Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Paranoia
run amok
The mainstreaming
of ‘Obama takeover’
conspiracy theories
p.14
What the editorials said Even though Warren’s victory was temporary, said Dana Milbank
This is what Obama gets when he “treats members of Congress in The Washington Post, the rebellion she led may have been a
as peasants who must bow before his superior wisdom,” said The “turning point” for Democrats. Even former TPP supporter Hill-
Wall Street Journal. The TPP is “the best opportunity in decades ary Clinton was cowed into silence—emboldening other Demo-
to liberalize trade”—yet rather than trying to “cultivate coalitions crats to rebel. With public anger over growing inequality now at
from the center out,” Obama alienated protectionists on both the “critical mass,” Warren and her fellow populists have proved they
Right and Left with derision and condescension. If Democrats tor- are “firmly in control of the Democratic Party.”
It wasn’t all bad QFor 17 years, Pastor Tony Stallworth has hosted a rau- QWhen Ben Moser was in fourth
cous karaoke night for the homeless people of Skid Row grade, he promised his friend Mary
QNext week, Anthony Brutto will in downtown Los Angeles. Every week, some 200 people Lapkowicz that he’d take her to
graduate from West Virginia Univer- fill the Central City Community Church of the Nazarene prom. Moser had always watched
sity, 76 years after he first enrolled. to take turns belting out their favorite songs. The choices over Lapkowicz, who has Down
The 94-year-old started college in span gospel and R&B syndrome, including her in every
1939, when tuition cost just $50. He to country and rock, game. “If it was looking like she
was drafted three years later and and members of the wasn’t having fun, he would go over
served in the Army Air Corps as a audience cheer as they and talk to her,” said their former
mechanic. After the war, Brutto brief- waltz, break-dance, and teacher, Tracey Spogli. Mary ended
ly returned to school but dropped out form conga lines. “It’s up transferring schools, and the two
when his wife fell ill. He worked as a a little bit of a return fell out of touch. But Moser remem-
machinist for most of his life before to normalcy in an area bered his promise. Last week, the
recently resolving to get his diploma. that’s just absolute 17-year-old high school quarterback
“It was always important to me to chaos,” said Andy Bates, presented Mary with balloons, and
graduate,” he said. He’s not so sure who heads a local char- the childhood friends attended his
about a master’s degree, though. “I ity. “People lose them- prom together. “You should do
Corbis, AP
think I’ll take a break for a while.” A Skid Row resident takes the mic. selves in that moment.” what’s right,” he said. “Simple.”
Amtrak disaster in Philly sidy of just $1.4 billion a year—compared with the $8 billion the
U.K. gives its rail system and the $128 billion China spends. Amer-
ica’s only high-speed train “runs at an average of
Transportation officials said this week that a dev-
astating Amtrak crash in Philadelphia that killed 68 miles per hour,” 100 mph slower than genu-
at least seven people and injured another 150 was inely high-speed trains in Europe and Asia. Then
likely caused by excessive speed. Northeast Re- there are the crashes, which “are far too com-
gional Train 188 was traveling from Washington, mon,” said Steve Mollman in Qz.com. The Phila-
D.C., to New York City when it derailed near a delphia derailment was the ninth this year alone.
sharp bend in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neigh-
borhood. Data retrieved from the train’s black-box Blame Republicans, said Aviva Shen in Think
recorders indicate the train entered the curve at Progress.org. Even as Amtrak ridership has in-
Rescuing the injured creased by 50 percent in the past 15 years, con-
106 mph, twice the speed limit for that stretch of
track. All seven cars derailed, hurling passengers into luggage racks servative lawmakers “have proposed massive cuts to Amtrak’s bud-
and trapping them under the carriages’ mangled metal frames. “It get virtually every chance they get.” If Congress continues to ignore
was just chaos and craziness,” said passenger Jeremy Wladis. America’s crumbling rail infrastructure, expect only “more dysfunc-
tion and more breakdowns in the system.”
Hours after the disaster, Republicans on a House committee
blocked a previously scheduled bid by Democrats to boost Am- “Amtrak has a lot of problems,” said Sean Davis in TheFederalist
trak’s funding. A proposed GOP transportation bill would instead .com. “A lack of taxpayer generosity is not one of them.” Federal
cut Amtrak’s budget by $251 million. taxpayers “dump over a billion dollars each year” into the com-
pany—money that should be spent on infrastructure, but is more
Amtrak is in a sorry state, said Simon Van Zuylen-Wood in often used to cover Amtrak’s salary costs and pension losses. If
NationalJournal.com. The government-owned company runs a fleet you want to fix Amtrak, the solution’s simple: Give it to a private
with an average age of nearly 30 years, and receives a federal sub- company “that actually knows what it’s doing.”
Jeb’s muddled message on Iraq has now succeeded in turning one of Hillary Clinton’s chief
weaknesses—namely her initial vote in support of the war and
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush was forced into dam- her subsequent flip-flop—“into a comparative strength.”
age control this week over comments he made in support of his
brother George’s controversial decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Fox This is just the latest example of Bush’s “shortcomings as a can-
News anchor Megyn Kelly asked Bush, “Knowing what we know didate,” said Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com. Many on
now, would you have authorized the invasion?” to which the for- the Right are “openly antagonistic toward him,” and his mishan-
mer Florida governor responded, “I would have, and so would dling of this essential—and easily anticipated—question shows
have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody, and so would that he “still lacks the aggressive, feisty tone and clarity many
have almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence conservatives are looking for.”
they got.” Liberal and conservative commentators alike criticized
the candidate’s response, prompting Bush to clarify. “I interpreted Bush is “right that most leading figures in both parties supported
the question wrong, I guess,” Bush told Fox’s Sean Hannity the the war at the time,” said Jonathan Tobin in Commentary
next day. “I was talking about, given what people knew then.” Magazine.com. But by defending the decision to go into Iraq,
and proudly asserting that he relies on his brother for foreign pol-
How could Bush “make such a rookie mistake?” asked The icy advice, Bush has made it easier for Democrats to run “against
Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Faulty intelligence or no, “it the former president, rather than having to defend the records of
is difficult to deny that the consequence of invading Iraq was Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.” More Republicans are proba-
catastrophic.” Should he win the Republican nomination, Bush bly thinking that “nominating Jeb may not be such a hot idea.”
