Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1040

Apple Denies Conspiracy in E-book Pricing Trial

The Department of Justice’s ebook pricing case against Apple kicked off in New York on Monday, and is expected to last for three weeks. The DOJ accuses Apple of conspiring with book publishers to fix ebook prices for the launch of the iBookstore. The Department of Justice and Apple’s opening statements lasted for nearly the entire day, but they introduced little material that would be surprising to anybody who has been following the case since the DOJ first sued Apple and publishers in April 2012.

In the DOJ’s opening argument, attorney Lawrence Buterman described the launch of the iBookstore in April 2010 as “the day the prices of the most popular ebooks went up across the United States as much as 50 percent … The $9.99 price for ebooks that [customers] had become accustomed to was largely gone.” Buterman argued that Apple conspired with publishers to move to agency agreements (in which the publisher sets an ebook’s retail price and the retailer takes a cut) with Apple and then forced other retailers — namely Amazon — to move to agency as well. “The key word here is collective,” Buterman said, because no one publisher was willing to adopt agency pricing on its own. Apple needed to keep “weak-kneed CEOs” in line and “move the whole market off of $9.99.”

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Buterman repeatedly stressed that Apple and publishers acted together with the goal of changing “the entire ebook industry.” Citing an email exchange between Apple SVP of internet software and services Eddy Cue and Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy, for instance, Buterman said, “These are not the words of an independent actor.” The DOJ also alleges that Apple was a “facilitator and go-between” to get publishers to enact higher ebook prices in the agency pricing negotiations between publishers and Amazon — when Macmillan CEO John Sargent went to Seattle to talk to Amazon about agency pricing, for example. And when individual publishers were trying to decide whether they should adopt agency pricing and join Apple’s iBookstore, the DOJ says that Apple acted as “a conduit” by telling them what other publishers were doing and thinking.

The DOJ cited the MFN (most-favored nation) clause that Apple required in its publisher contracts as an obvious way for Apple to try to control Amazon’s own ebook pricing practices: Buterman said that Apple was “fully aware that the imposition of an MFN in its agency agreements” would lead publishers to enact agency agreements with Amazon.”

Apple’s entry into the ebook market “arrested all ebook price competition,” Buterman concluded, arguing that any innovation in the space around the time that the iBookstore launched either existed before the launch or couldn’t be tied to it. “The iPad was going to be introduced regardless of whether there was an iBookstore,” he said, while describing “increased book sales and new devices” as “trends that were well underway” before Apple came on the scene.

Apple: DOJ “reverse-engineered a conspiracy”

Apple’s attorney, Orin Snyder, argued in his opening statement — which lasted over three hours — that the government had provided no direct evidence of a conspiracy between Apple and publishers. Apple “simply was not willing to start a new business that would lose money” by matching Amazon’s $9.99 price for bestsellers. But the DOJ, Synder said, is asking the court to “ignore the actual negotiation of the contracts that define the relationships between the parties.”

Apple and publishers were not aligned, Snyder argued: Rather, he claimed negotiations between them were “contentious and hard-fought…in some cases knock-down, drag-out fights” (becoming so “noxious” in the eyes of Random House that it would not sign a deal). HarperCollins only agreed to an agency agreement with Apple, he said, because News Corp wanted to retain a good relationship with the company. Snyder said that Apple had “no evidence — zero — that Apple knew anything about interactions between publishers.”

In response to the DOJ’s allegations that Apple acted behind the scenes to help publishers get Amazon to agree to agency pricing, Snyder said there is “iron-clad proof…in emails and in testimony that Apple told its supposed co-conspirators” that it didn’t care what kinds of agreements publishers signed with Amazon. He said Apple would not have needed a MFN clause in its agreements if it already knew the types of agreements that publishers would enact with other retailers: Instead, an MFN gave Apple “the ability to be indifferent to what happens at other retailers.” He also alleged that Amazon initiated discussions about changing the pricing model with publishers before Apple signed its own agency agreements.

“Apple should be applauded and not condemned for its beneficial impact on the ebook market,” Snyder said. Before the launch of the iBookstore, the market was “headed nowhere good.” With the iBookstore’s launch, Snyder claimed that many more parties have been able to start selling ebooks — everyone from “little brownstones in Vermont” to “solo authors acting without a publisher.”

       

So You Want the Media to Cover Your Ricin Letters

It seems like you can hardly pick up your paper anymore without reading about ricin-tainted letters being sent all over the place. (By "paper" we mean "phone, to read the web.") But not all ricin stories garner the same level of attention. Having reviewed three recent examples, we would like to offer these tips for those wanting to get media coverage.

DO: Involve famous people or impersonators thereof.

It seems likely that the most recent high-profile letter-sending, mailed to Michael Bloomberg and Barack Obama, was prompted by a spat between an actress and her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Shannon Rogers Guess accused her husband of sending the letters and claims to have found castor beans — from which ricin is extracted — in the fridge. Her husband says that she is the real sender, and that he doesn't use credit cards. (That is his defense.)

The point being: Guess is also an actress who has been in a number of things, including Walking Dead. (Her     

You Probably Know Someone Who Met Their Spouse Online

If you aren't already looking for love online, maybe you should start. Because those who've already found love on the intertubes are enjoying happy, stable marriages while you continue having empty, fleeting relationships with people you meet in real life. 

A new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says nearly 35 percent of married couples met on the Internet in some fashion. Most couples whose online love blossomed into real world matrimony met through chat rooms or social networks, but 45 percent met on dating websites. The research was based on a survey of over 19,000 people married between 2005 and 2012, so this wasn't taken from a modest sample size. The kicker: those who met online are enjoying happier marriages, and are less likely to split, according to the survey. 

But before you go signing up for eHarmony in a desperate attempt to find the love of your life, a real gentle soul, your own personal Ryan Gosling or Jennifer Lawrence, know this: the survey was paid for by eHarmony. Yup, the online dating website paid $130,000 to commission the research. And the study's lead author, John Cacioppo, is a long-serving member of eHarmony's Scientific Advisory Board. So, that's the catch. But PNAS is a well-regarded journal, and you can't deny the study's extensive sample size. 

Once you get past that, you can start to think about maybe expanding your pick-up habits beyond the bar scene. If these people are all married and happy, the Internet can't be so bad, right? After all, the Internet offers a wider selection than whoever is still around at last call of your local watering hole. "The pool of applicants on the Internet is so much greater than the pool of applicants at your church or favorite bar … or through friends of friends," eHarmony CEO Dr. Neil Clark Warren told AllThingsD. Other experts seem to agree. "Societally, we are going to increasingly meet more of our romantic partners online as we establish more of an online presence in terms of social media," Caitlin Moldvay, a "dating industry senior analyst," told USA Today. 

Welp, maybe it's time to get Tinder. 

       

Here's a Rare Closeup of a Planet That's 300 Light Years Away from Earth

It doesn't look like much, but the above photograph records a fairly rare event: the direct imaging of an exoplanet, the term for planets that do not reside in the Solar System. The picture was captured using infrared photography by a team of astrophysicists at the European Southern Observatory in Garching bei München, Germany, and published in the most recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. The planet, christened HD 95086 b, is thought to be between 10 and 17 million years old and, based on its perceived brightness, to possess approximately 5 times the mass of Jupiter, making it the lightest such object ever to be directly filmed by human beings. It's a little bigger than the sun, and its system is more than 300 light years away.

Officials at the European Southern Observatory explained that most exoplanets are discovered indirectly, without ever being confirmed by eyesight:

Astronomers have already confirmed the existence of nearly a thousand planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. Almost all were found using indirect methods that could detect the effects of the planets on their parent stars — the dips of brightness produced when planets crossed in front of them (the transit method), or the wobbling caused by the gravitational pull of planets in their orbits (the radial velocity method).

So what makes exoplanets so difficult to see from space? The stars they happen to orbit. Stars emit far more light than any of the terrestrial or gaseous planets caught in their orbit, washing out (with their persistent glare) most hope of seeing the shape of a planet. In addition to the methods mentioned above, astrophysicists substitute a bevy of indirect techniques to make up for their frequent inability to photograph far-away planets. One technique, for example, depends on an effect called gravitational microlensing, whereby a star (and, in relevant cases, a planet orbiting the star) magnifies the light of another star.

While rare, this type of photograph is becoming more common, thanks to developments in satellite technology, for which scientists keep asking for more money — and, well, a lot of luck. Four years passed between astrophysicists first photographing an exoplanet in 2004 and capturing six more in 2008, none in 2009, one in 2010, then four more in 2011. (Last year just one planet, Kappa Andromedae b, found itself photographed.) Five months into 2013, stargazers will need a bit more luck to strike a new record.

       

New Factory Disaster Claims 119 Lives in China

A set of explosions and fire at a Chinese poultry factory killed at least 119 workers on Monday, amid reports that poor building conditions contributed to the high death toll. Local officials say the blaze was caused by a leak of pressurized ammonia, but it isn't clear if the three large explosion started the fire or were the result of it. More than 50 other people were injured.

According to the Xinhua news service, panicked workers became trapped by the building's "complicated" layout (especially after the power went out) and then found blocked emergency exits and a locked front gate that may prevented many of them from escaping.

The fire is one of the worst industrial disasters to hit China in recent years, but eerily reminiscent of recent disasters in other South Asian countries were lax safety standards and poor building construction have lead to the deaths of thousands of workers, many of them poor and underpaid. The worst, of course, was the collapse of a Bangladesh factory that killed more than 1,000 people last month, but fires elsewhere in the country have killed hundreds more in the last year.

China's coal mines are also notoriously deadly. Just last month as many as 40 workers were killed in two separate explosions on the same day.

       

Was Nikki Finke Just Fired From Deadline?

Sharon Waxman does not like Nikki Finke. It's mutual. So when Waxman's TheWrap reported late Sunday that Finke had been fired from Deadline.com, which she founded, the post was predictably full of vitriol and glee. "The scourge of Hollywood media has clashed repeatedly with her boss, who apparently has had enough," Waxman wrote. Only there's just this one thing: Deadline is saying that Waxman made the whole thing up. 

Here's TheWrap's original explanation for the alleged firing: 

"Jay Penske, the CEO of Penske Media, which bought Deadline in 2009, told several top Hollywood executives last week that he was firing Finke, complaining she had crossed the line one too many times in sending poison-pen emails berating sources over scoops she lost to competitors.

“She’s been sending emails saying, ‘I’m going to f--- you,’ and Jay says he’s had it,” said one top executive."

Less than an hour after The Wrap reported the news, Deadline posted a response: 

"Now, The Wrap is writing that Nikki Finke has been fired, and I don’t believe it for a moment. Nobody fires Nikki Finke. I was copied on this email that Jay Penske wrote to Wrap editrix Sharon Waxman: “Sharon, your story isn’t true and all of the ‘facts’ that you mention are completely erroneous.”

Deadline also published an internal email addressing the rumors, which says: 

"As you may be aware, Sharon Waxman at TheWrap has just published a libelous, false, and defamatory story on her blog, in which she claims amongst other things that PMC has fired Nikki Finke from Deadline.

This is a complete fabrication, with not an ounce of truth to it. Just to be clear, Nikki Finke has a multi-year contract with the Company, and it is the Company’s absolute intention to continue its obligations under the agreement."

That Deadline post was also posted by Finke to Twitter: 

A Personal Note On Nikki Finke From Mike Fleming dlvr.it/3SXxkJ via @deadline

— Nikki Finke (@NikkiFinke) June 3, 2013

And, we're go for a rousing adaptation of a high school drama set in the Hollywood blogosphere. We'll have to wait and see what prompted Waxman to publish a story like this about the famously litigious and volatile blogger. But as others have noted, there could very well be something to it: 

Please note the careful wording. Something's definitely up at Deadline. deadline.com/2013/06/a-pers…

— Chris Krewson (@ckrewson) June 3, 2013

In any case, now is a good time to check in with the (resurrected) Fake Nikki Finke:

Wait, I'm not fired? Why can't I access the Deadline CMS?I've sent Jay 60 emails about this in the past minute. Why is he taking so long?

— Fake Nikki Finke (@Fake_NikkiFinke) June 3, 2013

Update: 12:18 p.m.: The LA Times weighed in, flagging part of the internal email referencing the terms of Finke's contract, and also citing unnamed sources:

"According to people close to Finke, her PMC contract has a window, opening this month, that allows her to leave Deadline. It is no secret around Hollywood that Finke has been unhappy with Penske since PMC bought rival trade publication Variety. Finke was hoping to play a role in running Variety for PMC, but none has materialized... The mercurial Finke has been telling people that she is looking to leave Deadline and go back into business for herself. While she was filing her box-office report for this weekend she told some people that it would be her last such piece for Deadline." 

       

How Steven Seagal Helped the GOP to Stop Worrying and Love Russia

A group of GOP-led congressmen, with Steven Seagal as tour guide, wrapped up a fact-finding trip to Russia today, where they apparently failed to find any significant clues related to the radicalization of the brothers behind the Boston bombings. But the mission had a secondary effect: it looks like the group, which included Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and Rep. Steve King, have found some rhetorical common ground with Russian officials. 

Seagal is pals with a handful of influential Russian officials, as Michael Weiss at the Atlantic explained earlier this week. And it sounds like the actor called in a bunch of favors to get the congressmen access to officials they wouldn't have otherwise spoken to — including members of the the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB. The lawmakers were impressed, as evidenced by the Associated Press story on the trip: 

[Rohrabacher] repeatedly thanked Seagal, who took credit for arranging the congressmen's meeting at the FSB, and said it helped avoid the experience of past foreign trips when all of the meetings had been arranged by the U.S. Embassy.

"You know what we got? We got the State Department controlling all the information that we heard," Rohrabacher said. "You think that's good for democracy? No way!"

Diplomatic missions, apparently, are just that much more fun when led by an action star. Especially when that action star is so friendly with the Russian appointed "president" of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov that he shows up on the Russian's Instagram account. And, uh, here he is, dancing for Kadyrov: 

Because of Seagal's connections, the delegation of lawmakers almost visited Chechnya, the Washington Post notes, but the trip was called off in part because of Kadyrov's extremely dubious record on human rights. Rohrabacher downplayed this, and said the change of plans was because the trip would have required the congressmen to fly on Seagal's private jet, against House rules. As Weiss explains, this shouldn't be entirely surprising: Rohrabacher has been beating the drums on the threat of radical Islam in the U.S. for awhile, and has previously compared Kadyrov's policing of the Chechnyan region to U.S. spying programs on Muslim communities. Kadyrov's tactics, by the way, reportedly include kidnappings and murder. 

But it looks like Rohrabacher, who is no stranger to siding with Russia, has found something he can relate to in Russia's aggressive stance against radicalization in the Chechnyan region. After meeting with the FSB, the congressman said that "Radical Islam is at our throat in the United States, and is at the throat of the Russian people." Rep. Steve King added, regarding the Tsarnaev brothers, "I suspect he was raised to do what he did." Democratic Representative Steve Cohen was also on the trip, and he disagreed with Reorabacher and King's account of the meeting with Russian security officials, according to the AP.

Rohrabacher and King also found some time to talk about Pussy Riot on this trip. After visiting Moscow's main cathedral on Sunday, King said "It's hard to find sympathy for people who would do that to people's faith," referring to Pussy Riot's anti-Putin protest in the cathedral that led to two-year jail sentences for "hooliganism." Cohen, again, disagreed, the Post reported. 

Interestingly, as the Post noted, Rohrabacher's opinion on Russia has come a long way: the former speechwriter for Reagan is credited with coining the most memorable term of the president's famous "Evil Empire" speech. 

       

Inevitable Knaidel Kerfuffle Begins Over Spelling of Bee-Winning Word

According to some Yiddish speakers and experts, the winning "Knaidel" heard 'round the word nerd world last Thursday at the Scripps National Spelling Bee wasn't spelled correctly after all. It should be "kneydl..." or maybe "knadel," or "kneidel." Ok, so there's no consensus on which letters are wrong, exactly. The point? Yiddish, which uses a non-Roman alphabet, has no standardized transliteration into English, making it difficult to pin down just one correct spelling. 

No one is going to snatch Arvind Mahankali's trophy away, however. The spelling from the Bee is based on the Merriam-Webster standard spelling of the word, which would be what Bee hopefuls studied before the spell-off began. M-W, for their part, say the spelling is the most common Roman transliteration of the word, hence their choice. So as far as the competition goes, there's no controversy — Mahankali spelled the word correctly, by the rules of the competition. The end. But that's not going to stop what's already a lively debate highlighting the possible problems in digging deep into the esoteric for Bee words. 

According to the New York Times, Dissenters include the YIVO institute for Jewish Research, the Second Avenue Deli, in Midtown Manhattan, and a group of Yiddish speakers at the Riverside Y Senior Center at the Bronx, who were discussing the subject last Friday:

“K-n-a-d-e-l,” said Gloria Birnbaum, 83, whose first language was Yiddish. She teaches a class at the center in “mamalushen,” the mother tongue of Yiddish, to seniors who want to better understand “the things you heard your mother say.”

“I wouldn’t have spelled it with an ‘i,’ ” she added.

But Aaron Goldman, a former accountant and sales manager in a blue baseball cap, jumped to his feet and banged on the table as plastic wear bounced.

“That would be ‘knawdle,’ not knaidle!” he said.

YIVO believes Kneydl is right, and they're considered an authoritative source by many. Others are arguing that there simply is no authoritative spelling — just a consensus on pronunciation. This is true for a lot of words from the Hebrew alphabet (which Yiddish uses) like "Hannukah,"  and "Mazel Tov." 

       

Syria Experiments with Absurdity, Issues Turkey Travel Warning

Syria, the country mired in a never-ending, devastating war after the government responded to peaceful protests with violence, is now warning its citizens not to travel to Turkey, because of "violence of [Prime Minister] Erdogan's government against peaceful protesters." This is getting a bit absurd, even for Syria. 

Erdogan used to be an ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, so, as the Wall Street Journal notes, the Syrian leader is apparently indulging in a bit of shadenfreude this weekend as Turkish citizens take to the streets to protest the Prime Minister's decade-long tenure. Syrian state media has been wall-to-wall with Turkish protest coverage, using the same language to describe the scene there that international media used to discuss the early unrest in Syria: 

“The Turkish police fired tear gas against the protesters who tried to throw stones…Helicopter launched tear gas on residential neighborhoods, while photos on YouTube showed armored police truck hit [sic] a protester.” (via the WSJ) 

And on Sunday, Syria turned the dial to 11 on the absurdity meter by declaring Turkey, due to the unrest, unsafe for its citizens. Syria, where at least 80,000 have been killed and over 1 million displaced (at least 370,000 of whom have fled to Turkey) since unrest began there in March of 2011, had this to say about Turkey, via Reuters: 

"The foreign ministry advises Syrian citizens against travel to Turkey for the time being for their own safety, because of the deteriorating security situation in several Turkish cities...and the violence of Erdogan's government against peaceful protesters."

Protests in dozens of Turkish cities have led to over 1,700 arrests in three days, according to the BBC. Police used water canons and tear gas against demonstrators, prompting many to condemn their agressive response. The protests began against government plans to demolish an Istanbul park (the last public green space in the city) and build a shopping mall in its place. But they've since expanded into a general expression of anti-Erdogan sentiment. 

       

How Crazy Is Michael Douglas's Cunnilingus Cancer Link, Really?

Apparently cunnilingus causes cancer. That's according to actor Michael Douglas, who isn't as crazy as he sounds, according to science. But don't go using that as an excuse: it's only dangerous for people already suffering from human papillomavirus. 

In an interview promoting Behind the Candlebra with the Guardian's Xan Brooks, Douglas opened up about what he thinks is the source of his stage four throat cancer. The common theory about Douglas's cancer was his years of drinking and smoking. But Douglas says it was all because of oral sex, of course:

"No," he says. "No. Because, without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV [human papillomavirus], which actually comes about from cunnilingus."

From what? For a moment I think that I may have misheard.

"From cunnilingus. I mean, I did worry if the stress caused by my son's incarceration didn't help trigger it. But yeah, it's a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer." 

Not satisfied with taking Douglas's claims that oral sex causes cancer at face value, the U.K. paper sought out a perspective from an expert that may shine some light on what exactly he's talking about. "It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the HPV type 16 is the causative agent in oropharyngeal cancer," Mahesh Kumar, a consultant head and neck surgeon in London, told the Guardian's Catherine Shoard. The paper cites recent studies showing roughly 57 percent of patients with oral cancers were also HPV-16 positive. And it's true: over the last decade, multiple studies have connected oral cancers with HPV infection, particularly among men. 

In terms of getting healthy once you've been diagnosed with throat cancer, Douglas thinks of himself as an authority in that department.  "And if you have it, cunnilingus is also the best cure for it," he told the Guardian. But medical experts aren't backing up that claim, unfortunately. "Maybe he thinks that more exposure to the virus will boost his immune system. But medically, that just doesn't make sense," Kumar said. Bummer

So what have we learned? Michael Douglas really likes oral sex. Like, a lot.