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Editor’s letter

We’ve been a paranoid country from pretty much the beginning. debunked internet rumors and bogus tabloid stories to attack his Long before the 9/11 truthers and the Obama birthers, the black opponents and rally crowds, from claiming that thousands of helicopters and the grassy knoll, conspiracy theories were woven American Muslims were cheering on 9/11 to accusing Ted Cruz’s into our political fabric. George Washington worried about the father of being connected to the JFK assassination. He’s even recy- power of the Illuminati. John Quincy Adams feared the Free- cled 1990s nonsense that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster. (See masons. Slavery abolitionists in Congress were convinced sinis- Best U.S. Columns.) There’s a very rational method to this mad- ter Democrats were poisoning their whiskey. The paranoid belief ness. Political scientists have shown that simply being exposed to that shadowy groups are secretly pulling the strings of power is conspiracy theories helps lower people’s trust in government—an deeply American—and certainly not limited to a lunatic fringe. effect that surely benefits an outsider candidate like The Donald. Polls suggest a majority of Americans subscribe to at least one People who feel powerless are most susceptible to seeing conspira- out-there narrative, and that conservatives and liberals are equally cies everywhere. Not surprisingly, polls have found that the stron- susceptible. People who scoff at the notion that Barack Obama is gest predictor of support for Trump is agreement with the state- secretly a Muslim may believe that vaccines cause autism—or that ment “People like me don’t have any say about what the govern- the government is hiding evidence of alien visitations to Earth. ment does.” So by peddling conspiracies, Trump knows exactly No modern political figure better understands the appeal what he’s doing. Or is it paranoid to think so? Carolyn O’Hara of conspiracy theories than Donald Trump. He regularly cites Guess I should go find a tinfoil hat of my own. Managing editor

NEWS 4 Main stories The toxic fight between Editor-in-chief: William Falk Clinton and Sanders; did Managing editors: Theunis Bates, Carolyn O’Hara terrorists down EgyptAir Deputy editor/International: Susan Caskie Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell Flight 804? Senior editors: Harry Byford, Alex Dalenberg, Richard Jerome, Hallie Stiller, 6 Controversy of the week Jon Velez-Jackson, Frances Weaver Art director: Dan Josephs Should you trust polls Photo editor: Loren Talbot that show Trump Copy editors: Jane A. Halsey, Jay Wilkins Chief researcher: Dale Obbie overtaking Clinton? Researcher: Christina Colizza Special projects editor: Alexis Boncy 7 The U.S. at a glance Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin, Bill Cosby ordered Bruno Maddox VP, publisher: John Guehl to stand trial; violent VP, marketing: Tara Mitchell protests outside a Trump Account directors: Samuel Homburger, Steve Mumford rally; TSA official booted Account manager: Shelley Adler Detroit director: Lisa Budnick 8 The world at a glance Midwest director: Erin Sesto Northwest director: Steve Thompson Venezuela’s army patrols Obama arrives in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Southeast director: Jana Robinson the streets; a U.S. drone Southwest directors: James Horan, Rebecca Treadwell strike means a new boss ARTS LEISURE Integrated marketing director: Nikki Ettore Integrated associate marketing director: for the Taliban Betsy Connors 21 Books 26 Food & Drink Integrated marketing manager: 10 People The perils and potential Tips for the perfect steak Adam Clement Kim Basinger’s many Research and insights manager: of genetic research on a backyard grill Joan Cheung regrets; Ricky Gervais’ Promotions manager: Jennifer Castellano 22 Author of the week 27 Travel Marketing creative lead: Paige Weber love of the taboo Marketing coordinator: Reisa Feigenbaum Stephanie Danler on Savoring the off season on Digital director: Garrett Markley 11 Brieng coming of age in the Sweden’s Baltic islands Senior digital account manager: Russia is building up its Yuliya Spektorsky restaurant world 30 Consumer Digital planner: Jennifer Riddell military and threatening Chief financial officer: Kevin E. Morgan its neighbors. Could 23 Art & Music High style for sun lovers Director of financial reporting: Arielle Starkman confrontation be coming? Chance the headed to the beach EVP, consumer marketing: Sara O’Connor Rapper locates Consumer marketing director: 12 Best U.S. columns Leslie Guarnieri hip-hop’s bliss BUSINESS VP, manufacturing & distribution: A reluctant Trump voter Sean Fenlon 24 Film 32 News at a glance Production manager: Kyle Christine Darnell speaks; a transwoman’s HR/operations manager: Joy Hart bathroom experiences Crowe and Game of thrones at Advisers: Robert G. Bartner, Peter Godfrey Chairman: John M. Lagana 15 Best international Gosling pair Viacom; Theranos throws up as bumbling out thousands of tests U.K. founding editor: Jolyon Connell columns Company founder: Felix Dennis A hard-liner takes charge sleuths; the 33 Making money latest X-Men of Israel’s defense ministry Should you invest in a Visit us at TheWeek.com. startup? For customer service go to www 16 Talking points .TheWeek.com/service or phone us The clash over GMOs; the 34 Best columns at 1-877-245-8151. Libertarian alternative; Extending overtime pay; Renew a subscription at www will Bill help or hurt Kim Mark Zuckerberg’s sharp .RenewTheWeek.com or give a gift at www.GiveTheWeek.com.

Newscom, Splash News Newscom, Hillary in November? Basinger political instincts

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 4 NEWS The main stories... Sanders refuses to back down What happened Sanders for staying in the race, they should Bernie Sanders was facing growing pressure to be worrying about why Clinton has strug- tone down his rhetoric this week, amid grow- gled so much against a previously obscure, ing concerns that his angry denunciations of 74-year-old socialist from Vermont. Voters Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party lead- are in the mood for change, and Clinton ership are damaging the election chances of the embodies the status quo, and the corrupt, likely nominee. The Vermont senator, who has big-money establishment that so much of repeatedly accused the party of favoring Clin- the country detests. “The reality is that she ton over him, said he would fight to oust Deb- may be the only Democrat who could lose bie Wasserman Schultz as chairwoman of the to Donald Trump.” Democratic National Committee, and said the party had to decide whether it would remain What the columnists said “dependent on big-money campaign contribu- “There’s one simple reason Sanders polls tions and be a party with limited participation better against Trump than Clinton does,” and limited energy.” But the Democratic Party Bernie: No retreat, no surrender said Michael Tomasky in TheDailyBeast extended an olive branch when it let Sanders .com. Clinton has been savaged by Re- name five of the 15 people who’ll write the platform for the party’s publicans for more than 25 years, whereas most Americans know national convention in July, while Clinton named six. Sanders has nothing about Sanders’ “radical past,” in which he praised leftist 1,497 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 1,768; with superdelegates, he regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua and honeymooned in the Soviet trails 1,539 to 2,305. She is virtually certain to get the 90 delegates Union. If he won the nomination, Republicans would tear him she needs to wrap up the nomination on June 7, when New Jersey apart as an anti-American commie. Sanders is stoking up his fol- and California voters choose a total of 674 delegates. lowers by charging that the party cheated him, said Clare Foran in TheAtlantic .com. But in doing so, he “could undermine [his] goal Clinton endured a difficult week, as she fell behind Donald Trump of creating a lasting political movement.” If his supporters decide in the polls for the first time (see Controversy). In a scathing report, the Democrats are corrupt and elections are rigged, a lot of them the State Department’s independent watchdog concluded that the will “give up on the idea that political reform is even possible.” former secretary of state violated federal rules by using a private email server for official business, and that she never “requested or “The onus is on Clinton, not Sanders, to turn down the tem- obtained guidance or approval” to do so, despite claiming she had. perature,” said Alex Shephard in NewRepublic.com. It was her The FBI is conducting its own investigation into whether the use of surrogates that disdainfully described Sanders’ supporters as a the private server imperiled government secrets. dangerous mob; as the likely nominee, it is her responsibility to unite the party and win over Democrats who want real political What the editorials said and economic change. “It’s time for Sanders to be honest with his supporters,” said The Washington Post. The Vermont senator isn’t going to win the I know exactly how Bernie-or-Bust voters feel, said Darby Saxbe nomination, and Clinton is beating him fair and square, with in Slate.com. In 2000, I voted for Ralph Nader because I was 3 million more votes. But by encouraging his fans to feel disenfran- convinced Al Gore and George W. Bush were “essentially indistin- chised, Sanders is creating a “toxic mix of unreason, revolutionary guishable.” But Nader votes put Bush in the White House, and he fervor, and perceived grievance.” If that anger keeps Democrats proved to be “a disastrous president” who launched an unwinna- away from the voting booths, it could “help ensure the election of ble war in Iraq, destabilized the Middle East, and “left the country Donald Trump.” mired in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.” If Sanders voters fail to support Clinton in November, they’ll put “Democrats are looking through the wrong end of the campaign Trump in the Oval Office—and the consequences will probably be telescope,” said The Wall Street Journal. Rather than blaming much, much worse.

It wasn’t all bad A Brazilian tortoise that lost 85 percent of her shell When Josi Aponte received her in a forest fire has been fitted with a new 3-D-printed diploma from Eastern Connecticut An 89-year-old Holocaust survivor replacement. Freddy the tortoise was found in a near- State University last week, a very im- has fulfilled her lifetime dream of death state last year and was not expected to survive. portant guest was there to celebrate: singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” But a rescue group known as the Animal Avengers— the police officer who saved her life at a Major League Baseball game. four vets, a designer, and a dental surgeon—came to her 18 years earlier. In 1998, Officer Peter Born in Czechoslovakia, Hermina aid and spent weeks designing and printing the custom Getz had just arrived at a burning Hirsch was 17 when her family was shell. After a success- apartment building in Hartford, Conn., split up and sent to concentration ful operation, Freddy when a firefighter handed him an un- camps in 1944. After being liberated returned to full mobil- responsive 5-year-old. With no time to in 1945, she moved to the U.S. and ity sporting a hull that wait for an ambulance, Getz adminis- settled in Detroit in 1953, and has has been hand-painted tered CPR as a recruit drove them to been cheering for the Tigers ever to blend in with her the hospital. By the time they arrived, since. Hirsch had no qualms about natural habitat. “This Aponte was breathing again. Aponte singing in front of thousands of fans is a milestone in vet- recently reconnected with Getz, who at the Tigers’ Comerica Park. “If I lived erinary medicine,” said said he was humbled to be invited to through the concentration camp,” she team member Rodrigo her graduation. “She did really good,” said, “it couldn’t be that bad.” Freddy shows off her new shell. Rabello. said the retired detective. AP, Caters News AP, Illustration by Howard McWilliam. THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Cover photos from Newscom, Media Bakery, Newscom ... and how they were covered NEWS 5 Obama challenges China on Asia trip What happened of Chinese power.” The Vietnamese spent President Obama sought to strengthen eco- centuries chafing under Chinese domination, nomic and security ties with U.S. allies on a tour and Beijing is today using its military might to of Asia this week, as part of a push to blunt grab waters in the South China Sea that right- China’s growing influence in the region. Billed as fully belong to Vietnam. “The U.S. should by the latest stage of Obama’s “pivot to Asia”—in all means now sell Vietnam the weaponry it which the U.S. refocuses its foreign policy away needs to defend itself.” from Europe and the Middle East—the trip began in Vietnam, where Obama lifted the U.S. “Geopolitical calculus, not human rights, arms sales ban that has been in place since the dominated this trip,” said The Guardian Vietnam War ended in 1975. Scrapping the ban Obama in Hanoi: Prioritizing geopolitics? (U.K.) in an editorial. Yes, Obama made a case will help the “lengthy process of moving toward “for universal values in his speech.” But the normalization” between the U.S. and Vietnam, said the president, lifting of the arms embargo—a move U.S. diplomats had long said though many foreign policy experts saw it as a response to China’s was dependent on Vietnam improving its abysmal rights record— ramped-up military presence in the South China Sea. “Big nations,” “was granted without any serious bargaining.” Obama has already Obama said in Hanoi, “should not bully smaller ones.” opened up to Iran and Cuba, and Vietnam is no doubt another milestone for him. But we shouldn’t forget the ordinary Vietnamese Obama criticized Vietnam’s Communist regime for its repressive whose hopes for basic freedoms he largely ignored. “That, too, is policies, a point underscored when several dissidents were barred part of Obama’s foreign policy legacy.” from a planned meeting with the president. “Nations are more suc- cessful,” Obama said, “when universal rights are upheld.” The trip The president’s efforts to restrain China will come to nothing unless culminated with a meeting of G-7 world leaders in Japan, and a visit we strengthen economic ties with our Asian allies, said Doyle McMa- by Obama to the Hiroshima memorial—the first time a U.S. presi- nus in the Los Angeles Times. The Obama administration spent dent has visited the site commemorating the 90,000 people killed years negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partner ship (TPP), a trade pact when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city in 1945. with 11 other Pacific Rim nations, excluding China. But both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have come out against the pact, and What the columnists said Donald Trump has promised to scrap it if elected. Without the TPP, “I fully approve of the steps that President Obama is taking” toward Vietnam and other low-income countries eager to develop will have rapprochement with Vietnam, said Max Boot in Commentary no choice but to forge closer economic ties with the neighborhood Magazine.com. Our former enemy is eager to become a friend of bully, Beijing. In other words, if anti–free trade campaigners get their the U.S., which it “views as a defender against the growing threat way, “the biggest beneficiary in Southeast Asia might well be China.” Investigators eye terrorist link in EgyptAir crash What happened chaotic Arab Spring, “a repressive president, and a dangerous Egyptian and French submarines began scouring the eastern insurgency” waged by a franchise of ISIS—a group that claimed Mediterranean Sea this week for the black boxes of an EgyptAir responsibility for the downing of a Russian charter flight over flight that disappeared en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 pas- the Sinai in October. The latest tragedy certainly puts America’s sengers on board, amid conflicting reports over whether the own TSA scandal in “perspective,” said Jeff Darcy in Cleveland flight’s final moments suggest a catastrophic explosion took .com. Americans have spent weeks griping about hours-long air- place. EgyptAir Flight 804 was cruising at an altitude of 37,000 port security lines. The EgyptAir crash “should serve as a chilling feet last week when it disappeared from the radar just as it en- reminder why there are security lines to begin with.” tered Egyptian airspace. Greece’s defense minister said the Airbus A320 had swerved “90 degrees left and then 360 degrees” to At this point, it’s “pure speculation” to link the crash to terror- the right before plunging from the sky, but an Egyptian aviation ism, said Les Abend in CNN.com. As a veteran airline pilot, I’ll official disputed that account. admit my “gut reaction” was that “a sudden catastrophic event” brought the plane down. But the aircraft might have suffered a Officials also clashed over the likelihood that the plane was mechanical failure or gone into an unrecoverable aerodynamic downed in a terrorist bomb attack. An Egyptian forensics official stall. Without the black boxes, “all theories are on the table.” said human remains recovered from the sea were so tiny that they suggested an explosion brought down the plane, but no If terrorism is to blame, though, the world is facing a major new terrorist group has claimed responsibility. Smoke was detected security risk, said Owen Matthews in Newsweek. Given that the before the crash in the plane’s avionics bay, which is under the plane’s passengers made it through tight security at Paris’ Charles cockpit, and EgyptAir’s vice chairman Ahmed Adel said “defrag- de Gaulle airport, one theory is that a bomb was placed on board mentations” of human remains could also have been caused by a the plane by an airport worker, either in Paris—where officials high-velocity impact. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he added. recently revoked the security passes of nearly 70 staff suspected of radicalization—or during an earlier trip that day to Eritrea or What the columnists said Tunisia. The insider threat is “mind-boggling” in scale: London’s “For years now, Egyptians have barely had a chance to recover Heathrow Airport alone employs 76,000 people. As one expert from one crisis before being hit by another,” said Declan Walsh put it: “Security is only as good as the weakest link—and that in The New York Times. The country has been through the weakest link may well be the airport staff member.” Reuters

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 6 NEWS Controversy of the week The polls: Is Trump really winning?

“To be sure, it’s early,” said Niall Stanage in TheHill.com, but Charlie Cook, and Stu Rothenberg, all predict Clinton will all those predictions of an “easy win” for Hillary Clinton over go on to a big victory, on the order of 347 electoral votes to Donald Trump in November are suddenly looking pretty fool- Trump’s 191. ish. A raft of new polls this week shows that Trump has caught up to Clinton; in the RealClearPolitics average of Those predictions are based on one shaky assumption, national polls, in fact, he actually leads her by 0.2 per- said Mona Chalabi in TheGuardian.com, which is cent. Just weeks ago, that aggregate poll that this is a typical election. Pundits and pollsters showed Trump trailing her by nine didn’t realize for a very long time that points. The key to Trump’s surge is “Trump was a sufficiently popular the consolidation of his support among candidate to win the Republican Republicans, who appear to be unifying nomination,” and they’re just now waking around him. Clinton, meanwhile, has been losing Enjoying a nine-point swing up to the fact that he has a real shot at winning the support among Democrats because of her extended White House. Remember, though, said Eric Levitz in and increasingly divisive primary fight with Bernie Sanders. These NYMag.com, that “this is a uniquely good time to be The Donald.” early polls don’t necessarily mean very much, said Howard Kurtz Most Republicans are now backing him—even those who admit in FoxNews.com, but suddenly, the media has no choice but to they don’t think he’s qualified to be president. But that doesn’t view Trump as “a serious contender” for the White House, rather change the fact that Trump remains “an incoherent, transparently than as a disaster for the Republican Party. misogynistic pathological liar who has irrevocably alienated criti- cal swaths of the electorate.” Once Sanders stops beating up on Panicking Democrats should not “freak out,” said Josh Voorhees Clinton and “turns his populist fury on the billionaire across the in Slate.com. All nominees get a bounce in the polls once their aisle, the party will unite and Clinton will pull away.” rivals drop out. We won’t know where the presidential contest stands until Clinton clinches the Democratic nomination and the Until the last few weeks of this race, don’t put much stock in polls, people now supporting Sanders start to rally behind her. Despite said Norman Ornstein and Alan Abramowitz in The New York Trump’s recent surge, the “fundamentals” are still all in Hillary’s Times. At this point in 1988, Michael Dukakis enjoyed a 10-point favor: President Obama’s approval ratings are above 50 percent, lead over George H.W. Bush. In 2008, John McCain briefly surged the unemployment rate is low, and Trump’s alienation of women, ahead of Barack Obama. Polls themselves may be less reliable than and of Hispanics and other minorities, makes the Electoral College ever, because in an era in which few people answer landline calls, map look very friendly to Democrats. Clinton also has a vastly pollsters are having to make do with response rates of 9 percent superior campaign operation, said Juan Williams in TheHill.com, and less. That makes them increasingly likely to under-represent and will have about $1 billion to spend on campaign ads that key voting blocs. As we head deeper into this wildly unpredictable will mine a rich vein of sexist, racist, and crude Trump quotes election year, remember: “The polls that make the news are also and behavior. Three veteran political handicappers, Larry Sabato, the ones most likely to be wrong.”

