Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1083

Women Mistaken for Chris Dorner (and Shot at by LAPD) Will Get $4.2 Million

Margie Carranza, 47, and her 71-year-old mother, Emma Hernandez, had more than 100 rounds of bullets pumped into their blue pickup truck on the morning of February 7 because seven LAPD officers thought they were Christopher Dorner—despite the fact that their truck was a completely different model and color than the one cops were instructed to look for. That's why they're getting four times the already and still controversial reward total for Christopher Dorner and walking away with $4.2 million of their own. "The deal is relatively a very simple, very clean deal. It's a win-win for both parties," L.A. city attorney Carmen Trutanich told NBC Los Angeles, confirming the settlement amount, which Carranza and Hernandez can split any way they want. "It closes this chapter in Los Angeles and LAPD history on all issues," Trutanich added. 

That chapter was embarrassing. In the hunt for Dorner, the ex-cop whose vengeance and escape from much of a state's law enforcement powers led him to kill four people, police had told Southern California residents to be on the lookout for a charcoal Nissan Titan pickup truck. Carranza and Emma, who were delivering newspapers early in the Torrance that Thursday—in their blue Toyota Tacoma—were shot at with at least 100 rounds of ammo, USA Today's Michael Winter reports. It was an embarrassing vehicular mixup in a wild chase, but these two women were also (clearly) not an African American male. And 100 bullets? The 71-year-old Hernandez was shot twice in the back, while Carranza was injured by broken glass, NBC LA reports. 

The two women also weren't the only ones mistakenly shot at by police. Torrance police fired upon a black pickup truck driven by a man named David Perdue later that morning. His undisclosed settlement was reached this weekend, reports Long Beach's Press Telegram, which also notes that Trutanich, the city attorney, said that if Perdue's case went to trial, Los Angeles could have been facing damages of up to $15 million. 

Still unresolved is that approximately $1 million reward for actually finding Dorner, not being mistaken for him. And there remain those competing calls for the reward money offered up by officials from multiple cities in Southern California: "Two claims have been made: one by a couple who were held hostage by Dorner, the other by a man whose pickup Dorner stole at gunpoint," USA Today reported. But recently, according to The Los Angeles Times, major donors have been dropping out, claiming that since Dorner died, no one was entitled to the money—which, well, that's a bit problematic since there's really not much incentive for anyone to give important tips if there's a cost-cutting incentive working against them ... and, well, it's not exactly a good sign for the LAPD to come across as duplicitous for offering more money for violent mistakes than for finding the violent man half a state was looking for. Because, you know, the duplicity of the LAPD is what made Chris Dorner so upset in the first place.

       

The Ricin Story Is Somehow Getting Even Weirder

The investigation into the mailing of poisonous letters has turned from an Elvis impersonator to his taekwondo-teaching "bluesman" rival, and turned the entire case into a tangled mess of ridiculousness. Yesterday, federal prosecutors dropped all charges against Paul Kevin Curtis, the man who was originally suspected of sending letters laced with ricin to several political figures, including the President. After his release, the professional Elvis impersonator suggested that he might have been set up by an old friend—a man with backstory even more odd than his.

FBI agents have also spoken to and searched the house of J. Everrett Dutschke, a fellow Mississippian who appears to have feuded with Curtis in the past, and is now also embroiled in the investigation. Hunter Walker at TalkingPointMemo tried to piece together Dutschke's history, but came up with more questions than answers. His unusual biography includes:

Running a taekwondo studio in his hometown of Tupelo (which is also Elvis's hometown, of course.) Fronting a band called "Dusty and the Robodrum," a loop-rock band with "tons of lasers." Recording a "loud, heavy, powerful and steamy" album with guest drums from a member of Pearl Jam Selling insurance as "the insurance warrior" Half-heartedly campaigning for a seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives (and losing.)

While the circumstantial evidence against Curtis seemed suspicious, there's some less amusing details pointing suspicion on Dutshcke as well. A Mississippi state judge who also received a ricin letter is the mother of the State Representative who beat him in that 2007 campaign. Dutschke was also arrested in January on a charge of child molestation and is currently out on a $1 million bond.