THE WEEK
You read it here first. Investigative reporter Sy Hersh has an Editor-in-chief: William Falk
Managing editors: Theunis Bates, Carolyn O’Hara
anonymous source who’s contradicting the official story about the Deputy editor/International: Susan Caskie
Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell Senior editors: Harry
killing of Osama bin Laden (see Talking Points), but my anonymous Byford, Alex Dalenberg, Brendan O’Connor, Hallie Stiller,
Jon Velez-Jackson, Frances Weaver
source—a former top, top senior adviser to an extremely high-ranking official—insists that both Art director: Dan Josephs Photo editor: Loren Talbot
Copy editors: Jane A. Halsey, Jay Wilkins
Sy and the government are wrong. Bin Laden, I am told, was actually an animatronic creation Chief researcher: Dale Obbie Researcher: Christina Colizza
Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin, Bruno Maddox
of the CIA, ordered up by Bill Clinton to distract Americans from the Lewinsky scandal. Dick EVP, sales: Tim Koorbusch VP, sales: Molly Bechert VP,
Cheney pulled the mechanical monster out of storage to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and marketing: Tara Mitchell Ad director, East Coast: John
Guehl N.Y. directors: Molly Hollister, Lisa Isoldi
Iraq and gin up some business for Halliburton. Barack Obama had the robot “killed” to make N.Y. managers: Albert Neudeck, Abby Sharpe Detroit
director: Don Schulz Midwest director: Erin Sesto
himself look tough on terrorism. I know: This is something of a shock. But when the veil of gov- Northwest account directors: William Murray, Steve
Thompson Southeast director: Ed Kobylus
ernment propaganda is lifted, you see the world as it truly is—filled with diabolical conspiracies. Southwest director: Matt Estrada Integrated marketing
manager: Adam Clement Research and insights
Speaking of which: After Obama declares martial law in Texas (see Talking Points), my manager: Joan Cheung Promotions manager: Jennifer
Castellano Marketing coordinator: Jessica Estremera
sources tell me, he plans to seize not only all the guns but all the brisket too. He’s already told Digital director: Garrett Markley Senior digital
account manager: Yuliya Spektorsky
his cronies in Chicago to expect a shipment of a few thousand tons of barbecue. Michelle Chief financial officer: Kevin E. Morgan
Obama will be installed as the Food Czar, and will require all Texans to eat nothing but arugula Director of financial reporting: Arielle Starkman
EVP, consumer marketing: Sara O’Connor
and kale. Same-sex marriage will not only be legalized, it will become mandatory. Naturally, Associate circulation director: Peter Corbett
Digital and print production director: Sean Fenlon
sharia law will be instituted; listening to Rush Limbaugh will bring 100 lashes, while watching Production manager: Kyle Christine Darnell
HR/operations manager: Joy Hart
Fox News will be punished by stoning. How can you tell if all this is true? The government and Advisers: Robert G. Bartner, Peter Godfrey
Chairman: John M. Lagana
the mainstream media deny it. Of course they do. Do you need any further proof? U.K. founding editor: Jolyon Connell
William Falk Company founder: Felix Dennis
AP
Visit us at TheWeek.com. For customer service go to www.TheWeek.com/service or phone us at 1-877-245-8151. THE WEEK May 22, 2015
Renew a subscription at www.RenewTheWeek.com or give a gift at www.GiveTheWeek.com.
4 NEWS Controversy of the week
Surveillance: Is the NSA’s ‘metadata’ program too intrusive?
America lost its mind in the panicky aftermath plete historical archive of phone records, said The
of 9/11, said Steve Chapman in Reason.com, but Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “You can’t con-
there are finally signs that “sanity is making a nect the dots without, well, dots.”
comeback.” Last week, a federal appeals court
ruled that the National Security Agency’s once If this program is so vital, said Noah Feldman in
secret program to collect data on the phone BloombergView.com, Congress should authorize
calls of all Americans is illegal. Defenders of it explicitly. Until Snowden blew his whistle,
the program—which was exposed by NSA not even members of Congress knew about
whistleblower Edward Snowden—had claimed the program. However well-intentioned,
it was authorized by the 2001 Patriot Act, Now collecting everyone’s phone records “secret laws are anathema to democracy.”
which lets intelligence services seize “any tan- A proposed bill called the USA Freedom Act
gible thing” with “relevance” to a counterterrorism investigation. would allow the NSA to search the nation’s phone metadata, said
The NSA twisted that language to include not only the phone Fred Kaplan in Slate.com, but first it would need a warrant from
records of suspected terrorists but also records of every phone a judge. Most importantly, the data would be stored by the phone
call made by everyone in the country. The court stopped short of companies—not the government. That sensible precaution would
shutting down the metadata program, said Andrea Peterson in make it much harder for “some modern-day Richard Nixon or J.
WashingtonPost.com, but only because the relevant clause in the Edgar Hoover” to exploit the system and spy on political enemies.
Patriot Act is due to expire on June 1 anyway. The judges said
they’d defer to Congress, which is now hotly debating “the future Please spare me the hand-wringing of civil libertarians, said L.
of government spying.” Gordon Crovitz in The Wall Street Journal. Is it really so intrusive
to have phone records stored in NSA computers when private
This would be a terrible time to tie the government’s hands, companies such as Google and Facebook are collecting, mining,
said Fred Fleitz in NationalReview.com. After two ISIS-inspired and selling “staggering amounts of information” about every one
American jihadists tried last week to shoot up a “Draw of us on a daily basis? In the era of Big Data, the agencies that pro-
Muhammad” competition in Texas, FBI director James Comey tect us from terrorists should have access to the same tools as the
warned that ISIS has contacted “hundreds, maybe thousands” of companies that sell us products. You vastly underestimate the NSA,
potential jihadists in the U.S. through social media. So Congress said James Bamford in Reuters.com. Snowden revealed the agency
needs to “think long and hard” before it scraps or weakens the is also mapping every Internet connection—cellphones, laptops,
NSA’s metadata-collection program. Remember: The NSA doesn’t tablets—“of everyone on the planet,” and has spied on porn sites
listen in to our phone calls. It merely collects data on when calls so as to discredit “radicalizers” who use them. Do you really want
are placed and to whom, for the sole purpose of uncovering ter- to trust this agency with a blank check? Far too many of us have
rorist networks. That task is only possible if the NSA has a com- come to accept “highly intrusive surveillance as the new normal.”
Hattiesburg, Miss.
Cop killings: Just days after the funeral
of a fallen police officer in New York
City, two Mississippi police officers were
fatally shot during a routine traffic stop
in Hattiesburg. Officer Benjamin Deen,
Surveying the damage in Van Lake Mary, Fla. 34, had
Road rage: George Zimmerman was reportedly
Van, Texas, and Nashville, Ark. hospitalized this week after a road rage stopped a
Deadly tornadoes: At least five people shooting in Lake Mary, Fla. The former vehicle for a
were killed this week when a band of volunteer neighborhood watchman was speeding vio-
more than 70 tornadoes ripped its way driving through the Orlando suburb when lation, and
through the Midwest, flattening schools suspect Matthew Apperson, who last when recent
and blowing the windows out of dozens September claimed to have been threat- police acad-
of buildings. One twister with wind ened by Zimmerman in a separate road emy gradu-
Officers attending a vigil
speeds of 140 mph pummeled the east- rage incident, allegedly fired once into the ate Liquori
ern Texas town of Van, leveling up to passenger-side window of Zimmerman’s Tate, 24, responded to Deen’s call for
100 homes and killing retired detective truck. The bullet lodged in the door frame backup, the two were shot dead. Police
David Tapley, 60, and wife Brenda, 62. of the truck, and Zimmerman’s face was did not offer full details of the attack.
