al Qaida terrorists hit bedroom. In May, Murray ended his re- in 2008. Within days, he was joined the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, election bid after another man publicly by fellow centrists Rep. Dave Reichert and a field near Shanksville in 2001, in accused Murray of repeatedly raping him (R-Wash.) and Rep. Dave Trott (R-Mich.). the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. when he was 15 in exchange for money. A total of seven House Republicans have In New York City, officials read out vic- Murray, who is the city’s first openly gay now decided to retire, and Republicans tims’ names, while in Pennsylvania, Vice mayor, said he was being targeted for his fear that this latest rash could prompt President Mike Pence honored the pas- sexuality, but he agreed to drop out of the more. “If this is the tip of the iceberg,” sengers who downed the hijacked Flight race so that the scandal would not over- said political analyst Geoffrey Skelley, 93. President Trump led a moment of take the election. Another three “that will be very bad for the GOP.” silence on the White House lawn before men subsequently accused Murray speaking at the Pentagon, where of various forms of sexual abuse he pledged that America “will when they were teens. Murray never, ever yield.” Sixteen years denies the allegations, but said on, medical examiners are still he would step down immedi- identifying the remains of victims ately so that his personal issues killed at the Trade Center, while “do not affect the ability of our more than 500 first responders have city government to conduct the joined the victim list after succumbing public’s business.” to 9/11-linked cancers.

Denver Washington, D.C. Bolling tragedy: The son of Fox News Mueller’s plans: personality Eric Special counsel Robert Bolling was Mueller intends to found dead interview at least in his Boulder six current and apartment last Bedminster, N.J., Potomac Falls, former White week, hours Vir., and Palm Beach, Fla. House aides after the TV Golfing with Trump: President Trump as part of Trump Jr.: No collusion host lost his job is making millions of dollars from lob- his investiga- at the network byists and CEOs who have joined his tion into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 amid a sexual private golf clubs, putting them in close election, The Washington Post reported Bolling: Grieving harassment contact with the president. While the last week. Mueller is reportedly homing scandal. Bolling was suspended in August White House refuses to disclose the in on President Trump’s role in draft- after The Huffington Post reported that details of Trump’s golf trips, USA Today ing a misleading statement, written he had sent lewd text messages, including reported last week that it had uncovered aboard Air Force One, that justified a “an unsolicited photo of male genitalia,” about 50 executives of companies with controversial campaign meeting between to at least three colleagues. Last week, federal contracts and 21 lobbyists and Donald Trump Jr. and Russian officials— the network canceled Bolling’s show, trade group officials who have each paid prompting speculation that he is building The Specialists, and announced that it fees that can exceed $100,000 to join the a case for obstruction of justice. Trump Jr. was “amicably” parting ways with the three clubs in Florida, New Jersey, and was grilled by congressional investigators host. Eric Chase Bolling Jr., 19, who was Virginia that Trump has visited most often about that meeting last week. He said he studying at the University of Colorado as president. About two-thirds of the lob- didn’t tell his father about the meeting, Boulder, was found dead shortly after the byists and CEOs played on one of the 58 which he took when Russians offered announcement. Sources told TMZ.com days the president was at the clubs this “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, but couldn’t that Bolling Jr. was suffering “emotional year. They include the leader of a pesticide recall who drafted the statement claiming torture” over his father’s humiliation. But trade group that successfully lobbied the the meeting was supposed to be about a other friends disputed that claim, and Trump administration not to ban an insec- suspended Russian “adoption” program. Bolling Sr. said that his “beloved son” ticide linked to health risks, and a lawyer Trump Jr. told investigators that he “did showed “no sign of self harm.” Police defending Saudi Arabia from allegations not collude with any foreign government

AP, Getty, AP, Getty AP, Getty, AP, said toxicology tests would take weeks. that it aided the 9/11 terrorist attacks. and [does] not know of anyone who did.”

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 8 NEWS The world at a glance ...

Paris Berlin Labor against Macron: Tens of Obama for Merkel: Candidates for the rul- thousands of union members ing center-right Christian Democratic Union in and leftists protested in every Germany’s upcoming election are plastering post- major French city this week ers with President Obama’s face around Berlin. against President Emmanuel On his last overseas trip as president, after the Macron’s move to bring French U.S. election last November, Obama endorsed labor laws closer to EU norms. Chancellor Angela Merkel in her re-election bid, The changes make it easier to and now her CDU party is quoting him on the Marching in Marseille hire and fire workers, as well as posters, which read in German, “If I could, I’d vote let smaller businesses perform Merkel.” A whopping 86 percent of Germans say He’s a Merkel fan. their own labor negotiations instead of having to follow indus- they trust Obama’s judgment in global affairs, trywide agreements—reforms that economist Gilbert Cette said compared with 11 percent who trust President Trump’s. Merkel is would amount to “a big bang in the functioning of the French expected to cruise to a fourth term as chancellor on Sept. 24, as her labor market.” Macron offended many French citizens last week party is polling 14 points ahead of the center-left Social Democrats. by saying opponents of the reforms were “slackers,” and some demonstrators carried “Slackers, unite!” signs. Macron didn’t see the demonstrations, as he was touring France’s Caribbean islands to survey damage from Hurricane Irma. Havana Irma flood: Hurricane Irma battered Cuba for three days this week, ripping up trees, wrecking sugar cane and banana fields, and flooding towns across the island. Waves as high as 30 feet crashed over Havana’s iconic Malecon seawall and flooded the historic district, damaging the city’s picturesque Art Deco homes and shops. At least 10 people were killed, but government officials said the toll would have been much higher if it hadn’t been for the orderly evacuation of more than 1 million people. “This is not a time to mourn,” said President Raúl Castro, “but to construct again that which the winds of Irma attempted to destroy.” Havana’s overtopped seawall

Juchitán, Mexico Deadly earthquake: The biggest earthquake to hit Mexico in a century struck the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas last week, killing some 100 people and prompting the government to rescind its offer of aid to U.S. victims of Hurricane Harvey. The magnitude-8.1 quake and multiple aftershocks demolished thousands of homes. The town of Juchitán was especially hard- hit. “Everything that I worked so long for is gone,” shop owner Benito Chinas, 83, told the Associated Press. “At my age how am I going to start over?” Meanwhile, directly north, Hurricane Katia made landfall in Veracruz state along Mexico’s Gulf coast, knock- ing out power to tens of thousands and dumping heavy rain; two people were killed in a mudslide. Caracas U.N. accuses Maduro: The government of President Nicolás Maduro may have committed crimes against humanity, the U.N. human rights chief said this week. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Jandiatuba River, Brazil Venezuela was rounding up protesters and opposition leaders Tribe massacred? Brazilian authorities are investigating the pos- with excessive force, and sometimes killing them. sible massacre of 10 members of one of the Amazon’s most remote, Detainees, including children, were subjected to “uncontacted” hunter-gatherer tribes. A group of gold miners “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” that reportedly bragged in a bar near the Colombia border about hav- in some cases rose to the level of torture. The ing killed the tribe members, showing off tools and jewelry stolen International Commission of Jurists also said from the dead. A bar patron recorded their confession and gave the this week that Venezuela’s Supreme Court had audio to the police, sparking a federal investigation. The more than utterly dismantled the rule of law. “We have 100 uncontacted Amazon tribes are mostly small family bands, so seen a judiciary that has essentially lost its if the massacre is confirmed, it could mean a significant percentage independence and become a tool of a very of an entire ethnic group was wiped out. Funding for indigenous authoritarian executive branch,” said ICJ affairs in Brazil has been cut by nearly 70 percent since 2014, and

Maduro Secretary-General Sam Zarifi. officials don’t have the resources to monitor the tribes. Newscom AP, Post, Witte/Washington Griff AP,

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 The world at a glance ... NEWS 9

Moscow Ankara Russians brag about meddling: Russian lawmakers are now Weapons from Russia: Turkey has openly boasting that their country helped elect Donald Trump. alarmed its NATO allies by agreeing to Discussing waning U.S. influence around the world, Duma mem- buy a $2.5 billion missile-defense sys- ber Vyacheslav Nikonov said on Russian TV tem from Russia. NATO members are this week that U.S. intelligence “missed it encouraged to buy compatible weap- when Russian intelligence stole the presidency ons systems, preferably from other of the United States.” Earlier this month, NATO members, but the Russian mis- Nikita Isaev, leader of the far-right New siles can’t be integrated into NATO’s Russia Movement, said on Russian state TV defenses. The deal is further evidence Putin and Erdogan ink a deal. that Moscow should release its compromising of Turkey’s increasing coziness with material on Trump in retaliation for the U.S. Russia, as the two countries cooperate in the war in Syria. The closing Russian diplomatic compounds. When Pentagon expressed concern, but Turkey was defiant. “What were asked whether the Kremlin had such informa- we supposed to do, wait for you?” said Turkish President Recep tion on the U.S. president, Isaev said, “Of Tayyip Erdogan. “We are taking and will take all our measures Nikonov course we have it!” on the security front.” Pyongyang, North Korea Anger over sanctions: North Korea said the “evil” sanctions the U.N. placed on it this week have only stiffened its resolve to rapidly build a nuclear weapon that can strike the U.S. The U.N. Security Council levied the sanctions—which limit oil imports to North Korea and prohibit it from exporting textiles, a key source of hard currency for the isolated country—in response to Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test. North Korea has claimed the Sept. 3 test was of a hydrogen bomb, and this week, leader Kim Jong Un threw a huge party for the scientists, techni- Celebrating the nuclear test cians, and military officials who con- tributed to the effort. Guests feasted at a banquet as singers performed and posed for photos with Kim himself. “The recent test of the H-bomb is the great victory won by the Korean people at the cost of their blood while tightening their belts in the arduous period,” Kim said.

Deir el-Zour, Syria Civilians slain: Dozens of Syrian civilians, including children, were killed by U.S. and Russian airstrikes this week, as multiple sides in the conflict tried to break the ISIS siege of Deir el-Zour. Russian forces backing Syrian troops were responsible for most of the civilian deaths, while an errant strike from U.S. forces back- ing Kurdish troops killed 12 members of a Syrian family. Thanks largely to Russian military support, the Syrian government once again controls 85 percent of Syrian territory and is closing in on the remainder, still held by militants. Since 2015, Russia has delivered thousands of tons of military equipment and supplies to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Singapore Harare, Zimbabwe Selected, not elected: Singapore got its first female president by Diamonds fund Mugabe regime: default this week, after the four other candidates were disqualified. Zimbabwe’s ruling elite are plunder- Halimah Yacob, 63, is a former speaker of the city- ing the country’s diamond wealth to state’s Parliament. Singapore recently changed the enrich themselves and fund the feared eligibility rules for the presidency: Candidates must intelligence service. The anticorrup- be ethnic Malay, and they must have either held Illicit riches tion group Global Witness said in a high elected office for at least three years or a report this week that the country’s diamonds are channeled been head of a private company with more than through a complex network of firms based in former British colo- $370 mil lion in market capitalization. Dissent is nies, including Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands, and South rare in Singapore, but there were a few gentle mur- Africa. Zimbabwe has officially exported more than $2.5 billion murs of dismay over the lack of competition, with in diamonds since 2010, the report said, but only $300 million one opposition politician saying it detracted from the has made it into the government treasury. Three-quarters of president’s “moral authority.” The presidency, a six- Zimbabweans live in poverty amid crumbling infrastructure and year term, is largely ceremonial, but it does confer

Getty, AP, Newscom (2), AP (2), Newscom AP, Getty, high unemployment. the power to veto some government decisions. Yacob: A first

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 10 NEWS People

Moore’s war with the elites Michael Moore’s big mouth has always landed him in trouble, said Jessica Pressler in New York magazine. When the left-wing documentary film- maker was growing up in Flint, Mich., he decided to become a priest—but was kicked out of the seminary in his second year for asking too many questions. Switching to a public high school, Moore ran for the school board as a teenager on a platform of firing the principal. He won—but was ousted by his adult colleagues when they got fed up with his frequent dramatic protests. Why is he always at war with authority? “The way I look at it, it’s because I don’t come from money,” says the Bowling for Columbine director. His battle with “the elites” continued into his film career, when Fahrenheit 9/11 and his other films were dis- missed by influential critics. Moore attributes those bad reviews to his criticism of The New York Times and other liberal publications over their support for the Iraq War, and to the resentment of elites of his success. “I have a high-school education. My dad was a fac- tory worker, my mom was a secretary. Most of them went to a good school. And they may not be where the promise of their privi- lege was going to take them. And so I have to listen to the sadness that exists inside them about themselves—that’s what I really hear.” The queen of the sweepstakes Carolyn Wilman is an expert at making her own luck, said Elisabeth Leamy in WashingtonPost.com. The resident of Ontario, Married to a serial cheater Canada, is a hard-core “sweeper”—the term used to describe Sharon Osbourne trusts husband Ozzy about as far as she can people who dedicate a huge chunk of their lives to entering contests throw him, said Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). The and sweepstakes, in the hopes of winning cash, cars, holidays, and Black Sabbath rocker has cheated on her with at least six different more. Wilman spends one to two hours a day on her hobby—“not women, she says—“Some Russian teenager, then a masseuse in so much you cut into work, family time, and other obligations.” England, our masseuse [in the U.S.], and then our cook. Basically, She estimates she has already won more than a quarter of a million if you’re a woman giving Ozzy either a back rub or a trolley of dollars worth of prizes, including free pizza for a year, Rihanna food, God help you.” After 33 years of marriage, Osbourne, 64, decided enough was enough last year, when she discovered Ozzy tickets, two $2,000 shopping sprees, a trip to the Winter Olympics, had strayed yet again—this time, with his hairdresser. “I couldn’t and a two-week vacation in Europe. She averages about 36,000 believe it. None of these women were show ponies; he was entries a year, winning about 1 percent of them. “It truly is a num- doing it to fill the void in some way.” Ozzy sought treatment for bers game,” she says. Wilman and other sweepers trawl websites sex addiction, and the two have since reunited. But temptation such as Sweepstakes Advantage and Sweepstakes Fanatics, and she is everywhere in Los Angeles. The city is full of women trying to uses special auto-complete software to cut her test-entering time get rich or famous off their looks, with Kim Kardashian and her in half. If the contest involves an entry slip, she crinkles the paper reality-TV sisters serving as role models. “Those girls live off their to make it easier to grab from the competition box. She’s almost bodies, half of L.A. has been through them, and everything they a professional—though Wilman rejects that label. “I wish I could do is about sex, not female progress. And listen: God bless them. earn my living winning sweepstakes. But I couldn’t pay my rent if I But that’s not feminism, that’s being a ho. And there’s nothing had to rely on prizes. Winning just enhances my life.” wrong with being a ho, but always remember what you are.”

has been alleged—but not confirmed— however, neither Kardashian nor West, 40, that in return for granting her a quick has confirmed the pregnancy. “When we’re and largely uncontested divorce, Cruise ready to talk about it we will,” the reality star QKatie Holmes and Jamie Foxx finally went public with their insisted that Holmes not “embarrass” him told EOnline.com last week, calling the sur- relationship last week, con- in any way, and that she not date publicly rogacy reports “super invasive.” for five years. That waiting period would firming one of Hollywood’s QSinead O’Connor says she’s “fed up of worst-kept secrets. Sporting have ended in June. Whatever the reason, being defined as the crazy person.” The Irish matching fedoras, Holmes, Holmes “has been being more open” about singer, who has spoken openly about her 38, and Foxx, 49, were seen her relationship with Foxx, a source told struggles with mental illness and recently strolling hand in hand along Entertainment Tonight. was hospitalized, told TV psychologist the beach at Malibu, laugh- QKim Kardashian and Kanye West are Dr. Phil McGraw this week that she remains ing and wading in the surf. expecting their third child in January, a baby haunted by memories of childhood abuse The pair have been linked girl to be delivered via surrogate, People at the hands of her late mother, Marie. “She ever since they were photographed danc- .com reports. A mother of two, Kardashian, ran a torture chamber,” O’Connor said. “She ing together at a 2013 charity event—a year 36, is said to have hired a surrogate because was a person who took delight in hurting after Holmes’ highly publicized divorce of her struggles with placenta accreta— you.” When McGraw asked what she loved from Tom Cruise—but they’ve taken elabo- when the placenta attaches too deeply into most about Marie, who was killed in an auto rate measures to keep their romance under the uterine wall—which she called “the accident when her daughter was 19, the the radar, including wearing disguises. It most painful experience of my life.” Thus far, singer replied, “That she’s dead.” Getty, AP (3) Getty,

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Briefing NEWS 11 The presidential pardon Presidents have almost unlimited power to grant clemency for federal crimes—but they don’t always use it wisely.

