Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1074

Chris Kelly of Kris Kross Fame Has Died

[image error]On Wednesday evening, Chris Kelly, the rapper who won international fame as one half of the young duo Kris Kross, was found unresponsive by his family in his Atlanta home and later pronounced dead. He was 34. The news spread quickly throughout Twitter with everyone from big-name rappers to longtime fans tweeting. Chris Kelly (pictured on the right in the adjoining photo) became a trending topic within an hour of the news breaking.

The death was confirmed by local Altanta DJ Greg Street who wrote in a blog post:

Sad to hear the loss of my lil homie, Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly. I met him and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith in ’93. Their song “Jump” had been #1 on the billboard charts for eight weeks. Everyone knows Kriss Kross [sic.] for their music and the crazy way they used to dress, but once they started working with So So Def, they became family.

The cause of death was not immediately known and an autopsy is scheduled for Thursday morning.

We'll update this post with more details as they arrive. In the meantime, you should watch this music video:

Okay, one more:

       

The New LA Times Ban on 'Illegal Immigrant' Puts Everybody Else on the Spot

The Los Angeles Times announced late Wednesday that it would join the Associated Press in dropping the phrase "illegal immigrant" from its style guide. This makes America's other Times the latest paper to address the concerns of a movement led by activist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas to encourage the country to rethink the issue of immigration. However, The LA Times actually goes a stage further than the verbiage that Vargas himself encourages. The new policy forbids the use of "undocumented immigrant" as well as "illegal immigrant." The paper explained its reasoning in a memo from its Standards and Practices Committee:

'Illegal immigrants' is overly broad and does not accurately apply in every situation. The alternative suggested by the 1995 guidelines, 'undocumented immigrants,' similarly falls short of our goal of precision. It is also untrue in many cases, as with immigrants who possess passports or other documentation but lack valid visas.

All that makes a lot of sense. Immigration is a complicated issue, and every case is different — Why not eschew labels altogether and just explain stuff? Sounds like a job for journalism! 

It's an appropriate challenge for the the times we live in. As President Obama and Congress continue (struggle?) to pursue immigration reform, politicians and journalists alike are trying to figure out the appropriate way to talk about these divisive issues. In part due to Vargas, the debate over whether to us the phrase undocument immigrant or illegal immigrant, as most papers do, has become a hot button topic in journalism.

The Associated Press turn heads a month ago, when it announced that it "no longer sanctions the term 'illegal immigrant' or the use of 'illegal' to describe a person," the AP's Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explained. She added that the AP had a policy of "labeling people, instead of behavior." Vargas and his friends lauded the decision. The New York Times stepped forward three weeks later, but they didn't go quite as far as the AP. Instead of striking the language from its style guide, The Times decided to discourage its use and asked its editors to "consider alternatives when appropriate to explain the specific circumstances of the person in question, or to focus on actions."

Now, The Los Angeles Times has raised the bar. Representing a city full of immigrants, the paper is almost challenging its competitors in the national news business to go all in on the issue. That goes not only for the AP and New York Times but also The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, America's largest paper in terms of distribution. Both of those newsrooms still support the use of "illegal immigrant."

The full memo to the newsroom:

Immigration is one of the most contentious and compelling subjects of our time. In our coverage, we aim to report with authority and balance — to be fair, nuanced and precise. We know that language matters and that our word choices must likewise be fair, nuanced and precise.

The Times adopted its current style on immigration-related language in 1995, recommending the use of "illegal immigrants" or "undocumented immigrants" in lieu of "illegal aliens." Those phrases have become highly politicized since then, prompting the Standards and Practices Committee to consider an update. The committee has been consulting with reporters and editors from across the newsroom since last fall, as well as meeting with advocates seeking an end to the media’s use of "illegal immigrant." After hearing strong arguments for and against the current Times style, we concluded that it was time for a new approach.

"Illegal immigrants" is overly broad and does not accurately apply in every situation. The alternative suggested by the 1995 guidelines, "undocumented immigrants," similarly falls short of our goal of precision. It is also untrue in many cases, as with immigrants who possess passports or other documentation but lack valid visas.

The Associated Press also reevaluated its usage of "illegal immigrant." It now proscribes that phrase, among other changes, in its approach to immigration-related language.