The couple were found lying near their injured by shattered glass. Apperson, Marvin Banks, 29, has been charged
destroyed home, with their dog—still 36, reportedly told witnesses “he had with two counts of capital murder as
alive—curled up in the former officer’s to shoot” because Zimmerman, who well as grand theft auto and felony
arms. In Nashville, Ark., where tornado was also armed, had waved his gun at possession of a firearm. His girlfriend,
winds clocked 125 mph, Michael and him. The incident is the latest of several brother, and another man were charged
Melissa Mooneyhan died while shield- brushes with the law that Zimmerman with various counts, including accessory
ing their baby daughter inside their has had since his controversial 2013 after the fact and obstruction of justice.
trailer park home. The 18-month-old acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Mary Smith, the mother of suspects
was found alive near their bodies. “It’s Martin; two involved allegations of Marvin and Curtis Banks, has claimed
Getty, AP (3)
a miracle that little girl survived,” said domestic violence, though charges were her sons were on “pills” when the shoot-
Howard County Coroner John Gray. dropped on both occasions. ing occurred.
Havana
French president visits:
Accompanied by French busi-
ness leaders eager to clinch deals,
French President François Hollande this
week became the first Western European
leader to visit Cuba in decades. Hollande
met with President Raul Castro and his
brother Fidel, and called for the lifting
of the U.S. trade embargo. That would
Hollande and Castro
allow French drink company Pernod
Ricard, which distributes Cuba’s Havana Club rum, to sell the
rum in the U.S. market. “I hope all the measures that have harmed
Cuba’s development can now be finally lifted,” Hollande said.
Guatemala City
Veep resigns amid scandal: Guatemalan Vice
President Roxana Baldetti resigned after her former
private secretary was accused of running a scheme to
defraud the state of millions of dollars. The sec-
retary, Juan Carlos Monzón Rojas, who remains
at large, is alleged to have taken massive bribes
from importers in exchange for lowering their
customs duties. Baldetti has not been charged, Baldetti: Out
but her proximity to the scandal has raised sus-
picions, and prosecutors have asked her not to leave the country.
The fraud scheme was uncovered by a panel of international
prosecutors who have been working with Guatemalan justice
officials to root out endemic corruption.
Bogotá, Colombia
Coca eradication halted: Colombia stopped its program to
destroy illegal coca crops from the air, cit-
ing World Health Organization findings Asunción, Paraguay
that the herbicide glyphosate is “prob- Child forced to bear child: The
ably carcinogenic.” Over the past two Paraguayan government’s refusal to
decades, more than 4 million acres have allow a 10-year-old rape victim to get an
been sprayed with the weed killer, the abortion sparked a rare public demonstra-
main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, tion. Paraguay bans abortion in all cases
Protesting in the capital
in a U.S.-sponsored program. Colombian except to save a woman’s life, and the
researchers have found an increase in government declined to make an exception for the girl, who was
miscarriages in the sprayed regions. Peru raped by her stepfather. Hundreds of Paraguayans marched in the
and Bolivia send workers into coca fields capital in protest, and U.N. human rights experts condemned the
Corbis (3), AP, Getty
in their countries to rip out the plants by government. “The Paraguayan authorities’ decision results in grave
hand, but Colombia resorted to aerial violations of the rights to life, to health, and to the physical and
spraying because armed FARC rebels mental integrity of the girl,” a U.N. panel said. The girl is now five
Deadly weed killer? guard the Colombian fields. months pregnant, and her mother is in prison for child neglect.
Karachi, Pakistan
Terrorists on bus: Six gunmen
boarded a bus in Karachi and
opened fire on Ismaili Shiites,
Bujumbura, Burundi killing at least 45. “One of
Nkurunziza President deposed? Burundi army them shouted, ‘Kill them all!’” a
officers say they have ousted President Pierre Nkurunziza after wounded woman told Pakistani
three weeks of protests over his attempt to run for an illegal third TV. “Then they started indis-
term. Violence between the president’s supporters and opponents criminately firing at everyone they
has rocked the capital, with at least one activist burned alive saw.” The Sunni militant group Mourning the dead
by a mob and tens of thousands of people fleeing their homes. Jundullah, affiliated with the
Burundi, which neighbors Rwanda, emerged just 10 years ago Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility, saying it considered the
from a 12-year civil war between Hutus and Tutsis. Nkurunziza minority Ismaili sect to be non-Muslims. “In the coming days
has been president ever since and has routinely oppressed we will attack Ismailis, Shiites, and Christians,” said spokes-
the opposition. Nkurunziza was away in Tanzania this week man Ahmed Marwat. Vowing to find those responsible, Prime
AP (4), Newscom
for a meeting when former intelligence chief Gen. Godefroid Minister Nawaz Sharif said Ismailis were “a very patriotic and
Niyombare announced his ouster, saying army officers and civil peaceful people,” and he condemned any attempt “to spread divi-
and religious leaders would form a transitional government. sions in the country.”
rights to televise games. Simmons’ 14-year now.” Harry’s most serious relationship was
career at the network came to an end after with Chelsy Davy, who reportedly ended
he again publicly blasted Goodell—this time things in 2010 because she couldn’t handle
QAfter months of tension, ESPN has
questioning the commissioner’s “testicular life in the limelight.
announced it won’t be renewing the
fortitude” over the league’s Deflategate
contract of outspoken commentator QChris Brown’s birthday celebrations came
scandal. ESPN insider James Miller said the
Bill Simmons when it expires at to an abrupt end when the singer arrived
comments were the final straw for network
the end of September. The popu- back at his Los Angeles home to find the
executives. “It was just too much kerosene
lar sports personality has a re- place trashed and a naked woman he did
on the fire,” said Miller.
ported salary of $5 million a year not know lying on his bed, says TMZ.com.
and was demanding $6 million. QWannabe princesses around the world are Amira Kodcia Ayeb, 21, has been charged
Daniel Zuchnik/FilmMagic/Getty, Corbis, Getty
His penchant for outrageous com- on red alert now that Prince Harry has re- with stalking, burglary, and vandalism for
ments and criticism of his bosses vealed he is ready to get married and have allegedly breaking into Brown’s house
had soured his relationship some royal babies. Speaking during his tour while he was away celebrating in Las
with the network; in 2014, Simmons was of New Zealand, the 30-year-old British royal Vegas. Over a period of a few days, Ayeb
suspended for three weeks after calling NFL admitted he envies his older brother, Prince allegedly spray-painted her name on
Commissioner Roger Goodell “a liar” during William, for having settled down and started Brown’s cars and “I love you” on his walls,
a discussion about the league’s handling of a family. “It would be great to have some- and climbed onto Brown’s bed to await his
the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. ESPN one else next to me to share the pressure,” arrival. “I love my fans,” said Brown, “but
pays the NFL close to $2 billion a year for said Harry. “I would love to have kids right this is some real crazy s---.”
FE
LIM
1. The Earliest Churches
70%
R
2. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
3. Hagia Sophia
off 4. The Cave Churches of Cappadocia
4
RD 5. Great Churches of Russia
E
E R BY J UN 6. The Painted Churches of Romania
7. The Churches of Armenia
8. The Churches of Georgia
9. The Rock-Hewn Churches of Ethiopia
10. The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba
11. The Stave Churches of Norway
12. The Pilgrimage Church of Sainte-Foy
13. The Cathedral of Monreale
14. Chartres Cathedral
15. Winchester Cathedral
16. The Cathedral of Siena
17. St. Peter’s Basilica
18. The Wieskirche in Bavaria
19. La Compañía and Las Lajas Sanctuary
20. Guadalupe and the Cathedral
of Mexico City
21. Four Great American Churches
22. La Sagrada Família
23. Iceland’s Hallgrímskirkja
24. Two Churches in Seoul, Korea
An Enthralling Tour of
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12 NEWS Best columns: Europe
These desperate migrants crossing the Mediter- cans “fleeing violence, oppression, and discrimina-
NETHERLANDS ranean, struggling to reach the safety of Europe, tion.” Now, as we do every May, we celebrate the
are my family 70 years ago, said Frans Weisglas. end of the war, and we “celebrate our freedom.”
Europeans World War II sent thousands of Europeans, in-
cluding Jews like my mother, scrambling across
Are we to do so by barring the door against those
who have no freedom? Some of the most suppos-
were once borders to safety. My mother wrote a book about edly patriotic Dutch, who speak so proudly of
her journey from German-occupied Netherlands our resistance during the war, are the very same
refugees through Belgium and France to the safety of neu- who also call asylum seekers criminals. The les-
tral Switzerland. She was safe, and I grew up to son we should draw from World War II is not just
Frans Weisglas
become head of the Dutch parliament. Yet what the value of resistance but also the imperative of
Trouw
if the Swiss had refused her shelter? “It is distress- compassion. The Netherlands is now a wealthy
ing how many similarities there are” between my democracy. We owe it to our own history to be
mother’s story and those of the Syrians and Afri- “open and welcoming” to the less fortunate.
GERMANY I am the infamous “headscarf teacher,” said and Syria, as if I were somehow responsible for
Fereshta Ludin. An Afghan woman who has the recruitment of Germans to terrorism. These
A feminist lived in Germany since 1986, I successfully sued
in 2003 for the right to wear a simple Muslim
slanders are disgusting and insulting. I am, in fact,
a strong believer in women’s rights. As a child,
can wear head covering that shows my whole face while I
teach. Ever since, I have been pilloried as some
I lived for a few years in Saudi Arabia, where
women are forced to cover themselves in black,
a headscarf kind of Islamic extremist, not only by right-wing and I oppose that. “Were the headscarf a sign of
nationalists but also by German feminists. They oppression, I would be the first to cast it aside.” I
Fereshta Ludin
have spread “untruths, half-truths, and baseless choose to wear it, and I support the right of other
Frankfurter Allgemeine speculation about me.” One prominent feminist Muslim women to choose not to. Standing up for
Zeitung accused me of refusing to shake hands with men. women’s rights “doesn’t mean deciding what is
Another recently “mentioned me in the same right for another woman.” Are you listening, Ger-
breath” as the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq man feminists?
“It’s a rich man’s world,” said Abhishek Saha. It people in India? Probably not, because “they are
INDIA took fully 13 years for Bollywood star Salman the ones about whom no one talks—the unem-
Khan to be found guilty of a fatal hit-and-run. ployed, poor, and ugly.” The rich don’t have to
A separate Khan was drunk and driving without a license
when his SUV hurtled onto the pavement where
see them, because their shacks and cardboard
boxes are “displaced to clean up cities before any
justice for four homeless men were sleeping, killing one of important event.” For a brief moment, Indians
them. For years, as Khan’s lawyers did all they thought justice might be done, when last week
Bollywood could to delay the trial, we were treated to the Khan was sentenced to five years in prison. Just
spectacle of rich Bollywood celebrities standing two days later, though, a higher court suspended
Abhishek Saha
by Khan, even “denigrating the homeless for the sentence, and Khan now walks free to star in
Hindustan Times
sleeping on that ill-fated pavement,” as if it were another wildly lucrative film. It’s sad proof that
their fault they were run over. Does Bollywood “the rich and the powerful can flex muscles and
even realize that there are 78 million homeless pull strings to evade the law.”
ISRAEL How did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s able to disappear from the plenum during votes
“crushing election victory” turn so quickly into and prevent bills from passing.” It won’t be Ne-
Netanyahu “a farce”? asked Sima Kadmon. When his Likud
Party came in a clear first in the March elections,
tanyahu who calls the shots in this government,
but the ultra-right-wing and Orthodox. There can
hamstrung by Netanyahu thought he would be able to make a
solid coalition of right-wing and Orthodox par-
be no vision for governance. What we have now
is “a combination of narrow, sectorial interests”
his partners ties. But his former coalition partner Avigdor that “couldn’t care less about the state’s best
Lieberman defected, over Netanyahu’s shameful interests.” It’s embarrassing for Netanyahu, who
Sima Kadmon
concessions to the Orthodox to allow yeshiva called early elections expecting a big win, and it is
Ynetnews.com students to evade the draft and study almost no bad for Israel. Nobody expects this flimsy coali-
secular subjects. As a result, Netanyahu now has tion to last more than a few months, and then
a majority of just one vote. Any member of the it’s back to the polls. What a waste of money. “Is
Knesset who feels a momentary pique “will be that what we went to elections for?”
AP
CNN.com Linda Chavez in the New York Post. An amnesty it’s crucial they produce a “sensible response” to
would just exacerbate the problem—when Presi- Clinton’s “shot across the bow.”
Bin Laden’s death: The untold story? the bone shared with the
dog, when you are just as
“Everything we were told about Osama bin tial terrorist organization in the world doing in hungry as the dog.”
Jack London, quoted in
Laden’s killing was a lie,” said Sam Biddle in Abbottabad? “Bin Laden was supposed to be in Firstpost.com
Gawker.com. That, at least, is what legendary a cave somewhere along the Afghanistan bor-
journalist Seymour Hersh claims in a 10,000- der,” not living comfortably “within a mile of a
word “special investigation” into the 2011 raid, retirement village for military officers.” Pakistan
published this week in the London Review had to know he was there, said Jack Shafer in
Poll watch
of Books. The increasingly eccentric 78-year- Politico.com. In that respect, “Hersh may very QAmericans are rapidly
becoming less religious.
old investigative reporter says that bin Laden well be onto something.” Too bad he got caught
23% now identify with no
“wasn’t hiding out in Abbottabad, as we’ve up in such a wildly elaborate conspiracy theory. religion, up from 16.1%
been told—he was effectively under house arrest, in 2007. The “nones”
placed there under guard by Pakistan’s security Hersh used to be a highly respected reporter, now outnumber Catho-
services.” A Pakistani informant gave the CIA his said Max Fisher in Vox.com. He broke the sto- lics (21%) and mainline
location, Hersh claims, and then Pakistan and ries that told the world about the 1969 My Lai Protestants (15%). Overall,
the U.S. concocted an elaborate story about a massacre and the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal. But 70.6% of Americans identi-
secret raid to conceal Pakistan’s complicity in his in recent years, he “has appeared increasingly fy as Christian, down from
assassination. Special forces troops, Hersh says, to have gone off the rails” with anonymously 78.4% seven years ago.