Why was this power created? to Nixon’s re-election bid. Of course, it was the The Constitution’s Article II, Section 2 gives presi- 37th president himself who benefited from the dents the power to grant pardons “for Offenses most hotly debated pardon in U.S. history. against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Pardons can free people convicted What happened? of crimes from jail terms, formally forgive them When Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal without expunging their criminal records, and in 1974, he still faced potential prosecution for restore certain rights—to vote, or bear arms, for obstruction of justice and other charges. But a example. The Founders saw presidential pardons month after taking office, President Gerald Ford as a last resort for people wronged by the courts. addressed the nation and offered his predecessor Otherwise, “justice would wear a countenance too “a full, free, and absolute pardon” for crimes he sanguinary and cruel,” Alexander Hamilton wrote “committed or may have committed.” Ford said in The Federalist Papers. Still, the “principal argu- he’d hoped to spare an already traumatized nation ment” for the power, he said, was to restore “tran- a divisive prosecution of a former president, but quility” in case of armed resurrection—which moti- many suspected that Nixon had made a deal with vated George Washington in granting the first par- his vice president to resign in return for the pardon. don (see box) and Abraham Lincoln’s decision to Nixon: A controversial pardon Ford’s pardon contributed to his 1976 election pardon Confederate soldiers and all but the highest loss to Jimmy Carter. “The pardon exacerbated Confederate officials. When President Trump tweeted he had the public’s distrust of government,” says historian Rick Perlstein, “complete power to pardon,” he wasn’t far off—chief executives “reinforcing Americans’ sense that the president was above the have almost unlimited latitude to put aside convictions (but only law.” It was hardly the last pardon to invite that perception. of federal crimes), and they haven’t been shy about using it. “For most of American history,” says political scientist P.S. Ruckman Jr., What other pardons were controversial? “presidents pardoned frequently, early, and often.” George H.W. Bush caught heat for pardoning Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, indicted for perjury in the Iran-Contra How does the pardon process work? scandal, along with five other defendants. Bush was Reagan’s vice Typically, offenders make a formal request to the Justice president during the illegal sale of arms to Iran, admitted having Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which advises on been present during discussions of the scheme, and was likely to executive clemency. (The DOJ imposes a five-year waiting period have testified during the trials. President Bill Clinton very liber- after the pardon seeker’s conviction or release.) The pardon office ally used his pardon authority to benefit allies, including his own evaluates the request, then makes a recommendation. There are half-brother, Roger Clinton, and fugitive financier Marc Rich. Rich times, however, when presidents circumvent this process. Former was “one of the least worthy recipients of a pardon in modern Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a staunch Trump sup- history”—a fugitive from justice who was “unrepentant for his porter, never submitted a pardon request; indeed, he’d yet to be tax evasion, racketeering, fraud,” and illegal oil deals with Iran. sentenced for a contempt conviction arising from allegedly brutal President Barack Obama granted just 212 pardons, one of the low- and discriminatory immigration-enforcement practices. Yet the est rates of any president. He did, however, commute sentences for president pre-emptively pardoned him. While pardons often do 1,715 inmates, primarily nonviolent drug offenders serving harsh remedy injustice, “presidents have repeat- “mandatory minimums,” as well as for edly used this power for their personal, The first pardon ex–intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, political, and familial interests,” says con- Presidential pardons began with whiskey— who’d served seven of 35 years for pass- stitutional scholar Jonathan Turley. more precisely, a hefty tax on spirits enacted in ing secrets to WikiLeaks. 1791 to pay down Revolutionary War debt. The When has the pardon been abused? levy (as much as 30 percent) was a burden to How might Trump use the pardon? Abuse can be in the eye—and politics— poor farmer-distillers and sparked violent pro- There is speculation he may blunt spe- of the beholder. Thomas Jefferson was tests. While President Washington counseled cial counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia widely criticized for pardoning allies “forbearance,” Treasury Secretary Alexander investigation by pre-emptively par- convicted under the Alien and Sedition Hamilton urged a more vigorous response. doning everyone in his inner circle. Acts. More than a century later, President The so-called Whiskey Rebellion climaxed on Constitutional scholars disagree about Warren G. Harding was accused of selling July 17, 1794, when 500 insurgents burned the whether Trump has the power to pardon pardons for contributions, and gave one home of tax supervisor John Neville outside himself. But Jeffrey Crouch, author of to a mob enforcer suspected in 60 mur- Pittsburgh. Reluctantly, Washington himself The Presidential Pardon Power, says ders. Franklin D. Roosevelt pardoned led a militia force of 13,000 to the area and a Trump self-pardon could very well Conrad Mann—convicted of running an easily put down the revolt. Two rebels—John backfire. A 1915 Supreme Court deci- Mitchell and Philip Weigel—were convicted illegal lottery—mainly because he was a sion deemed accepting a pardon an of treason and sentenced to death. But on admission of guilt. “The standard for close associate of Kansas City’s notori- July 10, 1795, Washington granted them the ous Democratic boss Tom Pendergast. first presidential pardon, expressing his belief impeachment— ‘treason, bribery, or other In 1971, Richard M. Nixon granted that the new American government ought to high crimes and misdemeanors’— is not clemency to Teamsters President Jimmy exercise “every degree of moderation and criminal, it’s political,” Crouch says. “So Hoffa, who was doing 15 years for jury tenderness which the national justice, dignity, an acknowledgment of guilt made via tampering and fraud; in 1972, the pow- and safety may permit.” a self-pardon could actually become a

AP erful Hoffa threw the union’s support starting point for impeachment.”

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.

Should faithful Christians be barred from serving as judges? It seems Democrats’ like an absurd question, said David Harsanyi, but Democrats on the It must be true... Senate Judiciary Committee suggested just that last week in question- I read it in the tabloids religious test ing federal appeals court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a practicing for judges Roman Catholic and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin QA new mother who at- Scalia. Setting an ugly tone, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said that Barrett’s tended the Burning Man David Harsanyi previous writings indicate that “the dogma lives loudly within you.” festival in Nevada gave away NationalReview.com Sen. Dick Durbin asked Barrett, “Do you consider yourself an ortho- her breast milk to dozens dox Catholic?” No question about it: The committee’s Democrats were of fellow festivalgoers. Miki subjecting Barrett to the “religious test” banned by the Constitution. Agrawal, 38, pumped her In the past, Barrett has freely indicated that “faith informs her views,” breasts every three hours at but has expressly said that if confronted with a case that conflicted with the weeklong gathering in her Catholic beliefs—such as ordering an execution in a death-penalty the Black Rock Desert. “Some wanted it for their coffee to case—she would recuse herself. She has also said that as a judge, she is make lattes,’’ Agrawal said. obligated to interpret and apply the Constitution and the law, not her “Some people downed a own beliefs. That should satisfy any questions about her fitness to serve whole four ounces hoping for on the federal bench. For Democrats, however, the only acceptable reli- a hangover cure.” Agrawal, gion for public officials is “orthodox liberalism.” who said the breast milk tast- ed like “sweet coconut milk,” explained that “Burning Man “It would seem bizarre for Donald Trump’s sole legislative achievement is a place where you can try Why Trump to be the negation of his central campaign theme,” said Jonathan Chait. things without judgment.” But “the implausible has become suddenly plausible”: With Democratic may legalize votes, Trump could actually pass legislation protecting the “Dreamers,” QA 5-year-old British boy the 800,000 immigrants brought to this country illegally as children. found a nasty surprise when he lifted the lid of his family’s ‘Dreamers’ Trump “rode anti-immigrant sentiment to the presidency,” but he bathroom toilet: a 3-foot-long Jonathan Chait “cares more about positive feedback and good press” than about any python. Laura Cowell said NYMag.com policy position. Indeed, he’s recently professed “a love” for the Dream- the toilet ers. His recent bipartisan deal with Democrats on the debt ceiling got had been him the positive attention he craves, and he “will probably want to partially tap the bar for another pleasure hit.” Because of the cult of personality blocked for that is Trumpism, he could easily sell his base on a compromise with a few days the Democrats. It would couple Dreamer legalization with heightened when her border security measures—perhaps increased drone surveillance and ad- son made ditional fencing—that “Trump can call a ‘wall’ and Democrats can call the unexpected discovery. ‘not a wall.’” Both sides could claim victory, “the classic lubricant of “He was frantic,” she said. any political negotiation.” Thanks to the peculiar politics of the Trump “I could tell something was era, legalizing the Dreamers “is not just a dream.” wrong, but that was not what I expected.” Snake specialists who removed the unwanted The Nashville Statement sounds like “the death rattle” of a religious visitor said it was probably a Pretending movement stuck in the 19th century, said Sarah Jones. The statement, discarded pet. They said the recently issued by the Tennessee-based Council for Biblical Manhood python “smelt of bleach and that gays and Womanhood, declares unequivocally that “adopting a homosexual a bit toilet-y,” but would be or transgender self-conception” is in itself a sin. The 187 prominent “re-homed with someone don’t exist evangelical leaders who signed the statement say God intended all reputable, so he won’t end up in a toilet again.” Sarah Jones human beings to be either male or female, and sex to occur only within NewRepublic.com heterosexual marriage. It’s no shock, of course, that evangelicals are QA judge in Berlin has opposed to homosexuality. But the Biblical literalists who issued this upheld a man’s legal right to statement see the rising acceptance of gay people and gay marriage as fart in front of police officers. a threat to their patriarchal worldview, in which women and men have The defendant, identified only as Christoph S., broke “distinct roles.’’ So the statement insists that same-sex orientation—and wind twice during an identity transgender identity—are mere “psychological conditions” and are check by a policewoman in inherently immoral. No “faithful Christian,” the statement says, may February 2016. Police charged disagree with this view. Millions of Christians do adamantly disagree, that Christoph “insulted” her including the 47 percent of evangelicals under age 53 who support mar- “honor,” and a judge ordered riage equality. The Nashville Statement only reveals the religious right’s him to pay a $1,110 fine. But “deep insecurity” over its waning influence over how Americans think. he appealed the decision, and last week a magistrate’s Viewpoint “In [President] Trump’s first seven months in office, the stock market boomed court judge ruled in his favor. and the United States faced no full-blown national-security crisis. But what if Christoph’s lawyer said it was the economy collapses, or the country faces a major domestic terrorist attack or even nuclear war? not surprising that police What if Mueller finds evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians—and Trump fires not just wanted him punished, but Mueller but also scores of others in the Justice Department, and pardons himself and everyone else the fact that the prosecutor’s involved? These are not crazy possibilities. The Constitution has held thus far and might continue to office pursued a farting case do so under more-extreme circumstances. But it also might not.” Jack Goldsmith in The Atlantic was a “failure of the state.” Screenshot: Laura Cowell

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 The superlative-charged chronograph. 50 mm case in Breitlight®. Exclusive Manufacture Breitling Caliber B12 with 24-hour military-style display. Officially chronometer-certified. 14 NEWS Best columns: Europe

HUNGARY Why should Hungary pay for the sins of Western ture, a civilization,” by taking in Muslim immi- Europe? asked Zsolt Bayer. The European Court grants whose values are the antithesis of our own. of Justice has just rejected the challenge brought There’s poetic justice in this, at least for former Don’t dump by Hungary and Slovakia against the European colonial powers like France, Britain, Spain, and Union’s mandatory refugee-relocation scheme, Italy, which plundered their colonies in Africa and migrants through which every EU country must house a the Middle East and massacred the locals. Yet portion of the more than 1 million migrants who now that the victims are presenting the bill, the on us poured into Europe in 2015. That means Hun- West “is trying to spread its shame and sin across gary and Slovakia, which voted against taking the entire EU.” That is both “despicable and Zsolt Bayer in refugees, will be forced to do so against their unlawful.” It’s bad enough that we are watching Magyar Idok will by faceless Brussels bureaucrats—an outra- “the cities of our dreams, from Paris to London,” geous loss of sovereign control over our borders turn into horrifying vectors of terrorism. We re- and our ethnic makeup. The EU is determined to fuse to let it happen to Budapest. “There will be commit suicide, “destroying a continent, a cul- no quota allocation here! Never!”

GERMANY Mafiosi are spreading across Germany, said month because the Green Party demanded statistics Mar tin Knobbe. We first realized that Italian from the federal government. Yet these mafiosi pose The Italian organized-crime families were here a decade ago, a huge threat. An estimated $100 billion in dirty when six people were shot dead outside a pasta money flows through our economy each year, but curse joint in the western city of Duisburg. Since then, in the past decade, only 102 criminal cases have the number of confirmed mafia figures living in been brought against mafia groups. Contrast that is here Germany has more than quadrupled, to 562—and with the 900 terrorist investigations launched in the those are just the ones known to the authorities. past year alone. “There are not enough investiga- Martin Knobbe About 20 percent of those mobsters belong to the tors in the area of organized crime,” says Green Der Spiegel Sicilian Cosa Nostra; nearly 60 percent are with the lawmaker Irene Mihalic. “It’s a disgrace, and one Calabria-based ’Ndrangheta. German officials have that must be rectified.” The jihadist threat takes the kept quiet about this alarming rise in organized bulk of security resources, and that’s understand- crime, which was only revealed to the public last able. But don’t forget: The Mafia also kills. Spain: Catalans defy Madrid to seek independence Catalonia is hurtling toward a language, and enjoy considerable local showdown with Spain, said Michael autonomy. Yet they are in the grip of Stothard in the Financial Times a delusion “that somehow our nation (U.K.). The autonomous region that robs and mistreats” them. The Catalan includes Barcelona has its own lan- government has lied to its people, said guage and distinct culture, and it has El País (Spain), “just as the Brexiteers been seething with separatist sentiment deceived Britons into voting to secede for decades. That “long-simmering from the EU.” Do they really think conflict” finally “reached a boiling a free Catalonia would be allowed point” last week, when the Catalan to join the EU? Brussels would never legislature voted to hold a referendum encourage separatist movements by on independence Oct. 1. Spanish accepting Catalonia as a member. And courts ruled the vote would be un- Dutch bank ING has calculated that constitutional, and authorities warned independence would be even worse for Catalonia’s 947 mayors against allow- Catalans, economically speaking, than Thousands marched in Barcelona on National Day. ing balloting. But most local leaders Brexit will be for the Brits. said they would use official town and city facilities for the vote; one mayor even ripped up a court order “in front of a cheering It’s not about the money, said Andreu Mas in El Punt Avui crowd.” Annual demonstrations on the National Day of Catalo- (Catalonia). It’s about our dignity, and our future. Catalans are nia, which marks the region’s 1714 defeat by King Philip V, have sick of being “subjected to the whims of mediocre politicians” in grown more overtly secessionist for years, and the one this week Madrid, who are much more conservative than we are and care brought a million jubilant Catalans into the streets. about our people not a whit. We aren’t demanding the breakup of Spain, but rather “the restitution of our sovereignty,” stolen Catalans have been brainwashed by a “radicalized and intran- “in blood and fire” some 300 years ago. Independence forces sigent minority,” said ABC (Spain) in an editorial. All of Spain still don’t have a majority, however, said Luis Mauri in El Peri- was devastated by the 2008 global financial crisis, but Catalan odico de Catalunya (Catalonia). A plurality of 40 percent of separatists chose to “manipulate the emotions of millions, en- Catalans support independence, but more want either greater couraging them to see in their hatred of Spain the solution to all autonomy within Spain or the status quo. Yet because Barcelona their woes.” Catalonia makes up 16 percent of Spain’s population has declared that even a low-turnout vote will be binding, the and produces 21 percent of its tax revenue—a small discrepancy secessionist forces are likely to win. Catalonia has “a broken causing disproportionate resentment. Catalans are full citizens spine.” The referendum won’t heal it, whatever the outcome. who vote in national elections, educate their children in their own Let’s hope we will “do no more harm than we have already.” Newscom

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Best columns: International NEWS 15

Myanmar: Suu Kyi silent as Rohingya are driven out My people are being slaughtered, “No one told me I was going to be said an unnamed Rohingya refugee in interviewed by a Muslim.” AlJazeera.com. In the past few weeks, Myanmar troops, aided by Buddhist Myanmar’s neighbors are no bet- mobs, have killed some 3,000 ethnic ter, said The Nation (Pakistan) in Rohingya, a Muslim minority that has an editorial. Bangladeshi guards are lived in Rakhine state for centuries. forcibly turning back Rohingya refu- More than 300,000 of us have fled gees at the border. Last month, India to neighboring Bangladesh. For de- “decided to deport all Rohingya cades we have been oppressed; denied Muslims from its soil.” And on a re- citizenship, jobs, and benefits; and cent visit to Myanmar, Indian Prime sometimes herded into concentration Minister Narendra Modi blamed the camps. But when Nobel Peace laure- victims, telling Suu Kyi, “We share ate Aung San Suu Kyi took power last your concerns about extremist vio- year, we hoped that she would speak Rohingya refugees fleeing to Bangladesh lence in Rakhine state and especially up for us. Instead, we are being “shot the violence against security forces.” dead in plain sight, forcibly and systematically made homeless, Apparently the Hindu nationalist Modi and Suu Kyi can agree on our homes razed in front of our very eyes.” Entire villages are one thing: Muslims are the enemy. being burned, children butchered, women raped. Suu Kyi has said nothing. “Our last hope failed us.” Don’t expect Western powers to help, said Sultan Hali in the Pakistan Observer. They have every reason to look away. Suu Kyi is actually abetting this ethnic cleansing, said Mushtak Rakhine state is key to China’s massive “One Belt, One Road” Parker in the New Straits Times (Malaysia). A Buddhist nation- international infrastructure project. Huge gas deposits have been alist, she says the unrest in Rakhine is the fault of Rohingya found offshore, and China intends to develop a deepwater port in militants, claiming that the small, poorly armed peasant upris- Rakhine on the Bay of Bengal. It is in Western interests to try to ing called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army is some kind slow or block these Chinese projects. “Inciting genocide in Rakh- of terrorist front menacing the country. Fellow Nobel laureates ine could help to achieve that.” It’s up to the Muslim world, then, Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai, as well as Tibetan Bud- to act. Turkish Presi dent Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly dhist leader the Dalai Lama, have implored her to condemn the offered to pay to put up the refugees in Bangla desh if Dhaka will violence. Instead, she fuels it with incendiary Facebook posts open its borders. Other Muslim leaders should pitch in and pres- reflecting her “phobia about Islam.” When a BBC reporter once sure the U.N. to impose sanctions. “We cannot remain innocent questioned her refusal to help the Rohingya, she complained, bystanders while humanity is being trampled.”