Good week for: Only in America Boring but important International relations, after the IOC announced that it would A Home Depot employee be handing out some 450,000 condoms to 10,500 athletes and staff Government lawyers in Staten Island, N.Y., sparked during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, more than three chastised death threats by wearing an times the number distributed at the London games four years ago. A federal judge in Texas has “America Was Never Great” ordered hundreds of Justice Payback, hat to work. Krystal Lake, 22, after Forbes revealed that billionaire PayPal founder Department lawyers to under- says she wore the hat after Peter Thiel has been secretly footing the legal bills for Hulk go ethics training, accusing several co-workers wore Hogan’s successful defamation lawsuit against Gawker.com. After them of “deceptive” behav- pro–Donald Trump pins. “The the snarky gossip site “outed” Thiel as “totally gay” in 2007, he ior in connection with an point of the hat was to say called its staff “terrorists.” immigration lawsuit filed by that America needs change Taking deep breaths, after a woman in India gave birth to a Texas and 25 other states. The and improvement,” Lake said. 15-pound baby girl, believed to be the heaviest female infant ever states are fighting the Obama A company spokesman said born. “In my 25 years of experience, I had never seen such a big administration’s 2014 decision Lake has been told never to baby,” said a local health official. “She is a miracle.” to expand temporary protec- wear the hat again. tion against deportation to A Wisconsin Christian Bad week for: nearly 5 million undocument- school that receives federal Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald, who com- ed immigrants. The case is funding is demanding to see now before the U.S. Supreme all applicants’ birth certificates pared the months-long wait times that vets must endure to get Court, but last year, U.S. to make sure none are trans- health care at the VA to the lines at DisneyWorld, saying it was the District Judge Andrew Henen gender. St. John’s Lutheran of- “experience” that counts. After an uproar, he apologized. issued an injunction blocking ficials admit they can’t legally Growing up, after a new analysis of census data revealed that Obama’s order. Henen said discriminate on the basis of 32.1 percent of Americans between 18 and 34 live with their par- this week that government sexual orientation, but say ents, a higher percentage than are living with a spouse or partner. lawyers had unlawfully issued they’re letting students with a Bad habits, after a tech company launched Pavlok, a wristband deportation deferrals to as many as 100,000 people. “It “sinful lifestyle’’ know “where device that allows users to give themselves an electric shock—from we’re coming from,” to avoid was hard to imagine…a more having “to weed them out’’ 50 to 450 volts—when they want to engage in behavior such calculated plan of unethical after they’re enrolled. as smoking or eating junk food. It only takes a few days of self- conduct,” said Henen.

administered jolts, the company said, for the habits to disappear. AP

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 The U.S. at a glance ... NEWS 7

Baltimore Norristown, Pa. Arlington, Va. Gray cop acquitted: One of the six Bal- Cosby to stand trial: A Pennsylvania TSA official booted: The Transportation ti more police officers charged in the judge this week ordered Bill Cosby to Security Administration removed its death of Freddie Gray was acquitted of stand trial on sexual assault charges embattled head all charges this week—a second blow to dating to 2004, in a case that could of security, Kelly prosecutors after the case against another see the disgraced comedian serve up to Hoggan, from his officer ended 30 years in prison if convicted. Nearly position this week, in a mistrial 60 women have accused Cosby, 78, of as the agency con- in December. sexual misconduct. The statute of limita- tinued to face Gray, 25, tions has passed on the vast majority of criticism for died in April those accusations, but a case involving hours-long lines 2015 after former Temple University women’s bas- at airport security A marathon line at O’Hare suffering a ketball official Andrea Constand, who checkpoints. Hoggan had been criticized spinal injury claims Cosby drugged her with two pills by lawmakers during a congressional Nero: Not guilty on all charges while being before assaulting her at his Philadelphia hearing after it emerged that he had been transported home 12 years ago, was reopened in paid $90,000 in bonuses beginning in late in the back of a police van. His death December after a previous deposition 2013, in addition to his $181,500 annual sparked protests against police brutality given by Cosby was unsealed. In parts of salary, despite a leaked Department of in the city, and Officer Edward Nero— that deposition, Cosby admits to having Homeland Security report that said audi- one of three officers present before Gray seven prescriptions for sedatives, to giv- tors were able to get fake weapons past was placed in the van—was charged ing Constand three pills without asking screeners 95 percent of the time in covert with second-degree assault, among other for her verbal consent, and to having sex tests. “The bonuses were given to some- offenses. Nero declined a trial by jury, with women as young as 17. body who oversees a part of the opera- and Judge Barry Williams ruled tion that was in total failure,” said this week in a bench trial that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). The there were “no credible facts” TSA workers’ union continued to show Nero was directly to urge Congress to free up involved in Gray’s arrest. The emergency funding for an addi- trial of the officer who drove tional 6,000 screeners, ahead of the van, Caesar Goodson Jr., the arrival of an estimated 231 mil- is scheduled to begin June 6. lion passengers who are expected to fly He faces up to 30 years if con- on U.S. airlines this summer. victed of second-degree murder, the most serious charge against any of the officers. Richmond, Va. McAuliffe under Albuquerque investigation: Virginia Chaotic Trump protests: Violent protests Gov. Terry McAuliffe erupted at expressed “shock” at a Donald reports this week that Trump rally Washington, D.C. he was the subject of in Al bu- Racially motivated jury: The Supreme an ongoing investiga- quer que this Court this week threw out the death sen- tion by the FBI and week as tence of a black man convicted of mur- the Department of McAuliffe demonstra- der 30 years ago by an all-white jury in Justice—a probe into tors broke Georgia, ruling 7-1 that prosecutors had his 2013 campaign and personal finances through that is partly focused on the Democratic Outside the rally improperly kept African-Americans from police bar- serving as jurors. Timothy Foster, then governor’s links to the Clinton Foun- riers outside the city’s convention center 18, was sentenced to death for the 1986 dation. The investigation, according to and hurled rocks and burning “Make murder of a 79-year-old retired teacher CNN, has been ongoing since at least America Great Again” T-shirts at offi- in Rome, Ga. Four black people qualified last year and is looking into whether a cers in riot gear. Inside the event, about for his trial’s jury, but they were struck $120,000 donation to McAuliffe’s 2013 a dozen protesters in the 8,000-strong from the pool by prosecutors through the gubernatorial campaign from Chinese crowd unfurled banners reading “Undoc- use of “peremptory challenges,” which businessman Wang Wenliang broke umented Unafraid” and “Trump is a allow attorneys to exclude jurors for no campaign laws. Wang has also pledged Fascist.” At least three of the protesters stated reason. Years after his conviction, $2 million to the Clinton Foundation, were forcibly removed by the police. Foster obtained prosecutors’ notes that and unnamed officials said the probe was The presumptive Republican nominee showed they had highlighted the names of investigating McAuliffe’s time as a board responded by telling the demonstrators prospective black jurors and ranked them member of the foundation’s Clinton to “Go home to mommy.” The violence against one another. At oral arguments Global Initiative. McAuliffe, a longtime came two months after clashes between in November, Justice Elena Kagan said friend and fundraiser for the Clintons, Trump’s supporters and protesters forced the prosecutors’ actions were as clear an said that Wang had a green card and was him to cancel an event in Chicago, and example of racial discrimination in jury a “valid donor.” Virginia is expected to police warned of similar scenes at rallies selection “as a court is ever going to see.” be one of several crucial swing states in

AP (3), Newscom in California ahead of the June 7 primary. Foster is expected to get a new trial. November’s presidential election.

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 8 NEWS The world at a glance ...

Idomeni, Greece London Mass relocation: Greek authori- Bomb threats: Dozens of schools across Britain were closed ties are clearing out a muddy, this week, right in the middle of high school exam season, after sprawling tent city that sprang up receiving bomb threats by phone. The shuttered schools included on the Macedonian border near elementary, middle, and high schools in England, Scotland, Wales, the village of Idomeni, relocating and Northern Ireland. One school, Canterbury Academy in Kent, the 8,500 migrants there to offi- said it received repeated robocalls of a recorded voice with an cial refugee camps over the next American accent warning that “the shrapnel will take children’s two weeks. Most of the refugees heads off.” Police searched all the affected schools and found noth- Refugees on the Macedonian border are from Syria, Afghanistan, and ing suspicious, and said they are treating the threats as a “mali- Iraq; many are children. They’ve cious hoax.” Schools in 18 U.S. states and Ireland also reported been living in small tents pitched in fields and along the railway threats; none were found credible. tracks, or even in abandoned trains, since Macedonia closed the border in March to seal the Balkan route into the European Union. Greece is eager to reopen the train connection to Macedonia, but it can’t do so while refugees are camping on the tracks.

Caracas Army on the streets: As Venezuelans continue to face severe food shortages, rolling blackouts, and soaring inflation, Pres- ident Nicolás Maduro put half a million soldiers on the streets last weekend. Maduro said the military exercises were practice to repel an American invasion, but the Venezuelan opposition interpreted it as a warning to them. “There is no war here,” said opposition leader Henrique Capriles. “In Venezuela we should be declaring war against hunger, against medicine shortages, against violence, against this crisis.” The opposition is trying to organize a recall of Maduro, whose party lost its parliamentary majority last December. But Maduro controls the National Electoral Council, which is blocking the recall, and last week he declared a state of emergency that gives him sweeping powers.

Madre de Dios, Peru Poisoning the rain forest: Peru’s govern- ment declared a state of emergency in a large section of the Amazon rain forest this week because of mercury contamina- tion caused by illegal gold mining. About 50,000 people, many indigenous, have been exposed to toxic levels of mercury— some of their hair samples show levels six times the safe limit—and countless fish and wildlife have died. The area is navi- An illegal gold mine in the Amazon gable only by river, and President Ollanta Humala said the gov- ernment would send medical ships as well as cases of untainted fish and clean water for the people to eat and drink. Wildcat miners use mercury to separate gold from the surrounding rock, before dumping the chemical into the rivers.

Brasília Was it all a plot? Ousted President Dilma Rousseff has long claimed that the drive to impeach her was a plot by corrupt poli- ticians, and this week she got some evidence. Romero Jucá, who was appointed planning minister last week by Rousseff’s successor Cape Town, South Africa Michel Temer, was forced to step down after a recording emerged Tutu’s lesbian daughter: The daughter of on which he expressed hope that once Archbishop Desmond Tutu has left the Anglican Rousseff was impeached, Temer’s priesthood after marrying a woman. Mpho The happy couple party would halt an investigation into Tutu–van Furth said she was forced to resign the massive bribery and kickback from the clergy after her wedding to Marceline van Furth, a scandal around the state oil company, Dutch medical professor, because the Anglican Church does not Petrobras. Jucá is under investigation recognize gay marriages. Desmond Tutu, who won the Nobel in that alleged scheme, while Rousseff, Peace Prize for his struggle against apartheid, has campaigned though a former chief executive of for gay rights and gave a “father’s blessing” at the wedding cer- Petrobras, is one of the few politicians emony. “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven,” he said

Temer: Troubled start in Brazil not accused of involvement. in 2013. “I would not worship a God who is homophobic.” Reuters (2), Getty, Reuters

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 The world at a glance ... NEWS 9

Kiev, Ukraine Prisoner swap: A Ukrainian army helicopter Kandahar, Afghanistan pilot who was jailed by Russia received Taliban’s new leader: The Afghan Taliban a hero’s welcome in Kiev this week after picked a religious teacher, not a fighter, as being released as part of a prisoner swap. their new leader this week after the group’s Nadia Savchenko, 35, was captured by previous leader was killed in a U.S. drone Moscow-backed separatists while fighting strike. Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, in eastern Ukraine in 2014, spirited across thought to be 55, is a hard-line religious the border to Russia, and put on trial for Savchenko: Back home scholar who has issued most of the calling in an artillery strike that killed two Russian journalists. group’s fatwas and who taught many She won Ukrainian hearts with her defiant behavior, loudly sing- of the top Taliban officials. Two better- Akhundzada: New boss ing the Ukrainian national anthem during her trial in Russia, known Taliban figures, who were seen which ended this March with her being sentenced to 22 years as rivals for the leadership post, were named as Akhundzada’s in prison. “I won’t tell you now of my rage,” Savchenko said in deputies. Sirajuddin Haqqani, 27, heads the Haqqani network, Kiev. “I hope these feelings will give way to wisdom in time.” which has been blamed for some of the most vicious Taliban Western diplomats, particularly Germans, had been pressing attacks inside Afghanistan. Mullah Muhammad Yaqoub, Russia for months to release Savchenko. 24, is the eldest son of the Taliban’s late founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar. “One of the reasons that the Taliban chose Haibatullah as leader is that as a religious scholar, he can reunite different factions of the Taliban and prevent disintegra- tion,” said Habibullah Fawzi, a former Taliban diplomat. Akhundzada replaces Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, who strongly opposed peace talks with the Afghan govern- ment in Kabul and had faced dissent from rival Taliban fac- tions. Mansour was killed by a U.S. drone strike last week just over the Pakistani side of the border, in an operation personally authorized by President Obama. Pakistan has pro- tested the strike, saying it was not informed until seven hours after Mansour was blown up. “No country can allow that its sovereignty be violated in such a way,” said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

Mount Everest, Nepal Climbers die: It was a deadly week on Mount Everest as five tourists and a Sherpa guide died in separate incidents. A 36-year- old Dutch triathlete and a 34-year-old Australian woman suc- cumbed to altitude sickness in the notorious “death zone,” an area near the 29,000-foot summit where the air is so thin that only the fittest climbers can survive without oxygen tanks. Three Indian climbers also died, probably from altitude sickness. Phurba Sherpa fell to his death while trying to repair a path for hikers to follow near the summit. This is the first season in two years that Everest has been summited, so it’s particularly crowded: Nearly 400 hikers have made it up and back since early May. In 2014, climbs were canceled after 16 guides died in an avalanche, and in 2015 they were canceled after an earthquake killed 22 people.

Fallujah, Iraq Dubai, United Arab Emirates Onslaught against ISIS: 3-D-printed building: Dubai has opened what it says is the Iraqi forces backed by world’s first functional 3-D-printed office building. The 2,700- U.S. airstrikes have square-foot, single-story structure was completed in a mere 17 launched an all-out days using a massive 3-D printer—about 20 feet high, 120 feet effort to retake the city long, and 40 feet wide—working with a special mix of concrete, of Fallujah, just 35 fiber-reinforced plastic, and glass-fiber-reinforced gypsum. United miles west of Baghdad, Arab Emirates officials said the from ISIS. Iraqi army technique could cut building and counterterrorism time by up to 70 percent and Iraqi federal police outside Fallujah forces have been joined labor costs by at least 50 percent. by police, Sunni tribal fighters, and Iran-backed Shiite Muslim Dubai wants to have 25 percent militias in the assault on the Sunni-majority city, which has been of construction in the emirate held by ISIS since early 2014. The jihadist group is blocking some printed by 2030. “We believe 50,000 civilians from fleeing the city. “I’m afraid ISIS is going to this is just the beginning,” said use them as human shields to prevent the Iraqi forces from retak- UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs ing the city,” said Isa al-Isawi, the chairman of Fallujah’s local Mohammad Al Gergawi. “The

Reuters, AP (2), Reuters Reuters, council, who escaped to a refugee camp months ago. world will change.” Produced by a printer

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 10 NEWS People

Gervais’ urge to offend Ricky Gervais was working as a middle man- ager in an office when his life was turned upside down, said Kory Grow in Rolling Stone. Then 40, the Brit had been spending his spare time writing a comedy show based on his work life, called The Office. The show was picked up by the BBC and became an overnight, award- winning hit. Gervais, now 54, recently posted the first review of the show on Twitter. “I do it every now and again to remind people,” he says. “It just said, ‘A summer stinker. This will never make it. This is boring.’” Since then, Gervais has gotten used to negative reviews. “Nothing polarizes people quite like comedy or maybe religion, because people take it personally. And what’s funny is that it’s not enough for people not to like something—they don’t want other people to like it. They think it’s a threat.” That’s par- ticularly true of the acerbic jokes Gervais has made as host of the Golden Globe awards, which have included mockery of Bill Cosby and Caitlyn Jenner. “Some people hear a taboo subject, a buzz- word, and think, ‘Well, I can’t laugh at this joke.’ Well, listen to it. You might be able to. Is that a racist joke or a joke about race? Offense is good. It makes people think about stuff. I’ve always said, ‘Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.’” After a life in solitary Albert Woodfox spent 43 years in a 6-by-9-foot concrete box, said Ed Pilkington in The Guardian (U.K.). He is one of the “Angola Basinger’s bad choices Three”—former Black Panther activists who were put into solitary Kim Basinger has more than a few regrets, said Sanjiv Bhatta- confinement in 1972, after being convicted of fatally stabbing a charya in The Edit (U.K.). “There were times I could have chosen prison guard at Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison. Woodfox, better,” Basinger, 62, admits. Early in her acting career, she passed now 69, always insisted he was framed, and this February his con- over a role in the hit 1990s movie Sleeping With the Enemy (the viction was overturned. Now free, Woodfox is adapting to his new role went to Julia Roberts) and filmed box office flop The Marrying life outside his cell. “Everything is new, no matter how small or Man instead, co-starring with Alec Baldwin. “Isn’t it funny that I large,” he says. He had a day out at a beach in Texas recently. “It turned down Sleeping With the Enemy, and then I went on to sleep was so strange, walking on the beach and all these people and kids with the enemy!” Basinger and Baldwin subsequently married, and later went through a bitter and extremely public divorce and running around. I’m not accustomed to people moving around me, custody battle. During the family turmoil, Basinger adopted a very and it makes me nervous. Being in a cell on my own, I only had to loose parenting style with Ireland, who was something of a wild protect myself from attack in front of the cell, as I knew there was child. “Divorce is hard on a kid, no matter how you cut it. And ours no one behind me. Now I’m in society, and I have to remind myself was very public and nasty. So I brought up Ireland in a very uncon- that the chances of being attacked are very small.” There are even, ventional way. I just wanted her to be free. If she wanted to have he admits, moments when he feels almost homesick for prison. her friends over and write over the walls with pen, that was fine.” “Human beings are territorial—they feel more comfortable in Basinger says her life experiences have changed her taste in men. areas they are secure. In society it’s difficult, it’s looser. So there are “When you’re young you’re attracted to the ‘bad boy,’ only to find moments when, yeah, I wish I was back in the security of a cell.” out that they’re actually just bullies or insecure. Showing kindness He pauses. “I mean, it does that to you.” and humor are the most important things to me now.”

didn’t know the right floor, West “flipped out, an affair with another man—presumably squealing that his time was precious and Nassau County, N.Y., police detective Jeffrey If you think Kanye West is an insuffer- that he couldn’t believe I hadn’t called ahead Gross, who began dating McPhilmy after able megalomaniac, you would be right, to find out.” Stanulis says “Yeezy” fired him she and O’Reilly separated in 2010. O’Reilly his ex-bodyguard says. “He’s 10 times after just two weeks—for daring to speak to has asked a judge to seal all documents worse than what you see,” Steve West’s wife, Kim Kardashian. in his lawsuit to spare his children from Stanulis tells The Sun (U.K.). The rap- Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has filed legal “extreme emotional distress.” per refuses to push his own elevator papers saying he plans to sue ex-wife Mau- Terrence Howard is expecting his fifth buttons, demands that underlings reen McPhilmy for $10 million, claiming she child—this one with his ex-wife. The Empire remain silent in his presence—and misled him about the terms of their separa- star last week appeared at a Los Angeles insists they wear only black. “I was tion agreement and used the money to “fi- event with on-again, off-again partner Mira told, ‘Patterns distract him,’” ex- nance an existing extramarital relationship,” Pak, who was visibly pregnant. The pair, plains Stanulis, a former NYPD cop Gawker.com reports. The former couple’s who have a year-old son, divorced in August who’s guarded several celebrities. acrimonious legal battle appeared to have 2015 but have reconciled—though Pak has On his first day, Stanulis got into an been settled earlier this year, when a panel admitted it’s a complicated relationship. elevator with his new boss. “Kanye just of judges granted McPhilmy residential cus- “We have an amazing connection,” she stood there with his arms folded and tody of their two children. But court papers says, but “he’s not perfect. Doesn’t do the said, ‘Aren’t you going to press the but- filed by O’Reilly’s attorneys allege she made dishes. Doesn’t cook. Doesn’t lift a finger. I ton?’” he recalls. When Stanulis said he misrepresentations so she could subsidize probably leave him 30 times a month.” Getty, AP (2) Getty,

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Briefing NEWS 11 Russia’s military buildup Russia is modernizing its military and threatening its neighbors. Is a confrontation coming?