Pew Research Center
were given unopposed access to his compound, sourced stories alleging “vast and shadowy con-
and they actually shot him so many times he was spiracies.” In one recent article, he claimed that Q57% of Americans
left in pieces. Let’s get this straight, said Bobby operatives of the Catholic organization Opus think illegal immigrants
Ghosh in Qz.com. President Obama conspired Dei are controlling the U.S. military; in another, should be allowed to stay
with Pakistan to stage a raid that badly embar- he alleged Turkey and an Islamic terrorist group and apply for citizenship.
rassed Pakistan and damaged relations between conspired to stage the deadly chemical weapons 11% prefer they get legal
status without a path to
the two countries for years? It makes no sense. attack in Syria to lure the U.S. into attacking Syr-
citizenship. 29% think they
ian President Bashar al-Assad. Both stories have should be required to
Hersh’s account does, at least, purport to answer been thoroughly debunked. “A close reading of leave the country.
one big question, said Peter Grier in CSMonitor Hersh’s bin Laden story suggests it is likely to
Reuters
temporary unlock code. political “echo chamber” on the site, and 2016, and the company plans to start taking
concluded “Facebook’s own algorithms aren’t pre-orders later this year.
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18 NEWS Health & Science
Climate change could cause mass extinction
If climate change continues unabated, one and his team analyzed 131 previous
in six species on Earth could disappear studies on how plants, amphibians, fish,
by the end of the century, a new study mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates
has found. Some land and sea creatures were coping with climate change. They
are already moving to new habitats in concluded that some plant and animal
response to warmer temperatures, and species will die throughout the world,
scientists warn that in coming decades but that South America, Australia, and
there will be a dramatic increase in the New Zealand face the largest number
number of extinctions among species of extinctions, because many species in
that are unable to adapt to heat waves, these regions rely on unique and iso-
droughts, floods, and rising sea levels. lated habitats and won’t be able to move
Species like this Pacific tree frog are in trouble.
“Perhaps most surprising is that extinction elsewhere. If there is a mass extinction,
risk does not just increase with tempera- it will be the sixth in Earth’s long history, economies, food supplies, and cultures.
ture rise, but accelerates, curving upward but the first caused by humans. Losing “We have the choice,” Urban said. “The
as the Earth warms,” the study’s author, about 16 percent of the world’s species, world can decide where on that curve
Mark Urban tells Smithsonian.com. He researchers warn, would affect global they want the future Earth to be.”
Post. The galaxy, known as EGS-zs8-1, college-age men and women were asked to
formed 13.1 billion years ago, or relatively rate the formality of their outfits and com-
soon after the Big Bang gave birth to the plete tests designed to assess their style of
universe 13.8 billion years ago. Scientists thinking. Those wearing suits and dresses
were able to measure the galaxy’s distance showed signs of broader, more holistic
from Earth, by analyzing its “redshift”— thinking—a quality often attributed to
how far the light it emits is shifted into the leaders. “Putting on formal clothes makes
red part of the spectrum. Since wavelengths us feel powerful, and that changes the basic
of light stretch out as galaxies move away way we see the world,” the study’s author,
from Earth because of the expansion of the Abraham Rutchick, tells TheAtlantic.com.
universe, a higher redshift indicates greater Scientists also suggest that formal clothing
distance. EGS-zs8-1 has the highest redshift may boost people’s mood, helping them
Everest’s peak, viewed from base camp
ever measured, and lies in the furthest engage in high-level abstract thinking.
regions of the known universe. This early
Mount Everest got shorter galaxy formed stars very rapidly—about Health scare of the week
Mount Everest, the world’s tallest moun- 80 times faster than the Milky Way makes Fructose triggers cravings
tain, is slightly shorter following the recent them today. Scientists will delve further Not all sugars are created equal. Glucose
magnitude-7.8 earthquake that devastated into that mystery, and into many others and fructose are simple sugars naturally
Nepal and claimed close to 8,000 lives. concerning the most distant and oldest found in fruit and have the same number
When the fault between the Indian and galaxies, when the new James Webb Space of calories, but new research suggests
Eurasian tectonic plates slipped, pent-up Telescope is launched into orbit in 2018. there are important differences in how the
strain was unleashed, allowing Everest to body responds to these sweeteners. While
sink by about an inch, new satellite data Dressing for success glucose is absorbed directly into the blood-
reveals. As Everest sank into Earth’s crust, It turns out the familiar phrase “Dress for stream to produce energy, fructose—which
the Annapurna Range on the other side success” may be more than is used to sweeten soft drinks and pro-
of the fault rose by roughly eight inches. just a cliché. Many modern cessed foods—is metabolized in the liver.
Geologists are now investigating to find companies promote creativity The body reacts to glucose in the blood by
out exactly where the underground fault and “out of the box” think- producing insulin, which triggers feelings
slipped. British geologist Tim Wright tells ing with casual work of fullness. “Fructose doesn’t stimulate
BBC.com that not all the built-up tension environments, but new insulin secretion, and if there’s no insu-
along the plates was released, so it’s impor- research suggests more lin, you don’t get the information that
tant to know which parts of the fault “are formal dress codes you’re full,” the study’s senior author,
still primed and ready to go in a future would actually pro- Dr. Kathleen Page, tells The New York
earthquake.” The small drop in Everest’s duce better results. Times. Consuming fructose also triggers
height isn’t permanent. The ongoing col- Sacrificing the comfort more activity in areas of the brain involved
lision between the Indian and Eurasian of T-shirts and jeans in in reward processing, which intensifies
tectonic plates is lifting the Himalayas by favor of suits, dresses, and cravings for high-calorie foods such as
about 0.4 inches every year. other formal attire could candy, cookies, and pizza. Researchers do
Corbis, AP, Everett Collection
For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons. THE WEEK May 22, 2015
20 ARTS
Review of reviews: Books
debuted in 1996, quickly created legions of
Book of the week addicts plus a booming underground trade
Dreamland: The True Tale of enabled by unscrupulous doctors. But many
addicts who couldn’t afford an Oxy habit
America’s Opiate Epidemic turned to heroin, and that’s where a fasci-
by Sam Quinones nating entrepreneurial outfit stepped in.
(Bloomsbury, $28)
Journalist Sam Quinones has written a Thanks to the “Xalisco Boys,” a network
book about the spread of heroin use that of dealers from a single Mexican back-
“every American should read,” said Kevin water, scoring heroin in many U.S. cities
O’Kelly in The Christian Science Monitor. is now “as easy as ordering pizza,” said
The former Los Angeles Times reporter has Angela Lutz in The Kansas City Star.
traveled from the poppy fields of Mexico A portrait of a pill addict murdered for her meds
The upstart cartel developed a clever busi-
to the pill mills of Rust Belt Ohio to tease ness model: Dealers are salaried, mostly
out the strands of a complicated story, and Many factors converged to create our cur- unarmed, and put customer service first.
he “weaves them together seamlessly.” In rent heroin problem, said Laura Miller in If a junkie is dissatisfied with a delivery,
Quinones’ view, the explosion of heroin Salon.com. Widespread joblessness in our free bonus heroin is added to the next
use in small and mid-size American com- older cities was one; “another was a mis- order. As the Xalisco model spread, so did
munities during the past two decades was begotten ‘revolution’ in standard medical heroin; the number of users in the U.S. has
primed by the rampant spread of prescrip- practices for treating pain”—a revolution more than doubled since 2007 to nearly
tion painkillers pushed recklessly by the funded by the creator of OxyContin and 700,000. Quinones’ title refers to a shut-
pharmaceutical industry. “The story he tells backed by unfounded medical claims. In tered public pool in a city devastated by the
is an illustration of the failures of medicine “a flabbergasting game of scientific tele- opiate epidemic, said Aaron Mesh in the
in the so-called free-market system, of the phone,” a short 1980 letter published in the Portland, Ore., Willamette Week. But by
destructiveness of corporate venality, and of New England Journal of Medicine eventu- the end of Dreamland, the word is also a
the desperate and criminal lengths to which ally came to be described by authorities as metaphor for America at large—“a nation
people mired in poverty or tormented by “a landmark report” that had proved opi- dulled by comfort into believing it deserves
addiction can be driven.” ates were not addictive. OxyContin, which a special exemption from pain.”
biologically female. Four years ago, at the Argo—a ship from Greek myth that
dinariness of Teddy’s existence before about the time Nelson became pregnant retains its identity even as all of its parts
and after the war, Atkinson makes us through in vitro fertilization, Dodge began are replaced—and she uses the metaphor
aware of the millions of Teddys lost to testosterone treatment and had his breasts to make a compelling case that we could
20th-century fighting. The achievement
removed. But as interesting as the couple’s avoid many battles about what’s normal by
of this “staggeringly gorgeous” book is
that it “generates suspense and won-
experiences are in themselves, Nelson “isn’t recognizing that personal identity is always
der from the most modest of materials just airing her feelings” here. “She’s bent in flux. In a society that divides young
and the most majestic: a single life.” on using these experiences as ways of pry- from old, male from female, and gay from
ing the culture open.” straight, “Nelson’s only truth is change.”
77 people in Norway, the Norwegian journalist turning magnetism” of Nesbo’s Harry Hole, he find the novel’s Hitler humor-
ous. But she’s old enough,
has created a tragic true-life drama of “irresistible finds himself at the center of plenty of thrilling
he says, to remember that
force.” The killer is a deeply disturbing figure, action after he falls hard for a woman he’s been
in 1934, the führer seemed
and the mostly teenage victims are vividly alive. asked to rub out. All of it’s “ever so noiry and more normal than not.
“I wanted to put it down but couldn’t.” pulpy,” and the pages turn fast enough.
Ruth alone “really add up to something.” This ing” throughout 5 Flights Up is “a sense that any
particular interracial couple could have used even of this matters.”
(1957) 8 p.m., TCM Retirement party: Obama and Letterman last week him? Wednesday, May 20, at 11:35 p.m., CBS
THE WEEK May 22, 2015 • All listings are Eastern Time.
LEISURE 25
Food & Drink
Lebanese toum: The ultimate condiment for grilling
If love songs were written to garlic, Place chicken in a colander and drain off
Lebanese toum would be “the finest aria marinade. Pat chicken dry with paper tow-
of them all,” said Maureen Abood in Rose els. Thread pieces onto skewers, leaving
Water & Orange Blossoms (Running about ¹⁄8 inch between pieces. Generously
Press). The potent puree is “pure garlic fla- season with kosher salt and black pepper.
vor” brightened with lemon, a sort of aioli Grill over medium-high heat or broil on
without the egg. And it’s fabulous with a sheet pan, turning once, until cooked
grilled foods and so much more. In fact, a through and slightly charred, about 10
spoonful of toum “elevates any steamed or minutes on grill or 20 minutes under
roasted vegetable.” Once you have a batch broiler. Remove chicken from skewers.
on hand, “you’ll find yourself stirring toum Serve hot with toum on the side for dip-
into just about any recipe that calls for ping, or drizzled over chicken. Serves 4.
minced garlic.”
Chicken bathed in the essence of garlic Toum
One way to enjoy it is with grilled chicken 1 head garlic, cloves peeled and halved
made tender and succulent by a long Recipe of the week: lengthwise
soak in a yogurt marinade. The toum Yogurt-marinated chicken skewers 1 tsp kosher salt
itself requires a different kind of patience, with toum Juice of 1 lemon
because you must combine the garlic and 1 cup whole-milk yogurt 1¾ cups neutral oil, such as safflower or
oil slowly and steadily over several minutes. 1 medium-size sweet onion, grated canola
Lebanese cooks will employ a number 3 garlic cloves, minced 4 to 6 tbsp ice water
of tricks to avoid a broken toum emul- Juice of ½ lemon
sion, such as adding an egg white or some 2 tbsp crushed dried mint In a food processor, pulse garlic with salt,
cooked potato. “But I like my toum with- 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil stopping to scrape down sides a few times,
out any of those, which can be replaced 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, until cloves are minced. Add lemon juice
with patience—and a little ice water, which cut into 1- to 2-inch pieces and pulse to combine. With the processor
helps the emulsion hold.” on, drizzle in ¼ cup oil so slowly that the
In a medium bowl or resealable plastic bag, stream turns to a dribble at times. Slowly
Start with very firm heads of garlic, and if combine marinade ingredients. Add chicken pour in 1 tbsp ice water. Continue adding
you find a green germ in any of the bulbs, pieces, cover or seal, and refrigerate for at oil and ice water (¼ cup and 1 tbsp at a
remove it to avoid bitterness. The toum, least 8 and up to 24 hours. time), until sauce is thick but still pourable
once covered, will keep in the refrigerator and all of the oil has been incorporated,
for several weeks. Preheat a grill or broiler to medium-high. about 7 minutes. Makes about 2 cups.
Chang’s Hong Kong Cuisine As at most other dim sum restaurants, the service at est rosatos was previously made
Chang’s is “remarkably unfriendly.” But this is where big-time Asian gamblers come to for the family only. The exciting
refuel, and I can vouch for the salted-shrimp fried rice and the flaky, sweet barbecued- 2010 is “steely dry, with rose-petal
pork pies. 4670 S. Decatur Blvd., (702) 362-3663 scents and the taste of cherries.”
Bund Shanghai Located in a sea of Asian massage parlors, Bund Shanghai wins points 2013 Antica Terra Angelicall Rosé
because if you tell a local you’re dining here, “he will think you’re insane.” No matter. ($90). This “mineral- and spice-
“The play is to load up on sheng jian bao,” a pillowy dumpling with a crunchy bottom laden” rosé is “one of the most
and “a meat-bomb center full of delicious soup.” 3545 S. Decatur Blvd., (702) 272-1777 intriguing pink wines around.”
hotel is offering 20 percent at $98 a person and come with An eight-day tour of Spain,
or some of the last desert- off on suite rates. With the theme-park tickets and a one- for example, starts at $1,265—
adapted lions in the world. discount, junior suites start at day costume rental for every down from $1,425—and
wilderness-safaris.com; from $384 a night. Book by June 14. child under 12. includes stops in five cities.
$460 a person belmond.com colonialwilliamsburg.com keytours.com
Tip of the week... And for those who have Best apps...
