Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1066

Up to Half a Million People Want to Spend the Rest of Their Lives on Mars

If you thought the Mars One mission (a.k.a. the one-way ticket to the Red Planet in the name of reality TV) sounded oddly appealing, you were hardly alone. Newly released numbers from the Dutch company organizing the project show that the contest has already garnered almost 80,000 applications from over 120 countries around the world. "These numbers put us right on track for our goal of half a million applicants," Bas Lansdorp, the founder of Mars One, said on Wednesday. They also put Landsdorp and company on track to bring in a boatload of cash in the form of application fees. While the fees vary by country, these figures mean that if everyone paid the maximum fee, $75, then Space One could make up to $37.5 million on applications alone.

It also means that as many as half a million people are willing to spend the rest of their lives on a barren planet, hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth. Announced almost exactly one year ago, the Mars One mission aims to select 28 to 40 candidates by 2015 to train for a one-way trip to Mars, scheduled to take off in September 2022, approximately a decade and a half before NASA plans its own manned mission to Mars. The final crew will be only four people, and the mission's organizers hope to raise the $6 billion or so needed for the trip while whittling down the candidate pool in what can only be described as a global reality TV event. Sounds pretty crazy right? Not to as many as 500,000 people, it doesn't. 

Truth be told, we find ourselves on the forefront of a new and very different kind of space race. Unlike landing on the moon, the ambition to land on Mars is hardly confined to NASA. As the space industry continues its shift from being a completely government-funded enterprise to a private-public partnership, we're seeing all kinds of new companies rise up to fill the demand of space travel. From Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which recently made another successful test flight, to Elon Musk's SpaceX, which recently made its first successful delivery to the International Space Station (ISS), plenty of people want to get into the space business. And in business terms, trips to Mars are in high demand, and the supply is virtually non-existant.

Think of it like a new iPhone. The line is wrapping around the block with people willing to do almost anything to surrender themselves to the new product. Now, the folks at Mars One — possibly one day at Virgin Galactic and SpaceX — get to pick which customers get to enter the store first. Unlike an iPhone, however, you can't take a trip to Mars back to the store. 

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An artist's rendering of the Mars One settlement (Image via Mars One)

       

Kids Are the Only Ones Who Like Bolivia's New Cheesy Coca Puffs

As the world's third largest supplier of the plant, Bolivia's trying to shake itself free from coca's drug-addled past and turn the crop into nutritious food. There's only one problem: It tastes terrible.

This problem is actually two-fold. On one hand, Bolivia has a communication problem. Some 67,000 acres of Bolivia's land is devoted to coca production, coca that folks like United States counterdrug officials think is used for cocaine. But it's not, at least not all of it. Even though generals of America's war on drugs are sending more and more troops to Bolivia to stem the flow of coca, the cocaine that is made from Bolivian coca mostly goes to Argentina, Brazil and Europe — not the U.S. Nevertheless, U.S. officials continue to hawk Bolivian coca producers, and meanwhile, whatever fraction of Bolivia's coca is being used to make drugs, the country would clearly benefit from finding a legal market for the crop.

This brings us to the other hand, the other problem. The most obvious alternative use for coca is for food. In leaf form, coca isn't toxic or addictive but rather rich in calcium, iron and all kinds of vitamins. Coca can be used to make medicinal tea and can be chewed to stay alert. But again, there's a big problem with the plant's bitter, even acrid flavor. Bolivian President Evo Morales, who served for years as head of the coca grower's union, has been working hard on a solution. As the Associated Press explains in a Wednesday night report, the market is rather barren. "Just about the only people who would eat the treats were 30,000 schoolchildren in the Chapare valley whose school districts bought cheese-flavored coca puff snacks from the plant and gave them away for free," the AP's Paolo Flores writes.

So this is certainly an American's perspective, but if you're a country trying to popularize a cash crop that's usually used to make illegal drugs, kids probably aren't your best customers. Bolivia realizes this and is working hard to find some palatable products that take advantage of coca's inherent nutritional value but skirt around the flavor problem. To some coca producers, though, people just don't like natural things. In the words of Javier Valda, who works for the Bolivian government to promote indigenous economies: "There's no distribution or mass promotion. People don't easily accept environmental products and they prefer hamburgers, coffee."

       

Benetton Finally Admits Its Role in the Bangladeshi Garment Factory Collapse

Over a week after multiple parties found condemning evidence, the Italian clothing company Benetton admits that it bought clothes from the garment factory in Bangladesh that recently collapsed and killed over 800 people. After the company had danced around the question for days, Benetton chief executive Biagio Chiarolanza confirmed to The Huffington Post on Wednesday evening that he was, by proxy, still doing business with New Wave Style, one of several companies operating in the faulty factory. "The New Wave company, at the time of the tragic disaster, was not one of our suppliers, but one of our direct Indian suppliers had subcontracted two orders," he said. This quote contrasts starkly with Benetton's original statement on the matter: "None of the companies involved are suppliers to Benetton Group or any of its brands." 

Awful, right? Never buying United Colors of Benetton sweaters ever again, right? Benetton's the worst, right? But to be perfectly honest, this whole thing is such a twisted tragedy that it's hard to figure out who should shoulder the blame. Once it was ready to admit that some of the now dead workers might've been making its clothes, Benetton admitted that its supply chain — a labyrinth of contractors and subcontractors that includes 700 manufacturers across 120 countries — was so complex that the company didn't really know where its clothes were coming from.

It didn't take long for those on the ground to figure it out, though. That condemning evidence that eventually led to Chiarolanza's confession included everything from paper records to Benetton tags sewn into clothing. And even though Benetton has a system of conduct codes and safety regulations, it's hard to see how they'd be effective if the company doesn't even realize which sewing machines are actually assembling its clothes. The way that a company like Benetton — or Spanish apparel retailer Mango or Swedish fashion house H&M or others whose clothes were also found in the rubble — distances itself from the factories that do the dirty work actually serves as a pretty handy defense when a tragedy like this strikes. Benetton didn't do anything wrong, the CEO seems to say. The company hired by the company that Benetton hired did something wrong, and the ethical goons in corporate had no idea anything was wrong.

It's sad, because these garment factory disasters aren't just continuing to take place. They're getting worse. Last November, we saw a fire at a Bangladeshi factory claim the lives of 112 workers only to listen to big corporations like Wal-Mart pass the buck to its suppliers. Then and now, the executives said that something must be done, that this sort of thing should never happen again. Then why does it keep happening. Why do we have to look at photos of lovers, frozen by death in a final embrace, just so we can wear our $10 T-shirts?

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Robb Stark to Charm 'Cinderella'

Today in show business news: A Game of Thrones hunk gets a hunky role, Jurassic Park 4 might be in trouble, TNT has another new show, and more Coen Brothers.

Ladies (and some gents), start your loin'gines, because your prince has arrived. Well, hm, actually your prince has already sorta been here. Richard Madden, who plays young lord Robb Stark on Game of Thrones, has just been cast as the Prince in Kenneth Branagh's live-action Cinderella. That's the one with Cate Blanchett as the Wicked Stepmother and Downton Abbey's Lily James as Cindy. Good for Robb Stark! His bastard brother Jon is always getting all the attention, even though Robb's the older one and the King of the North, so it's nice that this important role came along. Well, hm, "important" may be something of a stretch, seeing as he's mostly just a hunky prince — albeit Prince Charming — in Cinderella's story. Though I guess they gave Dougray Scott plenty to do in Ever After, didn't they. So it could be a significant role. Either way, it's a win. It's a win for House Stark, but mostly for Robb. It's good. He needs this. He really needs this. Anyway, who's next to cast? I guess the Fairy Godmother. I say Imelda Staunton. Or Fiona Shaw. Or maybe Kit Harrington. [Deadline]

Oh dear. Universal has announced that it is pushing back the release date of Jurassic Park 4, from June 13, 2014 to... who knows. It's indefinite. Or inannounced right now, at least. Is the movie in trouble? Was it a mistake to hire a relative newcomer, Colin Trevorrow, to direct? Universal says it's just giving everyone time to make the best possible movie, but these kinds of holds and delays are rarely a good sign. And apparently someone who worked on the film tweeted, then deleted, that the movie was dunzo. With Trevorrow out scouting locations and everything! Let's hope that's not true, that it was just a script tinkering issue as is being reported, because for some reason I'd gotten kind of excited about a new Jurassic Park. Sure, the other two sequels weren't great and could never hold a candle to the original, but it's been twelve years since JP3, so maybe that's been long enough for a fresh take? Or maybe I just really liked Jurassic Park 3D and am in the mood for more dino damage. Whatever the reason, fix this thing, Universal. [The Hollywood Reporter]

TNT has added another series to its roster. It's just picked up Legends, a spy thriller starring Sean Bean. It was originally supposed to star Brendan Fraser, but then that fell through, so it's Sean Bean playing an FBI master of disguise who starts to forget — or remember — who he really is. Ali Larter plays a fellow agent, as does Tina Majorino. And then there's Amber Valletta as Legends's wife (I'm guess his name is John Legends) and Steve Harris as his boss. What a weird cast! Though it would have been even weirder with Brendan Fraser. Between this and The Last Ship getting picked up, the speculation is that TNT is going to cancel Southland, which had a good run, and medical drama Monday Mornings, which did not. Poor Ving Rhames. Guy just can't get a break. [Deadline]

Here is a new red-band (Beware! Swears!) trailer for the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, the '60s-set folk music comedy starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, and, annoyingly, Justin Timberlake. It looks very good, though the mix of plaintive song and pointed humor is a little weird. But it's the Coen Brothers, so what do you really expect. It looks like a nice movie. Can't wait. Hope they edit out Timberlake. Sorry.

       

Baz Luhrmann's 'Hamlet' with Leo Would Be So... Baz — in a Waterpark Nightclub

Baz Luhrmann's Jay-Z and Prada-infused The Great Gatsby (in 3D) arrives in theaters this weekend, for better or worse or somewhere in between, and Luhrmann is already dreaming up the next classic text he's going to glitter up, according to The Hollywood Reporter: Shakespeare's Hamlet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. What could this possibly look like? 

What makes Luhrmann's adaptation of Gatsby so very jarring is that you don't mess around with Fitzgerald, or at least not many Hollywood people have tried. Shakespeare, on the other hand, gets messed with all the time — and of course Luhrmann himself directed DiCaprio in 1996's Romeo + Juliet. And yet, Luhrmann has traits that are just so very... Baz that, well, we can't imagine his movies without them. What other Luhrmann-y goodness (or badness) might a Hamlet contain? We've consulted some Shakespearean experts and done some brainstorming for him, even though nobody's signed on and Baz might think of something even crazier (or tamer) than these: 

The Experts' Take

Garland Scott, head of external relations for the Folger Shakespeare Library, consulted with some colleagues and emailed to tell us: "One thing we all agree on is that it's impossible to imagine a Baz Luhrmann film without water! So it definitely would be a wet Hamlet if nothing else ... which would make Ophelia's death interesting."

Water was also a theme for Robert Richmond, the director of the current production of Twelfth Night at the Folger Theatre and an associate professor at the University of South Carolina. He imagined that it would "have a modern sound track and be set against a back drop of water." He added: "From the fish tank of Romeo + Juliet perhaps one can imagine Ophelia drowning in pool covered in Hamlet's love letters, dragged to the bottom in her prom dress. And perhaps given that Leo is now a little older in years, his studies at Wittenberg University are for his Ph.D. in philosophy! Revenge might not come easy to a nerdy, awkward Hamlet who's logical mind does not allow him to believe in the afterlife." 

Our Concept

The Format: 3D, obviously. Just imagine, Baz Lurhmann is the man who had the idea of actually putting Daisy Buchanan in the sky. Like Mufasa. Now think of what he could do with a story that has an actual ghost in it. Hamlet's father is going to be coming at you, people.

The Setting: Luhrmann transformed Shakespeare's Verona into Verona Beach. Denmark is pretty important to Hamlet—that whole thing about something being rotten there—so Luhrmann will probably keep it at least nominally there. (And, let's face it, the thing will be shot in Australia.) Luhrmann, obviously obsessed with the idea of the play within the play, sets his adaptation in the Elsinore Nightclub, a burlesque venue with a water park element, to which Hamlet is heir. 

The Cast: Obviously, Leo is our Hamlet. Baz will try another go around with Hugh Jackman, trying to make up for Australia, as Claudius, and he'll bring back Nicole Kidman for Gertrude. Claire Danes will hopefully reunite with Leo to play Ophelia, assuming her Homeland schedule provides. If she can't do it, hell, maybe Gatsby's Elizabeth Debicki will step in. John Leguizamo will play Polonious, absolutely.

The Music: Realizing that Lana Del Rey was actually, shockingly, the best thing on the Gatsby soundtrack, and feeling her plaintive wails totally embody Hamlet's angst, Luhrmann enlists Lana to produce the soundtrack. Skrillex also contributes. From space.

       

Jon Stewart Doesn't Care How Fat Chris Christie Is as Long as He's a Ninja

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart wondered aloud about all the reports that said that Chris Christie underwent lap-band surgery just to run for president. "Can't a guy get healthy, without the prognosticators?" Stewart wondered. But also: "Why else would a 50-year-old man with young children and a loving family take steps to address obesity and extend his life? Why else?" Stewart asked. Indeed, Stewart requires some other skills in a 2016 candidate, like "the reflexes of a ninja." Stewart then went on sort of a tangent about Christie's bug-killing abilities. Watch on. 

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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An Air Force Unit Controlling Our Nuclear Weapons Is Filled with 'Rot'

All-out nuclear war isn't something Americans worry about too much these days, which is good, because the people in charge of fighting that war have apparently been doing a lousy job lately. According to the Associated Press, an internal inspection at the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota found the unit that oversees nuclear missile launches to be so woefully unprepared that an unprecedented 17 officers had to be stripped of their duties.

The group—which is responsible for launching nuclear-armed Minutemen missiles all around the globe at a moment's notice—was lambasted in internal emails last month, after coming as close to failing the inspection as you can get without actually failing. (The group received a "D" grade on its most important function, launch proficiency.) Members of the group were accused of safety violations, questioning orders, and showing general disrespect to superior officers. In the most serious incident, one officer was even accused of intentionally violating a rule that could have compromised the launch codes that enable the missiles to be fired from their underground silos. 

The deputy commander of the unit said the inspection uncovered "such rot" that the unit needs to be rebuilt" from the ground up." The 17 officers have been "benched" for 60 days, but have not lost their jobs or rank.

The Air Force's nuclear weapons crews have been under fire in the recent past, thanks in part to a post-Cold War "malaise" that experts say has demoralized these formerly central units. After all, sitting in an underground bunker in the middle of North Dakota on 24-hour apocalypse watch is not what many people hoped to be doing when they signed up for the Air Force. (That doesn't even begin to address other issues that have plagued the service, like its growing sexual assault problem.) Let's hope they get their nuclear issues sorted out—and that they're still never called upon to do that duty anyway.

       

Belgium Diamond Thieves Rounded Up Just Three Months After Heist

Police in Europe rounded up 31 people in three countries on Wednesday and recovered most of the $50 million in diamonds stolen from the Brussels Airport earlier this year, proving once again that most daring and outlandish crimes are the hardest to get away with.

It took less than five minutes for a group of armed men to clean out a cargo plane parked at the airport in Belgium back on February, and the thieves stunned authorities with their speed and precision. But in an equally impressive display of detective work, just three months later the whole operation and all of their accomplices are now behind bars. 

The Belgian prosecutor's office says they arrested 24 people in Belgium who are connected the heist, plus six more in Switzerland and one in France, and all within the last day. They also "recovered big amounts of cash," though they wouldn't specify exactly how much of the money and diamonds they were able to secure. Given the shorten time frame between the robbery and the arrests, however, its unlikely they could have unloaded all of their loot on the black market.

Much like the gangsters who stole $100 million from the Antwerp Diamond Center in 2003, it may take time, but sooner or later you're going to get caught. It seems the criminals forgot Hans Gruber's number one rule of multi-million dollar theft—"they will find you, unless they think you're already dead."