What is Russia up to? of nondeployed warheads in storage, Since annexing the Ukrainian peninsula and Russia does not. Because of these of Crimea, Russia has been throwing imbalances, says military analyst Daniel its weight around in Eastern Europe. Gouré, Russia is relying on intimidation Russian military planes and ships and unpredictable behavior, in the hope have been aggressively buzzing U.S. that NATO will “accept a small defeat and NATO aircraft and vessels and rather than risk a big war”—the very intruding into European waters and tactic it has used in Crimea and Ukraine. airspace. Russian warplanes recently To ratchet up Western fear, Russia has flew simulated attack passes at an even suggested it would use nuclear American destroyer in the Baltic Sea, weapons in local conflicts. and in April, a Russian warplane did a dangerous barrel roll over an American What is NATO doing in response? fighter jet, passing within just 25 feet. Worried that NATO is unprepared for In May, British fighter jets intercepted Russia’s rebuilt military on display in May Day parade a sudden Russian offensive, the Obama three Russian military transport administration is moving 5,000 troops, aircraft—which could carry troops or heavy equipment— and tanks and other heavy weapons, into several Baltic and approaching NATO member Estonia and refusing to answer hails. Eastern European countries. NATO is also getting around to British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon described the incident as deploying missile defense systems in Poland and Romania that an “act of Russian aggression.” These provocative actions have were originally proposed in 2002, when the U.S. was still reel- occurred at the same time as Russian President Vladimir Putin has ing from 9/11 and worried about Iran getting the bomb. A base been modernizing and upgrading his military forces. in Romania became operational just a few weeks ago, and work has begun on another in Poland. Moscow is livid, and argues Why the upgrade? that since Iran has now been prevented from obtaining a nuclear Putin inherited a lumbering and antiquated military from the weapon, the missile defense system must be aimed at Russia, in Soviet Union, along with status as a second-rate power. He wants violation of several treaties. NATO officials counter that Russia Russia to once again become a credible counterweight to the U.S. has almost certainly already violated those treaties by placing and NATO, and protect its dominion over its traditional sphere nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, a tiny exclave of Russian territory of influence. To that end, he has spent billions on a new genera- nestled between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea. tion of nuclear missiles as well as new tanks and fighter jets. The Russian military plans to vastly increase its manpower too, Is that the next flash point? announcing 40 new brigades by 2020, on top of the 70 brigades it It could be. Last December, Russia conducted a snap military drill already has. Whether it can deliver on that plan, though, is debat- in Kaliningrad, bringing its forces to the highest state of alert just able, since the oil price slump has hit Russia hard, depriving Putin miles from two NATO capitals. Some analysts believe it could of needed revenue. But Russia has nonetheless been moving troops begin manufacturing crises around access to Kaliningrad as a form and weapons closer to the borders of of blackmail, to pressure NATO to roll its neighbors and NATO members. Its Moscow’s ongoing cyberwar back its missile defense program or Black Sea Fleet, headquartered in the Russia now outstrips China as America’s big- even formally recognize the annexation Crimean port of Sebastopol, recently gest cyberthreat. “Russian cyber actors are of Crimea. added a dozen warships and has been developing means to remotely access industrial sending them out on patrols near the control systems used to manage critical infra- What will happen next? Bulgarian, Romanian, and Turkish structures,” National Intelligence Director James NATO plans large-scale war games coasts. “The Black Sea has almost Clapper said. Hackers with ties to the Kremlin involving 10,000 troops in Poland in become a Russian lake,” said Turkish have already penetrated computer systems at June, just ahead of a major NATO President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. the Polish stock exchange, a French TV station, summit meeting in Warsaw. There, The New York Times, NATO, and even the White President Obama will meet with heads Could Russia rival the U.S.? House and the Pentagon. Much of the hacking of all NATO member states, and There’s no chance of that. Even the is for harassment and espionage, but at times it Russian aggression is expected to be top Pentagon brass—who are using also presents a physical threat. In 2014, Russian a major topic. NATO says it wants to Putin’s buildup to argue for greater hackers took over a computer that controlled the keep talking with Russia, and it has funding—don’t believe American mili- blast furnace at a German steel mill, inserting reconvened a NATO-Russia council tary supremacy is in jeopardy. The U.S. malware that caused the machine to melt down. that stopped meeting after the Crimea still spends nearly seven times more on Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine have taken out annexation. But NATO no longer part of the power grid and interrupted military defense (about $600 billion) than Russia speaks of a “strategic partnership” communications. In Syria, Russian jamming sys- with Russia, but rather uses Cold War– ($84 bil lion), and has 19 aircraft carri- tems interfere with NATO spy satellites. “Russia ers to Russia’s one. And NATO has four certainly has been more active than any other era rhetoric about keeping lines of times Russia’s military power. Under country in terms of combining cyberattacks, or communication open. Russian officials, treaties signed by recent presidents, cyberoperations, with [military] operations,” said meanwhile, are taking a belligerent and including George W. Bush and Barack security expert Jeffrey Carr. “China has never pessimistic tone. The world “has slid Obama, the two sides have approximate done anything like that.” into a new Cold War,” said Russian

Reuters nuclear parity, but the U.S. has hundreds Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.

“The choice this November is tragic,” said Dennis Prager, but despite Why I’m my deep reservations about Donald Trump, I’ll vote for him. My deci- It must be true... sion to back Trump, after many months of opposing his candidacy, has I read it in the tabloids voting for put me at odds with many conservative friends and colleagues. Like Trump… them, I am troubled by his “character defects, gaps in knowledge on It wasn’t Snakes on a Plane. important issues,” and lack of “identifiably conservative principles.” It was Tarantulas on a Plane. Dennis Prager But in life, sometimes you must choose “between bad and worse,” and Passengers on a recent flight NationalReview.com the 2016 presidential race does not offer the option of “moral purity.” from the Dominican Republic If elected, Hillary Clinton will fill Supreme Court vacancies with leftists, to Montreal were left in an and a liberal, activist court would be so powerful that it would render uproar when a hairy tarantula “who controls Congress and even the White House irrelevant” for a crawled up a woman’s leg. generation. Trump has provided a list of 11 strongly conservative judges “I brushed [it] away and it he would consider for Supreme Court vacancies. A Trump presidency is started tickling me again,” the passenger said. “That’s when also preferable because he’d strengthen the defense budget, repeal job- I noticed the tarantula.” She killing regulations on business, repeal Obamacare, lower the corporate frantically knocked it off her income tax and stimulate the economy, and curtail illegal immigration. leg. After a second tarantula If you understand “the threat the Left and the Democrats pose to Amer- was spotted, passengers ica,” you have to support “the only person who can stop them.” screamed and stood on their seats until flight attendants calmed them down. Ento- If Donald Trump is elected president, said Michael Gerson, we’ll be …W hy I’ll mologists said the invaders handing the keys of enormous power to a dangerous conspiracy theo- were likely Hispaniolan Giant never vote rist. Two years ago, Trump jumped aboard the totally discredited notion Tarantulas, smuggled aboard that vaccines cause autism, tweeting, “I am being proven right about to be sold in Canada. massive vaccinations—doctors lied.” During the Ebola hysteria in 2014, for Trump Trump demanded that the U.S. shut down all flights from Africa, and An appraiser on Antiques Michael Gerson insisted, “Ebola is much easier to transmit” than health officials were Roadshow proved to be a little off the mark when he The Washington Post admitting. He was completely wrong, and if Western doctors and nurses dated a “grotesque face jug” had been prevented from going in and out of Africa, the epidemic might to the late 19th century, and have spread much further. Trump has also signed on to the nonsensical valued it at up to $50,000. conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and has a After the show forged birth certificate; repeated a white supremacist’s false claim that aired, a viewer blacks commit 81 percent of homicides against whites; and is even now called to suggesting Hillary Clinton might have killed former White House aide say that she Vince Foster. He has appeared on the show of nutty radio conspiracy recognized the theorist Alex Jones, who contends the U.S. government staged the 9/11 piece—and attacks. Every fellow Republican who backs Trump should know: “This that it had is the company he keeps. This is the company you now keep.” been made by her friend Betsy for an Oregon high school After I came out as a transwoman, my co-workers took it in stride— ceramics class in the 1970s. A transwoman’s until my boss came to talk to me about bathrooms, said Meredith Betsy Soule, now a horse Russo. She told me I had to use the men’s room. Every time I en- trainer, confirmed the story, bathroom countered men in the bathroom in my skirt and makeup, they’d act and produced a photo of startled, assuming they’d accidentally entered the women’s room, and herself as a teen surrounded experiences then glare at me or angrily insist I should be in the women’s room. “It by similar-looking sculptures. The appraiser, Stephen Meredith Russo got so bad that I stopped going to the bathroom at work altogether,” Fletcher, admitted he’d been and developed a urinary tract infection. People justify the new spate of The New York Times wrong, but praised Soule’s “bathroom laws” by raising the specter of heterosexual men wearing “virtuosity,” and downgraded women’s clothes to prey on girls and women in bathrooms. But there is his estimate to $5,000. no evidence that this is happening anywhere in a statistically significant way. What these laws would unquestionably do, however, is put people British police have apolo- who now have a woman’s identity and appearance in men’s rooms, and gized for entering a sand- transmen with beards and muscles in women’s rooms—making everyone sculpture competition with a depiction of a murder victim. unhappy, and people like me afraid we’ll be assaulted, fired, or arrested. The sculpture, which won Please: “We are much more frightened of you than you are of us.” first prize, depicts a naked woman facedown in the sand Viewpoint “A majority of Trump supporters agree with the statement that America was with seaweed hair and a better off 50 years ago—when white, Christian men were culturally ascendant, plastic knife stuck in her back. before ‘women’s lib’ and the big victories of the civil rights movement. These voters, who are over- “I like a joke as much as the whelmingly white Protestant Christians, are nostalgic for the America they believe existed before the next person, but this a family tumult of the 1960s, when a white working-class man could hold down a blue-collar job and take care beach event,” said local coun- of his family, with a secure job for life and a wife who stayed at home, and a retirement padded with cilwoman Hannah Toms. “I a decent pension. That’s why it doesn’t matter what outrageous things Trump says or does. His most think it is in poor taste.” Police fervent supporters want someone who looks and sounds like them but who has the charisma and said they were sorry if they’d personal economic clout to shake things up on their behalf.” Joy-Ann Reid in TheDailyBeast.com given “any offense.” Screenshot

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Hollywood has a dark secret, said Oliver Thring. for years. Both actors went on to abuse alcohol UNITED KINGDOM Serial child abusers lurk among the legions of direc- and drugs, and Haim died at age 38. But Feldman’s tors, managers, and agents, sheltered by powerful tell-all memoir was dismissed as unreliable because Hollywood friends and their own wealth. One agent who of his drug addiction. “The people who did this to managed high-profile child stars was convicted me are still out there and still working—some of harbors of molesting a boy and trafficking in child por- the richest, most powerful people in this business,” nography, and he spent eight years in jail. Others, Feldman says. Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg pedophiles though, are either never exposed or return to work has made a documentary about the prevalence of in Hollywood after serving just a few months in child sexual abuse in Hollywood, in which five Oliver Thring prison—and their old pals hire them to work with former child actors describe their abuse and name The Sunday Times children again. Those who speak out are shamed or names. But though An Open Secret was well re- silenced. Actor Corey Feldman, for example, went ceived at Cannes, Berg can’t get a distributor. Hol- public with the abuse he and Corey Haim suffered lywood bigwigs just don’t want this story told.

GERMANY Why is the European Union still striking deals journalists. He has used the fight against Islamic with Turkey? asked Stefan Kuzmany. German militants in Syria as an excuse to pound Kurd- Watching Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to think that ish militias there. Now his party has stripped forging close ties with Turkey will help keep that members of Parliament of their immunity from as Turkey country within the democratic fold. To that end, prosecution so that he can press spurious charges she championed the recent deal that allowed Tur- against legislators from the pro-Kurdish opposi- goes rogue key to take steps toward EU membership—such tion party, accusing them of links to Kurdish mili- as visa-free travel—in exchange for Turkey hous- tants. He plans to arrest them all and leave only Stefan Kuzmany ing Syrian migrants. But it’s not making the coun- his supporters in the assembly to rubber-stamp Der Spiegel try more democratic. On the contrary, Turkish his one-man rule. “And Europe does business President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “sees every con- with such a man?” It’s insupportable. The EU cession by the Europeans as carte blanche to force “will be making itself complicit if it continues to through his own interests even more ruthlessly.” stand by and watch with polite restraint as Tur- He has shut down the opposition press and jailed key is turned into a dictatorship.” Austria: Will the far right find victory in defeat? Austria just came within a hair’s breadth that polling stations in rural areas of electing a president with near-fascist closed early just to spite them, and beliefs, said Helmut Brandstätter in some even claim that absentee ballots Kurier (Austria). Norbert Hofer of the that had been marked for Hofer were far-right Freedom Party, which was purposely drenched in water to make founded in the 1950s by former Nazis them unreadable. and German nationalists, stunned politi- cal rivals last month when he won the Hofer’s backers are bitter and angry, first round of the presidential election, and they make up half the country, knocking out the two established cen- said Rainer Nowak in Die Presse trist parties. Those parties then united (Austria). We can’t simply dismiss behind Green Party candidate Alexander them as “ignorant or provincial,” Van der Bellen for the runoff, but the or we’ll see the Freedom Party win race was so close that it came down to Hofer (right) lost to Van der Bellen by a slim margin. first place in the next parliamentary absentee ballots to determine the win- elections. Their grievances are also ner. In the end, Van der Bellen won with 50.3 percent of the legitimate. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, people have vote—a margin of just 31,000 votes. “How could that happen been feeling unsettled and insecure, and Austria’s centrist parties in this land?” The Freedom Party was long a protest party. But have failed to reassure them. In fact, unemployment is down and under leader Heinz-Christian Strache, who hopes to become the migrant crisis is being controlled, but Austrians don’t realize chancellor in the next parliamentary elections, it has assembled that. We need “a fresh start with a more positive mood,” a gov- a following of “fearful citizens and those lost on the fringes of ernment that can “explain the importance of the EU.” society.” Hofer personally wrote its current manifesto, which strongly opposes immigration, uses Nazi-style rhetoric about Europe “dodged the bullet” this time, said Le Monde (France) in German nationhood, and hints at a greater Austrian Reich. an editorial. But nationalism and right-wing populism are now key forces in elections across the Continent. Far-right parties Austrians are trying to spin Van der Bellen’s razor-thin win are in power in Poland and Hungary, and France will be at risk positively, said Alexandra Föderl-Schmid in Der Standard (Aus- next year when Marine Le Pen of the anti-immigrant National tria). After all, we “stopped the rightward momentum”—right? Front runs for the presidency. These parties all share a “hostility But it’s hard to ignore the fact that this is “a changed country,” to globalization, a rejection of immigration verging on racism, a one in which ultranationalists are a plurality. And though rejection of the elites, and strong criticism of feminism and gay Hofer’s supporters lost, they won’t stay quiet. They are “sore rights.” If we are to preserve liberal values, the establishment losers,” trafficking in conspiracy theories. Many of them believe will have to “find a response to this mighty anger.” AP

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Best columns: International NEWS 15

Israel: A hard-liner’s rise to power One of the most respected military leaders erman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, estab- in Israel just abandoned Prime Minister lishing “an ideological, racist coalition Benjamin Netanyahu, said Yossi Yahushua that aims to entrench the occupation.” in Yedioth Ahronoth. Defense Minister Lieberman calls for reoccupying Gaza Moshe Yaalon last week abruptly quit his and assassinating the leader of Hamas. post—considered the second most pow- He is wildly unpopular abroad, and is erful position in the government—after persona non grata in Egypt for suggest- Netanyahu offered the job to the ultrana- ing that Israel blow up the Aswan Dam. tionalist Avigdor Lieberman. The prime Just a month ago, Netanyahu mocked minister’s move was designed to broaden Lieberman, who left the IDF having his Likud Party’s governing coalition, and only reached corporal, the second- Netanyahu was reportedly going to shift lowest rank, “as a lazy amateur” who Yaalon to the post of foreign minister. wasn’t fit to be a military journalist, But Yaalon resigned instead and issued a much less a military decision maker. scathing denunciation of his boss, saying he had lost faith in Netanyahu and that Lieberman: A right-wing pick to lead defense Calm down, said Mati Tuchfeld in Is- the “phenomena of extremism, violence, rael Hayom. Lieberman is no radical— and racism” were “trickling into the military.” Their split came in fact, he is not as far right as some of us might wish. He is after Netanyahu meddled in a military matter. An Israeli soldier “openly in favor of the two-state solution” that requires territo- was caught on video in March executing a wounded Palestinian rial concessions by Israel. But at least he is on the right, and that involved in a knife attack; the soldier was later charged with man- is the path Israeli voters chose when they went to the polls last slaughter. Yaalon and military brass said they were shocked at year. Unfortunately, said Isi Leibler, also in Israel Hayom, in ap- the soldier’s crime, and assured the world that the Israeli Defense pointing Lieberman, Netanyahu has alienated Yaalon, “whose Forces would not allow extrajudicial killings. But Netanyahu wise advice and military knowledge are irreplaceable.” and Lieberman, sensing the public’s mood on Palestinian attacks, openly supported the soldier, undermining Yaalon’s authority. Netanyahu may yet regret his decision once Yaalon challenges his authority, said Gil Hoffman in The Jerusalem Post. Yaalon has al- The appointment of Lieberman is “reckless and irresponsible,” ready “announced his intentions to seek the national leadership,” said Ha’aretz in an editorial. It sends a signal “to soldiers and and now he can build a new bloc that will fight Netanyahu on police officers that the political leadership expects them to shoot his home turf, the center right. Netanyahu and Likud are popular first and ask questions later.” Netanyahu could have joined forces enough that they can’t be defeated by the center left—but Yaalon, with a more moderate bloc, but he decided to ally Likud to Lieb- “a security figure whom Israelis trust,” could be just the ticket.

The West will take any amount of insult from are in a marriage of convenience, and though they UGANDA Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, said Nicho- may bicker, they “are not divorcing.” The West las Sengoba. Having led the country for 30 years, needs Museveni as a military ally in a violent and The West keeps he was just sworn in for a fifth term after a vote unstable region, where South Sudan is a failed state that everyone agrees was neither free nor fair. His and Islamic militants control much of Somalia. If supporting rival, Kizza Besigye, is in prison on charges of the Americans push Museveni too hard, he simply treason. At the inauguration, Museveni mocked threatens to turn to China, and they quiet down a dictator his Western critics as “stupid” and called the In- immediately. That’s why he can afford to “make ternational Criminal Court “a bunch of useless remarks that brand them as infantile without fear Nicholas Sengoba people.” The U.S. ambassador and other Western of serious consequences.” For Uganda’s opposition, Daily Monitor diplomats walked out in a huff—but don’t think the message is clear: “Either market yourselves as for a minute that they will actually stop supporting being better custodians of Western interests, or take Museveni. The Ugandan strongman and the West on the dictator without the help of the West.”

AUSTRALIA Australia’s immigration minister has made it his worked on farms and in factories and raised two mission to demonize immigrants, said Kon Karapa- children who went on to earn eight degrees and an Immigrants nagiotidis. Peter Dutton defended the government’s Order of Australia Medal. They had “something no reprehensible policy of detaining asylum seekers in formal education could teach you: resilience, love are not warehouses in Papua New Guinea and Nauru by of community, principles, sacrifice, entrepreneur- saying that “illiterate” refugees would “languish in ship, selflessness, and courage.” Those qualities are the enemy unemployment queues and on Medicare” if they “in the blood of every single migrant and refugee were allowed to settle here. Doesn’t he realize that who sets foot on this land.” Refugees don’t uproot Kon Karapanagiotidis Australia is “a nation of boat people on Aboriginal themselves to mooch off welfare. They come to The Age land”? Our country was built by immigrants. And build a life and give back to the countries that shel- those who come here as refugees tend to be the ter them. Australia does face a threat, but it’s not hardest working and most striving. My Greek par- from refugees. It’s from the “racist fearmongering”

Newscom ents were uneducated when they arrived, but they of our own government.

