Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1079

How the Trial of the American Citizen in North Korea May End

An American citizen will be put on trial for crimes against the state in North Korea in what surely isn't a facade in the ongoing bargaining between North Korea and the U.S. and what will surely be a fair and balanced trial based on real facts. 

Kenneth Bae is by all accounts a 44-year-old Korean-American and devout Christian tour operator who was living in Dalian, China, a city close to the North Korean border. Or, he was until November 3, 2012 when he was arrested in Rajin for crimes that have yet to be explained. He's been accused of attempting to overthrow the government, but no one knows how or why. 

"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it," the state-operated Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday. "His crimes were proved by evidence," it said, without elaborating on the crimes or the evidence he allegedly provided. The report added he will soon "face judgment" in front of the North Korean Supreme Court. 

 

Bae is looking at an uncertain future in a North Korean prison camp if no one comes to his rescue before he's sentenced. "According to North Korean law, the punishment for hostile acts against the state is five to 10 years of hard labor,"     

No, Bradley Manning is Not the Next SF Pride Parade Grand Marshal

Bradley Manning will not be the Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade. His ability to participate in the festivities was never in question (he's in a military prison for the foreseeable future), but for a few hours today, word got around that he had been named the Grand Marshal of the June parade and that Daniel Ellsberg would serve in his place.

This did not go down well with some, who called it     

Bangladesh Factory Owners Arrested

Two owners of the Bangladesh garment factories that collapsed on Wednesday have been arrested, according to Bangladesh News 24 hours and the AFP.

Bazlus Samad and Mahmudur Rahaman Tapash were charged with "death due to negligence." The case against them seems pretty strong, too: the top three stories of the eight-story building were added illegally (a ninth story was under construction at the time of the collapse), and survivors have said that though they were ordered by police to evacuate the building the night before the collapse after cracks appeared in the walls, their bosses ordered them back in to work. 

Following a tremendous outcry and pressure to respond, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the arrests of the owners of the factories housed within the building as well as the owner of the building itself, Mohammed Sohel Rana. Rana has yet to be found, and Bangladesh News 24 hours reported that "several people who identified themselves as Rana's staff were seen moving goods from the house."

The night before the building collapse, Rana reportedly told workers that the building "would stand 'for another 100 years.'" It didn't even last another 100 hours. 

Here's how The Wall Street Journal described the horrific scene Rana left behind:

On Friday, limbs of victims protruded from the fallen masonry and volunteers sprayed scented air freshener around the site to obscure the stench of decomposed flesh. 

Survivors are still being pulled out of the rubble -- two of them having given birth while they were trapped. The AFP report put the current death toll at 324. It's estimated the final count will be much higher; hundreds of people are still missing.

 

       

The Ultimate Green Building Eats Smog

See full coverage

Beijing isn't the only city with a bad smog problem. Mexico City has a long and sad history with air pollution, too, though it's been trying for years to make things better. Here's the latest: a building that "eats" smog.

As this article from Bloomberg Businessweek details, a facade, created by a German company called "Elegant Establishments," was built on a local hospital. It's coated with a "special pigment" called "Prosolve 370e" that can breaks down air pollutants into elements such as carbon dioxide and water. And it's not a filter, either -- the pigment doesn't have to be "changed out." It can work its magic until it naturally wears off in about a decade.

It "eats" quite a bit, too. Elegant Establishments co-director Daniel Schwaag told Businessweek that "third party testing" showed that the facade can break down a day's worth of smog produced by the "8,750 vehicles in Mexico City." Could this smog-eating technology come to America soon? We could certainly use it.

       

Te'o is the New Tebow

The biggest story of last night's NFL draft wasn't who got picked in the first round, but who didn't. Specifically, Manti Te'o. Contrary to ESPN's expectations, he had to wait until the sixth pick of the second round to find his new professional football home with the San Diego Chargers.