       

Even Stephen Hawking's Joining the Fight for Palestinian Freedom

Stephen Hawking is known for a lot of things — theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, general relativity — but being an an activist for peace in the Middle East is hardly one of them. Not any more! On Tuesday, the Cambridge professor made a bold move when he joined a larger academic boycott of Israel in the name of Palestinian justice. Hawking had previously agreed to attend a conference hosted by Shimon Peres, one that marks the Israeli president's 90th birthday, but after being bombarded by messages from friends and fans decided against going. Although he explained his decision in a brief letter to Peres last week, Hawking hadn't the news wasn't made the news public until The Guardian reported on his decision Tuesday night.

Though private, Hawking was hardly vague about why he was backing out of the conference. The wheelchair-bound 71-year-old said that "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there." The news was reported quickly and soberly by the Israeli press, as Hawking joins a small but growing list of British celebrities who are taking a stand against Israel's treatment of Palestine. 

This isn't the first time that Hawking's spoken out against Palestine, though. While he hardly ever chimes in on global politics, the physicist has actually been turning up the volume on his criticism of Israel. In 2011, he told Al Jazeera that Israel must engage with Hamas to put an end to the violence. "If Israel wants peace, it will have to talk to Hamas, like Britain did with the IRA. Hamas are the democratically elected leaders of the Palestinian people, and cannot be ignored," he said. "The situation is like that in South Africa before 1990. It cannot continue." This statement came after Hawking made a famous visit to the region, one that piqued his interest about the Palestine issue.

It appear that Hawking's not alone with his latest defiant statement. On Tuesday, Google tweaked the language on its homepage in the occupied Palestinian territories to read as "Palestine" rather than "Palestinian Territories." This small adjustment of verbiage had a big impact with Israeli authorities. Israel responded immediately with a power play of its own. "I think that the Google decision from the last few days is very, very problematic," deputy Israeli foreign minister, Zeev Elkin told Israel's Army Radio. "When a company like Google comes along and supports this line, it actually pushes peace further away, pushes away negotiations, and creates among the Palestinian leadership the illusion that in this manner they can achieve the result. Without direct negotiation with us, nothing will happen."

       

Police Apparently Missed Multiple Calls About Women on Dog Leashes in the Castros' Yard

Update 10:22 p.m.: Following the USA Today report, Cleveland Police walked back on their previous statement and admitted that they had actually received two 911 calls regarding the Castro house, neither of which appears to be related to the kidnappings. The police statement reads:

Upon researching our call intake system extensively, only two calls for service from police are shown at that address. One call was from the resident, Ariel Castro, reporting a fight in the street. The second call was in relation to an incident regarding Ariel Castro and his duties as a bus driver.

Original Post: The case of the three women held captive for a decade in Cleveland reaches a new level of absurdity with a Tuesday night report detailing the many warning signs that police appear to have ignored. USA Today says that not one not two but at least three neighbors called the police between 2011 and 2012 to report suspicious activity at the house where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight escaped their years-long imprisonment on Monday. We're not talking about the watering-the-flowers-at-midnight brand of suspicious activity. We're talking women-being-led-around-the-yard-on-dog-leashes suspicious. Some might just call that sick. (Add it to the list.)

Cleveland Police missed something. That much is clear. Despite the department's obviously extended effort to find the victims, the sheer volume of tips that would have led them to the Castro home is starting to looking pretty condemning. While some are calling the USA Today report "mostly hearsay," it's hard to believe that so many different neighbors would've made such similar calls. Some reported inexplicably large amounts of McDonalds being carried into the house by Ariel Castro, one of the three brothers and a school bus driver. Others reported seeing women standing in the windows of the Castro house and at least once incident of a woman pounding on a window, after which they called the police. 

The leash stuff really is twisted, though. "[Neighborhood] women told Lugo they called police because they saw three young girls crawling on all fours naked with dog leashes around their necks," the report reads. "Three men were controlling them in the backyard. The women told Lugo they waited two hours but police never responded to the calls." Again, this is just one of several incidents that neighbors say they reported to police, incidents that the Cleveland Police didn't follow up on. It's not just the USA Today piece that's making these claims either. Local news outlets