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 16 NEWS Talking points Noted GMOs: Safe to eat, says science After years of relent- There is no evidence “genetically of “natural” food often forget is that less growth, the number engineered crops have caused through cross-breeding and hybridiza- of opioid prescriptions in health problems in humans,” said tion, farmers have tinkered with the United States is finally Joel Achenbach in The Washing- the genetics of plants “for as long falling. For each of the past ton Post. So concludes a sweeping as we’ve been planting them and three years—2013, 2014, study released last week by the without catastrophe.” This report and 2015—prescriptions National Academies of Sciences. should offer relief to consumers, and have declined, a drop Genetically modified organisms dampen efforts to “force food makers that experts say indicates (GMOs) have been a flash point ever to slap labels” on GMO foods. doctors are finally heeding since they were introduced in the advice not to prescribe the addictive drugs so freely. 1990s as a means of boosting crop Actually, the report is hardly a ring- The New York Times yields and easing world hunger. Fierce ing endorsement of GMOs, said Chris opponents push for mandatory labeling D’Angelo in HuffingtonPost.com. The Only 2 percent of the of GMO products—now used in most study found that the technology “has claims Donald Trump has processed foods and including 90 per- not increased the rate of crop yields”— made during his presi- cent of the corn and soybean produced which, after all, was the whole point. dential campaign have in the U.S.—and claim these “Franken- Many GMOs are engineered to resist been true, according to foods” might cause allergies, autism, the effects of pesticides, but that in turn the fact-check organiza- tion PolitiFact.com. Six and other diseases. But after reviewing “has resulted in insect and weed resis- percent were mostly true, more than 900 studies, the NAS panel— tance,” which the report acknowledges 15 percent were half true, which had no funding from industry—found has “‘become a major agricultural prob- another 15 per cent were GMOs are as safe as other crops. Still, the lem.’” Even if GMOs are safe, they should be study said, every newly introduced labeled, said Jason Kelly in The mostly false, 43 per cent No evidence of harm were false, and 18 percent plant food should undergo safety New York Times. “I run a GMO were “pants on fire” lies. testing, “regardless of how it was created.” company,” and I believe consumers should know His 76 percent “false” rat- not just whether a product was made using ing far exceeds that of all “As with climate change,” there will always be genetic engineering, but, “more important, why.” other candidates who ran some people who won’t be persuaded by sci- To reduce the need for pesticides, or protect a for president. ence, said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. fruit from a virus? To create “a nonbrowning PolitiFact.com So much anti-GMO rhetoric is animated by the apple, potato, or mushroom” that won’t spoil People who take primal fear that “messing with nature is sure to so quickly? Shrouding GMOs “in secrecy only selfies regularly have dire consequences.” But what advocates breeds doubt and fear.” are much more likely to over- estimate how Washington Redskins: When is a slur not a slur? good-looking they are, according to a “The conventional wisdom was set,” said David racist word.” Virtually all Native American tribal new University ofToronto French in NationalReview.com. The name of leaders agree. Despite the poll’s findings, said The study. When members of Washington’s NFL team, the “Redskins,” was “a Washington Post in an editorial, there can be no the public rated the selfie horrific and offensive slur” against Native Ameri- doubt that “redskin” is a racist slur that origi- takers’ photos against the cans, “tantamount to the use of the ‘N-word.” nated “in an era when Indians were considered photos of those who don’t Legislation was introduced in Congress to force less than human.” Native Americans don’t object usually snap pictures of the team’s “racist” owner, Dan Snyder, to change to “Redskins,” one Comanche leader explained, themselves, the regular it, while a federal judge canceled the team’s because they’re so consumed with an ongoing selfie takers were judged trademark registrations. There was just one small crisis of poverty, unemployment, and substance to look less attractive than problem with the anti-Redskins narrative, though: abuse that the name of an NFL team is “the least they thought they looked, “Someone forgot to tell actual Native Americans of their problems.” as well as “significantly to be outraged.” A new Washington Post poll more narcissistic” than has found that a whopping 90 percent of Native I’m a “proud, outspoken member” of the vocal non–selfie takers. Americans said they are not offended by the term minority of Redskins fans who want the name Telegraph.co.uk “redskin.” Sorry, liberal crusaders, but “there’s changed, said Robert McCartney, also in The In April 2008, 35 percent consensus, there’s overwhelming consensus, and Washington Post. But even I have to admit Snyder of Hillary Clinton’s support- then there’s near unanimity.” has won this battle. The poll makes it obvious ers said they would vote that Native American leaders have been fighting for Republican John McCain This survey isn’t necessarily representative of the for a cause “with little impact among the people if Barack Obama won the Native American community, said Jason Notte they say they represent.” It is “presumptuous” nomination—a vow most in MarketWatch.com. The Post only polled 504 for we non–Native Americans “to say we know of them apparently did not people over the phone—relying on the person on Indians’ interests better than they do.” But don’t fulfill. Today, 28 percent of the other end of the line to truthfully self-identify expect this controversy to disappear because of Bernie Sanders’ supporters say they will not vote for as Native American or not. When the Center for one poll, said Paul Woody in The Richmond Hillary Clinton. Indigenous Peoples Studies conducted its own Times-Dispatch. Like death and taxes, the outrage WashingtonPost.com survey, it found that 67 percent of participants over the Redskins’ name is “destined to be with

“believe that the Washington team’s name is a us always.” Media Bakery Alamy,

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Talking points NEWS 17

The Libertarians: A third-party alternative Wit & “Get over it, #Never fiscal conservatism and Trumpers,” said Matt Welch limited government may Wisdom in the Los Angeles Times. The well see the Libertarians “In the midst of great trag- quixotic campaign to draft a as a decent compromise. edy, there is always the conservative third-party alter- Even if Johnson secures as horrible possibility native to Donald Trump has little as 5 percent of the that something terribly funny will happen.” failed to get off the ground. vote, said Robert Kuttner Philip K. Dick, quoted in Yet all is not lost. For the in HuffingtonPost.com, TheBrowser.com many voters who can stom- he’ll draw most of his sup- “Evils which are patiently ach neither Trump nor Hillary port from conservatives— endured when they Clinton, an alternative already tipping the election firmly seem inevitable become Johnson: He’s not Trump or Clinton. exists: the Libertarian Party. in Clinton’s favor. intolerable when once The organization’s presumptive nominee, former the idea of escape from two-term New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, Not necessarily, said Philip Bump in Washington them is suggested.” last week named another former Republican gov- Post.com. The Fox News poll found that Johnson Alexis de Tocqueville, quoted in The New Yorker ernor, Bill Weld of Massachusetts, as his running pulled evenly from Democrats and Republicans. mate. They will likely be on the ballot in all 50 But for the Libertarians not to get lost in all the “A starlit or a moonlit dome states, and with millions of voters disgusted with election hoopla of coming months, Johnson needs disdains all that man is.” W.B. Yeats, quoted in their choices this year, Johnson already garners an to qualify for the presidential debates. To do that, The Wall Street Journal eye-popping 10 percent in a Fox News poll. “In a under the rules of the Commission on Presidential political year that has broken one precedent after Debates, he’ll need to “average at least 15 per- “If you want to give up the admiration of thousands of another, the Libertarian Party may well shatter its cent in five national polls”—a very tough task. men for the disdain of one, previous record of 1.1 percent of the vote.” This just highlights how rigged the system is, said go ahead, get married.” James Glassman in RealClearPolitics.com. Ross Katharine Hepburn, quoted in Finally, a ticket “sane Republicans can get Perot was polling at only 8 percent when he was HuffingtonPost.com be hind,” said David Boaz in TheDailyBeast.com . allowed on the debate stage in 1992; when the “It is traditionalism Johnson and Weld are capable executives who businessman then won 19 percent of the actual that gives tradition such were “elected and reelected in Democratic states.” vote, the two major parties made sure the bar for a bad name.” Granted, most conservatives don’t share their entry was raised for future campaigns. This year, Historian Jaroslav Pelikan, libertarian enthusiasm for legalizing marijuana, “Americans are crying out for a third choice”— quoted in Economist.com allowing gays to marry, and avoiding foreign but Republicans and Democrats are conspiring to “The secret source conflicts. But anti-Trump voters who prioritize deny them one. of humor is not joy but sorrow.” Mark Twain, quoted in the Lawrence, Kan., Journal-World Bill Clinton: Will he help Hillary or hurt her? “All labor that uplifts “The notion of a 2-for-1 Clinton presidency is competent, groundbreaking female first presi- humanity has dignity back,” said Lisa Lerer in The Washington Post. dent.” Besides, Bill comes with serious baggage, and status and should be Fifteen years after Hill and Bill left the White said Victor Davis Hanson in NationalReview undertaken with meticulous excellence.” House, Democratic presidential front-runner .com. In the past few days, Trump has reminded Martin Luther King Jr., quoted Hillary Clinton is doing her best to offer voters everyone of the much uglier side of the former in OpenDemocracy.net another nostalgic 1990s package deal—promising president’s past, accusing Bill Clinton of “rape” that husband Bill Clinton will be “in charge of and releasing a provocative video involving two revitalizing the economy” if she wins the White women who accused the president of sexual Poll watch House in November. Hillary has every reason to assault during the 1990s. At the time, the utterly beef up the former president’s role, said Brent ruthless Clintons “reduced women who claimed 60% of registered vot- Budowsky in The New York Observer. “Bill Clin- that they were assaulted to the status of ‘bimbo,’ ers say that Donald Trump ton is the Babe Ruth of American politics,” who ‘floozy,’ and ‘stalker.’” Reminding voters of all should release his tax oversaw one of the most economically successful that will not help Hillary’s cause. returns, including 44% of administrations in modern history, with 23 mil- Republicans and 59% of lion jobs created. And while Hillary’s net unfavor- But after 20 years, Bill’s sex scandals might be independents. Washington Post/ABC News ability rating is nearly as bad as Donald Trump’s, played out, said David Graham in TheAtlantic Bill still has a net positive favorability rating of .com. Trump is hardly the “best messenger” to 66% of Americans feel 10 percent. No doubt about it, “Bill Clinton is revive them, given his long history of misogyny that their households Hillary Clinton’s secret weapon.” and his ex-wife Ivana’s claim he once sexually are in good financial assaulted her. In fact, his bullying attacks on Hill- shape. Over the last five I thought Hillary was a feminist, said Jon ary for her husband’s infidelities may backfire, years, 5% have seen their Kraushar on FoxNews.com. So why would she and create sympathy for her. Still, by saying she’d pay “increase rapidly,” 32% “subordinate her leadership to the ‘First Dude’ give him a central role in her administration, Hill- and have enjoyed “steady advances.” For on what voters identify as the most important ary has made her husband’s legacy and personal 46%, their income re- problem facing the country today: the econ- life fair game. In what promises to be one of the mains “about the same.” omy”? Handing that job off “on Day One to her most “excruciating” presidential races in history, Associated Press/NORC

Getty husband would hardly be an act of a confident, “you’re going to hear a lot about Bill Clinton.”

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 18 NEWS Technology

Gadgets: Google makes itself at home “The battle for control of the living room Still, it “would be wrong to discount just began in earnest,” said David Streitfeld Amazon’s head start,” said Brian Barrett in The New York Times. At its annual devel- in Wired.com. Echo has been on sale for a oper conference last week, Google unveiled year and a half, and in that time Amazon Google Home—its answer to Amazon Echo, has sold 3 million of the devices; Amazon the e-retailer’s surprisingly popular voice- also has far more third-party partners and activated smart speaker. Like Echo, Google connects to more smart-home platform s. Home is a virtual helper you can ask to do “Echo’s biggest edge, though, is that you can just about anything, from making to-do lists actually buy one today.” It’s still not clear and telling you the weather to ordering take- what Google Home will cost, or when it will out and dimming the lights in your house. be released, though it could be ready as soon It’s also Google’s “most important new Google Home: A device to run your life as this fall. Even then, expect fierce competi- venture” in years—designed to help the tech tion from Amazon, which has not hesitated giant become “less a tool you go to and more an assistant that is in the past to ban rival products like Apple TV and Chrome cast sometimes visible but always present.” from its digital shelves.

“Usually when big tech companies copy each other’s ideas, they “Google Home is an unobtrusive device meant to blend into the put up some pretense of originality,” said Will Oremus in Slate background of your living room or your bedroom,” said Nita- .com. “Google, to its credit, barely bothered to pass off Home sha Tiku in BuzzFeed.com. But how unobtrusive is it? Like any as its own innovation.” It basically works the same as the Echo, Google product, it’s the data it collects that “makes the magic.” though it might be a bit “friendlier-looking,” like a “modernist In order for Google Home to do things like make dinner reserva- salt shaker” to Echo’s cold cylinder. Home does have one big tions, rearrange your schedule when your flight is delayed, or advantage: Because it can tap into the power of Google search, as turn down the thermostat when you leave the house, it needs to well as connect to services like Google Maps, Gmail, and Google know even more about you than Google already does. That’s why calendar, it’s likely to be better at seamlessly integrating into your “instant gratification is the bane of privacy advocates.” The more life. Google’s voice recognition capabilities also include “conver- data you give up, the more useful something like Google Home sational search” technology, allowing for abbreviated follow-up becomes. “Your own personal Google” sounds pretty convenient. requests and questions. Amazon “simply can’t do that yet.” But don’t forget, a company is on the other side of that speaker.

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

“Is your smart home The end of anonymity? and braking systems. That technology allows really that smart if “Anonymity in public could soon be a thing of them to keep to one lane, maintain a set speed, you still pluck your the past,” said Shaun Walker in The Guardian and slow down or stop by themselves. Otto’s eyebrows by looking (U.K.). FindFace, a Russian facial recognition founders say they have conducted successful in a mirror that isn’t app, allows users to photograph strangers in a tests on California’s Interstate 5 and Highway wirelessly communi- crowd and discover their identity with 70 per- 101 with minimal human intervention. Human cating with three other cent accuracy. The app, which has amassed drivers are the primary cause of 87 percent of devices?” asked Katherine Boehret in TheVerge.com. 500,000 users in two months, works by com- big-rig crashes, according to the Federal Motor Simplehuman’s Sensor paring photographs with profile pictures on Carrier Safety Administration. Mirror Pro—available now Vkontakte, a Facebook-like social network for $250—does that and popular in Russia. Its creators envision the app The instant-camera revival much more. This 8-inch being used for everything from dating—users It may be the age of smartphones, but Polaroid- round “smart” mirror senses when could surreptitiously photograph someone and style instant cameras are making a comeback, your face is near and then lights up then send them a friend request—to targeted said Joanna Stern in The Wall Street Journal. in over 50,000 color variations that advertisements to law enforcement. FindFace’s Fujifilm sold 5 million of its Instax instant- can simulate just about any kind of lighting environment. That’s where founders, already in talks with Moscow’s city film cameras last year, up 30 percent from the mirror’s many connected features government to work with 150,000 closed- 2014, and expects to sell 6.5 million this come in handy. Users can snap a circuit cameras, also say they’d be open to year. “It’s not nostalgia.” Camera makers say selfie at work on the Simplehuman working with Russia’s FSB security service. younger buyers are driving the sales. Why? app to get their mirror to simulate “Smartphones have taken away some of the their office’s bright fluorescent lights, Here come the robot truckers magic of photography.” The under-30 set or use Google Calendar to automati- Highways full of self-driving big rigs are has found it’s fun to snap, print, and swap cally remind the mirror to use dim “closer than you think,” said Jack Stewart photos at parties, and the pictures are meant lighting before a restaurant reserva- in Wired.com. Otto, a startup founded by to last, unlike so many digital shots that are tion. The mirror also responds to voice commands through Amazon’s two Google Maps veterans, has developed a never looked at again or even disappear. Echo—especially helpful “when your $30,000 kit that can turn any semi built since Those who do want digital pictures, as well fingers are covered in makeup or 2013 into an autonomous vehicle. Trucks are as a quick printout, have yet another option: moisturizer.” retrofitted with sensors, cameras, and map- Smartphone-connected pocket printers offer

ping software, plus upgrades to the steering “the best of both worlds.” Google, Simplehuman

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Health & Science NEWS 19

Making human genomes in the lab? The prospect of using biotechnology to make it possible to copy certain people— clone or create a designer human being in say, Albert Einstein—or design new the lab has long been the stuff of dystopic humans without biological parents. Not science fiction. Fears that this dark pros- surprisingly, the idea has sparked contro- pect is entering the realm of the possible versy, reports TechTimes. com. Harvard were recently raised, when a select group geneticist George Church, who organized of researchers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs the conference, said the aim of the project convened behind closed doors at Harvard is not to manufacture people—just cells, Medical School to contemplate building an with the goal of improving DNA synthe- Geneticists hope to fabricate a person’s DNA. entire human genome—a person’s com- sis in general for applications in plants, plete set of DNA—from scratch. Synthetic animals, and microbes. The meeting’s the event, a directive that fueled suspi- bacterial genomes have been created in invitation, however, suggests the primary cion in some quarters. “Discussions to the lab, but the human genome, which goal “would be to synthesize a complete synthesize, for the first time, a human has a sequence of 3 billion chemical pairs, human genome in a cell line within a genome,” says Northwestern University is more difficult to fabricate. If someone period of 10 years.” Attendees were told bioethicist Laurie Zoloth, “should not could pull it off, though, the result could to refrain from revealing any details about occur in closed rooms.”

moving. A new study from the National once a week were 33 percent less likely Cancer Institute shows that exercise may to have died of any cause than those who significantly lower the risk for 13 different never went at all. Overall, going to church forms of the disease, Time.com reports. at least once a week was associated with Researchers analyzed 11 years of data on a lifespan increase of about five months. the health, diet, and activity of 1.4 mil- “There is evidence that it provides social lion people and found that a higher level support, discourages smoking, decreases of physical exertion was associated with a depression, and promotes optimism or 7 percent lower overall chance of develop- hope,” study author Tyler VanderWeele ing cancer. Just a few hours of weekly exer- tells MedicalDaily.com. Based on previ- cise had a particular effect on esophageal ous research, however, the church effect Thomas Manning after undergoing the procedure cancer, lowering the risk for the disease by “may not be as strong for men as it is 42 percent. Working out also cut the risk for women.” America’s first penis transplant for lung, kidney, stomach, and endometrial A 64-year-old bank courier recently became cancers by more than 20 percent and signif- Health scare of the week the nation’s first recipient of a penile trans- icantly reduced the likelihood that people Painkiller dulls empathy plant. Thomas Manning underwent the would suffer from leukemia, colon cancer, Acetaminophen helps dull the pain of complex, 15-hour operation at Massa chu- or breast cancer. The more active people some 52 mil lion Americans each week, but setts General Hospi tal to replace the organ were, the more their risk dropped, notes new research suggests it could also blunt he lost to cancer with one from a deceased study leader Steven Moore. “Cancer is a their sensitivity to other people’s distress. donor. Manning says the procedure (first very feared disease,” he says. “But if people Researchers conducted a series of experi- successfully performed in South Africa two understand that physical activity can influ- ments involving 200 college students to years ago) wasn’t necessary to save his life ence their risk for cancer, then that might assess the effects of acetaminophen—an but, rather, to restore his sense of self. “I provide yet one more motivating factor to active ingredient in Tylenol and more than want to go back to being who I was,” he become active.” 600 other medications—on their ability to tells The New York Times. “If I’m lucky, empathize. Participants read eight short I get 75 percent of what I used to be.” Health benefits of church stories with wrenching scenarios—one told The experimental surgery was a vascular- People who attend religious services a of a person who suffered a knife wound ized composite allotransplantation, which couple of times a week may live lon- that cut to the bone; in another, someone involves the reconnection of more than one ger, a new study suggests. Harvard grappled with the death of his father. As it type of tissue, such as nerves, blood vessels, University researchers analyzed turned out, CNN.com reports, the students and skin. Since his transplant Manning has data from the Nurses’ Health who took 1,000 mg of acetaminophen had no sign of infection or rejection, but it Study, a survey of 74,534 healthy, (equivalent to two extra-strength Tylenol will be a few weeks before normal urinary primarily Christian women. At tablets) displayed less empathy for people function is restored. Manning’s doctors are the start of the study in 1992, who were enduring an emotionally or optimistic that he will regain sexual func- participants were all asked how physically painful experience. “If you are tion within a few months. In the meantime, often they went to church; the having an argument with your spouse they are working to perfect the transplant researchers then tracked and you just took acetaminophen, technique, which they say could offer new them for 20 years. this research suggests you might hope for veterans wounded by roadside By 2012, 13,537 of be less understanding of what bombs and other violent explosions. the women had died. you did to hurt your spouse’s After adjusting for feelings,” says study author Exercise lowers cancer risk other risk factors, it Baldwin Way. “We don’t know If a healthy heart and trim waistline aren’t turned out that the why acetaminophen is having enough incentive, maybe a lower risk for ones who attended these effects,” but it is cause for

Science Source, Sam Riley/Mass General Hospital/AP, Media Bakery General Hospital/AP, Science Source, Sam Riley/Mass cancer will inspire sedentary people to get services more than concern.