Tricks for removing price stickers everything... For handling medical emergencies
QFrom a wooden surface: Grab a clothes They say the QPulsePoint makes every user part of an
iron and some aluminum foil. Lay the foil Nabi Big Tab emergency response team poised to assist
on the sticker and press it with the iron, is portable, but victims of cardiac arrest. In cities that have
using a medium-high setting. The sticker “portable” is a adopted PulsePoint, users get an alert on
should peel right off. relative term. their phones if they’re within a quarter mile
QFrom glass: Rub a little baby oil or veg- This family- of someone who may need CPR. And like
etable oil onto the sticker using your fingers friendly tablet every other app on this list, it is free.
and let the oil soak in for 20 to 30 minutes. weighs 13 pounds, and if you prop it on Q911HelpSMS makes a user easier for an
Lift one corner of the sticker when it’s ready its kickstand for viewing, “you’ll want to ambulance to find in a road accident or
and peel away slowly. For cleaning sticker set it up in an environment where there’s other emergency. A single touch brings up
residue from a car window, you might also no possibility of it falling down on your the app, which shows the user his or her
try this counterintuitive trick: Rub the area a child.” Still, the Big Tab can be moved from location and a red button that can place a
few times with the sticky side of duct tape, room to room as needed, and its 24-inch call to 911 with another single touch.
then clean whatever remains with vinegar touch screen proves “a joy to operate when QEMNet findER locates the nearest hospi-
or window cleaner. playing multiplayer games with kids.” The tal, which can be useful if you’re far from
QFrom metal: Soften the sticker by laying a device can be used to stream TV or films, home or just in an unfamiliar part of town.
damp paper towel over it for up to an hour. too, but provides ample educational content QICEBlueButton lets you keep all pertinent
If the sticker won’t budge, try going at it and lets parents set time limits on their personal medical information on your
with an acetone-based nail polish remover children’s free game play. phone. Emergency responders get access
and a plastic pot scrubber. $550, fuhu.com to the data using a bar code.
Source: Good Housekeeping Source: Gizmag.com Source: The Washington Post
3 5
1
2
Prices and availability subject to change without notice. NOTE: GovMint.com® is a private distributor of worldwide
government coin and currency issues and privately issued licensed collectibles and is not affiliated with the
United States government. Facts and figures deemed accurate as of March 2015. ©2015 GovMint.com.
32 BUSINESS Making money
cuss whether to keep the home in the family their expected benefits.
It’s unsurprising that holacracy “feels weird to most newcom- “The fact that a chief executive has to order a change to a
ers,” said Adam Pisoni in Fast Company. It’s a stark departure system with no chief executive is only one of the apparent con-
from the top-down “command and control” operating model tradictions here,” said Andrew Hill in FT.com. “But while I am
that has dominated business for more than a century, but it’s skeptical” of Zappos’ move, I’m the first to admit holacracy
far better if you want to create a nimble, adaptive company could offer traditional corporations some tips. Recognizing team
that encourages experimentation and transparency. A company members for their contributions, not their titles, for example, “is
becomes less of a dictatorship and more of a democracy. And compelling.” Research has also shown that “shared leadership”
far from encouraging chaos, holacracy “relies on rules and pro- among executives does indeed “improve creativity and perfor-
cess.” Circles “can be created or destroyed anytime” to focus mance.” But Zappos’ exceedingly fast transition leaves much to
on new challenges and opportunities, and titles and rank are be desired. And if it creates “further pain and confusion,” the
de-emphasized in favor of “roles” that can be adjusted or reas- “shouts of ‘I told you so’ will almost certainly drown out the
signed without bruising egos. voices” that say Hsieh is on to something special.
Prosecutors say human greed is to blame for the Now, “you just need to convince some robots that
How robots 2010 “flash crash,” but it’s the robots we should trades might happen”—mere “appearance begets
can crash worry about, said James Surowiecki. Most trad-
ing today “has nothing to do” with a company’s
reality.” And since high-speed firms tend to mimic
one another’s moves, fake orders can unleash a cas-
our markets fundamentals. “It’s all about what the market is
going to do in the very short term—often a matter
cade of actual buying and selling, with wild price
swings in the blink of an eye. Automation hasn’t
James Surowiecki of milliseconds,” with much of the decision mak- been all bad, of course; markets today are faster,
The New Yorker ing left to computers. Navinder Sarao is accused of cheaper, and more efficient. But they are also “fun-
“spoofing” these robot traders in 2010 with mil- damentally less stable, and more prone to sudden
lions of fake buy and sell orders so he could buy and inexplicable breakdowns.” They are “moving
low and sell high. Such shenanigans “are nothing themselves much of the time.” That’s how “a tril-
new,” but market manipulators used to need actual lion dollars can vanish in a matter of minutes, even
assets and trades to make their schemes work. though the real world hasn’t changed at all.”
There’s something for everyone in the April jobs ing the economy is heading back “to full health.”
Our half-empty, report, said Neil Irwin. If you’re a “temperamen- Both sides are right, but what we should all be
half-full tal pessimist,” the addition of 223,000 jobs “is a
meaningful step down” from the 324,000 aver-
feeling is “relief.” Economic growth stalled in the
first quarter of 2015, and retail sales and industrial
economy aged during the last three months of 2014. More
depressing: March’s “already tepid job numbers”
output were underwhelming. Thankfully, the April
jobs numbers reassure us this isn’t a trend. “If
Neil Irwin were revised down to just 85,000, and wages the economy were truly sputtering,” job growth
The New York Times notched a “mere 0.1 percent gain in hourly pay.” would have slowed more, the unemployment rate
But those who favor “sunshine, rainbows, and al- wouldn’t have fallen, and wages wouldn’t keep
ways looking on the bright side of life” have their inching up. That said, the numbers don’t show a
own reasons to celebrate. The unemployment rate “new, stepped-up rate of growth,” which analysts
dropped from 5.5 to 5.4 percent, and job creation had hoped for this year. For now, “the steady-as-
Getty
continues to outstrip population growth, suggest- she-goes recovery remains exactly that.”
E
VERYBODY WANTS to dunk, obviously harder to overcome.
at least metaphorically. We Americans have long thought
think that if we spent just that they could move on up, as
a year away from our everyday they say in The Jeffersons. They
distractions, we could rise above believe in self-made men, and
our terrestrial lot: learn Spanish, that’s what I was trying to do:
pick up the piano, remaster cal- remake myself.
culus, paint. In our fantasies, we
think we might all be naturals— I was no kid, making this my
capable of mastering some last chance to dunk. I gave
talent hidden inside us. A few myself from the end of one
years ago, The Onion cheekily August to the end of the next
mocked our unspent dreams in to improve. It was a year to dis-
an obituary with the headline cover whether, embedded in my
“97-Year-Old Dies Unaware of bones, muscles, and DNA, was
Being Violin Prodigy.” some grand jumping potential.
A year was long enough to
The notion of a “hidden tal- train my feet, hips, legs, and
ent” can haunt, too. My mother butt in the strange art of explo-
stopped making art after a sive movement. Any longer and
junior high school teacher I figured I’d see diminishing
told her she had little talent; returns.
she became an art historian
T
O TRANSFORM MY
instead, her days spent tromp-
ing through museums to exam- average-Joe body into a
ine other people’s work. It’s a With the rim 10 feet high, dunking requires explosive jumping power. svelte jumping machine,
familiar story: We leave our singing in the I had decided to get some pro-
shower. Most adults never bother to pick with jumping ability. At the start of this fessional help. If I was truly going to test
up a violin, write fiction, or learn other project I could only swipe the rim with my capabilities and scientifically go about
languages. Why acquire a talent just to the tips of my middle and index fingers. monitoring my performance, I needed some
explore its limits? I owned healthy love handles—I weighed top-shelf trainers on board.