It’s the seventh month of the Chinese year, and poned. This year, people are being ridiculously lit- PHILIPPINES that means Filipinos are freaking out about ghosts, eral in their fear, blaming several recent gruesome said Michael Tan. “Ghost month phobia” has murders of teenagers on the ghosts. In fact, the Don’t migrated here from China, even among those who myth probably came to us through Buddhism and aren’t ethnic Chinese. Superstition says that hun- is meant as a parable about karma. Those who be afraid gry, cranky ghosts from the underworld “are let live lives of greed “turn into ghosts with insatiable loose to roam the earth” this lunar month. While hunger.” We’re supposed to take “a moral lesson” of the ghosts the phantoms can be soothed to some extent with from the ghost month, not get hysterical from “an offerings of liquor, food, and cigarettes, they will irrational fear of the dead.” Here’s an idea: We Michael Tan still cause havoc. That means Filipinos won’t plan should use this time to consider how to rein in Philippine Daily Inquirer anything important for this month, be it long- “the insatiable greed of the living ghosts, the cor- distance travel, a business launch, a wedding, or rupt and the power hungry” who encourage vigi- even a surgical procedure if it can possibly be post- lante killings. That might actually make us safer.

MEXICO Mexico’s perennial populist is promising to turn local levels. His solution is simple. “If the president the country “into the Garden of Eden,” said Leo is honest, the governors will be honest, and so Promising Zuckermann. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on down to the last governmental link.” And all known as AMLO, has been running for president that honesty will supposedly save untold sums of all gain, for more than 10 years, and he is heavily favored to money, as the “waste and luxuries of government unseat President Enrique Peña Nieto in next year’s agencies” are abolished. With this miracle wealth, no pain election. And why shouldn’t he be popular? He’s AMLO will fund “projects, projects, and more running on his most inspirational, if implausible, projects.” Everyone will have access to the internet, Leo Zuckermann campaign theme yet: Free stuff for everyone. Mex- and to high-speed trains. The poor will get housing Excelsior ico’s problem, AMLO tells us, is corruption. And and paved roads. Wages will rise, and taxes will that’s not a sin among the people, “who are inher- fall. College will be free. Just vote AMLO, and an ently good,” but at the “top spheres of economic- “earthly paradise will be built in six years—without

AP political power,” from whence it cascades down to any effort or sacrifice.” Will Mexicans be duped?

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 16 NEWS Talking points

Noted The 2016 election: How Russia used Facebook QFear of brain injury has “As if we needed more evidence that Facebook reached millions of American voters.” produced a major decline influenced the election,” said Christine Emba Want to target women ages 22 in student participation in WashingtonPost.com. Last week, the social to 45 or African-Americans in high school football media giant admitted that it had sold more than who live in a swing state in Northern states; in $100,000 in ads between 2015 and 2016 like Wisconsin, and give Michigan, for example, “to a Kremlin-linked ‘troll farm’ seeking to them reasons not to vote for participation has dropped influence U.S. voters.” The ads—which Clinton? For just $1,000 a 21.3 percent since 2006. Facebook refused to day, a Russian troll farm could reach up But in 12 states, mostly in release—contained divisive to 35,000 of them. Another $1,000 could the South, there are more messages on hot-button provide motivating propaganda to that boys playing football to- day than a decade ago. topics “from LGBT mat- number of possible Donald Trump voters. The Wall Street Journal ters to race issues to immi- gration.” Russia’s election Russia’s interference in the 2016 election QPresident Trump has meddling didn’t end there, was an outrageous act of “information nominated 42 U.S. at- said Scott Shane in Spreading Russian propaganda warfare,” said Fred Kaplan in torneys so far to replace The New York Times. Slate.com. We have to get better the 46 Obama appointees An investigation by the Times reveals that the at defending ourselves—starting by forcing Face- he fired. Only one is a Kremlin deployed “a legion of Russian-controlled book and Twitter to demand real human IDs, so woman, and 40 are white impostors” to target Democrat Hillary Clin- that a Russian troll can’t pretend “to be a house- men. When Trump took of- ton. These impostors set up sophisticated fake wife in Ohio.” It’s also time to ask some “hard fice, there were 24 female Facebook accounts, pretending to be ordinary questions,” said Will Bunch in Philly.com. Did U.S. attorneys. Americans with names like “Melvin Redick” and Kremlin trolls tip the election to Trump? Why BuzzFeed.com “Katherine Fulton,” and used those accounts to did some Democrats in North Carolina and other post thousands of anti-Clinton attacks, which swing states find when they went to the polls they Russian bots and real people then passed along couldn’t vote, because poll records were mysteri- on Facebook and Twitter. These efforts represent ously altered? In Wisconsin, don’t forget, Trump “an unprecedented foreign intervention in Ameri- won by only 22,748 votes. These questions can democracy.” demand answers—and yet the Trump administra- tion seems determined to look the other way. It’s By using Facebook’s sophisticated algorithms and as if they “don’t really want to know whether precision ad targeting, said Donie O’Sullivan in Moscow’s interference was so great that it actu- CNN.com, Russia’s troll campaign “could have ally decided the race.” 9/11 anniversary: Why terrorism persists Sixteen years after the cataclysmic events of 9/11, operated, or fell apart when their leader was killed. QA cruise ship’s diesel it’s time to “take stock of where we stand,” said But the same won’t happen to ISIS, al Qaida, or engine can burn through Tom Nichols in TheHill.com. Have we “faced the Taliban. Their ideologies are completely at 150 tons of fuel each day, which would emit as down the threat” from Islamist terrorism? Or odds with Western values, making negotiations much sulfur dioxide and have we “surrendered to it, perhaps in ways we next to impossible, and they’re too scattered and fine particles as 1 million don’t even understand?” Osama bin Laden knew resilient to be erased with battlefield victories. cars. The cruise lines are in 2001 he could never “defeat us by force.” The Unfortunately, technological advances are making resisting installing soot al Qaida leader wanted to “bait us into defeat- terrorism easier, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross in filters to screen out the ing ourselves”—to make us “abandon our values Fortune.com. ISIS reached millions of potential particulates, which can and lash out in ways that would make the rest recruits on social media with “slick and effective damage human health. of the world turn against us.” Well, mission propaganda.” Extremists can now groom jihadists The Guardian accomplished. More than a decade and a half online without ever meeting them. later, Americans remain irrationally “obsessed” QOur Asian population with terrorism, despite our success in limiting its Perhaps the most dangerous development, said is growing faster than toll. We’ve spent tens of billions building “a new former FBI terrorism specialist Ali Soufan in The any other U.S. racial Atlantic.com, is the Islamophobia that’s taken root or ethnic group, climb- national security state,” accepted massive infringe- ing 72 percent between ments on our privacy and civil rights, and compro- in the U.S., including in the current White House. 2000 and 2015, accord- mised many of the country’s defining principles— It would delight bin Laden and his acolytes, who ing to the Pew Research all in the quest for an “absolute security” that isn’t hoped to turn Americans against Muslims. He’d Center. Asian- Americans possible. also be happy with the “deep divisions plaguing are projected to eclipse American society,” which make us weaker and Hispanic-Americans in The threat of Islamist terrorism may not be fully more vulnerable. Meanwhile, Islamist terrorism 2055 to become the larg- extinguished in our lifetimes, said Robin Wright retains its “toxic potency,” and myriad extrem- est immigrant group in in NewYorker.com. In the past, terrorist groups ist groups have sprung up in such failed nations the country. such as FARC and the IRA ended up “negotiating as Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan. This is FiveThirtyEight.com to achieve their political goals.” Other terrorist likely to be a generational war; to win it, our ideas

groups were crushed by the state in which they and values must be stronger than our enemy’s. (3) Alamy

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Talking points NEWS 17

Clinton: Settling scores with Sanders Wit & “Hillary, time to exit the stage,” was enough to swing the election. said Douglas Schoen in TheHill Sanders and his loyalists, mean- Wisdom .com. Not a year after her humili- while, continue to heap scorn on “Sincerity is the key ating election loss to Donald Clinton, while joining Republi- to success. Once you Trump, Hillary Clinton is back, cans in telling the only woman in can fake that, you’ve got it made.” hawking her campaign memoir American history to run for presi- Groucho Marx, quoted in What Happened, and assigning dent on a major ticket to “shut up The Washington Post blame for her defeat on Russian and go away.” And not inciden- meddling, the media, former FBI tally: Has any male politician ever “The direction of escape is toward freedom. Director James Comey, sexism— been told to “say she’s sorry as So what is ‘escapism’ an and Democratic primary rival often as Hillary Clinton?” accusation of?” Bernie Sanders. Deriding his far- Ursula K. Le Guin, quoted in left policies as unrealistic, Clinton Clinton does have a real message NewRepublic.com says Sanders’ attacks on her as a in this book, said Bill Scher in “When you have to go to corrupt tool of Wall Street banks Front-stabbing Bernie Politico.com. She’s warning Dem- the bathroom, it’s too late and rich donors did “lasting dam- ocrats, “Don’t give Bernie the to build a latrine.” age,” making it easier for Trump to paint her as keys to the party,” or he’ll drive it off a left-wing Buddhist teacher Chagdud “Crooked Hillary.” While perfunctorily admitting cliff. In recent months, “Democrats are bending Rinpoche, quoted in she made some big mistakes, Clinton clearly still in his direction.” Witness how Sen. Kamala Har- The Boston Globe does not realize why she lost: She was a weak, ris of California and other potential presidential “Money often costs deeply unpopular candidate who simply did not candidates are now lining up to endorse Sanders’ too much.” stand for anything. Now her “Tour of Petty” is favorite cause: single-payer health care. Clinton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, reopening wounds and further dividing a bro- however, portrays Sanders as a socialist ideologue quoted in Esquire ken Democratic Party, said Katherine Timpf in given to unrealistic promises, who “can’t make “Children don’t hold you NationalReview.com. “The fact that she lacks the the trade-offs essential to governing.” Granted, back from your adventure. self-awareness to see that is so Hillary it hurts.” she’s an imperfect messenger—a new NBC News/ They’re just a part of it.” Wall Street Journal poll puts her approval rating MSNBC host Joy Reid, quoted in NYMag.com “Clinton is right about Bernie Sanders,” said Jill “at an abysmal 30 percent,” 6 points worse than Filipovic in CNN.com. His “attacks on her char- Trump’s. But perhaps Clinton’s unpopularity “lib- “If the highest aim of a acter fed the same narrative as Trump’s,” and erates her to do what elected Democrats cannot: captain were to preserve the number of disaffected Sanders backers in key front-stab Bernie. After all, she has literally noth- his ship, he would keep it battleground states who didn’t vote for Clinton ing to lose.” in port forever.” Thomas Aquinas, quoted in Inc.com “A girl’s best friend Campus rape: Presumed guilty? is her mutter.” In 2016, a University of Massachusetts student in The Boston Globe. DeVos is worried about Dorothy Parker, quoted in TheDailyBeast.com was forced to leave school following an evening “the rights of the accused” but failed to mention with a fellow junior. She performed oral sex on that “only 2 to 10 percent of rape allegations are him; at the end of the night, they exchanged false,” according to the National Sexual Violence phone numbers. It was only later that she decided, Resource Center. Until the Obama administration Poll watch based on “training” she’d received, that she had intervened, most victims were extremely unlikely Q58% believe that been sexually assaulted. The way this case was to see their attackers punished for their brutal “Dreamers” illegally handled by college administrators “may seem crimes. DeVos’ rollback “should come as no sur- brought to this country perverse,” said Emily Yoffe in The Atlantic. But prise,” said Dana Bolger and Alexandra Brodsky as children should be al- that approach was mandated by Obama-era in The Washington Post. After all, she works for lowed to become citizens. campus sexual assault guidelines—which vaguely “a president who has bragged about sexually Another 18% believe defined assault as any “unwelcome” contact, assaulting women”—and getting away with it. they should be allowed lowered the standard of proof against accused to become legal, but not students, and stripped them of basic constitutional Whatever you think of DeVos, she happens to be citizens. Only 15% think protections including access to evidence and the right in this instance, said Lara Bazelon in Politico they should be deported. right to cross-examine witnesses. The result, said .com. The Obama administration’s guidelines— Even among those who NationalReview.com in an editorial, was “a vast, which threatened colleges with the loss of federal voted for Trump, 66% morally outrageous, and oppressive system of funds if they didn’t comply—were “ripe for abuse believe the Dreamers should be allowed to stay kangaroo courts” that essentially presumed male at the hands of scared, ill-trained administrators.” in the country. students guilty in any ambiguous situation. Thank- Just last month, four feminist Harvard legal schol- Politico/Morning Consult fully, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last week ars wrote to the Education Department, describing announced she would rewrite those rules—arguing how “terrified” college administrators had “over- Q48% of Americans say they do “a disservice to everyone involved.” complied” with the directive. Courts have reversed they or somebody else in colleges’ guilty findings on due process grounds their household owns a “This is exactly what survivors, their advocates, in at least 59 cases—21 this year alone. In this gun, up 9% since 2011. and supporters of women’s rights have feared country, “every person accused of a serious charge NBC News/Wall Street Journal

Getty since Inauguration Day,” said Renée Graham deserves a fair process before judgment.”

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 18 NEWS Technology

Startups: The wild world of ‘coin offerings’ “You know a market frenzy has turned sur- cryptocurrencies as payment in exchange real when Paris Hilton joins in,” said Jacky for their work. The hope among cryptocur- Wong in The Wall Street Journal. The hotel rency fans is that ICOs will allow promising heiress recently followed billionaire Mark companies and technologies to avoid the Cuban and boxer Floyd Mayweather in laborious process of attracting real-world hyping a new finance fad called initial coin venture capital, said The Economist, and offerings (ICOs), which is a way to fund that these digitally funded startups “could startups using the technology behind bit- one day disrupt the tech giants.” Filecoin, coin. Instead of buying stock in a company, which recently raised $250 million via an “investors walk away with virtual coins.” ICO, would allow miners to earn tokens for Depending on the offering, the digital coins providing storage space or retrieving data can be used to buy the company’s future Even Paris Hilton is getting in on the game. for users—thus making a run at Dropbox products or services, or will entitle the or Amazon. “ICOs may indeed be a bubble, owner to royalties down the road. Investors can also buy or sell but perhaps a mostly healthy one, generating much innovation.” the coins on exchanges. The ICO market has boomed in recent months, with sales reaching nearly $2 billion this year, up from The problem is that the market is basically unregulated, said $256 million last year. But skeptical governments are increas- Rhett Jones in Gizmodo.com. With an initial public offering ingly concerned about swindlers preying on naïve investors. (IPO), you might be making a bad investment, “but you can Just hours after Hilton tweeted that she’d be participating in an trust that a certain number of precautionary checkboxes have upcoming ICO, “Chinese regulators put a damper on the fun,” been marked,” thanks to strict rules. But with ICOs, pretty banning the offerings outright. much anything goes. Plenty of ICOs are “downright preda- tory,” said Elaine Ou in Bloomberg.com. While some tokens “Don’t feel bad if you’re still wondering, ‘What the hell is an enjoy astronomical gains, about 60 percent wind up dead or ICO?’” said Mike Orcutt in TechnologyReview.com. These token dormant. “Curbing token sales, though, won’t be easy.” The sales are a little like a crowdfunding campaign, except they use blockchain’s decentralized nature makes the market hard to blockchains to verify transactions. Blockchains are encrypted led- manage or monitor, because there is no single point of control. gers powered by a decentralized network of computers all over the “How can any government control a phenomenon that tran- world, whose operators, known as miners, receive bitcoin or other scends national borders and rules?” We’re about to find out.

Innovation of the week Bytes: What’s new in tech

Static elec- Unmasked by artificial intelligence information to rescue boats patrolling flooded tricity could It won’t be long before facial recognition neighborhoods. As Hurricane Irma bore down help robots software can figure out who you are even if on the Florida coast last week, Zello surged to finally con- your face is covered up, said James Vincent in the top download spots on Google Play and quer the TheVerge.com. A group of researchers based the Apple App Store. The app has 100,000 fashion in the U.K. and India say they’ve trained an users worldwide, and is particularly popular industry, said with Hong Kong taxi drivers, as well as people Marc Bain algorithm to identify people even when they in Qz.com. are wearing disguises. The results are “far less in countries like Egypt and Venezuela “where While robots can deal fairly easily accurate than industry-level standards”; for in- government services struggle to meet demand.” with the mostly uniform and rigid stance, the system can correctly identify some- materials that go into cellphones one wearing a cap, sunglasses, and scarf only Watson has a lot to learn and automobiles, they have trouble 55 percent of the time. But the research shows IBM’s Watson supercomputer was supposed to handling the wide variety of soft how quickly facial recognition technology is revolutionize how cancer is treated, but so far, materials needed to make footwear progressing, meaning “staying anonymous in it’s “nowhere close,” said Casey Ross and Ike and clothing. “A vacuum may pick public will be harder than ever before.” Face- Swetlitz in StatNews.com. Watson for Oncol- up pieces of leather, for instance, but it can’t deal with mesh.” As a book can already recognize people based on ogy uses artificial intelligence to analyze huge result, the apparel industry has been their hair, body shape, and posture. amounts of data, including doctors’ notes, slower to automate. That could medical studies, and clinical guidelines, to rec- change with the Stackit robot, which Zello to the rescue ommend the best treatments. But the results “uses electroadhesion—basically In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, a “digi- have been underwhelming, according to inter- the cling of static electricity—to let tal walkie-talkie” named Zello “became the views with doctors, IBM executives, and AI ex- robots pick up and handle objects of go-to app for rescuers working to save thou- perts. Only a few dozen hospitals are using the all kinds.” Stackit’s makers say the sands of people trapped by floodwaters,” said system, which “is still struggling with the basic device can manipulate everything step of learning about different forms of can- from an egg to soft fabrics to a Peter Holley in The Washington Post. The free 50-pound box. “The firm has Nike app “relies on cellphone data plans or WiFi cer.” Watson also hasn’t been able to generate convinced.” The shoemaker is install- and is designed to operate in places where sig- new insights or approaches, because its deci- ing Stackit robots in about a dozen nals are weak,” helping volunteer groups co- sions are based on its training by a handful of of its factories this year. ordinate search-and-rescue efforts. Volunteers U.S. doctors. That has also led to complaints

monitoring social media used Zello to feed of bias toward American medical practices. Getty Newscom,

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20 NEWS Health & Science

How humans are still evolving Human evolution is often thought of making it more likely that they’ll pass as a process that ended millennia ago, their genes on to future generations. The when our ape-like ancestors morphed researchers found that the ApoE4 gene into Homo sapiens. But a new study has linked to Alzheimer’s is becoming less found that the process of natural selec- common, particularly among women. A tion continues, gradually weeding out gene mutation associated with a strong life-shortening traits in modern humans, addiction to cigarette smoking in men including genes that predispose people is also on the decline, ScienceDaily.com to heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and heavy reports. “It may be that men who don’t smoking. Geneticists examined the carry these harmful mutations can have genomes of 210,000 people of European more children, or that men and women descent in search of mutations associated who live longer can help with their grand- Still climbing the ladder of natural selection with greater or lesser longevity. Natural children, improving their chance of sur- selection—a basic mechanism of Darwin’s vival,” says the study’s co-author, Molly appear less frequently in people who live theory of evolution—is based on the prin- Przeworski. The analysis also reveals that longer—an indication that humans may ciple that organisms best suited to their genetic variants linked to heart disease, continue to adapt to a constantly chang- environments tend to survive longer, asthma, obesity, and high cholesterol all ing environment.