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 20 NEWS Pick of the week’s cartoons

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons. ARTS 21 Review of reviews: Books

about a person’s fate. He understands that Book of the week environment and culture have as much to The Gene: An Intimate History do with who we become as genetic makeup, and he shares various qualms about the eth- by Siddhartha Mukherjee ics of genetic science. Gene therapy has been (Scribner, $32) used recklessly in the past, he reminds us, Siddhartha Mukherjee is “all doctor, but he and genes still can’t even predict such com- is also all bedside manner,” said Andrew plex maladies as autism and schizophrenia. Solomon in The Washington Post. Talking about genetics requires wrestling with Much of Mukherjee’s hand-wringing is “some of the most intricate and convoluted “misguided,” said Nicholas Wade in The processes in chemistry,” but in his latest Wall Street Journal. Because he can’t forget book, the acclaimed author of 2010’s The that the field once spawned the eugen- ics movement, he “quite falsely implies Emperor of All Maladies makes the sci- Genes: A recipe, not a blueprint ence go down smoothly. Mukherjee “has that genetics is a Pandora’s box crammed a genius for locating the emotional truths tional triumphalist account” of Western with unspeakable evils.” In reality, genetic buried in the chemical abstractions,” and scientific progress, said Nathaniel Comfort research is heavily regulated, and geneti- here he has fit science’s evolving under- in The Atlantic. On we march past Gregor cists themselves have alerted the public to standing of genetics neatly into the story of Mendel’s pea plants, Oswald Avery’s the risks of their work. For now, “there humanity’s older quest to unravel the mys- groundbreaking 1944 paper on DNA, and is no tidy ending to this epic,” said Ivan teries of heredity. The book is also part cau- the roles of James Watson, Francis Crick, Semeniuk in The Globe and Mail (Canada). tionary tale: Mukherjee, while enthusiastic and Rosalind Franklin in discovering DNA’s With biotech firms working to profit from about researchers’ breakthroughs, remains double-helix structure. Mukherjee narrates gene editing and other technologies, the aware of the risks involved in interpreting this history “with verve and color, if not greatest controversies are “quite likely still and applying them. The study of genetics scrupulous accuracy,” and gives the mis- ahead of us.” To follow future develop- has yielded lifesaving therapies; it has also taken impression that the gene was destined ments, it’ll be important to know how we been used by the Nazis to justify genocide. to be understood as science understands arrived at our current understanding of gene it now. But he writes well about the limits function. “On that score Mukherjee has The early history unfolds as “a conven- to what an individual genome can tell us done readers an admirable service.”

Joe Gould’s Teeth Press-Herald. By seeking the truth about Novel of the week by Jill Lepore Gould, she gained insight on Mitchell too, finding that the two men shared a penchant Eleven Hours (Knopf, $25) for fabrication that may explain why they by Pamela Erens “Joseph Ferdinand initially hit it off. But Lepore also hunted (Tin House, $16) Gould led quite a for stories that Mitchell ignored, and “one “Has anything been as underrepresented life. His afterlife has of her surprising discoveries” is that Gould in literature as childbirth?” asked Sam not exactly been was once dangerously obsessed with an Sacks in The Wall Street Journal. uneventful, either,” African-American sculptor named Augusta Pamela Erens’ “exhilarating” third said Joseph Kahn in Savage, said Heller McAlpin in NPR. novel focuses almost entirely on one The Boston Globe. org. The Gould we come to know is not woman’s experience of delivery, and Once a familiar a harmless Harvard-educated bohemian, it reminds us of a truth that should sight on the streets but an unstable man who stalks vulnerable be obvious: Every childbirth is “dra- of New York City’s women. In his letters about Savage, Lepore matic and beset by danger,” and for Greenwich Village, tell us, “there are hints of violence, and many women, the arrival of an infant the toothless, wiry even of rape.” stands out as “the most joyous day panhandler would of their lives—and the most terrible.” have long been forgotten if he hadn’t been And yet Gould was “not only tolerated but The book’s protagonist is a 31-year- the subject of a classic 1942 New Yorker celebrated by the intelligentsia of his time,” old white New Yorker; her nurse is a profile in which writer Joseph Mitchell said Evan Kindley in The New Republic. Haitian-born immigrant, and the initial depicted Gould as an erudite eccentric who Ezra Pound and E.E. Cummings were tension between them “might seem was assembling a 9 million–word history among Gould’s friends, and Lepore theorizes predictable,” said Anna Solomon in The of the era. But Mitchell later had a change that they promoted him as a bohemian hero Boston Globe. But Erens excels at teas- of heart, and in a celebrated 1964 follow- to prevent his being locked in an asylum. ing out rich backstories, even as the sus- up, he recast Gould as a charlatan whose But Lepore’s Gould did leave evidence that pense of childbirth keeps the pages turn- mythic manuscript never existed. Was that he really was working on a magnum opus. ing. “By the time we reach the end, it’s fair? Jill Lepore, a current New Yorker To prove he wrote anything worthwhile, with relief and hope, and an awareness, writer, has taken on the case. someone will have to sort through reams of too, of what has been lost. It’s a little archived scribblings, but it’s “not unthink- like childbirth, except with this book Lepore’s book is “a puzzle, mystery, and able” someone will. Somehow, Gould “has you want to go back and do it again.” archaeological dig rolled into one,” said wormed his way into literary history,” and

Media Bakery Joan Silverman in the Portland, Maine, he “appears to be lodged there for good.”

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 22 ARTS The Book List

Author of the week Best books...chosen by Adam Phillips Adam Phillips, a British psychoanalyst, is the author of 20 books, including On Stephanie Danler Kindness, Becoming Freud, and On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored. In his latest, Stephanie Danler only Unforbidden Pleasures, he muses on the ways society’s rules affect what we enjoy. appears to be living a fairy tale, said Lauren Mechling in Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (Bantam, $5). the shortcomings of the civil rights movement Vogue.com. Two years ago, Melville’s epic romance—and extraordinary is also a harrowing account of how someone the California native was wait- prose poem—is about the obsessive wanting that might go on writing and talking and having ing tables in New York City comes from a terrible wounding. It is also the some kind of confidence in human relations after when one of her regular cus- most expansive and exhilarating book ever writ- fully acknowledging that everything in affluent tomers, a publishing bigwig, ten about the demonic narrowing of a mind. It Western societies is made from slavery, exploita- told Danler dramatizes, like no other work of literature, how tion, and unrelenting racism. to send him the unwillingness to love and/or desire people of Purity and Danger a copy of her the same sex makes us violent and strange. by Mary Douglas unpublished (Routledge, $25). Here is a remarkable book novel, and fell The Poems of Marianne Moore (Penguin, from a time—the mid-1960s—when anthropolo- so love with it $23). In its inexhaustible invention, precision, gists had the most interesting ideas about how that his house and humor, this book shows us the moral to live and how not to talk about other people. soon signed insights made possible by acute description. It may be impossible to recover from her claim Danler to a that dirt is “matter out of order.” She makes it six-figure deal. But that story The Prelude by William Wordsworth (Norton, abundantly clear how much terror is created by broke in The New York Times $27.50). Wordsworth’s 1805 Prelude, the second the will to purification. before Danler had seen any of three versions he would write, is the poetry of the money, and she didn’t of a man inspired by an unlocatable despair to Visible Signs by Lawrence Raab (Penguin, love how the article cast her make in words the good thing he has either lost $18). This is a book of luminous and enigmatic as lucky. “At the time, I felt or never had. It’s the story of a man wondering, poems and should inspire anyone to read all this resentment,” she says. “I out of a founding confusion, which of life’s plea- of Raab’s remarkable writing. Raab has, in the had $400 in my bank account sures should tempt him. American grain, a generous and ironic skepticism and a shift that ended at about charmed lives and the allure of disappoint- 4 a.m., and I was bombarded No Name in the Street by James Baldwin ment. In Raab’s poetry, the ordinary is made not at work by people holding the (Vintage, $15). This collection of essays on merely strange but palpably uncanny. newspaper coming to see if I was real.” Her novel, Sweetbitter, is real Also of interest...in musical legends now, too, and its 32-year-old Under the Big Black Sun The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones author is still stressing how much work went into it, said by John Doe and Tom DeSavia (Da Capo, $27) by Rich Cohen (Spiegel & Grau, $30) Michele Filgate in Time Out The history of Los Angeles’ “hugely Add Rich Cohen’s new book to “the New York. Danler arrived in influential” punk movement has until short list of worthwhile books about New York at 22, and soon now been unfairly overlooked, said the Stones,” said James Sullivan in landed a job at Union Square Ryan Bray in AVClub.com. This book, the San Francisco Chronicle. The for- Café, one of the city’s pre- co-authored by a co-founder of the mer rock journalist has known Mick mier restaurants. But even as band X, resuscitates the “ugly, danger- Jagger, Keith Richards, and other band she rose in the industry from service staff to management, ous, but nonetheless fraternal” community of rebels members since 1994, but he’s ruthless in push- she dreamed of writing, and that produced late-1970s bands like the Screamers ing aside all but the group’s peak earlier years. she returned to waitress- and the Germs and nearly matched New York in His history of the band is “stuffed with insights” ing just so she could go to shaping punk culture. Reminiscences are supplied rooted in deep reporting, yet he maintains a very graduate school and then not just by X’s John Doe but also by Black Flag’s Stones-like indifference to the grunt work he’s sweat out the manuscript Henry Rollins and many other local legends. done. “Like Richards, he’d much rather just riff.” that became Sweetbitter. Danler’s delicious coming- Paul McCartney The Noise of Time of-age tale about a 22-year- by Philip Norman (Little, Brown, $32) by Julian Barnes (Knopf, $26) old New York waitress was Beatles fans leafing through this book Julian Barnes’ new novel about good enough when she “will have a hard time finding a single the life of Dmitry Shostakovich finished it that 11 publishers new fact in its pages,” said Adam “may well be embraced by those to requested meetings. One of Gopnik in The New Yorker. But that’s whom the story is new,” said Anne the book’s charms, though, is that it never presents wait- “no indictment” of author Philip Midgette in The Washington Post. ing tables as a job that’s just Norman: All that can be known about Barnes “knows how to tell a tale,” a phase. “That world is so the Fab Four is known already, and so Norman’s and he chooses to romanticize the composer as luscious and intense and purpose here is to overturn his foolish assertion a Soviet artist who bravely refused to compro- scary,” Danler says. “I would in a 1981 book that John Lennon was “three- mise. But Barnes offers little fresh insight about not be surprised if I went quarters of the Beatles.” The McCartney we meet Shostakovich or even his work. Indeed, The back to it.” here is, as he was to 1960s critics, a melodic Noise of Time “must be one of the least musical

genius. In other words, Paul, “all is forgiven.” books about a composer ever written.” Vorderman Nick Jerry Bauer,

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Review of reviews: Art & Music ARTS 23

Exhibit of the week sculptures. Rodin was always an Rodin: Transforming enthusiastic recycler of his figures Sculpture and even their parts, said Keith Powers in WickedLocal.com. A Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., through Sept. 5 study for 1878’s St. John the Baptist becomes 1907’s Walking Man. I It’s time we all stopped senti- Am Beautiful, from 1882, combines mentalizing Auguste Rodin, said two previous sculptures, Crouching Sebastian Smee in The Boston Woman and Falling Man. Globe. The renowned French sculptor (1840–1917) was “a “The unsettling question of what wrecking ball”—“one of the most constitutes a finished or genuine satanically inventive artists of the Rodin is a recurring theme of the 19th century,” and we misun- show,” said Philip Kennicott in derstand his genius if we consign The Washington Post. The art- him to a gauzy memory of a ist’s bronze and marble sculptures long-ago personal encounter with have long been prized by museums, his seminal works The Thinker A circa-1887 plaster cast of Rodin’s Fugit Amor but those often were produced by or The Kiss. Many of his figures assistants. Because Rodin actually “aren’t so much erotic as orgasmic,” and Rodin’s genius wasn’t instantly recognized, worked out his ideas in clay, each master- when they’re not “pitched right at the leg- said Mark St. John Erickson in the Newport work’s “first and most authentic” iteration shaking intersection of ecstasy and death,” News, Va., Daily Press. The son of a Paris was its plaster cast, and there are many they convey torment of a different sort. police inspector, he toiled in obscurity for here, including an odd collection of small Even The Thinker, viewed from all angles, years because he refused to produce for- works he referred to as “flowers.” In these comes across less as an expression of serene mulaic work but instead developed “a new pieces, he combined vessels from antiquity contemplation than as a figure that “could kind of realism” that was “frank, physical, with his own figural work, so that, for easily have been called The Over-Thinker.” and filled with character and meaning.” example, the upper torso of a female nude It “suggests a mind and body working at He was 40 when he won his first public might emerge from a broad-rimmed cup cross-purposes,” and the work’s “high emo- commission, for a set of bronze museum “as if she were emerging from a chrysalis.” tional temperature” has rarely been as easy doors, and he responded with The Gates of It’s “a radical twist” on assemblage, and to see as it is in “Transforming Sculpture,” Hell, a work teeming with figures that he further proof that Rodin was foremost a an absorbing show of 175 Rodin works. later transformed into major stand-alone thinker, not just a carver or craftsman.

Chance the Rapper Bob Dylan Ariana Grande Coloring Book Fallen Angels Dangerous Woman

Chance the Rapper’s Bob Dylan “has turned Ariana Grande has new independently advanced age into an not yet settled on a released mixtape is advantage,” said Tom signature sound, but “something of a mira- Moon in NPR.org. “she’s still an outsize, cle,” said Jack Hamilton On his second con- dangerous talent,” in Slate.com. Four secutive album of stan- said Christopher years ago, the 23-year- dards from the Great Weingarten in Rolling old Chicago native was American Songbook, Stone. Now 22, the merely rap’s “amiable, tuneful weirdo”; the 75-year-old rock legend has once again ex-Nickelodeon star is “capable of practi- now he’s put out a gospel-infused, 14-song applied his gravelly voice to songs closely cally anything” as a singles artist, and she set that “feels like the first great hip-hop associated with peak Frank Sinatra and proves it again here on the “monster” hit album to successfully channel the centuries- found a way to make the music personal. title track. On this scattershot third studio old musical traditions of the black church “These are old songs sung by an old guy album, Grande is “at her most irresistible without anything like pretension or irony.” owning his oldness,” and Dylan’s “whis- when she’s in Big Chill mode, mixing time- Coloring Book is “spiritual without being pery, willfully idiosyncratic” phrasing style less melodies with modern production,” preachy,” irrepressibly joyous “without generally succeeds in making their mel- as she does on the opener “Moonlight” being cloying.” Bursting with horn, piano, ancholy and nostalgia feel lived in. As on and “Leave Me Lonely,” a duet with circa- and vocal melodies, it’s almost “impossible Shadows in the Night, Dylan’s small back- 2000 star Macy Gray. “At times, Dangerous not to like.” It’s “amazing how many famous ing band plays a hybrid of chamber-jazz and Woman can be sleek to a fault,” said Troy friends Chance has lined up” to contrib- western swing, said Kenneth Partridge in Smith in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. With ute, said Tom Breihan in Stereogum.com. the AVClub.com. But that earlier set favored hitmakers like superproducer Max Martin Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Justin Bieber all moodier, more obscure tunes, whereas calling the shots, “some of the songs chip in. But Chance’s singing and rapping Fallen Angels is “a lighter, less elegiac sound too similar,” with dense production remain the focus, and his rhymes are, as affair,” flecked with sing-alongs like “Young and smoothed-out vocal tracks that bury ever, “dense and energetic and in love with at Heart,” “That Old Black Magic,” and “All Grande’s talent and remarkable range. language.” He became a father last year, or Nothing at All.” As a set, it’s “a reminder But she is just 22, and more daring work and we’re all lucky that he’s shared his bliss. that great poetry and complex emotions “should come with time.” For now, she’s “This is a mixtape that’s built to last, one existed in American song well before a young singer with an ear for what her that many of us will be banging out of open 1962,” and that this Dylan—the old-school audience likes—and that’s “the entire pop- car windows all summer.” crooner—is “worth having around.” loving world.”

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 24 ARTS Review of reviews: Film

X-Men: If you never miss a superhero after a long slumber, this bad- movie, you’ve already seen a die wants to destroy humanity, Apocalypse good one and a bad one this but he doesn’t seem to have Directed by Bryan Singer spring, said Michael Phillips the energy to defeat the X-Men (PG-13) in the Chicago Tribune. “This mutants who align against him. one’s the OK one.” Its drawn- “Much of what makes X-Men: out story about a potential Apocalypse legitimately inter- A world threat rises world-ending threat “requires esting also makes it frustrating in 1983 Cairo. Michael Fassbender and Jennifer and lopsided,” said Ignatiy Lawrence to try their damned- Isaac’s Apocalypse Vishnevetsky in AVClub.com. est not to look as bored as they The franchise’s real drama likely are.” But director Bryan Singer handles the is the psychosexual competition that plays out overpopulated tale “earnestly and well,” sweetening between Fassbender’s Magneto and James McAvoy’s the action “with a modicum of snark.” The movie Professor X, yet Singer is too busy building to a big introduces “a ridiculously beatable villain” in Oscar climax and introducing a slew of younger stars to Isaac’s blue-skinned Apocalypse, said Steve Persall even give those two, each with his own “overbearing in the Tampa Bay Times. Awakened in 1983 Egypt savior complex,” any meaningful shared screen time.

The Nice Guys Look, I’m not going to claim private eye who team up to that this “diabolical” buddy find a missing girl with ties to Directed by Shane Black comedy isn’t “juvenile, offen- the porn industry and to high- (R) sive, and overly violent,” said level corruption that’s keeping Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. 1977 L.A. wrapped in smog. But The Nice Guys combines But while there’s one bathroom Two bumbling sleuths hunt its action, sleaze, and 1970s slapstick scene that’s “almost for a girl in 1977 L.A. nostalgia in a “lunatic, original worth the price of admission,” fashion.” This Russell Crowe the plotting is “much too and Ryan Gosling showcase is Lovable screwups Gosling and Crowe sloppy” to fulfill the movie’s “basically Chinatown remade promise. So why see it? asked by Quentin Tarantino and starring foulmouthed Anthony Lane in The New Yorker. “Partly because versions of Abbott and Costello.” That said, “this of the leading men,” but mainly because of young is a dumb movie pretending to be smart,” said Angourie Rice, who plays Gosling’s teen daughter. A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Crowe and She’s not just the best P.I. in the bunch. She’s “the Gosling play an enforcer-for-hire and an inept wisest soul in sight.”