203 pounds—so I was going to have to lose
I meant to take the dunking metaphor liter- weight and put on muscle. I hadn’t expected anyone to take me seri-
ally: I wanted to slam a basketball through ously. I wanted to dunk, yes, but the notion
an orange rim. My quest was to make the But I had some things going for me: of an adult going deliberately about it
most of the piece of flesh I’d been given. At height—I’m 6 feet, 2½ inches, with orang- seemed ridiculous. I wrote emails: “I’m
the extreme margin of human talent and utan arms; what a former coworker once interested in the limits of human potential,”
effort, elite athletes stretch the boundaries called a “big ol’ sprinter’s butt,” just the I explained, as I laid out my project. And
that define our capabilities as a species. Will kind of powerful posterior I’d need to pro- then: “I want to dunk.” Many of these
there come a day, the former Trinidadian pel myself hoopward; and, as I neared my emails, unsurprisingly, went unanswered.
sprinter Ato Boldon was once asked, when 34th birthday, some leftover sportiness. (I
And then a real-life scientist, a very nice
someone runs the 100-meter dash in less had never played a varsity sport, but once
man named Stephen Doty, who had played
than nine seconds? (The record is now upon a time I had captained my college
high school basketball in the 1950s, wrote
9.58 seconds, set by Usain Bolt.) “Sprinters Frisbee team.) I had never weight-lifted, me back. “What a great idea for a story. I,
believe that—someday—somebody will either—I despise weight lifting—and so, to
too, only reached the rim, never over it.”
run the 100 meters and the clock will read my mind, at least, I remained a tabula rasa.
0.00,” Boldon said. “It’s how you have “Pure potential,” my wife, Rebecca, said, A couple of weeks later, I found myself hus-
to think. This idea of human limitation is with a not-so-small degree of skepticism. tling to Manhattan’s swank Upper East Side
exactly what we’re competing against.” neighborhood to meet Stephen, a senior
In its bones this is a peculiarly American
scientist who specialized in the loss of bone
I would never run as fast as Bolt or Boldon. story, a story about optimism, about density at the Hospital for Special Surgery.
But the test I had set for myself was just self-reliance, about the ability to remake
He introduced me to a crew of physical
possibly manageable: Given my height and oneself. The dunk is, yes, as American as
trainers who had gamely agreed to help me.
vague athleticism, I felt that with a lot of jazz or apple pie. But it stretches beyond
effort I should be able to push a nine-and-a- that—it is literally about upward mobil- The hospital’s Performance Lab looks a
half-inch ball through a 10-foot-high hoop. ity, about the very American idea that little like an overgrown, high-end preschool
everyone is capable of self-improvement, of playroom: Large, brightly colored inflat-
I faced some challenges. I’m of Austro- rising above her lot. For me, the test was able balls sit on the softly matted ground.
Hungarian stock—more closely associ- physical; for others, the barriers, involv- Stacks of stepping blocks stand in a corner.
Getty
ated with making good pastries than ing everything from class to gender, are Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. This is
M
ONTHS AFTER MY final dunk
current level of fat-free mass, I would have attempt, a bag of protein-shake
to cut my overall weight to 171.6 pounds. mix slumps untouched in the
And it fast became apparent I would have kitchen. My gym membership is long can-
to add some serious muscle. “We want Price warming up for practice celed. But I still play pickup basketball.
you to be strong enough so that it feels like I’m quicker, partly as a matter of confi-
you’re jumping off a solid concrete plat- lip of the rim, and out. I could not get my
arm high enough for the right angle to slam dence. I take guys off the dribble, or back
form,” Polly told me. them up in the post and try a turnaround
it true. Fifteen tries. I glanced down at the
We were joined by Jamie, a small, muscular palm of my left hand to find the joints of jumper—my elevation is still better than it
trainer. “We’re putting together a 52-week my middle and forefinger bloodied from was before I began my crazy experiment.
regimen for you,” he said. He had gotten scraping against the rim. I emerged sinewy, tough, and lean. My
up at 5:30 that morning to finish it up. I get weight remains pretty good. I eat dessert
up that early only if I have to catch an air- Twenty minutes later, and my body was more freely and am back to my happy
plane. As I lay down to do some crunches, out of energy. I had swatted the ball into pasta-eating ways. But asceticism clings. I
I suddenly didn’t want to disappoint these the hoop, but these efforts didn’t quite have used to be a whole-milk person; now I’m
two people. They already believed in me the feel and control—the snap—that sug- a 1 percent kind of guy. I’ve been known,
more than I did. Beneath those fluorescent gested a true dunk. Charles had thrown the even now, to decline the services of a bun
lights, I told myself I would succeed—I ball up perfectly, tossing it so that it hung with my burger. It’s a little sad.
would slam the ball home. in the air like a full moon, and I had, more
times than not, gotten my palm onto it. But One evening every couple of weeks, just as
the sun starts to set and the grackles muster
T
HE DAY OF the dunk was a Monday I hadn’t quite gotten all the way on top of
in late August. It was my last the ball—it was just an inch too far—and along the power lines for their evening gab-
chance. I had taken it easy the pre- so I was left slapping the ball toward the fest, I make my way to the nearby middle
vious few days, tapering off my workouts basket and hoping it would rattle in. school track to do a lonely set of sprints.
to rest my leg muscles before their big I put myself through some push-ups and
liftoff. I felt fresh and loose. Charles, my A few did, and a few of these felt right— sit-ups, lowering myself to the ground with
trainer, dribbled the ball by the basket, there had been something of that snap- the enthusiasm of a man getting into a cold
and I readied myself at half-court, run- pish feeling, and the friction of my sliding bath. It’s mostly vanity now. This is what
ning through, in my mind’s eye, the keys hand against the warm, curved metal—but happens once you’ve found yourself with a
to getting up. as soon as I landed and twisted toward six-pack, with higher hops. You find it hard
Charles, I would see him shaking his head. to let yourself go. But I’m trying.
A small audience gathered: Rebecca, for “So I didn’t dunk it?” I’d ask, sincerely
moral support; Charles’ assistant, Terrell; unsure and genuinely hopeful. He’d turn
a half-dozen or so 12-year-olds, all aspir- to one of the folks watching—a bearded Adapted from Year of the Dunk: A Modest
Rebecca Markovits
ing dunkers, who took a break from their paunchy guy in glasses, another gymgoer Defiance of Gravity. Copyright © 2015
basketball game to watch. It was like high caught up in the hullaballoo. “Almost,” he by Asher Price. Published by Crown
noon, a face-off between me, at half-court, said, holding his thick thumb and forefin- Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random
and my nemesis, the rim. ger in the air, a delicate centimeter apart. House LLC.
The Week is a member of The New York Times News Service, The Washington
50 Gun safety org. character Post/Bloomberg News Service, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, and
52 Book before Deut. 26 Flood floater subscribes to The Associated Press.
THE WEEK May 22, 2015 Sources: A complete list of publications cited in The Week can be found at theweek.com/sources.
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