Dutschke's behavior in that election was pretty bizarre, as well. His opponent claims his strategy was 100 percent negative attacks and his one online "ad" that's still on YouTube features a unidentified out-of-breath kid handing him Rubik's Cube, which he "solves" to prove he's a problem solver. Get it? (Anyone with even a marginal understanding of magical misdirection will also notice that Dutschke switches Cubes before pulling off the trick.)

No new charges or arrests have been made since Curtis was released, and the only thing that seems remotely authentic is that he and Dutschke don't like each other and are each accusing the other of being the real culprit. Dutschke told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, "I guess Kevin got desperate. I feel like he’s getting away with the perfect crime." At this point, it's doubtful that either one is capable of pulling of a sophisticated biological weapon attack, but they've certainly given investigators plenty to keep them occupied.

       

Good Timing: Twitter Will Soon Release a Two-Step Security Solution

Some Twitter employee — probably several employees, actually — had a pretty rough day on Tuesday, after a hack led to the AP sending a fake tweet to its 2 million followers. If only the hacker had waited, Twitter could've stopped them! Minutes before appearing on the Rachel Maddow Show to talk about the hack Wired's Mat Honan reported, "Twitter has a working two-step security solution undergoing internal testing before incrementally rolling it out to users, something it hopes to begin doing shortly." It is not quite the edit button Honan had asked for in a piece published not long after the AP incident, but it's a big step forward for Twitter security. (Plus, as The Atlantic Wire's Rebecca Greenfield reports, an edit button would never work.)

Twitter security breaches, we've all learned, can be problematic. The AP hack on Tuesday reported to the world that the White House had been bombed and President Obama injured. It only took a few seconds to discredit the report, but that time frame was long enough to send the Dow plummeting. And then of course, seemingly everybody with access to the Internet had to write a blog post about how dangerous Twitter's its shaky security is. 

This is not a new problem. Nearly two years ago, we pointed out how Twitter was content to remain hands off in hacking incidents, even those at news organizations that stand tos end fear into the hearts of millions of followers. After hacked NBC News account with hundreds of thousands of followers reported a terrorist attack in downtown Manhattan, Twitter declined to comment on the situation and directed disgruntled users to an FAQ about keeping your account safe. However, it now seems apparent that Twitter's own tools aren't enough to keep accounts safe, so Twitter's finally doing something.

Of course, it'll be a little while before the feature rolls out to regular users. In the meantime, you have to applaud both Honan and Twitter for the timing of the update. Even though it's journalism and the two-step verification has been in the works for a long time, it feels like good customer service to hear that Twitter's taking action so soon after the AP boondoggle.

       

French Embassy Is Attacked In Libya

In the biggest terrorist attack in Libya since the assault on the U.S. compound in Benghazi last September, a car bomb exploded outside the French embassy in Tripoli, wounding two French guards. No groups have claimed responsibility, but it could be retaliation for France's military mission against extremists in Mali, which the parliament in Paris voted to extend on Monday. 

According The New York Times, Tuesday's attack would be the biggest assault on a diplomatic compound in Tripoli since the revolution against Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. That the French government was the target is even more upsetting, given that France led the international effort to intervene on behalf of the rebels during that war. They were the first country to recognize the Libyan rebels as a legtimate government and their warplanes were the first to enter the battle against Qaddafi forces.

However, their decision to make a similar intervention in Mali, to defend that nation's fragile government against Islamic extremists has made them a target again, forcing the country to beef up security at French outposts around the globe. It's also shined the spotlight on Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is believed to be at least partly responsible for the attack on an Algerian gas plant in January that killed 38 people.

#France helping #Libya was the single most correct foreign policy taken in years by my other country. I was kind of proud. Now I'm just sad.

— Hayat Libya (@LIBYA_WIN) April 23, 2013

France cares first&foremost abt its interests.Still, it was the first cntry to fire a shot to save Libyan lives. Emb bombing a disgrace.

— BSyria (@BSyria) April 23, 2013

       

Tsarnaev Says They Got No Outside Help, Brother Was 'Driving Force' In Attacks

Despite speaking only one word during his initial hospital hearing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is still saying a lot to investigators about his role in the Boston Marathon bombing. According to government sources who have revealed details of the interviews to CNN's Jake Tapper, Tsarnaev has reportedly pointed the finger at his brother as the "driving force" of the plot, who was determined to "defend Islam from attack." He also told investigators that the pair received no outside assistance from any international terrorist groups, and government officials say the that the brothers fit the profile of "self-radicalized" terrorists who were not recruited or supported by any other known groups.