Maggie’s Plan “OK, I give up, Greta Gerwig. between sincerity and inanity,” You win,” said Stephen and its pace proves “too slug- Directed by Rebecca Miller Whitty in the Newark, N.J., gish” to “generate the sort of (R) Star-Ledger. The sometimes ribald momentum” that the tale polarizingly quirky actress requires, said Nick Schager in proves to be magnetic in this The Village Voice. When it fal- A young mother attempts smart new romantic comedy ters, Julianne Moore “proves to to return her husband to about a young woman named be the movie’s secret weapon,” his first wife. Maggie who’s trying to have a said A.O. Scott in The New child by artificial insemination Gerwig and Hawke: Briefly winsome York Times. Playing the ex—an when she falls for a married accomplished Danish-born academic—played by Ethan Hawke “at his most professor—she “sounds like a child raised by Greta Ethan Hawke–ish.” The title refers to Maggie’s Garbo and Elmer Fudd who went on to earn an later bid to reunite her man with his ex, and like advanced degree from a German university.” In the any good comedy, this one views its characters end, Maggie’s Plan is “tart but not sour, sweet but “with just the right mixture of fondness and not too sweet.” It finds “a tricky balance” between exasperation.” Unfortunately, the film “lurches warm drama and light satire.

New on DVD and Blu-ray In a Lonely Place Deadpool How to Be Single (Criterion, $30) (20th Century Fox, $15) (Warner, $20) “There is no noir more profoundly sad” Until this action comedy hit gold earlier This comedy is a lot like its co-protagonists: than Nicholas Ray’s 1950 dark romance, this year, “Ryan Reynolds’ trouble as a star “cute and goofy and kind of a mess,” said said The Wall Street Journal. Humphrey was that he never seemed sincere,” said Entertainment Weekly. Dakota Johnson Bogart plays a demon-plagued screenwriter The New York Times. But as the ornery, stars as a college grad learning the ropes accused of murder, and Gloria Grahame a reluctant superhero Deadpool, he’s found a of urban singlehood from an “all-id” Rebel new lover who supplies his alibi. Both stars niche. And that niche is excuse enough “to Wilson. Though the movie doesn’t reinvent give “heart-stopping performances.” shoot, impale, and blow up stuff.” the rom-com, it does give it a slight nudge. Twentieth Century Fox, Daniel McFadden, Jon Pack/Hall Monitor Inc. Pack/Hall Jon Daniel McFadden, Century Fox, Twentieth

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Television ARTS 25

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

Monday, May 30 The Dresser The Great Escape Sirs Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins are Steve McQueen leads a paired together for the first time in this drama clutch of Allied soldiers adapted from Ronald Harwood’s 1980 West End who make a daring break- play. Both are fantastic. Hopkins plays an aging out from a German POW legend of the Shakespearean stage who loses camp. (1963) 2:15 p.m., TCM his mental grip before a performance of King Tuesday, May 31 Lear. McKellen, playing the star’s longtime per- The Royal Tenenbaums sonal assistant, must coax him into performing. A family of eccentric Monday, May 30, at 9 p.m., Starz geniuses is put on guard POV: Of Men and War when their estranged and This patient, wrenching documentary recasts the ebullient patriarch returns home. Wes Anderson stereotype of the tight-lipped combat veteran. directs; Gene Hackman and French director Laurent Bécue-Renard spent five The Dresser: Two knights of the stage years with ex-soldiers in California who’d sought Anjelica Huston lead the all- Outcast star cast. (2001) 7:30 p.m., help for post-traumatic stress disorder, and his Showtime subjects reward his fly-on-the-wall approach with He’s been great with zombies, so why not try emotional, graphic accounts of their battlefield demons too? Robert Kirkman, the comic-book Wednesday, June 1 master who created The Walking Dead, now Borat experiences. Angry and alienated, these men aren’t all instantly likable, but their stories from pays homage to The Exorcist in a series about Sacha Baron Cohen put a West Virginia man who’s been possessed by one over on unwitting Iraq and Afghanistan provide all the explanation you might need. Monday, May 30, at 10 p.m., evil spirits since childhood and finally decides to Americans, exposing face them. With the help of a priest, he sets to their foibles for maximum PBS; check local listings ridding the world of demons, one exorcism at a laughs while posing as Peaky Blinders time. Outcast launches with an episode rich in Borat, a reporter from For two seasons, Peaky Blinders has delivered Kazakhstan filming a docu- moments of indelible creepiness. Patrick Fugit drama as sharp as the razor blades that the mentary. (2006) 6:35 p.m., stars. Friday, June 3, at 10 p.m., Cinemax Cinemax show’s British gangsters carry in their caps. Season 3 maintains the momentum, as baby- Other highlights Thursday, June 2 faced crime boss Tommy Shelby marries his child- Frontline: The Fantasy Sports Gamble Dances With Wolves hood sweetheart and plots to expand his reach Reporters for Frontline and The New York Kevin Costner’s epic about beyond the streets of provincial Birmingham. Times look into the shadowy, lucrative business a Union Army veteran who Star Cillian Murphy is in top form, while Tom of online sports betting, which is facing increas- befriends a band of Lakota Hardy returns as Jewish mobster Alfie Solomons. ing legal scrutiny. Tuesday, May 31, at 10 p.m., Sioux won seven Oscars, Available for streaming Tuesday, May 31, Netflix PBS; check local listings including Best Picture. (1990) 9 p.m., Starz Maya and Marty Cleverman From Australia arrives a very different super- Friday, June 3 Attempts at breathing life back into the mori- bund variety-show format have usually fizzled hero story, inspired by aboriginal myth and set Five Graves to Cairo in a near-future apartheid society that pens up In director Billy Wilder’s fast. But just maybe all those attempts failed because none were co-hosted by Maya Rudolph all members of an ancient humanoid species. third feature, a British Wednesday, June 1, at 10 p.m., Sundance Army grunt poses as a and Martin Short. The Saturday Night Live waiter to try to take out veterans, who exhibited zany chemistry during Feed the Beast Germany’s Erwin Rommel. SNL’s 40th-anniversary special last February, will An ex-con chef and his alcoholic pal tangle with Featuring a memorable attempt to rekindle that rapport for a weekly the mob when they open a Bronx restaurant, in Erich von Stroheim. (1943) hour-long cavalcade of music, comedy, and celeb- this new series starring Jim Sturgess and David 10 p.m., TCM rities. Debuts Tuesday, May 31, at 10 p.m., NBC Schwimmer. Sunday, June 5, at 10 p.m., AMC Saturday, June 4 The Martian Matt Damon won a Golden Show of the week Globe playing an astronaut Roots who gets entertainingly This remake of the most-watched miniseries inventive to survive on in TV history surely won’t be the cultural event Mars after he’s left behind the 1977 original was: That show’s final epi- for dead by his crewmates. sode drew 100 million viewers. But the new (2015) 8 p.m., HBO four-part edition incorporates fresh scholarship and at times matches the dramatic power of Sunday, June 5 its predecessor. The capture and enslavement Born Free of Gambian warrior Kunta Kinte is even more In this classic tearjerker, a wrenching here, and newcomer Malachi Kirby couple raise an orphaned is electric in the role. Forest Whitaker, Laurence lion cub, then release her Fishburne, and Anna Paquin play key support- into the Kenyan wild. (1965) ing roles. Begins Monday, May 30, at 9 p.m. on 8 p.m., GetTV Kirby: A worthy Kunta Kinte the History, A&E, and Lifetime channels Joss Barratt, Kareem Black/History Barratt, Joss

• All listings are Eastern Time. THE WEEK June 3, 2016 26 LEISURE Food & Drink

The perfect steak: A better approach to backyard grilling

If you grill in the backyard only once in Trim most external fat from steaks. a while, “chances are you cook too hot Sprinkle with salt and place in refrigera- and too fast,” said Meathead Goldwyn in tor to dry brine for 1 to 2 hours. Add and Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue massage in black pepper, to taste, at any and Grilling (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). time. Set up a grill for two-zone cooking Generally, meat and most other foods and aim for 225 degrees in the indirect should be cooked slowly over low heat. cooking zone. Face it: “Your food is already dead. You don’t have to kill it again.” Remove steaks from refrigerator and place on grill in indirect zone; close lid. After The best way to grill a steak—and many 15 minutes, begin checking steaks’ interior other foods, really—is a simple method temperature every 5 to 10 minutes. Flip if called the reverse sear. Master it and you’ll one side is cooking faster than the other. have your dinner guests “reeling in deliria.” After 30 minutes, temperature in deepest And the most important skill you’ll need to part of meat should hit 110. attain mastery is temperature control. To sear on a charcoal grill, bunch coals When you think about it, a grill is “just together or add hot coals. On a gas grill, another kind of oven,” so you should set heat up the sear burner or set meat aside yourself up for success by establishing two while you raise the grill temperature. Pat temperature zones: one for indirect cooking Searing: The finishing touch steaks dry and place on hottest part of the and one for the final sear. On a gas grill, grill, keeping the lid open. Turn meat often that means lighting only half the burners; dials that are built into most gas grills can’t as a sear develops on each side, and aim for on a charcoal grill, place your coals under be trusted, and you need both a thermom- a chestnut color, not black. When meat hits only half the grill. With practice, you can eter that can read the temperature inside 130 degrees (for medium-rare), get it to the learn to get the indirect temperature to sit the cooker and an instant thermometer for table still sizzling—before the crust softens. at 225 degrees with the lid on—which is the meat itself. ideal for burgers, thick steaks, chicken, and Note: For thin steaks—less than 1 inch a whole lot more. Recipe of the week thick—the process is simpler. Get your grill Grilled thick steakhouse-style steaks “screaming hot,” and flip the steaks every To do this right, you need a pair of good 2 rib-eye steaks, roughly 1½ inches thick 30 seconds or so, until you reach a dark digital thermometers: “Nothing will Kosher salt (about ½ tsp per pound) brown color and an internal temperature of improve your cooking more.” The junky Coarsely ground black pepper 125 to 130.

Wine: Affordable Bordeaux Vegan in Philly: A food-mad city develops a new craving While America was sleeping, “a whole In the cheesesteak capital of the world, eating new Bordeaux” has bloomed, said vegan might seem a revolutionary act, said Erik Susan H. Gordon in Eater.com. The Piepenburg in The New York Times. But today’s region—famous for its cellar-worthy, Philadelphia is a “food-curious” city that’s four-igure wines—has quietly nurtured inexpensive enough to promote experimenta- a new generation of vignerons, and tion, and that’s been enough to trigger the rise the lighter, far more affordable blends of innovative chefs who make eating meat- and they’re producing still “taste of that dairy-free feel like no sacriice at all. In Philly, you famous land.” can start a day with vegan doughnuts and end 2012 Château la Grolet Côtes de it with a vegan cheesesteak—a sandwich that Bourg ($19). This organic merlot contains neither cheese nor steak. Early birds at Bar Bombón blend “boasts avors of cherries, ive V Street Husband and wife Rich Landau and Kate spice, sage, cedar, and damp hay.” Jacoby deserve much of the credit for Philadelphia’s vegan boom. Their acclaimed 2014 Château Belles-Graves restaurant Vedge—and Horizon before it—helped get locals hooked on savory tofu Lalande de Pomerol ($38). There’s and seitan. At the couple’s casual new Rittenhouse Square spot, the focus is on great no cabernet sauvignon at all in street foods of the world, so you can try tofu kung pao noodles or match Korean fried- this tangy uniltered merlot blend, tempeh tacos with crispy Peruvian fries. 126 S. 19th St.; (215) 278-7943 which tastes of plum, blackberry, Bar Bombón Chef Nicole Marquis has built “a mini-empire” of vegan restaurants in earth, and mint. “One sip and Philly, including this 10-month-old gathering place, which “upends the typically meat- you’ll want a serving of young, heavy cuisines of Latin America” with items like tacos illed with curried tempeh or garlicky lamb alongside it.” tostadas topped with maitake mushrooms. Charlie Was a Sinner is Marquis’ upscale 2011 Château de Bellevue Lussac venture, and her HipCityVeg does fast-casual.133 S. 18th St., (267) 606-6612 Saint-Emilion ($26). Another Right Blackbird Comfort-food fans should feel at home in this Society Hill pizzeria, which serves Bank merlot blend, this fruity wine award-winning dairy-free pies as well as vegan reboots of cheesesteaks and calzones. is “both lush and stone-y, with a Mark Mebus tops most of his pizzas with tofu ricotta or daiya—a tasty mozzarella-style creamy, velvety texture.” “cheese” made from cassava and arrowroot. 507 S. 6th St., (215) 625-6660 Craig Goldwyn, Courtney Apple Craig Goldwyn, Courtney

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Travel LEISURE 27

This week’s dream: Finding solitude on Sweden’s Baltic islands

In the warm summer months, the island of ally” generous people of Gotland were Gotland becomes Sweden’s own Martha’s particularly accommodating, with busi- Vineyard, said Christine Smallwood in The ness owners often opening shop just for New York Times. Politicians and media me. One hotel owner gave birth to her types move in for long stretches, and short- second child just hours after leaving me term tourists crowd the beaches and bars. by the hotel’s fireside. During those long sunny days, flowering wood anemones blanket the fields and the On my final day, I headed to the neigh- water has, I’m told, “a tropical hue.” But boring island of Faro, the longtime that is summer. Seeking solitude, I visited home of film director Ingmar Bergman. this Long Island–size Baltic province in Langhammars, a preserve on Faro’s March, when few people are around, and northern tip, is dotted with the geo- I spent most of my stay sequestered in logical formations known as raukar, or the island’s remotest regions: “Valleviken, Seastacks on Faro’s northern shore seastacks—“hulking vertical columns that where a maritime-themed hotel rose up eroded from reef cliffs during the glacial out of sheer nothingness on a lapping inlet; herd of hairy Highland cows looked on as I period.” Tucked under a ridge of wind- the Furillen peninsula, the site of an old pulled a K-turn, and I thought a landowner swept scrub, the raukar have rugged faces limestone quarry; Ekstakusten, a jagged might appear and scold me for trespass- spotted with lichen. Some stacks are 50 feet curl of nature preserve.” ing. But no one came. In Ameri ca, people high and have the appearance of sculpted expect the prettiest places to be private no- profiles. They are “imposing and austere, It is easy to get lost on this flat, rocky trespassing zones. In Sweden, even private yet lovely in an abstract sort of way.” When island, where many roads are nameless. A land is shared, and “anyone can swim, hike, they turn up in a Bergman film, they appear road that I was traveling one day seemed to or walk, as well as pick anything edible, “far gloomier than they do in person.” disintegrate beneath the wheels of my rented pretty much anywhere they choose,” except At Valleviken Hotel (valleviken.se), one- Volvo, “demoting itself to field status.” A where expressly prohibited. The “exception- bedroom cottages start at $96 a night.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavor of... Georgia’s gold country The Indy 500’s hometown History runs deep in Dahlonega, Ga., said Jackie There’s more to Speedway, Ind., than just Mansky in Smithsonian.com. Nestled in the foot- the home track of the Indy 500—but that hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the town was wasn’t always true, said Matthew Tully in The first settled by the Creek and Cherokee nations, Indianapolis Star. Not long ago the town’s Main who called the area talonega, meaning “yellow” Street was “a tired and empty patch of lost glory,” or “gold.” In the 1820s, “the first major gold largely ignored by IndyCar fans passing through. rush in U.S. history” occurred when the precious But the Indianapolis suburb has roared back in metal lured thousands of prospectors to the area. recent years, reinvigorated by an influx of restau- The hotel’s Liz Taylor suite That legacy comes alive at the Crisson Gold rants, bars, and businesses. As you’d expect, the Casa Kimberly Mine, where visitors can still pan for gold—and area’s “racing DNA” runs through pretty much Puerto Vallarta, Mexico keep what they find. The nearby Yahoola United everything. IndyCar murals adorn Main Street This retreat played host to Cherokee Museum commemorates the history of buildings, and shops are named after the sport’s one of Hollywood’s greatest the Native Americans forced from the land in the favorite sons. At Speedway Indoor Karting, wan- love stories, said Jimmy Im 1830s. And although the gold rush is long over, nabe racers can hurtle around a 14-turn, two-level in Condé Nast Traveler. In visitors are still lured to Dahlonega by the prox- course. For die-hard fans, the Dallara IndyCar 1964, Richard Burton bought imity of the Appalachian Trail and by “another Factory has racing simulators and a collection Elizabeth Taylor a villa over- natural resource”: wine. The area is home to of “stunningly beautiful” cars, both vintage and looking Banderas Bay for her 32nd birthday. The actor Georgia’s highest concentration of vineyards and modern. Once a “glaring example of untapped bought himself the house tasting rooms, and Dahlonega hosts a Wine Trail potential,” Speedway is now “a wonderful across the street and linked Weekend every August. reminder of the art of the possible.” the homes with a bridge, aptly known as both Lovers’ Bridge and Reconciliation Last-minute travel deals Bridge. After sitting empty Discounts Down Under South Pacific getaway Cruise the heartland for a decade, the properties Take advantage of Australia’s Enjoy picturesque views and Get up to $420 in prepaid gra- reopened last year as a nine- off-season and save up to coral reef diving at the Lalati tuities on a river cruise with bedroom boutique hotel. 48 percent at the Novotel Resort & Spa on Fiji’s remote the new French America Line. Stay in the Elizabeth Taylor Wollongong Northbeach, a Beqa Island. Stay five nights A 10-day voyage from St. Louis suite, and you can soak in seaside hotel an hour’s drive and get two more free at any to St. Paul, Minn., departing the actress’s original heart- south of Sydney. Doubles start of the resort’s 16 villas, suites, Sept. 16, for example, starts shaped pink-marble bathtub. at $159. Book by June 5 for or cottages. Prices start at $440 at $4,599 per person, double casakimberly.com; doubles travel through Aug. 31. a night; book by June 15. occupancy. Book by June 30. from $290 travelzoo.com lalatifiji.com frenchamericaline.com eStock Travel, courtesy of Casa Kimberly Travel, eStock

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 28 Best properties on the market This week: Homes in Northern California

1 The Sea Ranch This three-bedroom house on a cul- de-sac features unobscured ocean views. Interior details include a stone fireplace, oversize windows, and a master suite with a private patio. The property has a hot tub and a sheltered deck off the living room. $1,375,000. Kathleen Ball, First Street Brokerage/Sotheby’s International Realty, (707) 939-4460

6

1 5 4 TK 2 California 3

2 San Anselmo Built in 1913, this three-bedroom Craftsman home was recently remodeled. The house has a fireplace, French doors, bamboo floors, wainscoting, and a master suite with a walk-in closet. New improve- ments include the roof and furnace and a Nest heating system. $1,345,000. Gail Koren, Coldwell Banker Resi- dential Brokerage/Top Agent Network, (415) 518-1110

3 Mill Valley Set on a half-acre at the end of a lane, this three-bedroom house was designed for indoor-outdoor living. Built in 1950, the home has floor-to-ceiling windows, a chef’s kitchen, exposed beams, and high ceilings. The exterior features a large deck, landscaped gardens, and bluestone paths. $1,950,000. Marylisa Tencer, Pacific Union/Christie’s International Real Estate, (415) 308-0184

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Best properties on the market 29

4 Nicasio Lying on Shroyer Mountain, this pair of two-bedroom, contemporary residences overlooks the historic town square. Built in 1991, the homes include fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling windows, concrete floors, and high ceilings. The 120-acre property has a creek, a courtyard, an outdoor fire- place, unique rock out- croppings, and a permit for additional construc- tion. $4,600,000. Tim Hill, Decker Bullock/ Sotheby’s International Realty, (415) 793-3969

5 San Francisco This two-bedroom Pacific Heights condominium is part of an 1898 build- ing originally owned by the founders of Sherman Steal of the week Clay Pianos. The home boasts hardwood floors, stamped-tin wainscot- ing, transom windows, and a master suite with a fireplace. Outdoor ameni- ties include a wraparound covered deck and a leased parking spot. $1,850,000. Bernadette Lamothe and Anthony Kwiecien, Sotheby’s International Realty, (415) 296-2226

6 Eureka This Mediterranean-style home sits near Arcata Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The three-bedroom bungalow built in 1929 has hardwood floors, a fireplace, exposed beams, a kitchen with stainless-steel appli- ances, and a bedroom with a sunroom. The fenced backyard includes a deck with a hot tub. $319,000. Arlene Orlandi, Coldwell Banker Sellers Realty, (707) 496-8205

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 30 LEISURE Consumer

The 2017 Honda Ridgeline: What the critics say Road & Track Ridgeline, and this model’s bed is longer The new Ridgeline is undeniably “the Hon- and wider, too. Meanwhile, “convenience da of pickups,” and that’s a compliment. and utility features are everywhere”: Be- It handles every chore a truck buyer could low that bed sits a “cavernous,” lockable think to throw at it—and then some. And it trunk that’s ideal for a big cooler, while does its job while delivering such a luxuri- the walls of the bed liner can be outi tted ous, car-like ride that driving a comparable to act like audio speakers, creating “the Chevy pickup feels like “stepping backward ultimate tailgate setup.” 30 years.” It “remains to be seen,” though, if truck buyers will embrace the package, Jalopnik.com A pragmatist’s pickup, from $29,475 especially given the Ridgeline’s front grille. The whole package is “a marvel of engi- It’s “less pickup, more minivan,” and a neering”: a midsize pickup that can tow an who wants his truck to be a drift-happy dead ringer for the Honda Pilot. estimated 5,000 pounds and haul 1,600, toy—it makes perfect sense. Our only yet whose unique unibody construction worry: Truly practical people “might real- Autoweek supports “silky smooth road manners.” ize they’d be better off with an Accord— It looks more like a truck than the old For a practical buyer—rather than a buyer and an occasional U-Haul rental.”

The best of…beach style

Coyuchi Eugenia Kim Mediterranean Cynthia Rowley Straw Sun Hat Angela Sandals Beach Towel Printed Wetsuit Eugenia Kim’s wide- Tommy Hilfiger From Álvaro For beach lounging, A skimpy swimsuit, brimmed sun hats fea- Beach Duffle Nail summer’s pom- these luxurious towels, “however fun or styl- ture playful messages— You won’t want to limit pom trend and “make made of the softest ish,” can’t compare including “do not dis- this versatile bag to your feet happy” with Turkish cotton, are “the with a Cynthia Rowley turb” and “here comes weekends at the shore. these embellished best of the best.” They hybrid suit when your the sun”—spelled out Its sturdy canvas shell leather  ats from Span- dry faster than most beach day includes “any in sequins. The “wish and roomy shape also ish designer Álvaro other towels and roll up real activities”—like you were here” option make it a perfect carry- González. They’re also beautifully, making them swimming, suri ng, or is great for invoking all for weekday com- available in black and perfect for travel. snorkeling.” envy on Instagram. mutes, too. brown leather. $68, coyuchi.com $295, cynthiarowley.com $485, net-a-porter.com $79.50, tommy.com $500, barneys.com Source: TheWirecutter.com Source: Vogue.com Source: HauteLiving.com Source: Elle.com Source: Ocean Drive

Tip of the week… And for those who have Best apps… How to cope with airport waits everything... For taking better smartphone photos Expect them. You’ve probably heard recent “There are a number of things in life that Manual lets you control functions you can’t complaints about two-hour waits at airport can calm down just about anybody; burning manipulate with the iPhone’s camera app— security lines, so plan to arrive with time to wood i res, and hanging out in hot tubs like shutter speed, exposure, ISO, focus, and spare, especially if you’re due to depart at a are chief among them.” The Soak outdoor white balance. ($3, iOS only) peak travel time. The TSA is undermanned, wood-i red hot tub, created by a Canadian Camera FV-5 “can be thought of as Manual and screeners are being added only slowly. design and fabrication i rm, combines both for Android.” Like Manual, it even offers op- Join TSA PreCheck. Enrolling in PreCheck pleasures. Made from marine-grade alumi- tional composition grids. ($4, Android only) or Global Entry lets you bypass long lines. num, stainless steel, and red cedar, this tub Focus highlights objects that are in focus, But you have to visit an enrollment center in for two heats up via a wood i re or propane. helping with composition and making it easy advance, provide documentation, and allow The tub’s Bauhaus-inspired modern- to manipulate the background. It also offers fingerprinting. PreCheck, which costs $85, ist lines aren’t what you expect from fill flash and various controls. ($2, iOS only) clears you for five years of domestic travel. a wood-i red tub, but the look is “a Camera360 is a free Android app that’s long Global Entry ($100) adds international flights. great i t for almost any backyard.” been popular owing to its “funny stickers” Fly off-peak. Fly Tuesday or Wednesday $4,450 oxandmonkey.ca feature. But it also has handy tools for crop- at midday if you can. Avoid traveling when Source: HiConsumption.com ping and editing. you’d avoid being on a highway—like the Camera+ offers “a stack of filters” and a morning and evening rush hours. “superb” HDR mode, all of which can help Check Twitter. Airports are using Twitter to you create more striking images. ($3, iOS) report and warn about wait times. You can ProShot offers grid overlays, custom as- also use the My TSA app, which isn’t totally pect ratios—“if you can name it, chances are reliable but lets passengers share wait info. ProShot has it.” ($4, Android or iOS) Source: CNN.com Source: Gizmodo.com

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Although it’s more common in older women, ovarian cancer af ects women of all ages, even in their 20s. There is no early detection test, and symptoms can be subtle. But while you can’t see it, you can take steps to get ahead of it by knowing your risk factors. Family history of cancer and presence of gene mutations like BRCA are risk factors, so talk to your family and your doctor. This information makes you less likely to ignore vague signs that could indicate disease.

Meanwhile, promising collaborative research will continue to shed light on new advances in diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer.

To learn more about symptoms, risk factors and research go to SU2C.org/ovarian

Minnie Driver Stand Up To Cancer Ambassador

Stand Up To Cancer is a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, Photo by Martin Schoeller a 501(c)(3) non-profi t organization. 32 BUSINESS The news at a glance

The bottom line Media: Intrigue rocks Redstone’s empire In 1992, 98 U.S. companies A “bitter fight” has erupted over the “Shari Redstone has long been on the had an AAA credit rating future of Sumner Redstone’s $40 bil- sidelines” of her father’s sprawling from Standard & Poor’s, the lion media empire, said Matthew business interests, said Meg James highest rating possible. To- day, just two U.S. companies Garrahan in the Financial Times. The and Ryan Faughnder in the Los are deemed AAA—Johnson ailing 93-year-old mogul last week Angeles Times. But after decades of & Johnson and Microsoft— abruptly removed longtime allies public feuds with him, she’s emerg- as more companies take on Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s CEO, and ing as a “pivotal figure” in the battle high levels of debt to fund attorney George Abrams from the trust over the stewardship of his compa- acquisitions and shareholder that will manage Redstone’s stakes in nies. Last month, a California judge buybacks. CBS and Viacom when he dies. The ruled that the elder Redstone, who Financial Times unexpected move—Dauman has for Redstone with Shari has difficulty speaking, was men- The interest rate for federal years been Redstone’s “most trusted tally competent when he named his student loans for undergrad- friend” and Abrams has represented him for five daughter as his health-care proxy. Dauman and uates for the 2016-2017 aca- decades—are a victory for Redstone’s daughter, Abrams have filed suit to be reinstated to their demic year will be the lowest Shari, who has been a vocal critic of Dauman’s posts, contending that the elder Redstone is being it’s been in a decade, dipping management. Viacom, which owns Paramount, “manipulated by his daughter” and lacks the to 3.76 percent starting July 1. That’s down from 4.29 per- MTV, and Comedy Central, has seen its shares competency to make business decisions. This is an cent this past academic year fall nearly 40 percent over the past year. “unlawful corporate takeover,” Dauman said. and sharply down from a decade ago, when rates were Where wealth above 6 percent. The Fed: June rate increase still on the table endures centuries Time.com Don’t write off a June interest-rate hike, said Paul Davidson in USA Today. Notes from the Federal Reserve’s April meeting, released last The shoemakers of 15th-century Florence U.S. credit card debt is week, appear to place “a greater likelihood on a June rate increase” on track to hit $1 tril lion were a prosperous lot, this year, approaching the than expected. Most analysts had presumed the central bank would as are their descen- all-time peak of hold off raising rates in the face of global economic uncertainty and the dants, said Josh Zum- $1.02 trillion possibility that Great Britain will vote to withdraw from the European brun in WSJ.com. New set in July Union. Fed policymakers, however, say they’ll seriously consider a rate research comparing 2008. hike if certain conditions are met, like strong hiring or an uptick in Florentine taxpayers in Lenders inflation. The May jobs survey, in particular, “will be critical.” 1427 to 2011 data “docu- have ments an extraordinary been Banking: Bank of America wins ‘Hustle’ case fact”: The Italian city’s aggres- Bank of America’s decision to fight allegations it defrauded the gov- top earners today are sively pushing ernment during the housing crisis “paid off” this week, said Patricia descended from the plastic to eager consumers, Hurtado in Bloomberg.com, after a federal appeals court threw out a wealthiest families issuing more than 104 mil- $1.27 billion judgment against the bank for selling shoddy mortgages. 600 years ago. “Italian lion general-purpose and surnames are highly store credit cards last year, The government had alleged that the bank’s Countrywide unit fast- tracked thousands of subprime loans through a program called Hustle, regional and distinc- up 6.5 per cent from 2014. tive,” allowing research- The Wall Street Journal selling them to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac even as the housing market ers to track how families cratered. The appeals court, however, said Countrywide’s actions weren’t At least 1,000 new smart- have fared. The richest phone apps are released intentional fraud, but instead “only a breach of contract.” citizens of modern every day for Android and Health care: Theranos voids thousands of blood tests Flor ence “belong to iOS. But fewer than 25 per- families that, in 1429, cent of people who download Embattled blood-testing startup Theranos told federal regulators last were members of the an app will open it after the week that it’s voiding two years of test results, said John Carreyrou in shoemakers’ guild—at first day, according to mobile The Wall Street Journal. The discarded results, numbering in the tens the 97th percentile of marketing firm Appboy. That of thousands, include all of the 2014 and 2015 tests from the biotech income.” Descendants of figure drops to 11 per cent startup’s Edison machines, which were once “touted as revolutionary.” attorneys and silk guild after the first week. At least one doctor has reported sending a patient to the ER based on members—back then Fortune.com erroneous results from Theranos. The firm threw out the tests as part of at the 93rd percentile— One in five borrowers who an attempt to avoid sanctions for violations at its Newark, Calif., lab. are also among city’s take out a title loan on an au- wealthiest. Given that tomobile ends up losing the Agriculture: Monsanto cool on merger offer in the intervening cen- vehicle used to secure the Monsanto is leaving the door open to a merger with Germany’s Bayer, turies Florence endured loan, according to the Con- said Greg Roumeliotis in Reuters.com. The world’s largest seed com- conquests by the Holy sumer Financial Protection pany rejected Bayer’s initial $62 billion offer this week, but said it was Roman Empire and Bureau. Nearly 80 percent of willing “to engage further in negotiations.” A tie-up between Monsanto Napoleonic France, such borrowers extend their and Bayer, a pharmaceutical and chemical giant with its own crop sci- researchers say there vehicle title loan by taking ence unit, would create the world’s largest agricultural supplier. Global could be “a glass floor” out another. that protects the for- BuzzFeed.com agrochemicals companies have been “racing to consolidate, partly in tunes of the upper class.

response to a drop in commodity prices that has hit farm incomes.” Newscom AP,

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Making money BUSINESS 33

Investing: Should you bet on a startup? If you’ve ever dreamed of becom- Oculus, which raised $2.4 million ing a venture capitalist, “now is your from backers on Kickstarter in chance,” said Stacy Cowley in The New 2012. Two years later, the com- York Times. Under long-awaited federal pany was acquired by Facebook for rules that went into effect last week, $2 billion—great news for the com- anyone with dreams of discovering the pany’s founders, but not so great for next Facebook or Uber can try his or those who donated to the Kickstarter her hand at investing in startups, “with campaign, most of whom “got noth- all the attendant risks of losing one’s ing more than a T-shirt.” shirt on a company that fails.” Before, only accredited investors with an an- “Sorry, but your chance of finding nual income of more than $200,000 or the next Mark Zuckerberg is close a net worth of at least $1 million were to nil,” said Ian Salisbury in Time allowed to buy stock in most private .com. In the tech sector, at least, companies. But under the new rules, do-it-yourself venture capitalists are Researching a possible investment on Wefunder startups can raise up to $1 million a almost certain to be fighting over year from investors of any income through equity crowdfunding the scraps left behind by Silicon Valley’s blue-chip investors. But sites such as Wefunder, SeedInvest, and StartEngine. the bigger issue is that “making money from funding startups is extremely difficult even for professional venture capitalists,” These funding portals work a lot like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, let alone amateurs. A recent Harvard Business School study where fans of new products or services can “back their enthu- found that three-quarters of venture-backed startups fail, with siasm with cash,” said James Rufus Koren in the Los Angeles investors losing all of their money about 30 to 40 percent of the Times. But here, backers receive shares in a company instead of time. Most people won’t make money on startups, said Julia a product or some other reward. The new rules do protect inves- Greenberg in Wired.com. But if you’re intent on forging ahead tors from betting their entire nest egg. Those making less than anyway, “don’t be a dummy.” Learn the Securities and Exchange $100,000 a year are only allowed to invest 5 percent of their Commission rules for crowdfunding, read the fine print on fund- income; for those making between $100,000 and $200,000, the ing platforms, and vet your investments carefully. If the found- limit is 10 percent. But “it’s possible that some of these compa- ers tanked at their last company, for example, that’s bad news. nies could turn into big hits.” Consider virtual-reality startup “Don’t just throw your hard-earned savings at any ol’ idea.”

What the experts say Charity of the week Grad gifts that keep giving Action Alerts Plus portfolio, which Cramer Since 1999, the Teammates for Kids By all means, give the gift of cash this gradu- uses in part to sell $15-a-month newsletter Foundation (teammatesforkids.com) has ation season, said Suzanne Woolley in subscriptions that give information about the partnered with Bloomberg.com . “But the best gift may be fund’s holdings, actually beat the market in the professional athletes to twofold: some cash your grad can spend as years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, raise money he or she likes, plus a gift that introduces the but it has struggled since. Cramer isn’t alone, for children’s power of long-term saving and investing.” One however. A majority of active money managers health care and education. Co-founded popular option is to open a Roth IRA; these have underperformed the market over the past in 1999 by country singer Garth Brooks, the foundation works with thousands accounts are easier to tap into before retirement 10 years, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. of individual athletes, who pledge a than a traditional IRA, like for the down pay- donation tied to their performance that ment on a house. If your graduate earned in- Reselling your hotel room season—for every touchdown scored, come this year, you can give the amount of that “Stuck with a pricey hotel reservation?” asked for example, or each strike thrown. Corporate donors then double or triple income up to the annual limit of $5,500. An- Amy Zipkin in The New York Times. Try re- the athletes’ pledges, and because the other idea is to “match your grad’s savings or selling it online. With cancellation restrictions organization’s overhead is privately payments on debt,” like student loans. Or set and fees becoming more widespread, travelers funded, 100 percent of the proceeds goes him or her up for a lifetime of money manage- are turning to sites like RoomerTravel and to charitable programs—$100 million so far to children in 60 countries around the ment, with paid-for “sessions with a planner.” Cancelon to unload nonrefundable reserva- globe. The foundation’s Child Life Zone tions. Sellers can list booked rooms for any initiative installs kid-friendly “playrooms” Cramer’s market record price to recoup some or all of what they origi- in hospitals across the country, and the CNBC TV personality and Mad Money host nally paid, and the listings appear on travel “Teammates for Kids ProCamps” offers underprivileged children a chance to Jim Cramer is one of the country’s most fa- sites like Kayak and Trivago. When a room attend a sports camp run by pro athletes. mous stock pickers, said Jennifer Booton in sells, the sites take a percentage—15 percent MarketWatch.com, “but he doesn’t beat the at RoomerTravel and 10 percent at Cancelon. Each charity we feature has earned a market.” Researchers at the University of There’s both an upside and a downside for four-star overall rating from Charity Pennsylvania found that Cramer’s charitable those looking to book a room. The offered Navigator, which rates not-for-profit fund, Action Alerts Plus, has underperformed rooms can be cheaper—RoomerTravel says its organizations on the strength of their the S&P 500 since its 2001 inception, with average discount is 45 percent—but some con- finances, their governance practices, and the transparency of their operations. total cumulative returns of 64.5 percent sumers say they have had issues with confirma- Four stars is the group’s highest rating.

Media Bakery compared with 70 percent for the index. The tion numbers associated with their stays.

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 34 Best columns: Business

Issue of the week: Expanding overtime pay “Millions of Americans will get a raise It’s a little odd that “in response to the beginning Dec. 1, and not because their new regulation, employers are casting employers will have a sudden outbreak of themselves as worker advocates,” said Christmas generosity,” said Helaine Olen E. Tammy Kim in NewYorker.com. In- in Slate.com. That’s when new federal dustry groups like the National Retail rules take effect requiring employers to Federation argue that the new rules pay time-and-a-half wages to salaried em- will force businesses “to cut hours and ployees who work more than 40 hours revert employees to clock-in, clock-out per week, provided they earn less than wage laborers.” But those same busi- $47,476 annually. That’s double the cur- nesses have used every excuse possible to rent threshold of $23,660; the Obama whittle down the share of salaried work- administration estimates that more than ers clearly eligible for overtime, from 4 million workers will be affected. “This 62 percent in 1975 to just 8 percent change was way overdue.” The last time Millions more workers could make time and a half. today. One clever dodge is bestowing the overtime rules were adjusted was in “fancy” managerial titles on otherwise 2004, when the salary threshold was bumped up from a mere low-paid workers, like “floor manager” or “gas-station supervi- $8,060. Now it will be updated every three years, pegged to the sor,” to make them exempt. As a result, millions of people work 40th percentile of income for full-time, salaried employees in the 50, 60, even 70 hours a week without getting time and a half. lowest-wage region of the U.S. The new rules may not have much impact either way, said Eric “This mandate will hurt more workers than it helps,” said The Morath in The Wall Street Journal. Extending overtime to Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “Few will likely see a raise.” 4.2 million people “sounds like a lot,” but that figure represents Instead, businesses will probably convert salaried employees fewer than 3 percent of all U.S. workers. Increasing the mini- to hourly status or hire more part-time and temp workers to mum wage to $15 an hour nationally, however, “would affect avoid the onerous new requirements. Other companies will a third of the workforce.” Whatever happens, this is a welcome bump workers’ pay above the new salary threshold to avoid conversation about wages, said E.J. Dionne in The Washington the mandate, but offer fewer benefits and bonuses. Still others Post. In the midst of a presidential campaign “supposedly about will “divert money from wages or investment” to implement the disinherited and disaffected,” there’s been surprisingly little new timekeeping systems that prevent workers from going past interest in actual policies that “would benefit those who are 40 hours per week. Perhaps scaled-back hours will translate into struggling.” Republicans in Congress have vowed to fight these employees having more free time, but “most salaried workers “much needed” new rules, and I, for one, hope that they do. would prefer the extra pay, thank you very much.” “Let’s get members of Congress on record about overtime.”