ESPN, which has shown the NFL draft since the channel's very early days and basically created the spectacle that now comes part and parcel with draft day (seriously? Team caps in glass cases?), loves to create unassailable sports celebrities. Now that Tim Tebow is a flop, it needs a new football hero. And it's going with Manti Te'o. That means either ignoring or barely alluding to his character or athletic flaws, such as: 

His poor performance in his final college game His poor performance in the combine Oh yeah, that whole fake girlfriend thing that even my non-football-watching grandmother knows about (guess who got the first post-revelation interview with Te'o, by the way? Yes, that's right: ESPN)

Instead of focusing on any of that, ESPN's analysts (including Jon Gruden, who invited Te'o to his "QB Camp" series despite the fact that Te'o is not a quarterback) and commentators spent most of last night eagerly anticipating Te'o's draft, repeatedly promising that we were heading "into Te'o territory" as the night wore on. Aside from those bumper spots featuring Te'o lip-synching "How You Like Me Now?" that ESPN played several times, we were not in Te'o territory. Several linemen were drafted before him, and even the Minnesota Vikings, who were seen as one of the most likely teams to pick Te'o and had three first-round picks, didn't take him. 

He finally went to San Diego tonight, so be sure to listen for his name during any and all mentions of the Chargers in the foreseeable future until he, like the Tebow before him, is voted the most overrated player by his fellow players and ESPN moves on to its next pretty young thing.

 

       

Johnny Depp Mustn't Sing Again

There's a rumor, a terrible rumor, afoot that Johnny Depp, onetime actor turned living cartoon, will be appearing in director Rob Marshall's upcoming movie adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. Playing who, well, we don't know that, but no matter what role he's in, this is a bad idea. Because the presence of Johnny Depp likely means we're going to be getting something silly. And while Into the Woods is funny, it is not Johnny Depp funny. Like it's not weird makeup steampunk Tim Burtonized funny. It just indicates that Marshall might be taking this movie in the wrong direction — I mean, these days Johnny Depp also means lots of special effects. Which... no. I know that Depp did a good enough job in the actually not terrible Sweeney Todd, but that does not mean that he should be given another musical. I mean, what does Sondheim think of this? I'm sure he's OK with Meryl Streep as the witch (oh, yeah, that's supposedly happening, too) but I wonder how this news makes Sondheim feel. Maybe he thinks it's great. Who knows. I just know that I don't like it. Not one bit! Don't do this, Marshall. Into the Woods is the best and does not deserve to be ruiend by some dopey movie. Rethink all of this, please. [The Hollywood Reporter]

NBC has renewed a bunch of shows, because what were they gonna do? They need shows. So, Revolution gets a season two, as does Fire Hunks. Plus more SVU (yay!) and Grimm (eh) and Parenthood (I'm sure many will be evangelically happy about that). So, good for those shows! This doesn't mean that NBC isn't a barren hellscape of despair and misery, but at least a few shows get to keep the lights on for now. [Deadline]

Meanwhile over at The CW, they've renewed the first-season show Beauty and the Beast as well as Hart of Dixie, a show that has managed to chug along respectably despite the odd fact that not a single person in the world has ever seen an episode of it. Nope, not a single one. Strange, huh? The world is weird! The other big CW news is that they've ordered the Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals to series. So Klaus and all them are headed to New Orleans, where more vampire-y things will happen. Like Angel before it, basically. I'm sure the worlds will collide on occasion and there will be crossovers, but for the most part it means that Klaus is gone from the land of Vampire Diaries. So, say goodbye. Goodbye, Klaus! Goodbye. Be well. It was nice knowing you. [Entertainment Weekly]

Kristen Wiig is going to host the May 11 episode of Saturday Night Live a little less than a year after leaving the show. That's pretty quick turnaround time! Usually I fee like it takes a couple years, but I guess she made it big pretty quick so it's justified. That should be fun! I mean, it'll be a night of seeing all the old characters like little hands lady and the excited lady and stuff, but that's fine. Those are fun. Yay. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Here is a new trailer for Red 2: Even Older. They're even older, plus Sir Anthony Hopkins and Dame Catherine Zeta-Jones are in on the game this time. The first Red was great! So maybe this one will be, too? You know, how sequels that just add a bunch of new stars are always great? Excellent.

       

Glenn Beck Glad He Escaped Fox News Before He Got 'Too Enamored'

In the Fox News and Glenn Beck breakup, it was not crystal clear who the dumper and dumpee were. In most breakups where the couple shares a social circle, neither party wants a reputation as the dumpee. Beck says he's the one who wanted to leave — because the network was so depressing so amazing.* And in fact, Beck "I remember feeling, 'If you do not leave now, you won’t leave with your soul intact,'" Beck said Friday, according to Forbes' Jeff Bercovici. Roger Ailes tried to talk him out of it. "Roger said to me, 'You're not going to leave.' And I said, 'I am.' And he said, 'Nobody does,' meaning leave television." But Beck sure showed him. 