Exoplanets with water? aggressive brain tumors, known as glioblas- Scientists searching for alien life have tomas. The researchers found that Zika tar- homed in on three rocky, Earth-size planets geted and killed human glioblastoma stem 39 light-years from Earth that may have cells in a lab without harming normal brain liquid water on their surfaces, Smithsonian cells. Experiments on mice with glioblasto- .com reports. The planets closely orbit mas also showed that Zika therapy slowed a dwarf star in a solar system known as tumor growth and extended the rodents’ Trappist-1, but astronomers believe they lives, reports BBC.com. “It looks like there’s originally formed much farther away, in a silver lining to Zika,” says researcher a cold zone filled with crystals of water Michael Diamond. He says further testing is ice. The planets may have captured this needed to make sure weakened forms of the ice, forming vast stores of water above virus are safe for humans. and below ground. Using the Hubble tele- The ancient footprints: Who made them? scope, the scientists calculated that three Health scare of the week of Trappist-1’s seven planets are within Floodwater and mold A much older human ancestor their star’s “Goldilocks zone”—the sweet As the floodwaters of Hurricanes Harvey A set of human-like footprints dating to spot where temperatures are neither too and Irma recede, millions of people face a 5.7 million years ago, discovered on the hot nor too cold for liquid water and life. new threat: mold. The humid Texas and Greek island of Crete, challenge existing The study’s co-author, Julien de Wit, says Florida climates create the perfect breeding theories of how and when our species “hopes are high” that water and some form ground for mold, which can appear almost evolved. Prior to this discovery, the oldest of life exists in one or more of these planets. instantly after a hurricane—something confirmed hominin footprints were found many victims of Katrina, Sandy, and Ike in Tanzania and dated at a maximum Using Zika to attack learned the hard way, The Washington of 3.65 million years. Anthropologists brain tumors Post reports. Mold thrives on mois- believed these ancient human relatives The properties that ture, oxygen, and organic matter were isolated in Africa for several million make Zika devas- such as cloth, wood, and dust, years before spreading out to Europe and tating for unborn and releases lightweight spores Asia. A new analysis of the prints found in babies could make that spread easily through air. Crete could complicate this evolutionary it an effective Intensive exposure to mold can tale. “What makes this controversial is the weapon against cause coughing, congestion, age and location of the prints,” researcher a common and sore throats, wheezing, and Per Ahlberg tells ScienceDaily.com. At the deadly form of skin rashes. Mold can also trig- time the prints were made, nearly 6 mil- brain cancer. Zika ger severe reactions in people lion years ago, Crete was still part of the targets neural with asthma or weakened Greek mainland and early human ances- stem cells—the immune systems. Removing tors were theoretically still living in Africa precursors of mold from homes can be costly. and had ape-like feet. The fossils in Crete, neurons and Household items that can’t be however, have distinctly hominin-like fea- other brain cells. disinfected, such as rugs, uphol- tures, including a predominant “big toe.” For babies, this can stered furniture, and mattresses, The animal didn’t have claws and walked result in severe birth have to be discarded. Contaminated upright on the soles of its feet—not its toes. defects. The virus isn’t as drywall and insulation must be replaced. “This discovery challenges the established harmful for adult brains, which have fewer “The economic impact of mold and water narrative of early human evolution head-on stem cells. With this in mind, scientists damage can be severe,” says scientist Mary and is likely to generate a lot of debate,” investigated whether Zika could be used to Hayden, who studies how weather can

Ahlberg says. destroy stem cells that drive the growth of affect health. “It’s devastating on all levels.” Newscom Andrzej Boczarowski, Newscom,

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Pick of the week’s cartoons NEWS 21

For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons. THE WEEK September 22, 2017 22 ARTS Review of reviews: Books

delusionary impulse into overdrive. Still, Book of the week Andersen’s analysis “goes wide rather than Fantasyland: How America deep.” He makes a strong case that our culture, with all its conspiracy theorists, Went Haywire plastic surgery addicts, and people who talk by Kurt Andersen (Random House, $30) to angels, has lost its grip on reality. But it’s hard to share Andersen’s confidence that No, Kurt Andersen’s latest book is not spe- we’re capable of reeling in the crazy. cifically about the Trump era, said Kevin Canfield in the San Francisco Chronicle. But Andersen is at least as delusional as Andersen, a novelist, NPR radio host, and most of his targets, said James Bowman founder of Spy magazine, began digging in The Weekly Standard. Though some of into America’s propensity for mass delu- his indictments are deserved, he winds up sion two years before Trump announced his A ’60s love-in: Feeling our way to enlightenment labeling as fantasists everyone who’s not White House bid, and our 45th president a secularist and progressive; he suffers, in figures prominently only in the last chap- When you finish and close the book, short, from “the fantasy of the intellectual ter. Still, Andersen’s “rousing” history of however, you’ll see past and present “con- that of all the rival systems competing for hucksterism and credulousness proves “a nected by an invisible thread,” said Hanna our attention, his alone is reality-based.” In persuasive work of diagnostic journalism.” Rosin in The New York Times. Those blaming Christian belief for spawning all In Andersen’s view, Americans have insisted noble Pilgrims, Andersen reminds us, were of America’s forays into magical thinking, on their right to believe whatever they “a nutty religious cult”; they vowed to he “could not be more wrong,” said David want since the Pilgrims sighted Plymouth hang any Quakers who got in their way Jimenez in TheFederalist.com. If anything, Rock, and the country’s foundational com- and they insisted that feeling something to the post-1960 collapse of mainstream reli- mitment to religious freedom has metas- be true made it so. Plenty of commercial gion has encouraged the proliferation of tasized in recent decades into a dangerous hucksters—from P.T. Barnum to Oprah loony alternative worldviews. “Ultimately, penchant for embracing lies and fantasies. Winfrey—also march across the book’s conspiracy theories and fantasy best thrive Hold on tight, though, because Andersen pages, and 1960s narcissists and relativists when genuine faith—with its awareness of has a hummingbird mind, and “it can be are blamed for promoting a find-your- the sinful frailty of every believer—recedes hard to keep up.” own-reality ethos that kicked America’s from a culture’s shores.”

Gorbachev: His Life and Times trayal of Gorbachev’s youth, said The Econ- Novel of the week by William Taubman (Norton, $40) omist. Born to peasant farmers in 1931, he The Golden House lost two uncles to famine, and both of his Mikhail Gorbachev grandfathers were swept into Stalin’s gu- by Salman Rushdie (Random House, $29) remains a tragic lags. But he grew up working the land and More than three decades after Salman figure, said Max believing in socialist ideals. Rewarded with Rushdie wrote his first great novel, his Boot in The Wall a university seat in Moscow, he became fiction “has grown bombastic and close Street Journal. In close friends with a schoolmate who’d one to unreadable,” said Dwight Garner in the decades since day draw up 1968’s thwarted Prague Spring The New York Times. His latest book 1945, few other reforms. Gorbachev himself quietly nursed has one redeeming feature—its spirited people “have had a vision of a people-oriented socialist state, assault on a green-haired Donald Trump as much success and aimed to achieve it through gradual doppelgänger who becomes president in transforming the reform when he was appointed Communist halfway through. But this “overstuffed” world”—or “been Party leader in 1985. His caution vanished tale mostly concerns a sinister New York as frustrated with a year later, said Michael O’Donnell in The City–based Indian-American billionaire the consequences.” Washington Monthly. Freed by the 1986 and his three adult sons, and Rushdie so During Gorbachev’s Chernobyl nuclear disaster to attack the exuberantly mixes reality and fabrica- six years as leader old ways, Gorbachev “removed his hat tion, as well as echoes of ancient myth, of the Soviet Union, he managed the super- and began to gallop”—ending the war in modern pop culture, and The Great power’s nearly bloodless transition from a Afghanistan, allowing greater freedom of Gatsby, that the plot “nearly defies sum- communist totalitarian empire to a fledgling speech, and preparing for open elections. mary.” The novel’s characters “tend to free-market democracy with a chance to be work as vehicles for themes, rather than more ally than threat to the West. None of “It was the reformers who finally did him as fully realized human beings,” said this was foreordained; none of it worked out in,” said Peter Baker in The New York Times. Elizabeth Toohey in the Christian Science as Gorbachev had hoped. Political scientist Following the Soviet Union’s breakup, Monitor. One of them, a Russian gold William Taubman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning Gorbachev was pushed aside by the more digger who seems patterned on Rush- biographer, is “superbly qualified” to ex- radical Boris Yeltsin, and many Russians die’s ex-wife Padma Lakshmi, is severely plain why Gorbachev even took the risks he blamed Gorbachev for the ensuing hard punished for her unfaithfulness, while did. Taubman’s latest, though “not a thing economic times. When he ran for president the less-than-saintly men all get off easy. of literary beauty,” will “undoubtedly stand in 1996, he tallied a humbling 0.5 percent. Rushdie once dazzled; today his creative for years as the definitive account of the So- Now 86, Gorbachev lives, as he did then, in vision has been “narrowed by the blind- viet Union’s last ruler.” a dual reality—“admired and feted in Wash- ers of his own success.” ington, London, and Berlin, reviled and

Some answers emerge in the book’s por- ostracized in Moscow.” Getty

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 The Book List ARTS 23

Best books...chosen by Christopher Kimball Author of the week TV host and editor Christopher Kimball, a co-founder of America’s Test Kitchen, now offers expert advice to home cooks through his venture Milk Street. His new Nancy Pearl Milk Street cookbook features home recipes that draw from all corners of the world. Nancy Pearl occupies a unique position in America’s literary Apricots on the Nile by Colette Rossant The Food and Wine of France by Edward ecosystem, said Gwendolyn (Washington Square, $12). Memorable for both Behr (Penguin, $28). Behr reminds us that there Elliott in Seattle Magazine. A its gentle sweetness and the writer’s portrait of are still places where good food comes straight librarian who’s attained rock- her Egyptian-Jewish grandparents’ household in from the earth: wild yeast spores, saline seas, and star status, the longtime read- 1930s Cairo. Ahmet the cook prepares a wed- cool limestone caves. He quotes the famous 20th- ing evangelist was working ding feast with sambusak (small pastries filled century gourmand Curnonsky: “Cooking! That’s at the Seattle Public Library with feta), stuffed quail, zalabia (deep-fried when things taste like what they are.” 19 years ago dough soaked in honey and orange blossoms), when she French Cooking in Ten Minutes by Édouard launched the and pistachio-stuffed kunafa (cheese pastry). de Pomiane (North Point, $12). De Pomiane’s idea of having The Billionaire’s Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace 1930 cookbook reflects his unique ability to a whole city (Broadway, $16). Wallace’s doubts about the make cooking seem simple enough that any oaf read the same authenticity of a $156,000 bottle of Bordeaux— could walk into a kitchen and produce good book at the purportedly once owned by Thomas Jefferson— results. His advice is as breezy and useful today same time, an led him into the dark side of the wine world. This as it was then. initiative that book reads like a lucid, well-paced murder mys- The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge (Penguin, spread across the country. She’s since become an NPR tery, but it also conveys the complexity of a busi- $28). Food played a central role in the fight for ness that is only loosely regulated. It’s good fun. contributor and local TV host, civil rights. Edge introduces cooks like Georgia and though the 72-year-old Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto Gilmore, whose home-based restaurant sustained bookworm has had an action (HarperOne, $15). Masumoto, a third-generation the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, and Booker figure modeled after her (the California farmer, brings to life his passion for Wright, a Greenwood, Miss., waiter who issued doll has a “push to shush” the family farm and the heartbreak of trying to a clarion call for justice in a 1966 NBC News button), she claims to do little maintain an heirloom peach in a tough mar- special. If you think you know all there is to except consume more litera- ket. It all comes through in a mixture of poetry know about the grit and wit of the everyday ture. “I don’t have a life,” she and philosophy. One of my favorite pieces of Southerners who powered the civil rights move- says. “I live my life through food writing. ment, this book will convince you otherwise. the books I read.” The funny thing is, she didn’t even intend to write a first novel, until the Also of interest...our screens, ourselves title characters of her just- published debut, George and iGen The Dark Net Lizzie, popped into her head. by Jean M. Twenge (Atria, $27) by Benjamin Percy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26) Pearl wasn’t in a normal state Jean Twenge could well be “the Benjamin Percy’s sci-fi noir thriller of mind at the time, said Sari next marquee name” in generational feels “less ripped from the headlines Feldman in Publishers Weekly. shrinkspeak, but her diagnosis can’t than from the anxiety-riddled mod- Having just undergone foot be trusted, said Malcolm Harris in ern mood,” said Dana Alston in the surgery, she may have been NYMag.com. Twenge, a psychology Portland, Ore., Willamette Week. feeling the effect of painkillers professor, has piled up studies to boost When reporter Lela Falcon discov- when she first glimpsed them: her claim that smartphones are creating a par- ers that demons are trying to enter our world a married couple who’d met in ticularly unhappy and scared generation of young through dark corners of the web, supernatural a Michigan bowling alley and Americans. Unfortunately, she’s “profoundly uncu- war breaks out, and Lela has to marshal the had differing ideas about what rious” about other potential contributing factors. talents of various other oddball savants. Percy marriage should be. Then they didn’t go away, reappearing to Though iGen is packed with tasty data points, it sometimes writes for DC Comics, and this book’s Pearl during quiet moments has “the rigor of a sales brochure.” characters “practically beg to be drawn.” for years. “A sentence would Little Boxes Blood, Sweat, and Pixels appear and I would fiddle with it,” she says, discovering the edited by Caroline Casey (Coffee House, $17) by Jason Schreier (Harper, $16) couple’s story as George and This essay anthology is mostly about Stories about brilliant teams failing Lizzie slowly revealed them- TV and mostly written by nostalgic spectacularly can be “entertaining as selves, snapshot by snapshot. 30-somethings, said Colleen Abel in hell,” said Glen Weldon in NPR.org. Once Pearl began piecing together that story, though, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Still, the It’s a shame, then, that journalist Jason George and Lizzie surprised essays “travel thrillingly in style and Schreier mixes only a few such tales her again by guiding her to perspective.” Rumaan Alam provides into his survey of how video games throw out the ending she a tongue-in-cheek ode to Very Special Episodes; are made, focusing more often on squads of thought they were heading V.V. Ganeshananthan writes about re-watching coding heroes who push through 100-hour weeks for. “I mark it down,” she says, The Cosby Show after learning that dozens of to create boundary-breaking hits. Schreier knows “to their having matured more women had accused Bill Cosby of rape. “Some of this world deeply; you just wish he’d brought to than I realized during the time I the most moving essays” similarly consider how this project “a saltiness that would provide real was writing.”

Channing Johnson, Susan Doupé Channing Johnson, old shows play in the light of new knowledge. insights into its easily wounded, boys-only ethos.”

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 24 ARTS Review of reviews: Art

Exhibit of the week loose.” Its array of young black Kara Walker: Sikkema women in two-piece bathing suits Jenkins and Co. Is calls to mind a well-publicized Compelled to Present... 2015 incident in which a white policeman in Texas was video- Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York taped pinning down a black teen- City, through Oct. 14 age girl at a pool party. By paint- Kara Walker isn’t nearly as ing and drawing the figures in ink, exhausted as she professes to then cutting them out and arrang- be, said Siddhartha Mitter in ing them, Walker has brought VillageVoice.com. The very title to her art “a new freedom and of Walker’s latest major gallery toughness that it has needed.” exhibition—a 198-word carnival- barker parody that playfully fore- One enormous collage rates, tells the public’s likely response— alongside Walker’s sugar sphinx, shows the California native to be as “perhaps the greatest work as inventive as ever. In an accom- about America made in the panying statement, the 47-year-old 21st century,” said Jerry Saltz black artist declares, “Frankly I am in New York magazine. Christ’s tired, tired of standing up, being Entry Into Journalism plays on counted, tired of ‘having a voice’ the title of James Ensor’s Christ’s or worse ‘being a role model.’” Entry Into Brussels in 1889. But It’s a remark designed to attract Walker’s Pool Party of Sardanapalus: A Delacroix for our time this is no pale imitation. It’s an pushback, as have many of the “empire-destroying” riot of pillag- provocations Walker has engaged in on her Reducing her focus on America’s past, she ers, Klansmen, and golems. Trayvon Martin way to becoming “one of the most daring, homes in this time on “the remorseless, makes an appearance. So do Batman, Uncle acclaimed, and occasionally reviled” artists racialized American present,” said Roberta Ben, Martin Luther King Jr., and Donald working in America. Whether she has used Smith in The New York Times. The title of Trump twice—including once as a severed wall-size silhouettes or a hangar-size sphinx one group of silhouetted figures, Slaughter head bearing a swastika on his forehead and made of sugar to play with stereotypes of of the Innocents (They Might Be Guilty held aloft by a Black Panther–like figure. African-Americans, she has always exposed of Something), hints at the recent spate of Walker clearly knows she may be destroy- to light the ugliest corners of the nation’s stories about police shootings of unarmed ing her career by issuing this 10-by-18-foot racial imagination. “Walker has long African-Americans. In the 10-foot-tall col- howl of protest. Still, “it will be a crime if warned us of today’s engulfing grotesque. lage The Pool Party of Sardanapalus (after this work doesn’t end up on permanent dis- The culture has come to her.” Delacroix, Kienholz), Walker “really cuts play in a prominent New York museum.”

Casanova: The Seduction of Europe “That the concept of the exhibition is A borderline charm offensive Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, through Dec. 31 faintly ridiculous is not altogether bad,” The U.S.- said Rick Brettell in The Dallas Morning Mexico border Though Giacomo Casanova is remembered News. Instead of pointlessly pondering wall suddenly as history’s greatest lover, “he should be whether Canaletto’s St. Mark’s Basin looks no more declared the patron saint of publicists,” or Tiepolo’s The Minuet better captures daunting than said Gaile Robinson in the Venice’s grandeur, we can a playpen, Fort Worth Star-Telegram. simply enjoy both views as said Gianluca AP The peripatetic Venetian welcome color in a great Mezzofiore in JR’s boy giant (1725–1798) traveled widely story. Then Casanova is off Mashable.com. throughout Europe, working to the courts of France’s Testing the power of art to change hearts at times as a lawyer, clergy- and minds, the French artist JR last week Louis XV, Russia’s Catherine unveiled an “incredibly heartwarming” man, con man, soldier, and the Great, and England’s King installation: a mammoth photographic translator, yet he immortal- George III, and our immer- print of a curious toddler who appears to ized himself by writing a sion in that world of embroi- be peering over the fence that separates nine-volume memoir that dered velvet jackets and Tecate, Mexico, from San Diego County, details trysts with more jewel-embedded snuffboxes Calif. The dark-eyed boy—a 1-year-old than 100 women. But how “overwhelms us in a way Tecate resident—gently grips a section of to explain his starring role Manon Balletti, in 1757 that can only be described as the barrier, “leaving the impression the in a 2017 exhibition at an giddiness.” It really isn’t hard entire thing could be toppled with a gig- art museum? The Kimbell wants us to to imagine feats of seduction transpiring gle,” said Julie Watson in the Associated imagine the decadent 18th-century world in such an atmosphere. If you prefer more- Press. Though JR isn’t the first artist he traveled in, and has gathered some explicit imagery, there’s also a small gallery who’s treated the border fence as a can- 200 artworks, costumes, and furnishings vas, his contribution was completed just that provides magnifying glasses for visitors a day after the Trump administration to illustrate it. Though visitors see a few over 21 interested in viewing miniature announced its rescinding of legal protec- images of his conquests, including a beau- 18th-century drawings of the many sexual tions for undocumented immigrants who tiful 1757 portrait of Parisian teenager positions Casanova enjoyed. “The Kimbell arrived in the U.S. as children. Manon Balletti, seeing Casanova through primly warns us about it, but when in the show’s lens “requires imagination.” Venice, go for it.”

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 REBEL, REBEL

Introducing the Uptown Maverick. Like a well-worn leather jacket, this street boot feels as good as it looks. With a light, springy sole for a cushioned ride, you’re ready to zip up and step out.

Free shipping and returns. Order online or call 844.482.4800. 26 ARTS Review of reviews: Film

Mother! Darren Aronofsky’s wild new tling” hour passes before a vio- psychodrama is “an instant lent nightmare sequence arrives Directed by landmark of test-your-limits that stands as “the moviegoing Darren Aronofsky cinema,” said Joshua Rothkopf challenge of the year.” You could (R) in Time Out New York. The be left wondering “what, in the daring director of Black Swan end, is the point,” said Stephanie ++++ “invents new shades of mania” Zacharek in Time. Given that Madness infiltrates in Mother!—a head trip that’s Aronofsky doesn’t even seem to a couple’s home. “without doubt” the “most know, and despite the welcome radical studio film” since 1988’s Lawrence: A woman possessed presence of Michelle Pfeiffer and Last Temptation of Christ. Ed Harris, “the main reason to Jennifer Lawrence stars as a young wife who’s think- keep watching is Lawrence,” who’s radiantly guile- ing about getting pregnant and redecorating her less. Whatever Aronofsky’s aim, he’s made a startling isolated country home while her irritable poet hus- film, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian (U.K.). band (Javier Bardem) broods alone in his study. As “As horror it is ridiculous, as comedy it is startling unexpected guests arrive and Lawrence increasingly and hilarious, and as a machine for freaking you suffers hallucinatory episodes, a “deliciously unset- out, it is a thing of wonder.”

It “The scariest character in It isn’t ing, said Chris Nashawaty in a supernatural demon,” said Entertainment Weekly. “Unless Directed by Elena Nicolaou in Refinery29 you’re really afraid of clowns,” Andy Muschietti .com. Make no mistake: The Bill Skarsgard’s shape-shifting (R) child-devouring clown that the circus figure gets less scary the demon most often materializes more we see him. “Every one of ++++ as is “absolutely terrifying”— the young actors is beautifully A demonic clown enough to jolt you out of your cast,” so it’s a shame we don’t terrorizes a small town. seat. But the reason the new get more of them hanging out adaptation of Stephen King’s Skarsgard: Never trust a grown-up. together, said Dana Stevens in 1986 novel will stick with Slate.com. Still, the effects-heavy viewers is that it depicts a world where parents climactic confrontation “garnered a huge response are at best blind to evil and at worst its perpetra- from the audience I saw It with: laughter, terror, and tors. “It is essentially two movies,” and “the bet- shrieks of squicked-out appreciation.” This huge ter by far” is the one that follows seven likable horror hit is certain to sire a sequel, which gives the prepubescent misfits around a 1980s Maine town filmmakers a chance to get the recipe just right: “60 as they investigate why other kids are going miss- percent more friendship, 40 percent less clown.”

9/11 It’s a rare feat when a movie only—“pure ego,” said Rich makes viewers “want to both Juzwiak in Jezebel.com. Having Directed by Martin Guigui fall asleep and punch the screen damaged his relationship with (R) at the exact same time,” said audiences, he hoped to redeem ++++ Nick Schager in TheDailyBeast himself by making a memorable .com. A “monumental testament drama, but wound up making an A tragedy to wrongheadedness,” 9/11 inert drama that’s best ignored. reimagined exploits a landmark tragedy to Sheen plays a billionaire on his sell a “paper-thin” fiction about way to see a divorce lawyer with five New Yorkers trapped in Sheen in extremis his estranged wife, who at one an elevator at the World Trade point during the ordeal turns on Center just before the twin towers collapse. Adding the group’s bike messenger to give a lecture about further insult, the movie’s star is Charlie Sheen, a hard work, said Kimber Myers in the Los Angeles celebrity who has shared his suspicions that the Times. If such ill-conceived dialogue happened in destruction of the towers might have been an “inside another movie, it’d be laughable. In 9/11, it’s like job.” Sheen signed on to the project for one reason “picking at a still-healing wound with an ax.”

New on DVD and Blu-ray Beatriz at Dinner They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Better Things: Complete First Season (Lionsgate, $20) (Kino Classics, $20) (20th Century Fox, $32) The big confrontation in this topical cham- Sydney Pollack’s most overlooked film is This single-mom comedy co-created by ber drama is about “two visions of the “easily” one of his best, said HuffingtonPost Louis C.K. “broke more than one mold” in its American Dream,” said the Phoenix Arizona .com. Before it faded from view, it garnered first season, said TheRinger.com. Playing a Republic. Salma Hayek plays a massage eight Oscar nominations, and Jane Fonda’s 50-ish single mother of three, Pamela Adlon therapist who, at a small party, clashes with turn as a desperate woman in a Depression- proved that complex female leads can carry a billionaire (John Lithgow). “In the end, it era dance marathon transformed her “from a show, while newcomer Mikey Madison was isn’t clear who’s won, or if either side can.” sexpot Barbarella” to top-line actress. “the onscreen avatar adolescents deserve.” Protozoa Pictures/AP, Brooke Palmer, Atlas Distribution Palmer, Brooke Pictures/AP, Protozoa THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Television ARTS 27

Movies on TV The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

Monday, Sept. 18 The State Black Hawk Down Why do some people reject the West and join A U.S. Army Special Forces ISIS? This four-hour, two-night drama from the mission goes awry, plung- director of Wolf Hall weaves together the experi- ing the soldiers into a fight ences of British nationals who abandon quiet for their lives in the midst lives in the U.K. to fight in Syria as members of of Somalia’s civil war. the radical Islamist group. Each is initially certain Ridley Scott directs (2001) of having chosen a righteous path, only to be 6 p.m., SundanceTV challenged by the brutal acts they witness or are Tuesday, Sept. 19 asked to perform. Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 18 Out of Sight and 19, at 9 p.m., National Geographic Channel George Clooney is a bank Gaga: Five Foot Two robber and Jennifer Lopez Megatalent. Pop provocateur. Madonna wan- the federal marshal pur- nabe. Lady Gaga runs through identities as suing him in a clever cat- quickly as she does costume changes. But unless Michelle Yeoh in Star Trek: Discovery and-mouse from director you’re conspiracy crackpot Alex Jones, who has Steven Soderbergh. (1998) Star Trek: Discovery 7:50 p.m., Starz hypothesized that Gaga’s 2017 Super Bowl half- time performance was a satanic ritual, you can’t The new Star Trek anthology series on CBS’s Wednesday, Sept. 20 deny her talent for outsize spectacle. This new web-based platform is set in the years before Interview With the documentary explores how the show, and the Kirk, Spock, and company boldly went where Vampire artist’s most recent studio album, came together. no man had gone before, and revolves around Long before Twilight and Available for streaming Friday, Sept. 22, Netflix a cold war between the Federation and the True Blood, Tom Cruise Klingon empire. Purist Trekkies have had trib- and Brad Pitt set the bar for Transparent bles, er, quibbles, with aspects of the show, but good-looking vampires in It’s pilgrimage time for the Pfeffermans. As Jill impressive design and intriguing storylines make a horror drama based on Soloway’s Emmy-winning dramedy series returns, the series worth probing. Available for streaming Anne Rice’s novel. (1994) Jeffrey Tambor’s Maura Pfefferman, a transgen- Sunday, Sept. 24, CBS All Access 9:45 p.m., Cinemax dered ex-professor, heads to Israel to speak at a conference and is soon followed by ex-wife Other highlights Jerry Before Seinfeld Thursday, Sept. 21 Shelly, daughter Ali, and the rest of the family, Jerry Seinfeld returns to his stand-up roots, Top Gun each one in seeking mode. Maura, who begins performing jokes he wrote decades ago and A hotshot fighter pilot dating a man for the first time, might be primed reminiscing about how he discovered comedy. faces challenges at Navy for the biggest discoveries. Available for stream- training school and falls Available for streaming Tuesday, Sept. 19, ing Friday, Sept. 22, Amazon hard for a civilian instruc- Netflix tor. With Tom Cruise and Mike Judge Presents: Tales From the Tour Bus Gotham Kelly McGillis. (1986) Once upon a time, country music was raw and Season 4 of Fox’s Batman prequel series finds 7:05 p.m., Starz rowdy rather than slick and overproduced. Here young Bruce Wayne inching closer to assuming to illustrate is Mike Judge. The King of the Hill Friday, Sept. 22 his Caped Crusader identity while a few classic and Beavis and Butt-Head creator returns to ani- A Night at the Opera villains emerge around him. Thursday, Sept. 21, mation for an eight-episode series that chronicles Groucho, Chico, and Harpo at 8 p.m., Fox turn the opera house the beer-drinkin’, hell-raisin’, real-life adven- upside down in a Marx tures of outlaw country legends from Jerry Lee 60 Minutes Brothers comedy contain- Lewis to Waylon Jennings. Up first, the criminal Tick-tick-tick: The stopwatch keeps running as ing some of their greatest exploits of “Take This Job and Shove It” singer television’s longest-lived newsmagazine begins its bits. (1935) 10:15 p.m., TCM Johnny Paycheck. Friday, Sept. 22, at 10 p.m., 50th season, welcoming Oprah Winfrey as a spe- Cinemax cial contributor. Sunday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., CBS Saturday, Sept. 23 Arrival Amy Adams stars in an Show of the week Oscar-nominated sci-fi The Good Place drama about a linguist If you watched any of the first season of The hired to establish com- Good Place, you probably at some point munication with a force thought, “This so-called heaven could be hell.” of alien invaders. (2016) Spoiler alert: The clever season finale proved 5:45 p.m., Epix that suspicion right, as Kristen Bell’s Eleanor put it together that the apparent post-death Sunday, Sept. 24 mix-up that landed her in a bland suburban Call Northside 777 “paradise” overseen by Ted Danson was actu- James Stewart plays a ally part of a cruel plan by Danson’s character Chicago reporter out to to torture her for eternity. A new season prom- prove a convicted mur- ises new twists for television’s most layered derer is innocent. (1948) and imaginative comedy series. Wednesday, 8 p.m., TCM Bell: Right party, wrong fate Sept. 20, at 10 p.m., NBC Jan Thijs, Colleen Hayes/NBC Thijs, Jan

• All listings are Eastern Time. THE WEEK September 22, 2017 28 LEISURE Food & Drink Publican chicken: A signature dish of modern Chicago

I can’t be surprised that the roast bird right away. Place on a plate, cover chicken we make at the Publican is our with plastic, and refrig er ate overnight. most famous dish, because it’s “crazy good,” said Paul Kahan in Cheers to The next morning, combine all mari- the Publican (Lorena Jones Books). nade ingredients in a large bowl. Toss “It’s what I’m eating when I’m in the chicken in and gently rub marinade restaurant and it’s what I’m making at into both the skin and flesh. Let home, whether people are coming over chicken sit for at least 1 hour and, if or it’s just me and my wife.” refrigerated, as many as 12.

The idea for the dish arose before Build a fire on one side of a charcoal my partners and I even talked about grill and let it burn down to embers. creating a modern beer hall in Chi- Cook chicken skin side down over cago. Donnie Madia and I visited a indirect heat and positioned so legs Portuguese restaurant in Montreal Pile it on french fries if you want the full effect. are just touching the direct heat. that roasted butterflied chicken over Cover grill, with air holes open, so charcoal, then served it over fries, and I For marinade: you get good high heat. Cook for 6 min- knew someday we’d do something like it. 2½ tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice utes, then turn chicken so breasts are over ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil direct heat. Cook another 6 minutes. Flip In our interpretation, we cook the chicken 1 tbsp piment d’Espelette (Espelette pepper) bird over and repeat cycle. Chicken is done over wood and season it with Mexican 1 tbsp dried oregano when the middle of breast and thigh reach oregano and a non-AOC version of piment 1½ tbsp brown sugar 160 on a meat thermometer. Let chicken d’Espelette, a smoky ground pepper that’s 2 cloves garlic, sliced rest 5 minutes. “one of our absolute favorite ingredients.” ½ tsp salt Still, “the real secret” is pre-salting and ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper Transfer chicken to a carving board and then marinating the chicken, a two-step 1 lemon, cut in half cleave into 8 pieces, cutting it in half from process that makes the flesh “tender, juicy, neck to tail, removing each breast from and zingy.” Rinse chicken in cold water, dry with a the leg and thigh, and cutting each breast paper towel, then butterfly: Turn breast side on the diagonal. Cut thighs from the legs Recipe of the week down and remove backbone, using a sharp at the knee joint. Squeeze lemon juice over Publican chicken knife or poultry shears, so that it will lie flat. chicken on the cutting board and save 1 whole chicken (about 3 lbs) Season on both sides, using slightly less salt the juices to pour over chicken at the last Sea salt than you would if you were cooking the moment. Serves 2 to 4.