Mark Zuckerberg “is one of the most skilled politi- energy. “It’s rarer still that they leave such a meeting Zuckerberg’s cal figures of our time,” said Issie Lapowsky. Not with nothing but positive things to say about it.” If in the running-for-office way, but in a pandering- Zuckerberg didn’t quell all the attendees’ apprehen- political for-power kind of way. Just look at how the Face- sions, he was at least successful in making them book CEO responded to allegations that the social feel heard. “This is politics at its finest.” For his instincts network’s Trending Topics suppressed conservative company to remain successful, Zuckerberg knows, Issie Lapowsky stories. Although he vigorously denied there was any people need to “trust that Facebook will do right Wired.com intentional bias at work, Zuckerberg nevertheless in- by users of every political affiliation.” Even if Face- vited a handful of prominent conservatives to Face- book only makes small changes going forward—like book HQ so they could air their grievances. “It’s not using a few more conservative sources for trending every day” conservatives like Glenn Beck sit down stories—it’s better off if both sides believe the com- with a guy who supports gay marriage, compre- pany is committed to fairness. “That’s not just good hensive immigration reform, encryption, and clean politics. That’s good business.”

Phil Mickelson’s insider-trading “mulligan” is a dis- show you just how “bungled” insider-trading cases Insider grace, said Stephen Gandel. “If insider-trading laws have become. As of mid-2014, Preet Bharara, the lead were still working like they should,” the pro golfer Justice official on insider-trading cases, had an 80-0 trading’s would be headed to trial, and possibly jail. Instead, record of convictions. But that same year, the 2nd he’s getting what amounts to a do-over. The Securities U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hopelessly muddied the sand trap and Exchange Commission says Mickelson netted waters by ruling that acting on privileged information Stephen Gandel $931,000 in trading profits based on stock tips he can’t be considered insider trading if a tipster doesn’t Fortune.com received from Billy Walters, a Las Vegas businessman receive some kind of direct payment or reward. to whom he owed gambling debts. Walters has since “This, of course, is ridiculous.” But it has resulted in been charged with insider trading, accused of receiv- a kind of “get-out-of-jail-free card” for shady traders. ing illegal tips from the CEO of Dean Foods. Mickel- Convictions have been overturned, and prosecutors son hasn’t been charged, but he’s agreed to hand over have become “gun shy.” The feds have been “saddled

the money he made to the government. This should with a very, very high handicap.” Newscom

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 Obituaries 35

The urbane newsman who shone on 60 Minutes The actor who conversed Morley For millions of outings with the troops, “changed with Mister Ed Safer Americans, Morley the way many Americans per- 1931–2016 Safer was a Sunday- ceived the war,” said The New When comedian George night staple. Dapper York Times. His account of Burns was putting together and unflappable, he was a mainstay Marines burning a village as Mister Ed, a TV series he of CBS’s 60 Minutes for 46 years, old men and women begged for was producing about a talk- delivering witty, whimsical dispatches mercy “stunned” the U.S. public, ing horse, he knew exactly that spanned art, science, and popu- and an enraged Presi dent Lyndon which actor Alan he wanted lar culture. But despite memorable Johnson ordered Safer “investi- Young to play the segments in which he played pool gated as a possible Commu nist.” 1919–2016 wily animal’s with Jackie Gleason or explored the In 1970, Safer settled into 60 affable owner, health benefits of red wine, he was Minutes , mixing hard news with Wilbur Post. “We should an in vesti gative reporter at heart, pieces “on the lighter side of life: get Alan Young,” he said. having gained widespread renown in the 1960s the game of croquet, Tupperware parties, chil- “He looks like the kind of for ground breaking coverage of U.S. military dren’s beauty pageants.” guy a horse would talk to.” abuses in Vietnam. And though he could boast Young initially turned down “With a soothing voice that seemed to be sup- that he’d enjoyed the longest run of anyone in the part, saying he didn’t pressing a chuckle,” said The Washington Post, want a co-star who “doesn’t prime-time television history, Safer often said he Safer generally played good cop to colleague clean up after himself.” had no love for the camera. “It is not natural to Mike Wallace’s more abrasive style. But Safer’s But the veteran comedic be talking to a piece of machinery,” he said, add- reports often made national waves, including a actor eventually agreed, ing impishly, “but the money is very good.” 1983 piece that resulted in the release of a Texas and the series—along with the horse’s catchphrase, Born in Toronto, where his father owned an man wrongfully sentenced to life in prison, and a “Willlllburrrrr?”—became upholstery shop, Safer was inspired by Ernest 1993 segment in which Safer suggested much of a huge success. “He was Hemingway in his teens “and decided he would modern abstract art was “worthless junk.” Safer, the star,” Young said of his be a foreign correspondent,” said CBSNews.com. who formally retired just days before his death, equine colleague. “I was the After several newspaper jobs, he first appeared banged out his reports on a classic Royal type- supporting actor.” on camera in 1956, covering the Suez crisis for writer until the end. “I have a pretty solid body Canada’s CBC network. He joined CBS in 1964, of work that emphasized the words, emphasized Born in England, but raised and a dispatch the following year from Vietnam, ideas,” he said. “It’s not literature, but it can be in Scotland and then Van- couver, Young “suffered where Safer shunned press briefings in favor of very classy journalism.” from debilitating asthma, and was bedridden for much of his childhood,” said The Washington Post. To pass The Texas troubadour who wrote ‘L.A. Freeway’ the time, he listened to radio Guy Clark was one recalled. “Suddenly, writing became comedy routines and created Guy his own material. He made Clark of the most influen- real to me.” In 1970, after splitting tial country singer- from his first wife, Clark moved his radio debut at age 13, 1941–2016 and was a regular with the songwriters of his to Los Angeles with the woman Canadian Broadcasting Corp. generation. His rugged, narrative- who would become his second by 17. Young later moved to rich songs were recorded by scores wife, the painter Susanna Talley. New York, where he secured of artists, including Johnny Cash The city never suited him, said the his own coast-to-coast radio and Ricky Skaggs. Together with his Associated Press, but “his dissat- show on ABC and worked friend and fellow songwriter Townes isfaction with [its] hectic lifestyle” on several TV shows and Van Zandt, he helped pioneer the provided the inspiration for his first films before signing up for Texas troubadour movement of the major hit, “L.A. Freeway.” He and Mister Ed. 1970s and 1980s, and mentored Talley then moved to Nashville, When the series’ five-year dozens of young country and folk where their home became a “musi- run came to an end, Young musicians. But Clark didn’t just play guitars—he cal haven for songwriters, singers, and artists.” “retired from show business” also made them, in his workshop-cum-studio. “Clark’s recordings never received much air- and spent the next decade “It’s kind of a dream come true to have a room working for the Christian play on mainstream radio,” said The New York where you write songs and build guitars,” he said. Science Church, said the Los Times, but his songs still became an indelible part “You get stuck writing songs, and you just get up Angeles Times. He returned to of “the Americana idiom.” The broody nature and work. They sort of feed off one another.” acting in the 1970s, and later of tracks like “Desperados Waiting for a Train” provided the voice of Scrooge Born in Monahans, Texas, Clark was “raised and “Dublin Blues” was balanced by more light- McDuck in Disney’s animated largely by his grandmother while his father served hearted “novelty songs” like “Texas Cookin’” TV series DuckTales. But he in the military during World War II,” said the Los and “Homegrown Tomatoes.” Clark recorded knew he would always be Angeles Times. He didn’t pick up a guitar until his 13 albums in all, and was elected to the Nashville remembered primarily as teens, but quickly identified music as his calling. Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004. “I am glad a horse’s sidekick. “It’s the same chemis try that made After brief spells in the Peace Corps and at the that I raised the bar to some extent, if in fact I Laurel and Hardy,” he said. Univer sity of Min nesota, Clark moved to Houston, did,” he said. “But you can’t live on that every “The one guy making a fool where he opened a guitar repair shop and met Van day. You have to reinvent yourself the next day. of the other guy.”

Everett Collection, Newscom Everett Zandt. “Townes wrote in a real literate way,” he And that gets harder.”

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 36 The last word Hearing the Hum A mysterious sound with no obvious source is driving people batty around the globe. Could it be low-frequency radio waves, asks author Colin Dickey, or mass delusion?

UE TAYLOR FIRST that the Hum is a started hearing it massive government Sat night in 2009. A conspiracy. In a mes- retired psychiatric nurse, sage later recovered Taylor lives in Roslin, by authorities from Scotland, a small village his computer, Alexis outside Edinburgh. “A wrote that “Ultra thick, low hum,” was how low frequency attack she described it, some- is what I’ve been thing “permeating the subject to for the last entire house,” keeping her three months. And awake. At first she thought to be perfectly hon- it was from a nearby fac- est, that is what has tory, or perhaps a genera- driven me to this.” tor. She had her hearing There are many checked and was told it things we know the was perfect, but the noise Hum is not, but few persisted. She became dizzy things we actually and nauseous, overcome, know it is. I first she says, by a crushing heard stories of the sense of despair and hope- Hum a few years lessness at her inability to Residents of Taos, N.M., have complained about a low-level rumbling noise for years. ago, in the genre locate or escape the sound. of weird conspira- Her husband, who had tinnitus, didn’t hear cies, another tinfoil hat theory to go with a thing. “People looked at me like I was paper would publish a report of a local the UFOs, Flat Earthers, and Raëlians. But mad,” she said. person suffering from an unidentified noise, followed by a torrent of letters to the editor then I learned about Glen MacPherson, Lori Steinborn lives in Tavares, Fla., near with similar complaints. a high school math teacher in British Orlando, and in 2006 she started hearing Columbia, who had attracted attention a similar noise. It would start most nights Sometimes, this would lead to a begrudg- for doing serious, scientific work on the between 7 and 8 p.m. and last until the ing official investigation, but these nearly phenomenon. Word was that he had under- early hours of the morning. Like Taylor, she always ended inconclusively. Hum sufferers taken a research project that, if successful, began searching for the sound; leaving town have been consistently written off as either could hold the secret to understanding the helped her get away from it, but it was wait- delusional or simply suffering from tinnitus. Hum once and for all. ing when she returned. They become demoralized, despondent. In such isolation the discourse festers, breeding ACPHERSON’S HUM STORY, at The experience described by Steinborn and conspiracy theories and kooks. In 2009, the least initially, was fairly typical: Taylor, and many others, is what’s come to first episode of the reality show Conspiracy MIn 2012, he was living in Sechelt, be known as the Hum, a mysterious audi- Theory With Jesse Ventura offered a theory just a few miles from his home now in tory phenomenon that, by some estimates, of the Hum possibly stemming from a gov- the tiny town of Gibsons, when he began 2 percent of the population can hear. It’s not ernment mind-control device, and in a 1998 hearing at night the droning of what he clear when the Hum first began, or when X-Files episode the Hum (or something like assumed were seaplanes taking off and people started noticing it, but it started it) caused spontaneous head explosions. landing. “It seemed to have a pretty regular drawing media attention in the 1970s, in onset at 10 to 10:30 p.m.,” he said, “but I On a Facebook page for Hum sufferers, one Bristol, Eng land. After receiving isolated went outside, and the noise stopped.” rambling post describes how “advanced reports, the British tabloid Sunday Mir- satellite technology” is being used as “a “My logic was that if it was louder inside ror asked, in 1977, “Have You Heard the brutal torture instrument by transmitting and it stopped outside, then the source was Hum?” Hundreds of letters came flood- sounds, voices, and images directly into the inside.” MacPherson began turning off vari- ing in. For the most part, the reports were brain.” The post goes on to name several ous appliances, all to no avail. “And then I consistent: a low, distant rumbling, mostly people who have been targeted by this did what many people ultimately do: I cut audible at night, mostly noticeable indoors. technology, including Miriam Carey, the the power to the house—and it got louder.” No obvious source. dental hygienist who drove through a White Though his experience with the Hum has The story of the Hum begins far from the House checkpoint in 2013, setting off a not been as excruciating as some people’s hustle and bustle of cities, in places where high-speed chase that led to her death, and (he describes himself as a Hum “hearer” stillness blankets everything. That’s where Aaron Alexis, the civilian contractor who rather than “sufferer”), MacPherson was you hear it, and that’s where it becomes on Sept. 16, 2013, entered the Washington, drawn to the problem of this mysterious intolerable. After it was first reported in D.C., Navy Yard and killed 12 people noise: “Less than one month after beginning Bristol, it emerged in Taos, N.M.; Kokomo, before dying in a firefight with police. my informal inquiries, I did what essentially

Ind.; Largs, Scotland. A small city news- Alexis has become, for some, proof positive every single person who visits the Hum Getty

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 The last word 37

website has done: You go to Google.” He Turkey, where it’s a “deep and quiet rumble years to build.” I asked why, and he said found an article in The Journal of Scientific that sounds like a very distant diesel genera- those waves can easily be blocked by thin Exploration, by a geophysicist named David tor”; and in Hervey Bay, Australia, where layers of foil. “You know, the classic—” Deming, titled “The Hum: An Anomalous it’s “a pulsating continuous low background “The tinfoil hat,” I finished, both of us Sound Heard Around the World.” aircraft rumble that does not go away.” laughing. That he’s able to joke about this Deming, who has taught at the University It shows up mostly in rural areas and in suggests his even-keeled approach, but the of Oklahoma since 1992, was one of the small cities: More people have heard it hint of fringe conspiracy theories always first scientists to take the problem of the in Boise, Idaho, than in Washington, D.C. lurks just around the corner. Hum seriously. (He also heard the Hum.) Reports dot the globe, from Iceland to the Philippines. Take, for instance, another prominent voice Crucially, Deming was able to distinguish in the Hum community: Steve Kohlhase, a the Hum from tinnitus. Tinnitus, usually MacPherson liked his map and thought it mechanical engineer in Brookfield, Conn., a ringing in the ear, can take a number of was useful for creating a community for who first started hearing the Hum in 2009. forms, but while its intensity may wax and Hum sufferers. But he knew there was noth- Kohlhase believes gas pipelines running wane, it is more or less omnipresent, and throughout the country are producing the those who suffer from it tend to hear it in Hum. Other Hum sufferers have blamed any environment. The Hum, which is con- electromagnetic radiation from power stant but only under certain circumstances plants, cellphone towers, or “smart” utility (indoors, rural areas, etc.), defies a simple meters that broadcast their readings. Any correlation with tinnitus. Additionally, facet of modern life that emits a signal or Deming notes, if the Hum were related to has moving parts has at one point been put tinnitus, one would expect a normal geo- forward as a potential cause. graphic distribution rather than clusters in small towns. But Kohlhase has extrapolated a conclusion more sweeping in scope. He believes that Deming believed that the Hum wasn’t an most—if not all—mass shootings of the past acoustic sound, but possibly a low-frequency few decades can be traced to natural-gas vibration that some people interpret as pipelines emitting low-frequency radiation, sound. The most likely culprit was a Navy based on MacPherson’s Hum maps and project known as Take Charge and Move his own research. In the wake of the Sandy Out, or TACAMO. Begun in the early Hook shooting, Kohlhase gave material to 1960s, TACAMO is a network of aircraft the Connecticut State Police suggesting that that carry very low frequency (VLF) anten- A visualization of the Hum, using a spectrograph a pipeline near Adam Lanza’s home may nae to communicate with nuclear subma- have been what drove him to kill 27 people. rines. VLF waves, which require extremely ing scientific about it, nothing that would long broadcast antennae and massive ERHAPS THIS IS the reason so many lead to a breakthrough on the Hum’s source. people have seized on MacPherson’s amounts of energy, can cover the globe and Then, a few months after he started hearing P experiment: its elegant simplicity, its penetrate nearly any surface (they reach the Hum, he realized “this crucial experi- submarines 100 feet underwater). Deming promise of silencing the crackpots. But the ment that Deming had envisioned hadn’t fact that it’s such a simple experiment is proposed a simple experiment to test this been done yet.” The boxes. No one had hypothesis: Three boxes, each large enough also why it’s so frustrating that MacPherson thought to attempt Deming’s simple pro- hasn’t tried it yet. to hold a human, one that blocked sound, posal of three boxes that could definitively one that blocked low-frequency waves, and prove whether the Hum was an acoustic Having finally completed the box, MacPher- a control box that blocked neither. noise or a frequency. So MacPherson crowd- son suddenly stopped. After weeks of saying Aside from Deming’s article, MacPherson sourced a few hundred dollars to cover the that he would conduct his experiment in my realized, there was very little out there: The material costs and built the first one, which presence, he made it clear that it would not few user forums were rife with nonsense, would block VLF waves. happen. Partly, he said, this had to do with heavy on anecdote, and light on fact. There the school year starting up again. Gibsons is MacPherson’s Deming box is 6 feet by also a small town. Since he’s begun this proj- were enough reports from far-flung places to 3 feet by 2 feet, and made of black low- suggest that the problem went beyond Taos ect, he’s become known locally as the Hum carbon steel. It looks like a cross between guy. When he goes grocery shopping, one of and Bristol, but no one seemed to be gather- a coffin and the monolith from 2001. He ing all the information. So in 2012, he used the teenage clerks will stand behind him and keeps it in a woodshed not far from his hum quietly. a simple Google Docs tool to create a list of house. If a Hum sufferer were to get in the self-reported experiences with the Hum. box, and if the Hum were indeed caused Rather than hoping to end the problem MacPherson’s database allows users to input by VLF waves, then the noise should stop once and for all, MacPherson hopes that their experience with the Hum, including when the person was inside the box. This is his experiment—if he ever conducts it— info on where and when it’s the loudest, the test that MacPherson was planning to will serve as a catalyst for more serious if anything makes it stop, and so on. The do while I was there. His goal was to take investigation. “The problem is that no World Hum Map soon came to the atten- it on the road, to meet up with other Hum one’s paying for this,” he said. “It’s me and tion of Reddit, and submissions poured in; sufferers and test it. a few people sending me PayPal accounts there are now more than 5,000 data points. that’s essentially made a big metal box sit- MacPherson propped a foot up on the edge ting in a woodshed.” The first thing the site revealed was that the of the box. “If it were a different frequency Hum was everywhere. It’s in Overland Park, than VLF,” he said, “like something around Excerpted from an article that originally Kan., where it’s described as “a metallic microwave, or cellphone frequency, then this appeared in The New Republic. Reprinted

Louviere + Vanessa, 2016 Vanessa, + Louviere sound of something vibrating”; in Ankara, would not have taken me off and on three with permission.

THE WEEK June 3, 2016 38 The Puzzle Page

Crossword No. 362: Miles to Go by Matt Gaffney The Week Contest 1234 5678 9101112 This week’s question: A Virginia woman’s obituary gave 13 14 15 the upcoming presidential election—and the choice of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton—as her cause of death. If deep disgust with modern politics and 16 17 18 politicians were a genuine, life-threatening medical con- dition, what would the disorder be called? 19 20 Last week’s contest: An Israeli man recently requested a 21 22 23 24 25 restraining order against God, saying that he was fed up with the Almighty treating him “harshly and not nicely.” 26 27 28 29 30 In no more than seven words, please come up with an advertising slogan for a law firm seeking to represent 31 32 33 people with divine grievances. THE WINNER: “Hallowed be thy claim.” 34 35 36 Jim Martin, Ludlow, Mass. SECOND PLACE: “The Lord giveth, but we taketh away.” 37 38 39 Paul Kelash, Minneapolis THIRD PLACE: “We don’t answer to a Higher Authority.” 40 41 42 Jill Camera, New York City

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