Tsarnaev's claims have not been fully verified and the investigators will continue to look at the possibility that others were involved. But it is worth nothing that the answers to these important questions are being provided even after Tsarnaev was read his Miranda rights. If they turn out to be true, that could put to rest both the idea that Tsaranev could qualify as an "enemy combatant" or that treating him as such would have been the only way to gather valuable information. Tsarnaev has been communicating to the special "high value target" interrogators through a combination of writing, nods, and the occasional spoken word. He remains in the hospital with several serious injuries.

In other news from Boston, parts of Boylston Street are expected to reopen today after more than a week as an active crime scene. Business owners and residents will slowly be allowed to return to their buildings on Tuesday, though the street will remain closed to car traffic for now. The city has published a comprehensive plan to slowly re-open the area, including information on what time residents can return, on its website.

       

The Exploding Fertilizer Plant in Texas Hadn't Had a Full Inspection in Three Decades

While the country's remained fixated on the aftermath of the Boston bombing, a deeply disconcerting set of details about last week's fertilizer plant explosion in Texas has been largely overlooked. Being overlooked is a familiar state of affairs for the the West Fertilizer Plant, however. Federal authorities have been overlooking the site of one of America's largest industrial accidents in recent memory for decades. Not months, not years but decades. According to the Huffington Post, the last time  "the last time regulators performed a full safety inspection of the facility was nearly 28 years ago."

Oh dear that's bad. Three decades is a long time to avoid doing anything — much less anything involving massive amounts of explosive material. There were some partial inspections done, but the number of red flags in the air around that plant are starting to obscure the blue sky. There are so many! 

Take, for example, the quantity of ammonium nitrate at the plant. Ammonium nitrate, of course, is the material that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh used in his 1995 attack that killed 168 people. The West Fertilizer Plant had 135 times the amount of ammonium nitrate as McVeigh used — 270 tons to be precise. That sounds excessive, and according to the Department of Homeland Security, it is. In fact, Reuters reports, the plant was storing "been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security." 

Lawmakers are starting to get pretty upset by the state of affairs. Whereas the Boston bombing was an unspeakable tragedy, an apparent random act of violence, the West Fertilizer Plant explosion was an accident that might've been prevented by simply adhering to safety procedures already in place. "It seems this manufacturer was willfully off the grid," Rep. Bennie Thompson, the ranking Republican member of the House Committee on Homeland Security (DHS), said on Monday. "This facility was known to have chemicals well above the threshold amount to be regulated under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act, yet we understand that DHS did not even know the plant existed until it blew up."

File that last line under things we never want to hear a congressman say again. The whole point of the DHS is to catch things before they blow up. While it will take a while before we realize who failed to catch the Boston bombers before they acted, it's immediately apparent that government failed to enforce long-established safety measures. And half a town is now gone as a result.

       

The Brothers Tsranaev Left Warning Signs of 'Radical' Islam — and Guilt

Though a suspect is in custody and charges have been filed, authorities haven't nailed down the motive in the Boston bombings, but they're pretty sure the attack was motivated by religion, specifically "a radical brand of Islam." On Monday night, multiple reports and government documents combined to shed new light on the investigation into Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's alleged roles in last week's terrorist attack. The new information doesn't make either brother looks less guilty — or suggest that much could have been done to stop them.

First, there's Dzhokhar and his extraordinary bedside hearing. During the questioning at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, the 19-year-old managed to tell his side of the story with just two nods and a single word. He also wrote on a pad, but authorities haven't made those statements public yet. We do know that Dzhokhar nodded once to indicate that he could answer some questions and again to acknowledge his Miranda rights. Dzhokhar later said just one word during the hearing: "No," to indicate that he could not afford an attorney, despite the fact that his mother earlier indicated that one of his uncles, "a big oil lawyer," was helping with the legal side of things.