In classic breakups, injured parties declare they never even liked their ex- that much to begin with. But Beck said on Friday he felt he had to leave before he got stuck. "I said, 'I’m fortunate because I haven’t been in it that long.' I knew what this big, huge Fox empire brought to the table, and I had to leave before I became too enamored of that." The appeals of staying were immediate when he moved to Fox from CNN, where his office looked out over the open area where lesser news drones toiled away at their desks. "I used to call it the Pit of Despair," Beck said, "because there are all these people plunking out stories like, 'I just want to hang myself, I just want to hang myself.' The radio host was accepting a Disruptive Innovation Award from the Tribeca Film Festival. 

In May 2011, New York's Gabriel Sherman reported that two months earlier, Ailes was trying to figure out "how to stage-manage Beck's departure from Fox," given that talks were "simultaneously a negotiation and a therapy session." Beck had said he didn't want to do cable news. Ailes wanted him to give up his show, but do six specials. Glenn's advisers wanted him to do four. "I’m just going to fire him and issue a press release," Ailes grumbled to a Fox executive.

Ailes himself appears to have tried to influence the official history of the Beck-Fox breakup. In September 2011, The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz reported that Ailes had intentionally led a "course correction" that moderated Fox's tone. Beck, Ailes said, "became a bit of a branding issue for us."

*Correction: Because of an error in the Forbes report on Beck's speech, this story originally misidentified which cable news network newsroom he described as a "Pit of Despair" in his speech. It was CNN not Fox News.

       

Did a Piece of a 9/11 Plane Just Turn Up in an Alley Near Ground Zero?

The New York Police Department set up one of the more eerie crime scenes at that most horrific of American crime scenes on Friday afternoon: They were clearing off an area of Lower Manhattan to inspect a piece of debris that might belong to one of the two Boeing jets flow in to the World Trade Center eleven and a half years ago.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner positively ID'd the chunk as from an airplane: "The aircraft part will not be removed until the process is completed, at which point it will secured by the NYPD Property Clerk," he said in a statement, adding that the area may also contain human remains but that surveyors of the scene had contacted authorities when they spotted what may be part of the landing gear a "clearly visible Boeing identification number" in the debris. That debris was found between two buildings: 50 Murray Street and 51 Park Place — the latter of which you may remember as the potential site of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."

Citing two law enforcement sources, NBC New York first reported the news, describing the plane debris:

A 5-foot piece of debris found near the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan is being examined as a possible fragment of a plane that hit one of the towers more than 11 years ago, NBC 4 New York has learned. Two law enforcement sources told NBC 4 New York on Friday that the part was found wedged between two buildings in a very narrow alley. It bears a "Boeing" stamp, followed by a series of numbers. 

CNBC's Ryan Ruggiero later published photos of the object, via the NYPD press office, and said it appeared to belong to a plane's landing mechanism. You can see how tight the fit is, which is no surprise given the density of buildings     

Since When Is Anyone Being Nice About the (Alleged) Boston Bombers?

You might have watched the first riveting week of the Boston bombing news coverage and thought people needed to calm down a little bit. The entire city of Boston was shut down as 9,000 law enforcement officers hunted for a teenage terror suspect. Police got in a firefight with the teenager, who turned out to be unarmed while sitting in a boat. Twitter acted as an emotion amplifier. Adults tweeted photos of Mr. Rogers. "There is no 'there' anymore. All the world and all history are here, on the streets of Boston," Huffington Post reporter Howard Fineman tweeted. There was the suggestion the bombing was scarier than 9/11. It seemed like maybe we needed to take a deep breath, show a little restraint. But now, after a second week with few public answers and a brand-new federal prosecution, it turns out we've been too restrained, apparently.

"I think there has been maybe too much sensitivity on this question of Islamic jihad," CNN's Howard Kurtz said Friday, speaking of the few hours it took from the moment police released the Tsarneavs' names for reporters to track their Internet and ethnic history and form a thesis of why they did it. But, just a few minutes later, Kurtz said, "I have the sense now that, 90 percent [of the coverage] has been profiles and psychoanalysis of the Tsarnaev brothers, taking the spotlight away from where it should be — the people who were killed." Would the ideal coverage be to immediately assume the Tsarnaevs were motivated by Islamic extremism and then immediately stop looking for any more information about them? There is something weird about wanting to end inquiry into why they acted — federal investigators are certainly trying to find out. But Rush Limbaugh sees media bias in even posting photos of Dzhokhar, because he is too cute. An attempt to figure out their motives, Limbaugh says, is an attempt to define deviancy down, to normalize terrorism.