Wine: Sub-$10 keepers Road trip: Wisconsin cheese country America’s most popular wines generally Some call it the Napa Valley of cheese, and sell for under $10—and are mostly a rural Wisconsin’s Green County has the goods waste of money, said Dave McIntyre in to earn the appellation, said Jay Jones in the The Washington Post. Barefoot’s caber- Chicago Tribune. Though the number of local net evokes machine oil. Sutter Home’s cheesemakers has fallen from 300 to a dozen chardonnay smells like sewer gas, and over the past century, south-central Wisconsin its cab tastes like Robitussin. Better remains “the destination of choice” for dairy values generally arrive at the $15 mark, devotees looking to indulge their cravings. but if you need a supermarket standby, Start in Monroe, “the gateway to cheese coun- these three are worth remembering. try,” and you’ll be instantly immersed in a cul- 2016 Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi ture where cheese is both art and livelihood. Chardonnay ($8). Mondavi makes two The Alp & Dell Store at Roth Cheese Monroe enjoyable chardonnays under $10, There are other Monroe cheese shops to visit, The champion of cheeses, at Alp &Dell led by this crisp, light, “rather tasty” but only one that can claim to be home to the example. reigning titleholder in the World Championship Cheese Contest. That’s Roth’s Gruyère- 2015 Santa Rita 120 Maule Valley like Grand Cru Surchoix, the first American winner since 1988, and you can buy it at Cabernet Sauvignon ($9). Look factory prices, then watch more being made in viewing halls overlooking the factory to Chile for decent $10 cabs. This floor. 657 2nd St., (608) 328-3355 “quite refreshing” wine features Baumgartner’s Cheese Store & Tavern Monroe • You just might run into cheese-factory bright flavors of berries and cherry. workers chowing down on cheese-centric lunches or dinners at this hangout along 2015 Kirkland Cabernet Sauvignon downtown’s courthouse square. Try the Limburger on rye, because you’re in the only ($8 for 1.5 liters). Costco’s private- town in America that makes the notoriously stinky cheese. 1023 16th Ave., (608) 325-6157 label cab is “on the sweet side, but New Glarus Hotel Restaurant New Glarus • Start dinner with a fondue or raclette and interesting,” with hints of toffee, move on to cheese pie with local sausage at this chalet-style landmark about 15 miles blackberry, and tobacco. At $8 for a north of Monroe. You can stock up on Edelweiss cheeses at the first-floor cheese shop, magnum, it’s “a steal for parties.” run by the wife of the company’s cheese master. 100 6th Ave., (608) 527-5244 Peden+Munk, Jay Jones/Chicago Tribune/TNS Jones/Chicago Jay Peden+Munk,

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 The Great Works of Sacred Music Taught by Professor Charles Edward McGuire OBERLIN COLLEGE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC LECTURE TITLES

1. Hallelujah, Amen: The World of Sacred Music

2. From Chant to Early Sacred Polyphony

3. The Golden Age of Polyphony

4. The Age of Reformation: Who Will Sing?

5. Sacred Music in a Secular World

6. Man and Meaning: Bach’s Cantatas

7. Art for Art’s Sake: Bach’s Mass in B Minor

8. Handel’s Great Oratorio: Messiah

9. Messiah: From Entertainment to Ritual

10. Mozart’s Requiem: Praise and Memory

11. Haydn’s The Creation

12. God, Man, Music, and Beethoven

13. Mendelssohn’s Elijah

14. Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius

15. Sacred Music in the Late 19th Century

16. Come, All Ye Faithful: Music of Christmas

Enjoy the Majesty and The Great Works of Sacred Music Significance of Sacred Music Course no. 7316 | 16 lectures (45 minutes/lecture) Western concert music is one of humanity’s most sublime artistic traditions. Significantly, this great musical language—encompassing genres from symphonic and instrumental music to choral works and opera—was created through the meeting of art and faith. Professor Charles McGuire of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music possesses a richly detailed knowledge of this tradition, and fills these 16 engrossing lectures with essential insights and stunning musical excerpts. You’ll cover over 1,200 years of music, from medieval chant to the massive sacred works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including works by Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and more. Join a brilliant musicologist in discovering unique masterpieces, taking in a rich panorama of Western sacred music and its most For over 25 years, The Great Courses has brought magnificent artistic landmarks. the world’s foremost educators to millions who want to go deeper into the subjects that matter most. No Off er expires 10/06/17 exams. No homework. Just a world of knowledge available anytime, anywhere. Download or stream THEGREATCOURSES.COM/6WEEK to your laptop or PC, or use our free apps for iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire, or Roku. Over 600 1-800-832-2412 courses available at www.TheGreatCourses.com. 30 LEISURE Travel

This week’s dream: Monasteries and mountains in northern Tibet

Tibet is changing fast, but its scenery has Langmusi, a backpacker haven with lost none of its power to amaze, said a main street that bustles with textile Will Ford in The Washington Post. For a shops and restaurants serving yak burg- decade, the Chinese government has been ers. Sign up for a guided trek to nearby pouring money into building highways Gahai Lake. I once picnicked there with and railroads through the region, open- some monks I’d met in a noodle joint. ing the Tibet Plateau’s high grasslands “It was one of the most beautiful views and once hidden mountains to tourists I’ve ever had with lunch.” who aren’t intrepid backpackers. Amdo, the northernmost of Tibet’s three main The best base for hiking is the mountain kingdoms, is an ideal destination for first- village of Zhagana, two hours from time visitors. It lies just a few hours by Langmusi. “Cliffs, high peaks, streams, plane from Beijing, but because it aver- fir trees, and terraced fields dominate ages 10,000 feet in elevation, it feels “far A Buddhist festival at Labrang Monastery the landscape—bringing to mind a kind removed from the smog of major Chinese of Tibetan Rivendell.” The first time I cities.” Foreigners don’t need travel permits Xiahe you’ll find Labrang Monastery, one visited, poor weather ruined my plans to to visit Amdo, as they do for the tightly of Tibet’s largest Buddhist institutions, with hike to nomad camps in the high grasslands. controlled Tibet Autonomous Region, yet some 4,000 monks. You should wake early But Zhagana was rejuvenating anyway: I its landscape is “as breathtaking as any on enough to walk around the monastery with read on a guesthouse porch that overlooked the Plateau,” and its culture is as deeply the pilgrims, who prostrate themselves rows of houses clinging to the mountainside, entrenched. while circumambulating the complex. I hiked to the monastery in the afternoons, Late-morning prayers, marked by bray- and then I returned to the porch to gaze at Amdo offers two main activities for travel- ing Tibetan horns and crowds of rushing the mountains and sip yak-butter tea. ers: trekking and visiting the region’s many monks, are sometimes open to the public. At Xiahe’s Nirvana Hotel (nirvana-hotel Buddhist monasteries. In the small city of Drive four hours south and you’ll arrive in .net), rooms start at $45.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavor of... Spy sites in Washington, D.C. Iowa’s Amana Colonies “Espionage has been a part of U.S. history since The Amana Colonies of eastern Iowa are proof before there was a legitimate United States,” that the words “‘quaint’ and ‘modern’ need not said Spud Hilton in the San Francisco Chronicle. contradict each other,” said Jay Jones in the Gen. George Washington was an avid collector Chicago Tribune. Visitors to the cluster of seven of military intelligence, and the capital that bears villages often confuse the Amana people with the his name has carried on the spying tradition Amish, but the two communities have no connec- “through civil wars, world wars, cold wars, and tion other than German roots, and “if there’s an A place to heal mind and body computer wars.” To spend a day “following in oil lamp to be found” in Amana, “it’s probably clandestine footsteps,” start with breakfast at the in an antique shop.” Founded as a religious com- Mii Amo Spa Resort Mayflower Hotel, where FBI Director J. Edgar mune in 1855, Amana is home to the eponymous Sedona, Ariz. Hoover lunched daily for 20 years and where, in appliance maker, and area residents proudly main- Mii Amo is much more than the lobby, CIA agents once practiced the “brush tain their ancestors’ craft traditions—but with a spa resort; it’s “a portal pass” method of exchanging documents. Save help from modern machinery. You can watch arti- to your better self,” said the afternoon for the International Spy Museum, sans weave willow baskets at the Broom & Basket Becca Hensley in Virtuoso home to a collection of secret cameras and assas- Shop or handcraft rocking chairs at the Amana .com. Set within a canyon in sination tools. For dinner, head to Mr. Smith’s of Furniture & Clock Shop. The Amana Meat Shop Sedona’s Red Rock Country, Georgetown, a pub where CIA analyst Aldrich & Smokehouse sells ham cured the way it was in this luxury 16-room retreat offers guests some 50 treat- Ames handed over secrets to his KGB handler. 1855, and hefty portions of German comfort food ments, ranging from classic Fortunately, you don’t need Ames’ “traitor-padded are served up at the Ox Yoke Inn. “Diners who massages to past-life regres- bank account” to afford Smith’s classic pub grub. come hungry certainly don’t leave that way.” sion sessions and Native American–inspired therapies. After an Aura-Soma session, Last-minute travel deals during which I was shown Crystal Cruises perks Free national parks Southwest savings 102 bottles filled with colored Through Sept. 30, travelers For a few days every fall, the Southwest Airlines is discount- liquids, asked to pick four, who book select voyages with National Park Service will waive ing select nonstop flights with then granted an interpreter’s Crystal Cruises will enjoy a admission fees at national departures between Sept. 26 insights on my past, present, choice of a $400 fare discount, parks, monuments, and and March 7. One-way fare and future, I was left feeling $500 air travel credit, or $600 beaches. The next free days are from Austin to Chicago, for both empowered and “giddy shipboard credit. Voyages start Sept. 30 (National Public Lands example, starts at $94. Book with the mysteries of life.” at $2,000 per person, double Day) and Nov. 11–12. Savings by Sept. 21; a 21-day advance miiamo.com; all-inclusive occupancy. range from $3 to $30. purchase is required. stays from $1,509 a night crystalcruises.com nps.gov southwest.com Newscom, Mark Boisclair Newscom,

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Consumer LEISURE 31

The 2018 GMC Terrain: What the critics say Detroit Free Press possible.” Even on hills, the turbocharged “The days when GMC vehicles were just 252-hp engine and nine-speed transmission gussied-up Chevys are long gone.” GM’s deliver “just quiet motivation,” while “com- truck division is muscling into luxury-brand fortably fi rm” bucket seats enhance the territory with the top-of-the-line edition of tranquility. That said, the Terrain benefi ts its redesigned compact SUV, though any from linear steering and a stiffened chassis, new Terrain model you choose pairs a “strik- so it’s “not a complete drag” when pushed ing” exterior and comfortable cabin. GMC’s on a twisty road. 170-hp base model competes with Honda’s top-selling CR-V, while the sophisticated Motor Trend Terrain Denali—starting at $37,520—matches The Terrain has always been “a fi sh out A step up for GMC, from $24,995 up well against the Audi A5. of water” among compact SUVs, and it now plays the part with pride. If you don’t “refreshingly light and playful” base model Car and Driver care for Denali-level luxury, you can buy and stand out from your friends with Hon- Cruising a highway in a Terrain Denali is “in- a Terrain with a turbodiesel engine that das or Nissans. This new Terrain “doesn’t furiatingly boring,” though “in the best way gets 39 mpg on the highway, or choose the hide in the background.”

The best of...clever alarm clocks

WITTI Beddi Electrohome With its USB charge Ruggie Sensorwake The Barisieur Projection Alarm Clock ports, color-changing Because repeatedly Wake up and smell the Nothing beats waking up Electrohome’s clock LEDs, and built-in hitting the snooze but- Sensorwake. Instead to actual freshly brewed radio wants to keep you wake-up light, the WITTI ton only makes you of loud noises or coffee. The Barisieur— from having to roll over Beddi is “basically the feel groggier, Ruggie bright lights, the fi rst expected to ship in to check the time. It has smart-home Swiss helps snooze addicts olfactory alarm clock November—brews an adjustable arm that Army Knife of alarm kick the habit. The gently rouses you with coffee or tea moments can project the time in clocks.” It can also sync pressure-sensitive foam the scent of coffee, before the alarm sounds. big red numerals on a with Spotify, control mat won’t stop blaring chocolate, pepper- It even has a drawer for darkened wall or ceiling. smart lights, track traffi c until you get out of bed mint, or freshly baked sugar and a refrigerated It can also display the and weather forecasts, and stand on it. croissants. vessel for cream. room temperature. and hail an Uber. $109, ruggie.co $99, sensorwake.com $299, barisieur.com $30, electrohome.com $100, wittidesign.com Source: Gizmodo.com Source: Bloomberg.com Source: RealSimple.com Source: BusinessInsider.com Source: CNET.com

Tip of the week... And for those who have Best websites... The best time of day for everything everything... For reading the classics QEating: It’s better to eat big breakfasts Since their arrival in QGutenberg.org makes public-domain titles and then small lunches and dinners— select supermarkets available for downloading to an e-reader or because insulin, the hormone that regulates several years ago, reading in a browser window. The U.S. site metabolism, peaks early in the day, then Cotton Candy grapes has 54,000, and you can find some it doesn’t steadily drops. Following a hearty breakfast, “have taken on an al- have—including Orwell’s 1984 and Virginia “your blood sugar is less likely to skyrocket.” most mythical status.” Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway—on Gutenberg.net QExercising: Reconsider your early-morning They really do taste .au, the nonprofit’s counterpart in Austra lia, jogs. Muscle tone is highest around 5 p.m., like spun sugar, and where copyright laws are less strict. so the body is primed for physical activity. because their season QOpenLibrary.com aims to catalog every QDoing math: The brain is most alert lasts only from Aug. 10 digitally available book in the world and between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., peaking around to Sept. 20, they sell out fast. Grapery, the already has a selection of classics available. noon. In the early morning, “organs with California company that grows them, devel- QRead.gov is maintained by the U.S. Library more basic functions take priority.” oped them through old-fashioned cross- of Congress and offers free digitized ver- QBeing creative: “The evolution of language, pollination and sells other organic hybrid sions of books for all ages, including many religion, and philosophy all started with late- varieties too. If the company website fails to children’s classics and some for adults. Type night talks,” and research suggests we do help you locate a retailer still selling Cotton “classic books” in the site’s search window. think more creatively after dark. Candy grapes, look next for Moon Drop QShakespeare.mit.edu, run by the student QSleeping: Around 8 or 9 p.m., body tem- grapes, whose eggplant-like shape and color newspaper of the Massachusetts Institute of perature starts cooling to promote sleep. are great for Halloween—“as if you needed Technology, has since 1993 offered an online You should get at least 6½ hours by morn- an excuse to make a cheese platter.” database of William Shakespeare’s complete ing, and eight “seems to be perfect.” $6 per lb., freshdirect.com works, poetry included. Source: Popular Science Source: Delish.com Source: Qz.com

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 32 Best properties on the market This week: Homes under $400,000

1 W Tulsa Built in 1918 and recently renovated, this four-bedroom Craftsman home still features its original woodwork. The open-plan house has a finished base- ment with game room, bed, bath, and laundry, and a kitchen with stainless appliances, Caesarstone coun- ters, and contemporary tile floors. Outside are a cov- ered porch, garage, and landscaped yard. $389,900. Cody Addington, Chinowth & Cohen Realtors, (918) 557-3779

7 6 2 3

5 4 1

2 X Cincinnati This 1914 American Foursquare house is in the historic Northside neighborhood. The five-bedroom home retains original woodwork, molding, and stained glass; an update added new windows, electrical wiring, dual HVAC, stainless appliances, and a restored butler’s pantry. Outdoor space includes a walkout balcony, lawn, and garden beds. $350,000. Emily Buzek Valentino, Comey & Shepherd, (513) 602-7414

3 X Roseboom, N.Y. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the 1795 Joshua L. Pinney Tavern house sits on a property of 35.8 acres. The four-bedroom, 5,247-square-foot home features seven original fireplaces, built- ins, high ceilings, hardwood floors, and an oil-painted mural. Outside are gar- dens, patio, lawn, mature trees, and the surrounding woods. $399,900. Maria Barr, Select Sotheby’s International Realty, (518) 857-6396

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Best properties on the market 33

4 X Las Cruces, N.M. This 2012 three-bedroom home is set on a corner lot with valley and mountain views. The first in the area to get LEED Platinum certifica- tion, the solar- paneled, open-plan house has high ceilings, decorative faux paint, a chef’s kitchen with Energy Star appliances, and a home office. Outdoor amenities include climate- appropriate landscaping, two covered patios, and a swimming pool with hot tub; nearby are a park and tennis courts. $350,000. Melissa Y. Gorham, United Country RE- Revolution, (575) 652-3152

5 W Savannah This three-bedroom, updated 1945 ranch house lies in the heart of Ardsley Park. The open-concept main living space features wraparound casement windows, a marble fireplace, and carved-wood built-in shelving; the master bath has a jetted garden tub; and there is a full basement. The property includes a rear patio, a two-car garage, and, in front, a monumental live oak. $300,000. Donald Cal- lahan, Keller Williams Realty Savannah, (912) 441-4416

6 W Windham, Vt. This 1995 barn- style, six-bedroom home stands on 15.7 wooded acres with mountain and valley views. Details include vaulted, beamed ceilings, wood walls, a floor- to-ceiling stone fireplace in the living room, and a kitchen island. French doors open to a stone patio; there are also 7 S Frenchtown, Mont. This 1974 three-bedroom home on stone-walled raised 10 Frenchtown Valley acres abuts Forest Service land and is about flower beds, a lawn, a 25 minutes from Missoula. The gambrel-roofed, open-concept covered porch, and a house has lofted ceilings, exposed wood beams, and hickory- barn. $399,500. Robert wood floors, and includes a finished walk-out basement. Outside Waite, Four Seasons are a barn-style garage, a yard with a lawn and lamplit stone Sotheby’s International walkway, and the forest. $399,000. Jeremy Williams, Keller Wil- Realty, (802) 384-2990 liams Western MT, (406) 531-1519

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 34 BUSINESS The news at a glance

The bottom line Technology: Apple introduces the iPhone X QNinety percent of nonprofit Apple unveiled a trio of new iPhones Releasing such a pricey smart- CEOs in the U.S. are white, this week, including one with a starting phone is a “risky move” for as are 84 percent of nonprofit cost of $999, said Tripp Mickle in The Apple’s business model, which has board members, according to a survey by BoardSource. Wall Street Journal. The eye-popping increasingly relied on iPhone prof- FastCompany.com price tag is “a test of the enduring its, said Matthew Yglesias in Vox cachet of Apple products, already .com. The iPhone has always been QThere were 6.17 million job openings in the U.S. in July, among the priciest in their field.” The a premium product, but its buyers the highest figure on record. iPhone X (pronounced “ten”) boasts could rest easy that they were get- Bloomberg.com advanced features such as facial recog- ting perhaps the best phone in the QChina has spent $360 billion nition that works in the dark and an world, “the very same smartphone over the past decade building edge-to-edge, high-resolution screen. In that celebrities and presidents and 13,670 miles of high-speed a nod to more cost-conscious custom- billionaires use.” If consumers rail lines, more than the rest ers, Apple also debuted the iPhone 8 skip the iPhone X and opt for the of the world combined. The and 8 Plus, which will start at $699 iPhone 8 line, they’ll still have to Meet the $1,000 phone. trains can reach speeds of and $799, respectively; these devices shell out around $750, for a phone 250 mph, and by 2020 will come with more modest upgrades. All three they know isn’t at the top of Apple’s roster. Given connect 80 percent of the devices offer wireless charging and features that that choice, people might decide to settle for a country’s major cities. The Economist improve augmented-reality experiences. cheaper Android, or not upgrade at all.

QSmartphones are respon- sible for essentially all of Pharma: Patent lawyers turn to Native Americans Nordstrom’s no-clothes store the growth in web traffic Drugmaker Allergan is attempting “an unusual gambit” to protect the since the beginning of 2015. patents on one of its most profitable drugs, said Katie Thomas in The Nordstrom’s newest Smartphone web traffic has New York Times. The pharmaceutical giant said last week that it’s location will feature increased 68 percent since manicures, on-site then, while traffic from desk- transferring patents on its best-selling dry-eye drug Restasis to a Native tailoring, personal shop- tops and tablets has declined American tribe in upstate New York. The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe pers, and even wine. 30 percent and 16 percent, will claim sovereign immunity to dismiss patent challenges, and lease “Something it won’t respectively. the patents back to Allergan. The company has agreed to pay the tribe carry: clothes,” said Recode.net $13.75 million for the deal, plus $15 million in annual royalties. If the Suzanne Kapner in The strategy succeeds, analysts say, other drug companies will likely copy it. Wall Street Journal. Autos: Volkswagen tries an electric reboot The new store, called Nordstrom Local, won’t “Volkswagen is putting its full force behind a shift into electric cars,” stock merchandise. said Christoph Rauwald in Bloomberg.com. The world’s largest auto- Instead, shoppers will maker unveiled plans this week to build electric versions of all of its be invited to try on sam- 300 models by 2030. The German auto giant said it would spend ple clothes and accesso- $24 billion to roll out electrified vehicles across its 12-brand lineup, ries that they can order including Audi, Porsche, and Skoda. Volkswagen’s electric plans “are online, with personal the most ambitious in the auto industry,” reflecting the firm’s desire to stylists pulling together move past its catastrophic emissions-cheating scandal. “looks” for shoppers using an app. “The QFood prices in the U.S. Media: Fears of Fox News imperil Sky merger new concept comes as fell for 19 straight months “Britain is putting Rupert Murdoch’s dream takeover on hold,” said retailers across the U.S. through July, the longest Charles Riley in CNN.com. U.K. Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said are wrestling with how streak of price declines since this week that she will order an additional six-month review of 21st best to use their physi- the 1950s. Prices for staples Century Fox’s proposed $15 billion takeover of British broadcaster Sky cal spaces and attract like beef and eggs have TV, “because of concerns over broadcasting standards” at Murdoch’s customers who are fallen dramatically over the U.S. news channel Fox News. British lawmakers have pressured Bradley migrating to the web.” past year and a half, thanks to ensure that being part of the Murdoch media empire won’t lead to Nordstrom Local, which in part to cheaper fuel costs opens next month in and China buying less food the “Foxification” of Sky. Murdoch’s previous bid for Sky collapsed in 2012 after a phone-hacking scandal at his British newspapers. West Hollywood, Calif., from the U.S. spans just 3,000 square NPR.org Te c h : SoFi chief out amid harassment scandal feet, while a typical QThere were 15.8 million for- Another high-profile Silicon Valley CEO is stepping down “amid claims Nordstrom is 140,000. eign visitors to the U.S. in the of sexual harassment and unhealthy corporate culture,” said James “Shopping today may second quarter of 2017, down Rufus Koren in the Los Angeles Times. Mike Cagney, co-founder of not always mean going 4.2 percent from the same online lender Social Finance, one of the biggest players in the growing to a store and look- period last year. Arrivals financial technology industry, announced this week that he’s resigning ing at inventory,” said from Mexico fell 7.1 percent, Nordstrom executive and arrivals from Europe by year’s end. The decision comes after a former employee sued the firm, alleging that he was fired for speaking out against company man- Shea Jensen. “It can dropped 10.1 percent. mean trusting an expert Qz.com agers sexually harassing female employees. Cagney, who is named in the to pick out a selection.”

suit, said that he’s stepping down to avoid becoming a “distraction.” Newscom AP,

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 PURE BRAINPOWER

Home to the largest concentration of engineering and industrial design talent in the nation, PlanetM conducts more than 75% of all U.S. automotive R&D. And those efforts have resulted in three times the number of automotive patents and more navigation and smart mobility patents than any other state. When it comes to leading the way in innovation, only one state is perfectly positioned in mobility. Michigan. To learn more, go to michiganbusiness.org/planetm 36 BUSINESS Making money

Credit bureaus: Equifax’s massive data breach It’s not the biggest data breach insurance. To access the site, you’ll of all time, but it’s probably have to provide Equifax with your the worst, said Dan Goodin in last name and the final six digits of ArsTechnica.com. Equifax, one your Social Security number; the fact of the three major U.S. credit that “you must volunteer more of bureaus, revealed last week that what would otherwise be private in- hackers had obtained sensitive formation may not inspire much con- information, including Social fidence.” If you decide you’d rather Security numbers, birthdates, not deal with Equifax, “you can still and even driver’s license num- monitor your own credit.” You’re entitled to bers, for 143 million people. a free copy of your credit report from each of Other high-profile cyberattacks, the three major credit reporting agencies every such as those that hit Yahoo in 2013 and year, meaning “you can effectively check your 2014, involved hundreds of millions of ad- credit free every four months or so.” ditional accounts. But “in most cases the Millions of accounts were exposed. damage could be contained by changing a password or getting “Equifax will not be contacting everyone who was affected, but a new credit card number.” This time, however, criminals have will send direct-mail notices to those whose credit card numbers or managed to get their hands on highly sensitive personal data. dispute records were accessed,” said Katie Lobosco in CNN .com. Since the 143 million people affected excludes children and If you were affected, you can protect yourself by putting a freeze people without credit histories, the hack means that more than on your credit with each of the three credit-reporting agencies— half of all U.S. residents who rely on bank loans and credit cards Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—usually for a fee of less “are now at a significantly higher risk of fraud and will remain than $10. This will prevent fraudsters from borrowing under so for years to come.” your name. Breaches like these are upsetting, but “the only thing we can do is try to protect our data as best we can, and respond “Worried you may be affected by Equifax’s massive data quickly if something does happen,” said Lauren Lyons Cole in breach?” asked Brian Fung in The Washington Post. The credit BusinessInsider.com. Let this be a reminder to keep close tabs on bureau has a website, EquifaxSecurity2017.com, where you can your financial accounts and credit report, just as you do on your see if your data was compromised. You can also use the site to email or Instagram account. “No one is going to be more inter- sign up for a year of free credit monitoring and identity theft ested in your financial situation than you are. Not even a hacker.”

What the experts say Charity of the week Curb your bitcoin enthusiasm agent.” Some policies may exclude coverage “You might be tantalized by the shocking rise for students living in off-campus housing. in the value of bitcoin, but don’t let it sweep Most policies also cap coverage for “items you off your feet,” said Gail MarksJarvis in stored off premises”—including dorm rooms— the Chicago Tribune. The price of the digital at 10 percent of the policy. That could leave For 25 years, Heart to Heart International (hearttoheart.org) has been a first currency has surged more than 350 percent coverage gaps, because valuable items such as responder to disasters all over the world, this year, with its price last week surpassing electronics can add up quickly. With an aver- dispatching medical teams and supplies $5,000 for the first time ever before dropping age annual cost of just $190, a renters insur- to earthquake victims in Haiti, Ebola vic- back into the mid-$4,000s. By comparison, ance policy can be “cheap peace of mind.” tims in West Africa, and typhoon victims in the Philippines. The organization also the stock market is up about 10 percent for responds to disasters in the U.S., with the year. However, bitcoin isn’t a “no-brainer” Take the reverse mortgage early medical teams, medicines, and supplies investment. The graph of bitcoin’s staggering “Many financial advisers and consumers ready to roll out on short notice. This rise looks a lot like previous market manias, continue to think of reverse mortgages as week, Heart to Heart deployed its Mobile Medical Unit and Disaster Response including the dotcom bubble. Bitcoin may well loans of last resort,” said Pat Mertz Esswein Team to the areas of Florida hardest hit endure as a legitimate currency, but “astro- in Kiplinger.com. But a reverse mortgage, by Hurricane Irma. It is also operating nomical gains don’t continue forever.” taken as a line of credit early in retirement, free medical clinics in the Houston area can provide steady income as well as a buf- to help those left homeless or injured by Rental insurance for college students Hurricane Harvey. Besides its disaster fer against financial shocks. “Tapping a line assistance, Heart to Heart runs a “Health College arrivals: Don’t forget about renters of credit could allow you to avoid taking a in the Heartland” initiative, which mobi- insurance, said Kelli Grant in CNBC .com. distribution from your investment portfolio lizes local and out-of-state volunteer “Theft and property damage incidents on when it has lost value.” A 62-year-old bor- doctors to operate medical clinics in nine underserved locations in Missouri. college campuses are relatively rare, but not rower can qualify for a credit line worth unheard of.” Burglary is the biggest risk, 52 percent of his home’s value, up to the Each charity we feature has earned a with about nine incidents per 10,000 full- Federal Housing Administration’s limit of four-star overall rating from Charity time students in 2016. Dependent students $636,150. If interest rates rise, the untapped Navigator, which rates not-for-profit don’t always need their own separate policy, portion of the line will grow in tandem with organizations on the strength of their because their possessions are usually covered any interest charged. So, “over many years, finances, their governance practices, and the transparency of their operations. under their parents’ homeowners or renters the line of credit can increase to far more Four stars is the group’s highest rating.

insurance. “Yet it’s worth checking with your than the original amount.” (2) Newscom Getty,

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Issue of the week: Hollywood’s horrible summer Even superheroes couldn’t save Holly- selling site Fandango. As studios see wood this summer, said Frank Pallotta it, sticking a rotten score next to a in CNN.com. “Despite strong showings purchase button is the same as post- from Wonder Woman and Guardians ing “You are an idiot if you pay to of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” the movie indus- see this movie,” crushing films before try suffered its worst summer season in they have a chance to find an audi- two decades, pulling in $3.83 billion in ence. Sorry, Hollywood, but it’s not the U.S., down more than 14 percent lousy reviews that are killing your box from the same period last year, thanks office, said Rhett Jones in Gizmodo to big-budget flops like Pirates of the . com. The Emoji Movie scored a Caribbean 5 and Transformers: the truly horrendous 8 percent on Rotten Last Knight. Adjusted for inflation, Mark Wahlberg in the underperforming Transformers Tomatoes, “and it was a hit.” But in it’s the worst domestic box office take a season of boring retreads, at least since 1997, when the top films were Men in Black and The Lost it was something original. “The point is, there are a lot of reasons World: Jurassic Park. “And the number of actual tickets sold movies do well, and critical consensus rarely tops that list.” this summer paints a bleaker picture,” said Ryan Faughnder in the Los Angeles Times. Total theater admissions will likely end The reason for Hollywood’s summer from hell “might be as up around 425 million, the lowest figure since 1992. “No one simple as bad timing,” said Derek Thompson in TheAtlantic can fully explain” why Americans aren’t buying movie tickets .com. “To lasso millions of busy and distracted people into movie the way they used to. Maybe it’s sequel fatigue, or the fact that theaters, the major studios are spending more money on fewer ticket prices hit a record high in the second quarter, at $8.95 per films.” That means one or two movies can make or break an en- ticket. Consumers also have more entertainment choices than ever, tire quarter. The biggest film of 2017 so far, the live-action remake including buzzy, original TV shows on streaming services such as of Beauty and the Beast, came out in March, while summer was Netflix and HBO NOW. “How about all of the above?” weighed down by expensive bombs such as King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Hollywood is hoping to rebound with a big finish “Ready for the truly alarming part? Hollywood is blaming a to the year, said Seth Kelley in Variety.com. So far, so good: The website: Rotten Tomatoes,” said Brooks Barnes in The New York adaptation of Stephen King’s It just set a record for the biggest Times. Studio executives are furious with the movie review aggre- September opening ever, pulling in more than $123 million in gator, “which boils down hundreds of reviews to give films ‘fresh’ North America. “There are at least a few more potentially mon- or ‘rotten’ scores on its Tomatometer.” Rotten Tomatoes scores ster openings,” including Thor: Ragnarok and Star Wars: The “have become ubiquitous across the web,” showing up in Google Last Jedi, on the way. But until then, “the industry will be on the searches, next to iTunes movie rentals, and on the movie ticket– edge of its collective seat.”

“American cities are tripping over each other to Houston, St. Louis, and Miami have thrown their Amazon’s woo one of the most valuable companies on Earth,” hats into the ring, and “it’s no wonder.” Amazon’s said Jeff Spross. Amazon announced last week that new HQ is expected to employ 50,000 people, with cynical city it was hunting for the perfect location for a second six-figure salaries on average. Yet “there is some- headquarters, presenting its suitors with a “long and thing cynical about this whole display.” It makes shakedown exacting” wish list. The company’s ideal second home sense that Amazon wants robust transit and internet Jeff Spross must have “a population of at least 1 million, ac- infrastructure; cities should want that, too. But the TheWeek.com cess to airports, good mass transit, encouraging job more money local leaders spend on tax giveaways to growth, a well-educated labor force, nearby universi- court wealthy firms like Amazon, the less they have ties, and available land.” On top of that, the com- to spend on those same public services. Amazon has pany expects the lucky location to “sweeten the pot” already received $1 billion in subsidies and tax breaks with generous tax incentives and relocation subsidies. since 2014. The coming bidding war just “might en- So far, New York City, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, courage local governments to fiscally self-immolate.”

“Just how much political risk can the U.S. economy built a large degree of risk into their decision mak- The market tolerate? Quite a bit, it seems,” said Greg Ip. Mar- ing, which is why government-bond yields around kets mostly shrugged off the recent threat of a U.S. the world are so low. Cautious corporations have is comfortably government shutdown, and they remain blithely also been more likely to hoard cash or spend it on calm in the face of NAFTA renegotiations, President share buybacks instead of investing it. When mar- numb Trump’s threats to pull out of a trade pact with kets do consider truly unprecedented events, like a Greg Ip South Korea, and North Korea’s latest nuclear prov- U.S. government default or a nuclear war, “the usual The Wall Street Journal ocations. In fact, despite all the uncertainty and bud- reaction is to assume they won’t happen.” Those ding threats, stocks are trading at near-record highs events are “so alien to a business’s frame of reference and economic growth appears to be accelerating. that they can’t be planned for.” Of course, that’s not How could that be? “Because political risk has been to say we won’t blunder into a worst-case scenario. a constant” in the years since the financial crisis, and “But until the unthinkable happens, don’t expect it

it “has lost some of its shock value.” Investors have to tank the economy.” Collection Paramount/Everett

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Obituaries 39

The pioneering writer who upended feminism The historian who became ‘Afghanistan’s Kate In the late 1960s, time” she needed to complete grandmother’ Millett Kate Millett wrote Sexual Politics. An overnight 1934–2017 her doctoral thesis at sensation, Millett’s book “vaulted Nancy Hatch Dupree spent Columbia University her to national renown,” said most of her life working on the subjugation of women. The Washington Post. She was to preserve the heritage Charting a course through history, on the cover of Time magazine of Afghanistan. Known as literature, and art, she challenged and dubbed the “high priestess “Afghanistan’s grandmother,” the American conventional assumptions about of the current feminist wave” Nancy historian women’s temperament and status, by The New York Times. But Hatch spent decades arguing that the family was the not everyone was a fan—Mailer Dupree collecting patriarchy’s “chief institution” for lampooned her as “the Battling 1927–2017 thousands of socializing women into submission and fiercely Annie of some new prudery”—and the glare of documents condemning the misogyny of male writers such the attention “proved burdensome.” In 1971, six and photographs, and used as Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence, and Norman years into her marriage to a Japanese sculptor, her contacts and charm dur- Mailer. The thesis, radical at the time, became Millett revealed under pressure from fellow femi- ing Taliban rule to persuade Sexual Politics, the 1970 best-seller that trans- nists that she was a lesbian. government officials not to destroy cultural artifacts. formed Millett into a standard-bearer for the As her profile declined, Millett continued The Afghanistan Center at women’s liberation movement. “A second wave of teaching and wrote memoirs on topics includ- Kabul University, which the sexual revolution,” she wrote, “might at last ing her sudden fame, her sexuality, and her she founded, is now a accomplish its aim of freeing half the race from struggles with mental health, said The New renowned archive of 60,000 its immemorial subordination—and in the process books, maps, and folk music York Times. But she struggled to find work, and bring us all a great deal closer to humanity.” samples she amassed over Sexual Politics “stayed out of print for years.” the years. “So many young Born in St. Paul, Minn., Millett “was long Nevertheless, Millett looked back on her feminist Afghans know more about haunted by her father, an alcoholic who beat heyday with enormous pride. “The happiness of the histories of the countries his children,” said the Associated Press. After those times, the joy of participation, the excite- where they lived as refugees studying English literature at the University of ment of being part of my own time” was a thrill, than their own country’s Minnesota and at Oxford University, she worked she recalled, after being inducted in the National history,” she explained. “It as a sculptor and taught English. In 1968, she Women’s Hall of Fame in 2013. “Then, in a makes me sad because their was fired by Barnard College over her support for moment of public recognition, the face of the own history is so rich.” student anti-war protests—giving her the “free individual becomes a woman’s face.” Born in India to American parents, Dupree “arrived in Kabul in 1962 as the wife of an American diplomat,” The shortstop who built a Yankees dynasty said The Washington Post. She had an affair with an Gene As a ballplayer, Gene crack the big leagues until 1966, archaeologist from North Michael Michael ranks as a bouncing to the Dodgers, then to Carolina, and the two split 1938–2017 footnote in the glori- the Yankees. Michael anchored from their spouses and got ous history of the the team’s infield during the late married. Obsessed with New York Yankees. Nicknamed ’60s and early ’70s, “when base- her adopted home, Dupree “Stick” for his lanky physique, he ball’s most storied franchise went wrote guidebooks while her was the archetypal slick-fielding, into decline.” But he was widely husband excavated ancient light-hitting shortstop, with a mea- respected among fellow players ruins. They became a fix- ture of Kabul’s social scene, ger .229 batting average and just for “his knowledge of the game “famous for throwing cock- 15 home runs in a decade-long and his no-nonsense attitude,” said tail bashes known as five career. But what Michael lacked in The Washington Post. He could o’clock follies.” statistical luster, he made up for in brains. As a be devilishly clever, several times pulling off the Forced to flee Afghanistan Yankees executive under mercurial owner George hidden ball trick—tagging unsuspecting runners after the 1979 Soviet inva- Steinbrenner, he was chief architect of a dynasty who didn’t realize he had the ball. After retiring in sion, the Duprees resettled that produced four championships in the 1990s. 1975, Michael managed the Yankees and Chicago in Pakistan and collected A peerless evaluator of talent, Michael nur- Cubs, and then returned to New York’s front cultural artifacts from Afghan tured stars such as Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, office for good. Among his countless savvy moves, refugees, said The New York Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada—known as the none was more astute than moving the young Times. Dupree continued “Core Four”—and signed other cornerstone starter Rivera to the bullpen, where he became this work after her husband players, such as Paul O’Neill and David Cone. “the greatest relief pitcher in baseball history.” died, and she lugged a trove His alchemy combined statistical and empirical of material to Afghanistan in Michael “quit as general manager after the 1995 2005, beginning work on the analyses. “Numbers are important,” Michael said, season,” said the Associated Press. “Spending “state-of-the-art” Afghanistan “only to the degree you can blend them with what much of the year in Florida, where he often played Center three years later. At a scout has seen with his own eyes.” golf,” he served as the team’s vice president of Kabul’s National Museum, a Born in Kent, Ohio, Michael “played baseball big-league scouting and remained a fixture in vari- line by Dupree is inscribed in stone as a tribute. It reads, “A and was also an outstanding basketball player at ous roles until his death. Asked if he’d ever retire, nation stays alive if its culture Kent State University,” said The New York Times. Michael quipped, “I’m getting paid to watch base- stays alive.”

Getty (2) Getty Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1957, he didn’t ball. Why would I walk away from that?”

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 40 The last word When the Post Office was cutting-edge For nearly 200 years, mail service in the United States was a hotbed of new ideas and innovation, said author and researcher Kevin Kosar. Where did it all go wrong?

N 1897, A year when mail was to anywhere in the country— still largely delivered by horse was immense. In turn, Congress Iand wagon, construction began gave the agency a good amount on an innovative scheme beneath of operational freedom. In 1785, the streets of Philadelphia. Using an Congress authorized the Post intricate network of compressors Office to hire private stage- and metal pipes, the new system coaches to deliver mail. It was could shoot a capsule holding a few a smart idea that leveraged pri- hundred letters across a city in sev- vate-sector investments in trans- eral minutes, far faster than a post- portation but did not commit man could get it there. The inves- the agency itself to bearing the tor in this new technology wasn’t great cost of purchasing horses some kind of delivery startup, the and hiring riders. Later, the Post FedEx or UPS of its day. It was the Office would contract to have U.S. Post Office. mail carried by steamboats, railroads, and private delivery Behind the experiment was Post- companies. master General John Wanamaker, who was inspired by Paris, London, The agency also had the author- and other European cities that ity to erect post offices, but at were trying out pneumatic posts. It A mail wagon in Boston around 1895 first it licensed tavern owners to seemed a natural fit for America’s provide postal services to thirsty growing metropolises, where mail was For decades, the agency integrated new customers instead. That changed during hauled by horse cart and carried on foot. technologies and adapted to changing the 19th century, when the postal service Wanamaker had the sense not to try to environments, underpinning its ability to expanded massively. In 1790, the nation had concoct such a system in-house, since the deliver billions of pieces of mail every year, 75 post offices; by 1900, there were more agency had no such expertise. So he did from the beaches of Miami to the banks of than 76,000. Then came home delivery: something clever: He called for private pro- Alaska, for just cents per letter. Mail reached many city dwellers at home by posals to build pneumatic tube systems. We think a lot about how innovation arises, the mid-1860s and expanded to farmhouses but not enough about how it gets quashed. and remote houses in the 1880s. Henry Ford The Pneumatic Transit Co. of New Jersey built his first car in 1901. Four years later, was the winning bidder, and a public-private And the United States Postal Service is a great example of both. Today, what was the Post Office was experimenting with mail partnership was born. It agreed to pay to delivery by automobile. build the system, then to charge the Post once a locus of innovation has become Office for its use. The first tube could shoot a tired example of bureaucratic inertia The first half of the 20th century was a capsule of mail nearly three-fifths of a and government mismanagement. But its a dynamic time for the Post Office. It mile through a 6.5-inch tube from the city’s descent into its current state was not fore- immensely improved delivery by adopting main post office to the East Chester Street told. A series of misguided rules and laws innovations from the private sector and post office. Soon, similar systems were have clipped the Post Office’s wings, turn- abroad. Much like the pneumatic tubes, installed in Boston, St. Louis, and Chicago. ing one of the great inventors of the govern- some of the schemes incorporated new New York City’s system, the largest, could ment into yet another clunky bureaucracy. technology we no longer even associate move 6 million pieces per day at 30 miles N A SENSE, innovation was baked into with mail. During World War II, the Post per hour from the Bronx to Manhattan the Post Office from the beginning. Office adopted V-Mail, an idea pioneered and Brooklyn. Collectively, the Post Office’s IAmerica’s national postal service pre- in England. Families wishing to correspond pneumatic tube system ran more than cedes the founding: It was born in July with soldiers overseas would write the let- 120 miles, with 130 postal “rocketeers” 1775, a year before the Declaration of ter on a V-Mail form, which was placed in feeding mail into it every 15 seconds. Independence was ratified. During the a capsule and shipped to a facility where it was scanned to microfilm. The hundred- When Americans think about the most American Revolution, the U.S. postal sys- tem’s duty was to deliver communications foot rolls of film, which could hold 1,700 innovative agency in the government, they letters, were carried overseas and unsealed, think about the Pentagon or NASA. But between Congress and the military com- manders fighting the British. And for the and then the letters were individually throughout much of its history, that title printed and delivered to GI recipients. could just as easily have fallen to the Post first postmaster general, Congress appointed Office, which was a hotbed of new, inter- an inveterate tinkerer, Benjamin Franklin. VERSHADOWING ALL THE inven- esting, sometimes crazy ideas as it sought He rigged up a system of contractors to tion, however, was the creeping to accomplish a seemingly simple task: haul mail by horse and on foot. It worked. Osclerosis of the Post Office as an deliver mail quickly and cheaply. The Post From the start, the Post Office Department, institution. As a monopoly, it was insulated Office experimented with everything from as it was called until 1970, had to be inno- from competitive pressures, allowing inef- stagecoaches to airplanes—even pondered vative. There was little money to fund the ficiency to creep into its operations and

sending mail cross-country on a missile. startup agency, and its task—delivering mail management. Worse, political interests had Museum National Postal

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 The last word 41

sunk deep, with Congress setting postage the late 1980s and the internet erupted The agency has piloted a grocery-delivery rates too low and too frequently trying to in the mid-1990s, USPS officials mostly business, despite the 2006 congressional dictate the location of post offices and mail- shrugged. Annual revenues climbed, and prohibition on the agency entering new sorting facilities. the USPS’s employee cohort rose to nearly non-postal businesses. To date, the USPS 800,000 before the end of the 20th century. has not released any financial results for Booming business, however, enabled the this experiment, which seems doomed to The USPS did upgrade some of its internal postal system to avert a crisis for decades. In fail. Why grocers would rather pay highly technology. Its letter-sorting machines have 1900, 7 billion pieces of mail were delivered; compensated letter carriers, rather than less sensors with optical character recognition. by 1960, the agency was moving 63 billion costly bicycle delivery people or Uber driv- Yet relative to the world around them, these letters and parcels. The department often ers, is anything but obvious. ran a profit, and it sowed those profits into improvements are nothing compared with new mail-delivery technologies. the Post Office Department’s innovations Nothing may sum up the Postal Service’s in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the inability to innovate more than its failed Things began to change in the 1960s. Postal new sorting machines have not been reliable, partnership with Staples. A few years ago, workers unionized, and President John F. and the agency’s parcel logistics lag behind the Postal Service agreed with Staples to Kennedy authorized them to bargain col- expand consumer access to its shipping lectively in 1962. Despite growing mail services. Upon entering select locations volume, the Post Office ran perennial of the office-supply chain store, shoppers deficits, and its investment in the guts of would “find a familiar-looking counter the system—mail receipt and sortation— resembling a mini post office contain- lagged. The system broke down in ing the most popular postal products Chicago in 1966, and 10 million pieces of and services,” the agency crowed. It was mail were backlogged for days. “one-stop shopping and shipping,” and After a wildcat strike broke out in New Staples postal counters would be open York City in 1970, Congress abolished seven days a week. The agency began the Post Office Department and replaced piloting the Staples arrangement in it with the U.S. Postal Service, an inde- November 2013 in Boston. More than pendent agency. The Postal Reform 500 Staples stores nationwide had retail Act removed some of the congressional postal counters by the end of last year. involvement in its operations. In exchange, A pneumatic mail tube in Brooklyn, 1899 At first blush, the USPS-Staples partner- policymakers reduced the agency’s depen- ship looked like a win-win arrangement. dency on the U.S. Treasury and demanded it those of private-sector companies like FedEx But the American Postal Workers Union did become self-sufficient. and UPS. It is as if the agency has given up not see it that way. It decried the deal as an This new-look postal system had been con- on innovation and is utterly confident that effort at union busting, because Staples per- ceived by a Nixon-appointed corps of brain mail volumes and revenues will grow forever. sonnel would man the postal counters. trusters and businessmen with the aim of HICH HAS BEEN a huge mistake. In Earlier this year, the National Labor turning the agency into a public corporation 2008, the Great Recession’s teeth Relations Board killed the USPS-Staples with minimal political interference. Instead, Whit the mail business. Most mail is deal. Too weary to fight or fearful that it the plan infused the new agency’s DNA with sent by big mailers, many of whom slashed could not win in court, the USPS capitu- some of the same clashing political interests their postal budgets and accelerated trans- lated, and the Staples postal counters are that were hobbling the agency. Big mailers ferring their communications to less costly being dismantled. benefit from subsidies written into the law. online means. Mail volume is down 25 per- Pneumatic tubes didn’t survive, either: They Postal workers must be unionized and are cent since 2008, and the agency has hemor- became a victim both of their design and entitled to bargain collectively. Folks in far- rhaged money. More of what USPS carries is the Post Office’s success. Mail volumes grew flung Alaska and Hawaii are entitled to the advertising mail, which generates low prof- fantastically over these decades, and the same postage rates and services as everyone its. The mail-volume crash laid bare the cost tubes could only carry so much. Ripping else—no matter the cost—and Congress of the USPS’s loss of innovation mojo. It is them out and replacing them with bigger continues to insist that mail be delivered six a labor-intensive, paper-toting company in a tubes was deemed too pricey. Moving mail days per week to appease certain big mail- digital age, and USPS leadership has belat- by truck would be more efficient. So the ers, postal unions, and some rural residents. edly awakened to the reality that mail is not Post Office shut down its pneumatic mail a growing business. Innovation at the agency flagged. Upgrades tubes on Dec. 12, 1953. in mail-processing machinery were delayed Private-sector companies may soon eat That was an investment decision—the kind over union objections that jobs would be even more of the USPS’s lunch. Amazon is any company would have made, and one lost. So, too, were attempts to contract out building a delivery network of its own, with that allowed the Post Office to keep grow- more postal work to private carriers or lockers instead of post office boxes, and ing. The Staples deal, by contrast, drowned delivery companies. USPS operations became experimenting with drones. Uber also has in a bureaucratic swamp, tangled up in increasingly governmental as collaboration nosed into the delivery business, and other politics and labor relations. Absent funda- with private-sector companies flagged. companies are experimenting with autono- mental changes to these kinds of structural mous delivery vehicles and robots. At the same time, technology was rapidly obstacles, the odds are long that the USPS catching up to the Postal Service. The first USPS so far appears unable to innovate its will become the innovator it once was. threat was actually a miss: Although the way out of the mess it is in. The agency electronic fax arrived in the early 1970s, has $15 billion in debt and has shown little Excerpted from an article that originally it did not eat into the USPS’s business. So imagination to fundamentally transform the appeared in Politico. Reprinted with

Getty when cellular-phone technology arrived in way it does business. permission.

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 42 The Puzzle Page

Crossword No. 424: News Program by Matt Gaffney The Week Contest 12345 678910111213 This week’s question: A man in New Zealand who 14 15 16 reported his car stolen had to be told by police that he had actually sold the vehicle to a stranger the previous day while drunk, so he could buy more drinks. Please 17 18 19 supply an appropriate tabloid headline for this embar- rassing incident. 20 21 22 23 Last week’s contest: Husband and wife David and Claire 24 25 26 27 Burke have been together for 16 happy years, and credit their relationship’s success to the fact that they have 28 29 30 31 32 never lived under the same roof. If the British couple were to publish a marital-advice book based on their phi- 33 34 35 36 37 losophy, what title could they give it? THE WINNER: “To Have and Two Homes” 38 39 40 41 42 Grant Sims, Nashville SECOND PLACE: “Neighbors With Benefits” 43 44 45 46 47 Jeff Holmes, St. Paul, Minn. THIRD PLACE: “As Long As We Both Shall Live...Apart” 48 49 50 Ken Kumor, Haddonfield, N.J.

51 52 53 54 55 For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go to theweek.com/contest. 56 57 58 59 60 How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to [email protected]. Please include your name, 61 62 63 64 65 address, and daytime telephone number for verifica- tion; this week, type “Drunk selling” in the subject line. 66 67 68 Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, Sept. 19. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page 69 70 71 next issue and at theweek.com/puzzles on Friday, Sept. 22. In the case of iden- tical or similar entries, the first one ACROSS 56 Opposite of and 18 Really want received gets credit. 1 Patronized, as a rhyme for “abhor” 23 Alternative to a lager WThe winner gets a one-year restaurant 58 Pass’s counterpart 25 Frozen foods section subscription to The Week. 6 Rub it in 60 Gardner of Seven possessive 11 Retailer Walton Days in May 26 Hard to find 14 Big name in car 61 Member of the Brady 27 Cosmo, e.g. batteries Bunch 29 From nature, not 15 The Power of Positive 62 Website co-founded nurture Sudoku Thinking author by Tucker Carlson, 30 Sink feature 16 Put into practice with The 31 Jell-O pudding flavor Fill in all the 17 Milked herd 66 Part of a 5-high 32 Circus safety features boxes so that 19 Step up to the straight 33 Unit of speed for each row, column, plate 67 Who’s Afraid of Virginia modems and outlined 20 Cable channel that’s Woolf? playwright 34 The Taj Mahal’s city square includes also a country 68 Nary a soul 35 Increased quickly in all the numbers 21 Roughly 69 Super-cool size, as a budget from 1 through 9. 22 City on a bay 70 Breaks, as a bronco 39 Certainly didn’t wolf 24 Spain’s currency, 71 Does a household down Difficulty: before the euro chore 42 Eastern European hard 26 Shutterbug’s capital command DOWN 45 Charlotte of The Facts 28 He preceded Theresa 1 Make logical sense, as of Life May a story 46 Cabinet dept. 33 Bassinet occupant 2 Make fun of 49 Lobe location 36 Make mad 3 1981 Nobel Prize for 50 Honshu or Oahu 37 Test for an MBA literature winner ___ 53 ___ Verdes (California program applicant Canetti peninsula) 38 Shocked, poetically 4 Like many crossword 54 Soccer game or 40 Tavern entries, but not this birthday party, e.g. Find the solutions to all The Week’s puzzles online: www.theweek.com/puzzle. 41 Shooting sport one (abbr.) 55 Challenges 43 It may end in .com or 5 Camry company 56 Open a bit .mil 6 Means on a H.S. 57 Immigration program ©2017. All rights reserved. 44 Beethoven’s Third, transcript in the news, spelled The Week is a registered trademark owned by the Executors of the Felix Dennis Estate. familiarly 7 Jared of Dallas Buyers out by the first letters The Week (ISSN 1533-8304) is published weekly except for one week in each 47 Wedding day Club of the four theme January, July, August and December. The Week is published by The Week Publications, Inc., 55 West 39th Street, New exchange 8 ___ flour entries’ words York, NY 10018. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional 48 How to Win Friends 9 Every last bit 58 Head for the hills mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to The Week, PO Box 62290, Tampa, FL 33662-2290. One-year subscription rates: U.S. $75; Canada $90; and Influence People 10 When some start to 59 Votes for all other countries $128 in prepaid U.S. funds. Publications Mail Agreement No. author drive? 63 Stylistically copying 40031590, Registration No. 140467846. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses 51 Like some wooden 11 Underwater 64 Company that created to P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6. The Week is a member of The New York Times News Service, The Washington Post/ tables 12 Right now the chess-playing Bloomberg News Service, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, and subscribes 52 E-mailed the host, 13 Prefix with physics or program Deep Blue to The Associated Press.

maybe analysis 65 Singer Rawls H M O R S

THE WEEK September 22, 2017 Sources: A complete list of publications cited in The Week can be found at theweek.com/sources.

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