The most incriminating statement may not have come from Dzhokhar's hospital bed, however. It may have arrived during Thursday's night of mayhem. According to the victim of the carjacking, one of the brothers tapped on the victim's window and reached in to open the door when the car's driver rolled it down. "The man pointed a firearm at the victim and stated, 'Did you hear abut the Boston explosion?' and 'I did that,'" the criminal complaint explains. "The man removed the magazine from his gun and showed the victim that it had a bullet in it, and then reinserted the magazine. The man then stated 'I am serious.'" (In an interview Monday with NBC News, the unnamed carjacking victim called the brothers "brutal and cautious.")

So the brothers knew what they were doing to a certain extent. And the narrative of Dzhokhar's alleged role in the attack and aftermath will play out when he's on trial in the coming days and weeks. His next court date is set for May 30, when we'll probably learn more about an as yet unreleased surveillance video in which he slips off his backpack — and footage, described in an FBI affidavit released with the charges, in which "[v]irtually every head turns to the east (toward the finish line) and stares in that direction in apparent bewilderment and alarm. Bomber Two, virtually alone among the individuals in front of the restaurant, appears calm. He glances to the east and then calmly but rapidly begins moving west, away from the direction of the finish line."

More challenging, however, is the quest to better understand Dzhokhar's late older brother Tamerlan and his recent history of religious fervor and even violence. A separate AP report offers some insight. Tamerlan was religious, apparently more religious than his little brother — or at least, he was more vocal about his beliefs. The leader of a Cambridge mosque, where the two sometimes went to services, revealed that Tamerlan had caused multiple disruptions during service. In one incident that took place last January, the 26-year-old brother stood up in the middle of a sermon about Martin Luther King Jr. and called the preacher a "non-believer" and "hypocrite" who was "contaminating people's minds." This outburst led to Tamerlan's being heckled out of his local mosque as recently as January.

It's seems increasingly apparent, as the "million questions" begin to get answers, that if the Tsarnaev brothers were indeed behind the attack, then Tamerlan may have been the ringleader. The mosque outbursts weren't the only warning sign either. Russian security services flagged the elder Tsarnaev two years ago after he attended services at a radical mosque in Dagestan. The same mosque has seen a number of terrorists pass through its doors, including those behind a 2002 explosion in Kaspiysk that killed 44 people. It is perhaps because of this link that Tamerlan's name, however misspelled, found its way onto an FBI watchlist. Tamerlan's dark history, the media has learned, also includes allegations of domestic abuse and a possible connection to a triple murder. The most obvious warning sign of all — the 2011 request from the Russian government, telling the FBI that Tamerlan "was a follower of radical Islam" — couldn't even legally lend itself to followup. As The New York Times reported Monday night, "a limited investigation" is all that warning sign could foster.

You see, warning signs are tricky things. Despite the fact that the brothers' mother says her elder son had been in contact with the FBI for years — among those other warning signs — even Tamerlan's wife still couldn't believe that her husband was involved in the Boston bombings. "She couldn't believe it," the lawyer for Katherine Russell says. "She was in complete shock." Same goes for his ex-girlfriend, the one involved in a 2009 domestic abuse complaint against Tamerlan: "He was a little tough guy, but I thought that was it," Nadine Ascencao told The Wall Street Journal Monday evening. "In high school, everybody acts like that. Like a bully guy, you know? Now it's just shocking for me.”

       

Despite Years of Protest, an Internet Sales Tax Suddenly Seems Imminent

An overwhelming majority of Senators just voted to cut the debate short and get a final vote on a controversial bill that will impose sales tax on purchases made on the Internet. Though support to move the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act forward jumped from less than 60 senators to 74 who voted to limit debate on Monday, the pro-Internet crew has a tough row to hoe. But based on the industry Goliaths at their back, companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon, and the recent change of heart by so many lawmakers, the bill looks like it stands a pretty good chance of making it to the president's desk. It helps that the Obama administration announced not long before the vote on Monday that it supports the curent version of the bill.

But just because the bill suddenly has a lot of support from very powerful people, doesn't mean it's without opposition. Opponents of the bill have been around for years — though some, like Amazon, have switched sides over time. The resilient opponets include everyone from eBay, the Internet auction giant that's been mobilizing its millions of users against the bill, to Grover Norquists Americans for Tax Reform, a powerful anti-tax lobby with obvious libertarian leanings. After Monday's change of heart in the Senate, those groups turned their gaze to the House, where there's still some hope if not to stop the bill than to amend it so that's not so sweeping. 

The bill isn't really all that sweeping in its current form, though. There are some failsafes to protect small business, like a rule that only requires an online retailer to collect tax if they bring in less than $1 million in revenue. (The Marketplace Fairness Act, meanwhile, would bring an estimated $22 billion to $24 billion in new tax revenue.) These are the same business, the White House says, will benefit most from the bill since it "will level the playing field for local small business retailers who are undercut every day by out-of-state on-line companies." The National Governors Association, who favors the bill, similarly said that the current structure is favoring online retails and, as a result, "shuttering stores and undermining state budgets."

Opponents beg to differ, but some are willing to meet half way. During the Senate's abbreviated debate on the bill, there are plans to introduce a three-word amendment that would limit the bill's reach to Internet sellers "in participating states." So if New Hampshire, the "Live Free or Die" state, doesn't want to impose a new tax, it doesn't have to. Regardless of what happens in the interim, the gist of this bill feels imminent. Jordan Weissman at The Atlantic calls it "common sense," and apparently, a growing group of lawmakers agree.

       

Comparing Dzhokhar Sympathizers to Beliebers Is Tempting However Terrible

Now, over a week after the attack, the discussion about the two young brothers allegedly responsible for planting bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line is taking some pretty weird turns. You can follow the conversation around those weird turns with a simple Twitter search for the hashtag #FreeJahar, where tweets of support for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger brother who's still alive, are flowing in at an alarming rate — about one tweet every ten seconds to be exact. The hashtag is home to the types of conspiracy theorists you're used to hearing about at Infowars (including more than a new links to the site itself) as well as more run-of-the-mill skeptics, those who're confused by media coverage and eager to see the case play out in court.

There is also a group that appears to be mostly made up of teenage girls, who are tweeting about their misplaced affection for the 19-year-old. The Verge's Aaron Souppouris likens them to the teen girls that declared their love for the two teens behind the Columbine massacre and, more recently, the pack of people who fell in love with Aurora shooter James Holmes. Those groups aren't too different, Souppouris insinuates, than the rabid pack of Justin Bieber fans known as the Beliebers. The idea is that there's a long tradition of fetishizing famous, unattainable young men — regardless of whether they're famous and unattainable for normal reasons, like an attractive pop star named Justin, or terrible reasons, like a suspected terrorist named Dzhokhar.

Half-thinking The Verge was stretching for an angle, we skimmed through a few hundred tweets ourselves. It only took a couple dozen before we found a hardcore Belieber who's learning to become a hardcore, erm, Dzhokharnesser. (Made that name up.) Behold:

Is it weird that idek him but I'm like madly in love and obsessed with him. His twitter just gives me a good impression of him. #freejahar

— Belieber† (@bieberlake_) April 22, 2013

Yes, it is weird. Does anybody else feel this way? Oh no, they do:

he's cute though i can't be the only one who thinks this twitter.com/sxcharry/statu…

— jen (@sxcharry) April 22, 2013

They even sound the same:

I can't be the only one who finds the suspected bomber to be sexy, can I?

— Lilly The Legend ♌ (@LillyTheLegend) April 19, 2013

This is disconcerting. When you step back and really think about it, though, it's not that surprising. Again, teens developing unnerving obsessions with inaccessible celebrities is kind of a thing, and yes, sometimes those celebrities are murderers. That doesn't mean it's okay. 

However, sympathy for Dzhokhar extends well beyond the confines of teenage girls with crushes. Basically everyone (except the haters) tweeting with the #FreeJahar hashtag are basically hungry for more information about the young suspect. Some think there's a conspiracy behind it all, that Dzhokhar just doesn't make sense for a kid and his brother to commit such a horrible act of violence. (Sidenote: While it's strange that people described Dzhokhar as "sweet guy," a "lovely kid" and a "wonderful kid," we've seen this surprised reaction from many people who knew mass killers before they killed.) Others just want answers, hopefully provided not by the media but by the American justice system. It's only been a week since the attack, and what a confusing week it's been!

Answers are on their way, though. On Monday, Dzhokhar participated in a bedside court hearing during which we learned a few new details about the federal investigation and the authorities' side of the story. Dzhokhar said just one word — "No" — in response to a question about whether he could afford an attorney. (Read the transcript in full below.) It's becoming increasingly clear that the instant answers some people are used to finding on Twitter will take a little more time than the medium allows. The media will probably get a few more things wrong along the day but so will the police and so will the prosecution and so will the defense and so will the conspiracy theorists. 

It's a bad idea to rush into judgments about this chaos and the players involved right now, though. All signs point to Dzhokhar being a once nice kid that turned into a deadly terrorist, and we may  never know exactly why that happened. Meanwhile, it's tempting to gawk at his admirers. It's a little unfair to Beliebers to suggest each group is cut from the same cloth. Justin Bieber's done some weird things — really weird things — but we're pretty sure he's never been accused of terrorism.

 

Transcript: Bedside court hearing for Boston bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by newsday

       

Only Michael Bay Can Stop the Michael Baymageddon

For some reason — probably to get attention to the new Michael Bay movie — Michael Bay has been on an apology tour of late, and for some of the best work of a previously unabashed blockbuster film career spanning nearly two decades. Which is strange, because liking Michael Bay's movies earnestly has become a thing people are allowed to do these days... and without shame. You no longer have to hide your head in the sand for liking movies like Armageddon. But apparently Michael Bay does.

For almost all of many teenage and adult lives, liking Michael Bay has been something of a taboo. Michael Bay movies are quickly cut and action packed and the dialogue is never great. They all have a very distinct car commercial style. (Or have car commercials adopted Michael Bay's style? It's hard to tell. Michael Bay started in commercials.) Anyway, talking about how much you liked a Michael Bay movie wasn't something you did if you wanted to be a person who was respected when talking about the movies. 

And now here comes Michael Bay, sitting down for a string of interviews to promote the new Michael Bay movie Pain & Gain, the one that stars Mark Wahlberg and The Rock and opens on Friday, saying sorry for one of the great Michael Bay masterpieces. "I will apologize for Armageddon, because we had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks. It was a massive undertaking," Michael Bay told The Miami Herald on Monday. "I would redo the entire third act if I could."

That's pop perfection, popped. This is not a good thing, Michael Bay. Not a good thing at all.

See, here's the thing about Pain & Gain: It's not your typical Michael Bay movie. The shots are longer than usual; the camera lingers on actors' faces for more than an eighth of a second. It was made on a shoe-string budget compared to Michael Bay's usual fare — about $26 million. "Pain & Gain stylistically still has a poppy vibe, but often it’s just actors acting and you can just point your camera at them and let them go," Michael Bay explained to the Herald. "It's still glossy, but different." Michael Bay told The New York Times' Dave Itzkoff that Pain & Gain was "a quirky movie," in a lengthy profile for Sunday's paper. "I wanted to do something small, just actors acting. It was almost like film school again for me," Michael Bay told the Times. Because Michael Bay almost seems to be turning a corner, attempting to shed the image built up as the most expensive, most ridiculous director in Hollywood. "When they get too big, it becomes un-fun," Michael Bay said. "You just see the money leaking away." 

Michael Bay also told the Times that Michael Bay has no idea how to film a movie: "I don't always know what I'm doing," Michael Bay said, and every film school student nodded in agreement. "But you've got to jump off the cliff with me and just hope." But that's not the Michael Bay we know. Michael Bay is big and stupid and so are Michael Bay movies. There is a certain expectation there. That is certainly the hope for Pain & Gain — that it may be a Bad Boys level comedy with explosions, but that it's still popcorn worthy. If Michael Bay ever tried to stop making popcorn, it would be something close to tragic.

A recent convert to the Michael Bay style is Mark Wahlberg, who has worked with David O. Russel and Martin Scorcese but is a Michael Bay believer — having taken a role in the fourth Transformers movie without reading the script. "I am there to service his vision," the actor told New York magazine recently.

Other potential converts to the Michael Bay school of Hollywood: film nerds! The Alamo Draft House movie theaters recently announced a mini-marathon of Michael Bay movies leading up to select Pain & Gain premieres that would appropriately be titled Baymageddon. "I wasn't taught them in school, you don't see any books on them, but his films deserve to be recognized and revisited on the big screen," said the theaters' programming director, Greg MacLennan. "Blockbusters may come and go, but his films stand the test of time. He's made heroes out of everyday actors, and somehow, along the way, he became one himself."

Michael Bay is a hero, and Michael Bay should never apologize for that.