Our revised guidelines, which expand upon the language in AP's new listing for "illegal immigration," advocate taking a careful, case-by-case approach to all stories. We include examples of how to implement the new style.

       

The DOJ Is Putting a Stop to This Over-the-Counter Morning-After Pill Business

Reproductive rights groups will be disappointed to hear that the Justice Department is appealing a federal judge's recent ruling to make the morning-after pill available over-the-counter to all ages. According to the Associate Press, "The federal government says the judge who issued the ruling had exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while the appeal is underway." That means that the U.S. District Judge Edward Korman's bold decision to break rank from the last Obama administration and lift all age limits on all emergency contraceptives is now suspended until the appeal can be heard. However, this week's decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make the Plan B One-Step brand emergency contraception available to girls 16 and up remains unaffected.

[image error]"Disappointed" might not necessarily be the right word to describe how this news will affect those that support greater access to contraception. "Frustrated" works too, as does "annoyed." You see, this battle over age limits on the morning-after pill has been going on for years, and it has been frustrating to see the federal government contradict itself time and time again. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, turned her back on the FDA's finding in 2011 that the morning-after pill was safe and should be made available to all ages. Instead, she maintained that it should be available only to girls 17 and older. As The Times points out, "It was the first time a cabinet secretary had publicly overruled the FDA." 

This is obviously not just a question of public health, however. There are intensely divisive politics at play with anything related to contraception, and the morning-after pill is no exception, though science does play a role. At this point, the debate seems to be moving from the confusing part of the field to the annoying part, as it becomes apparent that the Obama administration and the FDA still can't seem to come to an agreement on the issue. Isn't it a little crazy is it that 15- and 16-year-old girls can buy one specific brand of morning-after pill over-the-counter but not the cheaper generics?

       

The New York Times Just Published a Slideshow on How to Be a Will.i.amsburg Hipster

Oh no. It's happening again. The New York Times is discovering that Brooklyn is a popular place, and it's running trend pieces about how hipsters love the Williamsburg neighborhood therein. But this latest edition is more trollish than the others. It's called "Will.i.amsburg," and it should be noted that the musician and one-time hologram Will.i.am is not even mentioned in the text of the story, to be published in Thursday's paper. That said, the trend in Williamsburg trend pieces is years-old and not really worth revisiting completely, though it's important to remember that the Grey Lady's pulled some sort of Williamsburg-related stunt every year for the past five years. In fact, the last one hit newsstands just six weeks ago! Obviously, there's more to be said about this little corner of creativity.

And creative is exactly how The Times went about it. Rather than a strict look-at-all-the-skinny-jeans story, the paper recruited longtime contributor and occasional humor writer for The New Yorker Henry Alford to do a sort of George Plimpton-style piece of participatory journalism, including a slideshow on "Becoming a Williamsburg Hipster" and a video filmed in front of a graffiti-covered wall. In other words, unlike its laughable predecessors, this one is supposed to be funny. And it is — probably not in the way that The Times intended it to be, though. The phrase "Dad jokes" goes a long way in describing the humor.

Anyways, you should give it a read. If you live in Brooklyn, you'll chuckle and cringe at the same time, but it's not so bad. If you can't muster the strength, these seven quotes pretty much say it all:

"When a scruffy, ponytailed salesman in his 20s approached, I told him: 'I'm going for a Mumford & Sons look. I want to look like I play the banjo.' " "While waiting at the cash register, I picked up a pair of argyle wool socks from a nearby wicker basket and asked, 'Are your socks local?' The salesman self-consciously said no." "I said, 'Well, it is sort of like having a small, hairy new pet in the home.' Rich counseled: Enjoy the 'stache. Honor the 'stache."

"To get the true Brooklyn experience, it became clear I needed to do some of my visits while riding young Brooklynites’ vehicle of choice, a fixed-gear bicycle. … I later happily switched to a nonfixie or, as I think of it, a swingy."

"It was, as the kids say, totally ridic." "Roberta's has the ugliest entrance of any restaurant I've ever seen, barbed wire leading to heavily graffitied concrete cinder blocks: gulag in da hood." "Today's twentysomethings are self-respecting, obvi."        

Newtown Relative Challenges Kelly Ayotte's Gun Vote

Families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting are making good on their promise to keep the issue of gun control alive even after the failure of new legislation in Congress. New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte, who was one of the key votes against the bill to expand back groundchecks, became the target of protesters yesterday as she went out in public to defend her position.

In an emotionally charged moment at a town hall in Warren, Ayotte took a question from Erica Lafferty, the daughter of Dawn Hochsprung, who was the principal of Sandy Hook and one of the first victims to be shot at killed at the school last December.

At Ayotte's townhalls, questions are drawn from a stack of cards where those who want to ask something put their name and the topic they want to talk about. In order to ensure she got picked, Lafferty said she wanted to talk about education, then explained her connection to education and gun violence. She asked Ayotte:

"You had mentioned that day the burden on owners of gun stores that the expanded background checks would harm. I am just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the halls of her elementary school isn't more important than that."

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Ayotte continued to defend her vote, saying that background checks were not part of the issue with the Newtown shooting, and turned to the issue of mental health, saying "I understand that's what drove this whole discussion -- all of us want to make sure that doesn't happen again." When the Senator was finished speaking, Lafferty angrily stormed out of the hall, saying "I had had enough."

To her credit, Ayotte was prepared for the deluge of gun-control protesters, opening her town hall presentations with a discussion of her vote on the background check bill. Ayotte won't be up for relection until 2016, but she's already being targeted by ads and protests aimed at punishing those legislators who voted against the bill. And Lafferty was not the only one to challenge her on Tuesday. Before she spoke, another man got up to complain about the question selection process, shouting that the town hall was better regulated than guns are. He was eventually shouted down by Ayotte's supporters. At another event later in the day, advocates from Michael Bloomberg's group "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" shouted and waved signs in protests.

       

Markey's Win Means Massachusetts Will Get a Soldier or a SEAL for Senator

On Tuesday evening, longtime congressman Ed Markey handily won the Democratic primary for a special election that'll decide who fills Secretary of State John Kerry's former Senate seat. The victory wasn't any more of a surprise than the lopsided campaign which saw Markey raise nearly three times as much money as his opponent, fellow House Democrat and former ironworker Rep. Stephen Lynch. Now, everybody's head turns toward June 25 and the special election itself. The chips are stacked in Markey's favor for that one, too.

Markey's opponent is a newcomer, Gabriel Gomez, a Republican businessman with a Harvard MBA and impressive military career to boot. Gomez, who also won his primary on Tuesday grew up the son of Colombian immigrants and joined the Navy, where eventually made it onto the elite SEAL squad. (Markey is a veteran himself, but the U.S. Army Reserve isn't exactly the caliber of commitment that SEAL training is.)

With a career in private equity under his belt, Gomez is trying to present himself as the Republican of the future, and just a glance at one of latest appearances shows that he's definitely leaning hard on his history of military service. Gomez also has some national GOP bigwigs at his back, too. "Gabriel Gomez is the kind of results-oriented leader who will bring a never say die attitude and spirit of service to the Senate on behalf of the Bay State," National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Jerry Moran said recently. Meanwhile, Markey's supporters are quick to point out that Gomez opposes an assault weapons ban and embodies that undesirable, job-crushing private equity type.

This is when these special elections get fun. Everybody's going to come out of the woodwork to prop up their favorite candidate, and what's so far been a very tame race could get a little bit saucy. With Democrats struggling to maintain their caucus edge of 45-55 in the Senate, every seat matters.

 

       

The Bloody Brawl Between Lawmakers Is a Bad Sign for Venezuela

The Venezuelan National Assembly is a little shaken up after a brutally violent brawl broke out between politicians on Tuesday night as the pro-government lawmakers sparred with the opposition — literally. It's unclear who started the fight, but based on the Associated Press's abbreviated coverage of the incident, assembly members loyal to newly elected Nicolas Maduro threw the punches. Perhaps because he was handpicked to be Hugo Chavez's successor, Maduro's election has left many Venezuelans unsatisfied. Those who supported Maduro's opponent, Henrique Capriles, say they have thousands of documented incidents from voters that prove the election was rigged due to everything from voter fraud to the media playing favorites. 

All this served as a troubling preamble to Tuesday night's fight. Apparently members of Maduro's coalition acted out when the opposition "tried to protest a proposal barring them from legislative activities." There was evidently a banner that read "Parliamentary Coup" involved in the protest. We haven't seen a video of the incident itself, but a television appearance by a bloodied Julio Borges, who's a member of the opposition, a few minutes after the incident suggests that it was no slap fight. "The blows we received today also land on every Venezuelan," he said, adding that the president of the National Assembly "embodies hatred, Fascism, does not recognize the expression of our people's April 14," the date of the recent, possibly rigged election.

If you've been following post-Chavez Venezuela, none of this news is very comforting. While Venezuela is no stranger to a little bit of violence between its lawmakers, the country is also in a fragile state after having lost its strong man nearly two months ago. The rhetoric's been getting nasty for weeks, but this move to violence suggests that political opponents aren't just failing to make progress in terms of building a functional government. They're moving backwards.

       

Those Who Lost Limbs in the Boston Bombing Will Get (Mostly) Free Prosthetics

The American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association (AOPA) told reporters on Tuesday afternoon that it would provide prosthetics to the estimated 20 to 25 victims of the Boston bombings who lost limbs. Because the bombs were placed on the ground, many of the victims will need new legs which cost between $8,000 and $12,000 for below-the-knee prosthetics and $40,000 to $60,000 for above-the-knee devices. That means that the total cost of the all the prosthetics could be as high as $1.5 million. "The last thing that someone should have to worry about when they lose ... a leg is to have adequate insurance coverage for a prosthetic device," said Kendra Calhoun, head of the Amputee Coalition.

And if the experiences of American military amputees is any guide, these victims might also get the most advanced prosthetics and physical therapy out there. Veterans have long been the recipients of innovative devices, and doctors have been perfecting the recovery process over the past few years. These advances are a bright side to the darkness of war but stand to change the lives of many. Since military surgeries have already influenced how the Boston victims were treated, it's not unreasonable to believe that the recovery process will be similarly filled with support..

It's a tremendously generous offer, but it's not enough. While the AOPA says it will cover the cost of the devices themselves, the actual cost of losing a limb is much higher that the price tag on the prosthetic. Some will be stuck with bills as high as half a million dollars. But the safety net cast by countless charities and fund-raising efforts around the country in the past couple of weeks is broad. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Tufts Health Plan and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care have already said that they won't charge any co-payments or out-of-pocket fees for those injured in the blasts, and one fund set up for victims, appropriately named the One Fund, has already raised over $27.7 million that will be paid out to victims.

This is all terrific news. The Boston Marathon bombings were awful unprovoked acts of violence, and innocent people shouldn't have to pay for the evil of others. That said, some are concerned that the media circus that's been swarming around the Boston bombings is stealing attention (and dollars) away from the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, which was in fact a deadlier tragedy. The Insurance Council estimates that the cost of property losses alone with top $100 million, while the medical bills for the 200 odd people injured will probably be comparable to those in Boston. The Texas victims have some help but not much. As the fund in Boston approaches $30 million, it looks like comparable efforts in Texas have collected well under $1 million so far.

       

Hezbollah's Thinking About Joining the Syrian Civil War

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, is running his mouth about Syria again, only this time the Assad ally sounds like he's actually getting ready to make a move. The leader gave a speech on Hezbollah's al-Manar TV channel Tuesday, throwing around big phrases like "dangerous retribution" and pulling Russia and Iran into the fold. "You will not be able to take Damascus by force and you will not be able to topple the regime militarily. This is a long battle," Nasrallah said in a speech directed at the Syrian opposition. "Syria has real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of America or Israel."

This could be a lot of hot air — and it's not even that hot — but if Hezbollah actually does intervene, things could get dicey. With its own long range missiles, Hezbollah is not kidding around, and with strong ties to Russia and Iran, there's a chance the Shiite Muslim group could stir what's become an increasingly volatile diplomatic situation in the region. Zeina Karam at the Associated Press explains:

Deeper and more overt Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian conflict is almost certain to threaten stability in Lebanon, which is sharply split along sectarian lines, and between supporters and opponents of Assad. It also risks drawing in Israel and Iran into a wider Middle East war.

Meanwhile, the United States has all but committed to intervening itself after multiple reports of the Assad regime using chemical weapons on its own people. The U.S. maintains a complicated relationship with Hezbollah which it very recently described as "a full-fledged terrorist organization, lavishly funded over the years by Iran." The U.S. does not like full-fledged terrorist organizations, especially if they're pals with Iran.

It's hard to predict the future, but based on Nasrallah's comments, it's clear that the situation in Syria's not going to get any simpler. In fact, Emile Hokayem, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, thinks it'll be quite the opposite. He told The Guardian, "Nasrallah just made sure Syria will get a lot worse."

       

Can Hulu and Yahoo Make You Love the 'House of Cards' of Comedy?

Even if Netflix doesn't have another hit any time soon, the continued success and addictive powers of House of Cards have cemented the company's position on the throne of original streaming drama. And Netflix has Arrested Development coming up next, but that's an already familiar product. Now, in the high-stakes race to commoditize the new couch potato, other online networks-in-the-making like Hulu, Yahoo, Amazon, and maybe even AOL are working overtime to become a potential new king of the online-only comedy series. Can Netflix keep you binging across both ends of the entertainment spectrum? Or is there a funny sleeper hit in the works from the Internet, where two-minute clips are true kings, and 22-minute series are usually, well, really bad?

Yahoo has already had a hit of sorts with Burning Love, a spoof of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette produced by Ben Stiller and featuring a veritable who's who of comedy names. Who stops by? Everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Michael Ian Black to most of the cast of Party Down, the beloved, little-watched and dearly departed Starz series. What Yahoo seems to be going for with their new original programming, announced this week, is the weird and (hopefully) wonderful. They've got Tiny Commando, about a four-inch private investigator, that according to the Hollywood Reporter capitalizes on creator Ed Helms' love of radio controlled cars. Another new Yahoo show is about Cheryl Hines and Rachael Harris being mean to a personal assistant. Lastly, in what could be Yahoo's best or worst effort, comes a series produced by documentarian Morgan Spurlock called Losing Your Virginity with John Stamos, in which celebrities tell Stamos about their first times. Per THR Stamos said: "We're going to do re-enactments (of celebrity first sexual experiences) with puppets, Barbies, animation." So, yeah. These Yahoo shows have established talent doing strange things that they couldn't possibly be doing on network television. 

That's partly what Hulu seems to be going for, too, at least with Seth Meyers's superhero animated series, The Awesomes, co-produced by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's Michael Shoemaker. It seems like a possibly funny cult hit, filled with a ton of familiar SNL voices. (Amazon is also trying their hand at the college-stoner-animated-series thing with Supanatural, an animated series about mall workers fighting supernatural forces that has been met with a decidedly mixed response.) 

But Hulu, which is airing U.S. premieres of overseas fare like Chris O'Dowd's Moone Boy, has something else intriguing in its new lineup, also unveiled this week: a series co-produced by the BBC starring James Corden, a star in the U.K. who made a splash on U.S. shores last year when he won the Tony for One Man, Two Guvnors. The series, about two guys caught up in a conspiracy, is called The Wrong Mans. It looks, at least from its teaser, to be well-produced and visually as well as topically interesting

Production value is a big factor with streaming originals, and it has been a problem. Amazon released all of their pilots online for free so that viewers could weigh in as to which go to series. Despite the big names behind them, some of the new pilots—including the musical we previously wrote about, Browsers—seemed to us almost, well, amateurish with clunky dialogue and no visual style. The network's Onion News Empire has that sheen of production value, but it's surprisingly not funny enough to help Amazon burst in on the comedy scene right now. The Garry Trudeau-scripted, John Goodman-starring senator sitcom Alpha House might have a better shot. But it's anyone's game, really. Netflix, meanwhile, has a "comedy-drama" on the way: Orange is the New Black, which was adapted from a memoir about a Smith College grad's time in prison. Doesn't exactly sound like a laugh riot. Our bet is on would-be cult hits with established names... as long as it's not too budget. Even Frank Underwood likes his fancy video games.