At Bloomberg View, Stephen L. Carter, a Yale law professor, takes issue with the major newspapers' description of Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a "suspect." He's dead, so we don't have to worry about tainting the jury pool by presuming his guilt, Carter says. (Dzhokhar is alive, so "suspect" is OK for him.) But it's not just that it's not legally necessary, he writes. "Perhaps the message isn’t that we should preserve the question of guilt for trial, but rather that we should never rush to judgment on anyone, about anything," he says.

What a bunch of hippie free-to-be-you-and-me types! While Tamerlan is dead, Dzhokhar is not. Accepting as established fact that Tamerlan is guilty says an awful lot about his alleged accomplice. If you want something more direct, there are plenty of places to find it: "There are times, like with Little Brother Bomber, when the death penalty needs an express lane," The National Review's Jim Geraghty tweeted, for example. In the ultimate assessment of his guilt, maybe a little restraint is OK, even if it's temporary, in only a few newspapers, and just a formality.

CLICK HERE FOR THE WIRE'S FULL COVERAGE OF THE BOSTON MARATHON

       

George W. Bush's Life Is an Apple Commercial

[image error]We all know George W. Bush likes to paint. In early February, a pseudonymous hacker named Guccifer published photos of Bush's paintings — including two self-portraits — and they kept coming, and even the art critics kind of liked them. And then the Bush reunion tour around the dedication of his library this week forced the 43rd president to speak out about his hobby: "People are surprised," he told the Dallas Morning News. "Of course, some people are surprised I can even read." On Tuesday Bush told Diane Sawyer that "painting has changed my life in an unbelievably positive way." And then came Friday, when his wife revealed a totally new perspective on Bush's post-presidential life: He learned to draw and paint an an iPad app. (Our guess is Brushes, the same app used by Jorge Colombo for his series of New Yorker covers.) Long portrayed as technologically aloof in a proto-iPhone presidency, Bush now appears to be fully in thrall to consumer technology, leveraging the iPad not to check email but to ... express himself. Sure, his art might have leaked in the first place because he was still using an AOL email account, but Bush provides unlikely — if inconclusive — proof for all of those well-lit Apple commercials about using an iPad to, say, compose a full-length instrumental song.

Drawing was not Bush's first pursuit on the iPad. His wife told Yahoo News in 2010 that, besides reading The Wall Street Journal, her husband "constantly" played Scrabble on the device, often to the point of distraction. Nor is the iPad a foreign entity among figures of Bush's stature. In October 2012 Vanity Fair noted that President Obama used his iPad to read newspapers, and a Politico eBook that appeared in the same month reported that Obama became attached at the hip to his iPad during the 2012 presidential campaign, using it to stay apprised of negative stories about the Obama campaign. Obama, a BlackBerry holdout, even liked showing it off:

[image error]

(Photo by Pete Souza/White House)

Mitt Romney had a more conflicted relationship with the iPad. A month prior, in September 2012, The Washington Post revealed that Romney repeatedly refused to downloads any apps that cost money:

The candidate has thoroughly incorporated the modern instantaneous connectivity of his iPad into his now-frenetic life, but he downloads only free applications, friends say. He is so rigid about this that he continued to revise his speeches through a cumbersome process of text changes in e-mails, complaining all the while — but refusing to buy Apple’s Pages word-processing program because it costs $9.99. Finally, a senior staffer told an aide to buy it and download it onto Romney’s iPad when he wasn’t around.

So Bush certainly has company. But where Obama and Romney treated their iPads as tools of consumption or productivity, Bush employs his as a source of entertainment and expression. To some degree, this makes sense: Bush has a lot of free time; Obama does not. Still, politics doesn't tend to attract creative, expressive souls. (For proof: take a glance at Washington, D.C.'s architecture.) Bush's leaked paintings were far surprising less for their content, or their sudden exposure, than for the fact that they existed at all — even if they are kinda good.

It's going to take some time getting used to Bush's unearthed creativity. For now, Bush seems to be a good sport about his sudden artistic fame: