Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1050

The 2013 Summer TV Preview

Jeans have started uncomfortably sticking to legs and day drinking has become more socially acceptable, which means it is pretty much summertime. Summer is great, but one common complaint about the season is that nothing's on TV. All your favorite shows are off until September, meaning it's nothing but reruns from now until Labor Day. But that's old thinking! The summer television landscape is perhaps still a slightly less fertile one, but these days it is nevertheless chock-full of good stuff to watch. So draw the shades, turn on the air conditioning, and let's take a look at what you can look forward to.

Bloody Murder

[image error]It's no secret that crime rates are high in the summer months, and that's reflected in the world of television. This year we've got a number of shows that deal with the worst of the criminal element. Improbably, AMC decided to bring the much-criticized The Killing back for a third season. Everyone but the two leads, Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman, has been jettisoned and an entirely new, unrelated case has to be cracked. So if you're looking for some rainy Vancouver/Seattle drear this summer, this could be the show for you. (June 2)

Dexter is set to finish its run this summer, and after a crackerjack season last year, I'd urge you to catch up on what you missed (you can probably skip most of seasons five and six) and find out with the rest of us how this whole crazy thing ends. Will Dexter be brought to justice like he, well, sorta deserves to be? Will the world find out who he really is? Will we ever stop feeling creepy about the whole Dexter/Deb/Michael C. Hall/Jennifer Carpenter thing? There's only one way to find out! (June 30)

FX had the Danish show The Bridge shipped over to America, but when they opened the box they couldn't understand the assembly instructions so it came out kinda different. This version has two cops, one from the US (Diane Kruger), the other from Mexico (Demián Bichir), working together to solve a rash of murders happening on both sides of the border. Early promos make the show look like, well, a Southwestern The Killing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Plus Bichir is a great actor, and it will be nice to see him in the lead. (July 10)

On the same night as the must-watch Breaking Bad final season premiere, AMC is debuting a new cop show called Low Winter Sun, adapted from a British series. The show stars Mark Strong and Lennie James, both Brits doing hardboiled American accents as dirty cops in Detroit. I'm not sure we need another dirty cop show so soon after The Shield, but the trailer is certainly intriguing. Could be good gritty fun as the summer days wane. (August 11)

Spooky Supernatural

[image error]Are you ready for more Teen Wolf? You should be! MTV's surprisingly engaging teen horror series is returning for a jumbo-sized third season, bringing new characters and, presumably, new ghouls with it. But of course we still have perpetually perplexed wolfteen hero Scott, his wiseacre best bud Stiles, and the love of Scott's young life, Allison. Sure Teen Wolf isn't going to win any Peabodys anytime soon, but it's the summer, friends. You're allowed to turn the brain wave dial down a bit. Plus, twins! (June 3)

If you could follow any of what was happening on the incredibly overcrowded last season of True Blood, I'd imagine you'll want to hang with Sookie and the gang again this summer. It looks like vampire Bill has gone nuts, there's a vamp vs. human war looming, and there's some ominous guy with a hat. Ugh. This is the thing about True Blood. Every season I say it's the last, but then I get all caught up in whatever pile of junk they're throwing at us and have to know what happens, so I'm dragged into a new season and so and so on. And, sigh, I imagine this year won't be any different. (June 16)

CBS is taking a little gamble and doing a 13-episode limited series based on Stephen King's Under the Dome. I mean, networks used to do Stephen King miniseries all the time in the '90s — The Stand, The Tommyknockers, The Langoliers — but that was a long time ago. The story concerns a town that suddenly finds itself under a huge and impenetrable dome. Hence, uh, the title. As everyone suffers under the dome, society inevitably begins to collapse, while a noble few scramble to figure out what happened and how to undo it. This could be good in a cheesy way, like the King miniseries of old. Though, those did not hold up well. (June 24)

Men at Work

[image error]Liev Schreiber takes on a regular TV role in the new Showtime drama Ray Donovan, about a Los Angeles "fixer" solving rich people's problems, no matter how sordid. He's got a shadowy past involving Jon Voight, his wife is mad at him, and he seems to be sleeping around. This appears to be a juicy bit of pulp fiction, but this being Showtime, there's a chance it could just be a darker version of House of Lies, which would not be a good thing. Still, Schreiber is worth at least an episode, as is Katherine Moennig, the underemployed L Word alum who plays a character named Lena here. The acting talent is good, so let's see how everything else works out. (June 30)

Callooh, callay, o frabjous day, The Newsroom is returning to television. Aaron Sorkin's delightfully bad cable news drama is, bizarrely, one of the best times on TV. It's just so pompous and histrionic and out-of-touch. And it's fun to be smarter than it is; we know more, because we live in the future! Slickly made and well-acted nonsense, The Newsroom is a wonderful satire that's not meant to be a satire. I love it. Honestly. I hope it runs for years and years. (July 14)

Laffs 'n Things

[image error]As if any of you blog-reading maniacs need a reminder, but new episodes of Arrested Development will be made available on Netflix this Sunday. Everyone's been clamoring for more of the cult hit comedy since Fox canceled it in 2006, and now they are finally, finally, getting their wish. Will they be satisfied? Disappointed? Only time will tell, but if you don't care to know either way, stay as far away from the Internet as you can on Sunday and Monday. It's gonna be a madhouse. (May 26)

Rachel Griffiths is starring in a limited NBC series called Camp, about a summer camp, which is intriguing. I don't know what Rachel Griffiths is doing in an NBC limited summer series called about summer camp, but she is, so let's give it a chance, huh? (July 10)

Later in the summer Netflix will release another original series, this one just slightly less hyped. It's called Orange Is the New Black and is based on a memoir by a Smith grad who served a year in a minimum security prison for drug trafficking and money laundering. I guess the shock is that she's a nice white girl from Smith going to jail? Hm. Sounds... problematic. But interesting? The show was created by Weeds creator Jenji Kohan, so my guess is that we can expect lots of bleak humor and swears and stuff. Y'know, like how Weeds was. Except no Hunter Parrish, because it's women's prison. Instead there's Taylor Schilling from Atlas Shrugged, plus Kate Mulgrew, Natasha Lyonne, and, oh there is a guy, but it's Jason Biggs. Get excited! (July 11)

For some reason The CW is departing from its usual teen girl fare and going for, I dunno, the 38-year-old lighting designer demo? They're bringing back Whose Line Is It Anyway?, with vets Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady and Colin Mochrie returning and Aisha Tyler hosting. Will it be good? Well, that's an entirely subjective question. No one can say definitively whether Whose Line Is It Anyway? is funny. That is for each person to decide for themselves. Well, regardless of what you think about the show, it is coming back. Because, I guess, someone was asking for it. (July 16)

Not sure where else to put this, but it's important to mention that Andie MacDowell has a Hallmark Channel original series called Cedar Cove coming out this summer. Just thought you should know. (July 20)

Meanwhile in Reality

[image error]Summer TV is lousy with reality shows, be they game shows or people falling down shows or shows about terrible families. On NBC there will be two new competition shows, both premiering on the same night. One is a light little romp called Hollywood Game Night, in which regular Joe Schmoes and Plain Janes play party games with fabulous celebrities from the world of comedy and beyond. It's hosted by Jane Lynch but was inspired by the game nights that producer Sean Hayes used to have (still has?) at his mansion, wherever that is. This could be fun or it could be really awkward. What will definitely be awkward is the other show premiering that night, The Winner Is, which combines the beloved format of a singing competition show with Deal or No Deal. Meaning singers can opt out for cash on a gamble at any time throughout the game. Yup. And it's hosted by Nick Lachey. Welcome to summer. (July 11)

I wouldn't normally endorse watching this show, but the trailer for the new season of Real Housewives of New Jersey is so bonkers that I just have to. At least watch it for that fight, right? It's OK, you can get away with it. You're going to read a lot of literature on the beach this summer, so you can allow yourself this. Who will win? Who will die? I guess you'll just have to watch what— Ugh, you get it. (June 2)

Revived improv shows aside, The CW does seem aware that most of its viewers are teens, and what do teens like? The Hunger Games. And so we have The Hunt, a reality show about real people dropped into the wilderness without any supplies and made to compete against each other. Specifically, they're supposed to "capture" everyone until they are the sole survivor. But not in a Survivor way. In a Hunger Games way. This is all Hunger Games. You hear that, teens? It's Hunger Games. Watch it. (July 31)

       

Why Racism in Numbers Will Bring Down the NYPD in the Stop-and-Frisk Trial

At some point over the next few weeks, the New York City Police Department is likely to lose a civil trial accusing it of having repeatedly violated the civil rights of city residents — and on a massive scale — by conducting hundreds of thousands of "stop and frisks." The NYPD will probably blame the judge, mostly because it can't blame the numbers.

On Monday, district court judge Shira Scheindlin heard summary arguments in the civil class action suit, Floyd, et. al. vs. City of New York. The "Floyd" in the title refers to David Floyd, who was stopped by NYPD officers in February 2008 as he was helping a neighbor who'd been locked out of the building. During the trial, Floyd described the stop — the second time it happened to him.

"It was again the humiliation," Floyd said. But this time, he added, "it wasn't down the block, it wasn't in another neighborhood. It was on the property that I lived on."

"I felt that I was being told I shouldn't leave my home," he said.

That stop was one of the 540,000 times that year that the police performed a stop-and-frisk procedure. It was one of the 444,000 times that year that the person being frisked was black or Latino. It was one of the 474,000 times that year that the person being frisked was not arrested for having committed a crime. For the next three years, those figures would grow.

After hearing the last arguments from both sides in the case — those representing the class of plaintiffs and those from the city — Judge Scheindlin made her opinion of the evidence at hand pretty clear, as The New York Times reported.

Observing that only about 12 percent of police stops resulted in an arrest or summons, Judge Scheindlin, who is hearing the case without a jury, focused her remarks on Monday on the other 88 percent of stops, in which the police did not find evidence of criminality after a stop. She characterized that as “a high error rate” and remarked to a lawyer representing the city, “You reasonably suspect something and you’re wrong 90 percent of the time.”

“That is a lot of misjudgment of suspicion,” Judge Scheindlin said, suggesting officers were wrongly interpreting innocent behavior as suspicious.

The police reports themselves, categorized as "UF-250" or just 250s, demonstrate how frivolous the rationale provided for a stop can be. According to the department's report for the first quarter of the year, the police made about 100,000 stops. Cops initiated the vast majority of stop-and-frisks because suspects displayed "furtive movements." A large percentage were because the suspect was "casing a victim or location." Other reasons include a "suspicious bulge," "acting as a lookout," and wearing either "clothes commonly used in a crime" or "inappropriate attire for the season." In other words, many of the assessments included on 250s are deeply subjective — and almost impossible to disprove.

The question before Scheindlin is whether or not those loose criteria, combined with the demographics of stop-and-frisks over the years that the NYPD has released data, suggest a deliberate campaign to infringe on the rights of people of color.

In an excellent (and paywalled) report in the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin explains why the city was pessimistic about its chances even before the trial started. Scheindlin has a long track record of issuing verdicts critical of the NYPD. In fact, the release of 250 data was a settlement stemming from a case, Daniels v. City of New York, which Scheindlin oversaw. More recently, she presided over the case of Ligon v. City of New York, which ended with a surprising verdict. Toobin writes:

She wrote that she was going to decide the city's punishment in the Ligon case (which the city had already lost) at the end of the Floyd trial (which had not even taken place). In other words, it looked as though Scheindlin were scheduling her remedies hearing as if she had already ruled against the city in Floyd. In a footnote, Scheindlin added, "I emphasize that this ruling should in no way be taken to indicate that I have already concluded that the plaintiffs will prevail in Floyd." But the city lawyers in the Floyd case are skeptical that the Judge's mind is open. "It's like she has scheduled our sentencing before she's even found us guilty," one said.

Once Floyd began, the city's case wasn't made any easier by the testimony presented. Scheindlin largely ruled out the ability of the police to present an argument based on efficacy. ("This court is only here to judge the constitutionality," Toobin quotes her as saying. "We could stop giving Miranda warnings. That would probably be exciting for reducing crimes.")

Worse, members of the NYPD stepped forward to present evidence that the department specifically demanded both a certain number of stop-and-frisks and groups of people that should be targeted. New York magazine profiles Pedro Serrano, a beat cop in the Bronx whose concern about the practice prompted him to start taping exchanges with his superior officers. In one, recorded last Valentine's Day, he speaks with Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack.

Serrano: “… So what am I supposed to do? Is it stop every black and Hispanic?” He repeated the question several times.

McCormack: “This is about stopping the right people, the right place, the right location … Take Mott Haven, where we had the most problems. And the most problems we had there were robberies and grand larcenies.”

Serrano: “And who are those people robbing?”

McCormack: “The problem was, what, male blacks. And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this: male blacks, 14 to 20, 21.”

But the main argument keeps coming back to one basic point: the numbers. The millions of stops in New York City, a large majority of which involved people of color. 

A report from the Public Advocate outlined the data for 2012.

The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon. The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband. Despite the overall reduction in stops, the proportion involving black and Latino New Yorkers has remained unchanged. They continue to constitute 84 percent of all stops, despite comprising only 54 percentof the general population. And the innocence rates remain at the same level as 2011 at nearly 89 percent.

It's not clear when Scheindlin will return her decision. The most interesting result of her doing so likely won't be whose arguments she found most convincing. The interesting part will be the proposed remedy for the thousands of New Yorkers involved in the class action. It's a remedy that will be applied to Floyd and which will include Ligon. And it's a remedy that flows from Scheindlin's work in Davis, with the mandate that the NYPD release data on the stops from October 1, 2003, forward.

That first quarter for which reports are available, the NYPD stop-and-frisked 393 people. Twenty-seven of them were white.

Photo: Judge Shira Scheindlin. (AP)

       

Troubled Bridge Over Washington Water Collapses into 'Big Puff of Dust'

Late Thursday, a bridge over the Skagit River north of Seattle collapsed, taking at least two cars (and the people inside them) with it. While the cause of the collapse isn't yet known, three people were rescued from the site of the collapse as the sun set in the area. There were no reported fatalities.

As of early Friday morning, officials with the Washington State Department of Transportation were investigating the possibility that an oversized load may have struck the bridge's span, catalyzing the collapse: 

WSDOT:We are investigating a possible oversized load that struck the span and may have brought it down #LiveOnKOMO #Skagitbridge

— KOMO News (@komonews) May 24, 2013

The bridge handled about 71,000 trips a day on average, according to its 2010 inspection report, which rated the bridge as "functionally obsolete" with a sufficiency rating of "57.4 (out of 100)":

Inspection (as of 08/2010) Deck condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Superstructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Appraisal: Functionally obsolete Sufficiency rating: 57.4 (out of 100)

The bridge was also labeled "functionally obsolete" in 2000, and the more severe designation of "structurally deficient" in 1992. Here's the description of the bridge's deficiences from the most recent inspection report: 

"Bank is beginning to slump. River control devices and embankment protection have widespread minor damage. There is minor stream bed movement evident. Debris is restricting the channel slightly."

According to the report, the bridge foundations were stable. 

"Functionally obsolete" is a federal definition that can note deficiencies ranging from the bridge's width to its underpass clearance — i.e. it doesn't always mean the bridge has been labeled as unsafe (though, of course, a collapsed bridge isn't exactly safe). If a bridge is both "functionally obsolete" and "structurally deficient," it'd take the latter category. King5 notes that the bridge does have a weight restriction on it. Washington does seem to have something of a bridge problem on its hands, however: a recent report found Washington State has nearly 400 structurally deficient bridges, and over 7,000 total bridges that are either deficient or functionally obsolete. According to the Associated Press, the average sufficiency rating for bridges in the state is 80. 

It looks like the river at the site is about 18 feet deep right now. 

This appears to be the bridge in question: 

The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into the collapse: 

NTSB is gathering info regarding the I-5 Skagik River bridge collapse in Washington.

— NTSB (@NTSB) May 24, 2013

Here's an bird's eye view of the collapse: 

Here's an aerial image of the collapsed I-5 Bridge from Air 4 twitter.com/komonews/statu…

— KOMO News (@komonews) May 24, 2013

Earlier in the evening it looked like at least one person is sitting on top of a partially submerged car after the collapse: 

BREAKING - photo of man on his car in Skagit River after I-5 bridge collapse: twitter.com/KING5Seattle/s…

— KING 5 News(@KING5Seattle) May 24, 2013

Another person is sitting on top of a truck: 

BREAKING - photo shows man standing outside his truck in the river after I-5 bridge collapse over Skagit River twitter.com/KING5Seattle/s…

— KING 5 News(@KING5Seattle) May 24, 2013

Here are few pictures of the collapse from local news outlets: 

PHOTO: North end of I-5 bridge in Seattle collapse. Cars are in the water. Photo via @gina_svh twitpic.com/csqmg3

— WATE 6 News (@6News) May 24, 2013

BREAKING NEWS: The I-5 bridge over the Skagit River has collapsed near Seattle, WA. #Collapse #WA twitter.com/mark_tarello/s…

— Mark Tarello (@mark_tarello) May 24, 2013

As KOMO notes, the high-traffic bridge will probably be rebuilt, but it'll be out of commission for the foreseeable future. There are, however, a handful of bridges crossing the river nearby.  

Update, Friday morning: Dan Sligh and his wife are talking to the AP about the collapse, as the bridge gave way in a "big puff of dust" for them and a man in another car.

       

NASA's Plan to Lasso an Asteroid is Making Progress

Quick update on NASA's amazing plan to lasso an asteroid: they're making progress on the ion propulsion engine they'll need for the mission, one month after president Obama proposed giving NASA $100 mission to get this thing going. 

So far, NASA has a prototype of the ion propulsion engine, and they'd like to test it next year. The engine would be much more efficient than other fuel sources, making it just the thing we need to get to Mars, in theory.

If you're asking yourself why NASA would want to lasso an asteroid in the first place (beyond the obvious headlines and bragging rights) the Associated Press has a good explanation: 

"NASA is under White House orders to fly humans to an asteroid as a stepping stone to Mars. Instead of sending astronauts to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, as originally planned, the space agency came up with a quicker, cheaper idea: Haul the asteroid close to the moon and visit it there."

But this plan has more to it than just getting us one step closer to Mars, NASA officials say. For one thing, it could save us all from dying a fiery death by asteroid collision. Or, as we've explained before, we could mine it for minerals. 

Despite this, some lawmakers aren't that enthusiastic about the plan. As Space.com reported earlier this month, some in the House prefer an alternate plan that would just have us use the moon as a stepping stone to Mars, instead. In any case, the project is slated to grab an asteroid in 2019, and get spacewalkers on its surface in 2021. 

       

What You Missed During Today's Abortion Hearing In The House

If you were wondering why anti-abortion advocates were so keen on getting the Kermit Gosnell trial into the daily cable news cycle this spring, look no further than HR 1797: the reintroduced "D.C. Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act," a bill that would ban abortions at 20 weeks, which has been amended to apply on a national level. The bill, introduced and amended by Republican representative Trent Franks, the Chair of the Justice Committee's Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee, was the subject of a House panel today. By introducing the legislation now, citing Gosnell, Franks et al. were hoping that the Gosnell trial would provide them with their very own "gun control" moment in the national conversation. By the looks of things, they didn't really get it.  

The "D.C. Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act" relies on something called the fetal pain standard to outlaw abortions past 20 weeks. A handful of states have passed laws using this standard, even though the science behind it is contested, and the laws violate current constitutionally protected rights. In Arizona, a federal court struck down a similar law this week, citing a series of Supreme Court decisions that protect a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus is "viable." If this bill became law (which seems unlikely), both sides of the abortion debate know that it would open a door to another Supreme Court challenge to abortion law, and that's the actual endgame here. 

To be sure, today's hearing did rely on testimony from some well-known anti-abortion advocates in the medical community, like Anthony Levatino and Dr. Maureen Condic. But this bill has been introduced before in 2012, when it failed. This time, the intended trump card was not the medical testimony, but the emotional content of the Gosnell case.

 Here's how Franks talked about the bill in a press release this week: 

 "The case of Kermit Gosnell shocked the sensibilities of millions of Americans. However, the crushing fact is that abortions on babies just like the ones killed by Kermit Gosnell have been happening hundreds of times per day, every single day, for the past 40 years....If America truly understands that horrifying reality, hearts and laws will change."

He reiterated that in the hearing today, as reported by Sarah Posner: 

Rep. Trent Franks calls Gosnell "true face" of abortion in America. #HR1797

— Sarah Posner (@sarahposner) May 23, 2013

And in the hearing, prepared testimony reiterated the importance of the case to changing current abortion law. Here's Jill Stanek: 

"The Kermit Gosnell case provides further evidence that the lines between illegal infanticide and legal feticide, both via abortion, have become blurred....It is easy to be horrified by heart-wrenching stories such as these, and to imagine the torture abortion survivors endure as they are being killed.But it is somehow not so easy for some to envision preborn babies the same age being tortured as they are killed by similar methods."

Advocates were hoping that the Gosnell trial would provide an opportunity to evangelize on a long-running social issue with the backing of a headline-grabbing, emotionally-charged story. Today's hearing speaks to the limits of their success: while it's all over the anti-abortion media sphere, you'll be hard-pressed to find in-depth coverage of the panel from more mainstream sources. 

       

Is Google Street View the New Nature Documentary?

Google announced Thursday that they've taken their Street View cameras on a hiking trip around the Galapagos islands — above ground, and under water. This is great news for many nature-loving chair jockeys, especially for those of us already hopelessly addicted to GeoGuessr. 

As Slashdot notes, the Galapagos project is just one of the latest trips for the company's Street View tech to un-driveable parts of the world. They've been to the Grand Canyon. They've climbed mountains. From the photos, it looks like the Google hikers just strap a backpack on, with a portable, blue, circular camera complex looming above their heads, vaguely reminiscent of a Portuguese man-of-war. They use a different rig underwater. 

[image error]

Image: Google

Team Street View partnered with the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) and the Galapagos National Parks Directorate (GNPD) for the expedition. Google described the project in a Lat Long blog post: 

Our 10-day adventure in the Galapagos was full of hiking, boating and diving around the islands (in hot and humid conditions) to capture 360-degree images of the unique wildlife and geological features of the islands with the Trekker. We captured imagery from 10 locations that were hand-selected by CDF and GNPD. We walked past giant tortoises and blue-footed boobies, navigated through steep trails and lava fields, and picked our way down the crater of an active volcano called Sierra Negra.

It sounds like the panoramic images resulting from the expedition, slated to go live later this year, will mix touristy spots on the islands with places that are off-limits to visitors. So rather than a complete mapping of the island, we'll get to visit a series of "scenes," picked by Google, the CDF, and the GNPD. That will, presumably, be a vast improvement over Google's current mapping of the islands, which allows for ground-level still images from selected spots on the islands. While Google Maps isn't exactly comparable to a full-blown nature documentary, it has already bridged the gap between mapping tool and exploratory aide: clicking and dragging one's way down an unfamiliar street, for instance, seems commonplace for many now. The Galapagos project looks like one more way for Google to further blur that line. 

       

Steven Soderbergh Unretires

Today in show business news: Steven Soderbergh is headed to television, Intervention will intervene no more, and USA is sending camp kids to battle.

Much noise has been made about acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh's supposed retirement, everyone saying that Behind the Candelabra is his last movie and waving goodbye. (Myself included.) But! He's not really retired. He's just not doing feature films anymore. Look, he's just signed on to write and direct a ten-part Cinemax series called The Knick, starring Clive Owen. Ten parts?? That's like five movies! And it's a big show, set in 1900 New York City, at the innovative Knickerbocker Hospital. That sounds like way more work than Magic Mike. So he's not really retired, he's just moving to big prestige television. Though, prestige-wise, it being Cinemax he's probably going to have to blow up the hospital or something. That's just how they work over there. Anyway, the more fancy directors that move to television, the better we're all off, I think. Welcome, Steven. [Deadline]

After thirteen seasons and 243 interventions, A&E's hit reality show Intervention has been canceled. I guess they cured all the addicts! No, I kid. An A&E exec says that 156 of the show's subjects are currently sober, which is over half. So that's a pretty good track record I think. There will be five more episodes and then that's it. No more. At least Hoarders is still on. Otherwise how else would we know that people are having a hard time? [Entertainment Weekly]

USA has welcomed a new character. They've hired former American Idol contestant Matt Rogers to host a reality show called Summer Camp, about "16 die-hard campers in over-the-top competitions inspired by classic camp games." Wait. Campers? As in children? They're going to pit children against each other in over-the-top competitions? That seems like a strange show. I mean it's basically Guts, I guess, but still. That sounds like a very peculiar television show. And it's hosted by a guy from American Idol. Neat program, USA. Another stellar one for the lineup. [Deadline]

Neil LaBute is also making the transition to television. The playwright and screenwriter is doing a ten-episode show on DirecTV about the interconnectedness of it all called Full Circle. He's cast the thing, and it's quite the lineup of B-listers. Folks like David Boreanaz, Kate Walsh, Draco Malfoy, Billy Campbell, Minka Kelly, Ally Sheedy, Keke Palmer, Julian McMahon, Cheyenne Jackson, and Robin Weigert. That is certainly something! Boreanaz and Sheedy, at long last. Finally Keke Palmer and Draco Malofy, together.  Though, hm, they might not all work with each other. The Hollywood Reporter describes the series as this: "Each episode of the drama ... will take place in a restaurant and feature a conversation between two characters, with one of the character's story lines carrying over into the next episode through a conversation with a new character. That character will then be featured in the following episode. The process will continue until the final episode." Aha. So it's single-set and kind of theatery. Fitting for Mr. LaBute. Will you watch this cavalcade of TV stars be bad to one another? Eh, I guess it's a moot point if you don't have DirecTV. [The Hollywood Reporter]

       

Boy Scouts Vote to Allow Openly Gay Members

The National Council of the Boy Scouts of America passed a resolution permitting openly gay members to fully participate in scouting activities on Thursday afternoon at a meeting in Grapevine, Texas. 61 percent of the 1,400-person council voted in favor of the resolution, which will go into effect in January 2014 and overturns more than century of organizational precedent. As the resolution does not alter the BSA's policy on adults, openly gay Scout leaders remain forbidden from participating in scouting activities. A Dallas Morning-News reporter captured activists celebrating after the news leaked out:

Last July, after a two-year study of the issue, BSA leaders announced its ban on openly gay scouts would remain on the books. But the Boy Scouts came under increasing pressure to revisit the ban, (from both within and without the organization, from individuals on the local and national level), culminating in widespread outrage over a scout named Ryan Andresen, who was denied the rank of Eagle Scout (the highest distinction in scouting) because he was openly gay. Two weeks later, in January 2013, the BSA' national board announced that they planned to vote on a new resolution permitting openly gay scouts and leaders to fully participate in scouting activities. A week later, however, the same officials delayed the vote until today, to coincide with a scheduled national meeting in Grapevine, Texas.

In anticipation of today's vote, BSA distributed a 58-page memo detailing the results of an in-depth survey conducted among scouts and leaders, who were asked about the current ban on openly gay participants. The memo characterized the issue of gay scouts as "among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today" and found that while a majority of the organization's youth opposed the ban on openly gay people, a majority of the adults participants supported it.

Today's vote does not end questions about BSA's policies, which would force openly gay Scouts to quit the organization upon turning 18.

Update, 6:25 p.m.: The Boy Scouts of America have released an official statement regarding Thursday's vote:

The Boy Scouts of America Statement:

For 103 years, the Boy Scouts of America has been a part of the fabric of this nation, with a focus on working together to deliver the nation's foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training.

Based on growing input from within the Scouting family, the BSA leadership chose to conduct an additional review of the organization's long-standing membership policy and its impact on Scouting's mission. This review created an outpouring of feedback from the Scouting family and the American public, from both those who agree with the current policy and those who support a change.

Today, following this review, the most comprehensive listening exercise in Scouting's history the approximate 1,400 voting members of the Boy Scouts of America's National Council approved a resolution to remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone. The resolution also reinforces that Scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting. A change to the current membership policy for adult leaders was not under consideration; thus, the policy for adults remains in place. The BSA thanks all the national voting members who participated in this process and vote.

This policy change is effective Jan. 1, 2014, allowing the Boy Scouts of America the transition time needed to communicate and implement this policy to its approximately 116,000 Scouting units.

The Boy Scouts of America will not sacrifice its mission, or the youth served by the movement, by allowing the organization to be consumed by a single, divisive, and unresolved societal issue. As the National Executive Committee just completed a lengthy review process, there are no plans for further review on this matter.

While people have different opinions about this policy, we can all agree that kids are better off when they are in Scouting. Going forward, our Scouting family will continue to focus on reaching and serving youth in order to help them grow into good, strong citizens. America's youth need Scouting, and by focusing on the goals that unite us, we can continue to accomplish incredible things for young people and the communities we serve.

Update, 6:30 p.m.: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, has responded to the resolution favorably, as anticipated. In a statement issued on Thursday following BSA's vote, the religious group, which maintains deep ties to BSA, said that "sexual orientation has not previously been—and is not now—a disqualifying factor for boys who want to join Latter-day Saint Scout troops. Willingness to abide by standards of behavior continues to be our compelling interest."

       

Obama's Forever War Doesn't End Today

President Obama will say he sees a day when the War on Terror comes to an end in a much anticipated speech at the National Defense University on Thursday. That day is not today. Control over drone strikes will move from the CIA to the military, The New York Times' Charlie Savage and Peter Baker report. The transition is expected to take six months, and Obama might not address it explicitly, because the CIA program is classified. The Obama administration's new position is that drone strikes can only be used against people who post "a continuing, imminent threat to Americans," which the Times thinks could mean the end of "signature strikes" — in which unknown people are killed because they're thought to be members of al Qaeda or an affiliated group.

So, when-ish will the War on Terror end? It's going to be a while — maybe long after Obama has left office. "A Pentagon official suggested last week that the current conflict could continue for 10 to 20 years," the Times reports. Last year, facing the possibility that Obama could lose the 2012 election, the administration began working on creating clear rules for the drone program. So while Obama is justifying the use of drone strikes at a time when they've come under a lot of criticism, he might also be establishing new norms ahead of a possible President Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or whoever.

Obviously Obama trusted his own administration to control the drone program without these rules. In his new book, The Way of the Knife, the Times's Mark Mazzetti reports that Obama's "kill list" was the product of an early effort to "an early attempt... to establish procedures for the conduct of a secret war that most believed would last years beyond" Obama's administration. But the rules weren't totally binding. Mazzetti writes that "as much assome officials tried to keep strict criteria about who could be added to the kill list, those criteria were sometimes eased." According to Mazzetti and Daniel Klaidman's book Kill or Capture, when General James Cartwright asked Obama why the CIA was "building a second Air Force" with its drone fleet, Obama replied "The CIA gets what it wants."

In his speech, Obama will also address what to do with some terrorist suspects caught overseas instead of killed by drones: the people in Guantanamo Bay. He'll pledge to renew efforts to close the detention facility, and appoint a State Department official to oversee shrinking the population there. Guantanamo — where 170 people are held without trial in perpetuity — is a relic of a previous administration that is disturbing on the grand civil liberties scale and at the tiny human scale. Just like drones. Obama is paying Bush's favor forward with a theoretical end to perpetual war without borders.

       

Harry Reid Has a Not-Quite-Nuclear Plan to Upend the Senate Filibuster

Later this summer, the Senate may at last tackle a highly controversial issue: whether or not it should approve executive branch nominations decisions based on a majority vote. In doing so, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will ironically be taking on the warped new interpretation of Senatorial courtesy.

Reid's interest in reforming the filibuster — the procedural rule that allows senators to block any action unless 60 of his colleagues vote in opposition — has been percolating for a while. Late last year, he threatened to implement changes in January. And he did — small tweaks agreed to by Mitch McConnell. But with an unexpected move this week, Reid signaled that the fight may be back on.

The Huffington Post reported on the significance of a fairly mundane procedural move.

The likelihood of a knockdown fight over the filibuster this summer increased on Tuesday as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled back a vote on the confirmation of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. …

Reid indicated Tuesday that he would bring Cordray's nomination to a vote in July, and a Senate Democratic aide said that vote will come at a time when Reid is ready to launch into a broader fight over all of Obama's stalled nominees.

Reid put an exclamation point on the move yesterday in a statement reported by the Washington Post's Greg Sargent. "Presidents — be they Republican or Democratic," Reid wrote, "deserve to have the people working for them that they choose. The Senate's role is to advise and consent. But Republicans have corrupted the Founders' intent…"

(Reid underplays his own party's role in use of the tool, but, as The Atlantic's James Fallows has repeatedly noted, not by much.)

Sargent analyzes Reid's comments:

The Senate Majority Leader has been striking a delicate balancing act. His challenge has been to slowly escalate the threat level by giving his threats ever more specificity, while simultaneously maintaining an aura of credibility about them. The current threat comes very close to saying that if Republicans obstruct Cordray — and others, such as Gina McCarthy to head the EPA, and Thomas Perez as Labor Secretary — then Reid will push the nuke button.

The "nuke button" is a reference to the common analogy used for filibuster reform, that it amounts to a "nuclear option" in devastating the ostensible congeniality of the Senate. The Senate, you see, prides itself upon being a place where gentlemanly (and, slowly, gentlewomanly) debate results in bipartisan agreement. Rescinding the filibuster is seen somehow to be an admission that the Senate can't police itself over a brandy in some wood-paneled room. That the body is seized with paralysis due to overuse of the filibuster, however, is somehow not seen as such a threat.

Reid's proposal wouldn't really be "nuclear." He's apparently not proposing to eliminate the filibuster in its entirety; according to Politico, he just wants to reform the process of allowing nominations, and is looking for the 51 votes he needs to do it. That this is his plan is also indicated by the timing. Moving Cordray's approval vote to July pushes the filibuster fight out until after the Senate has addressed the issue of immigration reform. A Reid aide said as much to the Huffington Post: "plan is to wait until immigration is complete before engaging in total all-out nom[ination] fight." Sweeping reform of how the government allows immigrants to become citizens is a big deal. Reforming a subset of a tricky procedural rule is a whole other thing altogether.

That's partly because, in a very short period of time, the 60-vote threshold for decision-making, once an aberration, has become the norm. As Slate's Dave Weigel noted, freshman Senator Ted Cruz on Tuesday derided a plan that would allow an increase to the debt ceiling to be decided on a 51-senator vote.

This body may well vote to raise the debt ceiling. But if this body votes to raise the debt ceiling, we should do so after a fair and open debate, where the issue is considered and where the threshold is the traditional 60-vote threshold and we can address what I think is imperative--that we fix the problem.

Emphasis added. For a senator who took office in January, that threshold is indeed traditional, no matter how much it frustrates his senatorial elders. To some extent, it's the new normal, the new standard for Senatorial comity.

In an article at New York, Jonathan Chait describes the downstream effect of not changing the rule. The DC Federal Circuit Court, which has shown a wide-ranging willingness to rule against legislation, has four vacancies, as it has since Obama took office. Chait writes:

These are the battle lines forming for what appears to be a major partisan war this summer: Republicans insisting not only that they need not approve vacancies in the D.C. Circuit but that Obama’s attempt to fill them represents a kind of tyranny, and Democrats threatening to limit the filibuster as a routine weapon to obstruct appointments.

At the beginning of the 11th Congress, in January 2011, the average tenure of sitting senators was 11.4 years, meaning that most — unlike Reid and McCain and McConnell — had only been part of the body in the increasingly-filibuster-happy Bush and Obama eras. For these senators, like Cruz, the filibuster is a "routine weapon." It's Reid who is acting outside the norm, in some sense, but that interpretation will almost certainly break down along partisan lines.

Until a Republican becomes president.