Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 180

How Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Became TV’s Screwball Musical

Jeff Richmond has been composing original music for TV comedies for more than a decade, usually at a frenetic pace. At Saturday Night Live, song parodies and musical monologues are cooked up, aired, and sometimes forgotten within a week; at 30 Rock, where Richmond collaborated with his wife Tina Fey, his work might include a warped spoof of children’s television or an grandiose, star-studded charity plea for a kidney donation. So when Richmond joined Fey’s new show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a dark comedy about a woman kidnapped by a religious cult, he figured the workload might be a little lighter.

“I thought, ‘This will be a nice small show that we’ll score appropriately,’” Richmond told me. He was, of course, wrong: In its two seasons, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has become a show that relies heavily on its eclectic musical landscape, from its barnstorming, Auto-Tuned opening theme to the increasingly elaborate parody numbers that litter almost every episode. This year, Richmond’s work has matched the show’s overall approach of cramming as many gags as possible into every minute: In short, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt might be TV’s first screwball musical.

On 30 Rock, a general spoof of Fey’s years working at Saturday Night Live, getting original songs into the show was almost a matter of course because of the show’s theatrical setting and overall heightened reality. “I thought that we had met our musical plateau, of how many songs you could get into an actual sitcom,” Richmond said. “We had everyone singing, sometimes in dreams, or walking down hallways, or in the context of the TGS show [within the show].” Kimmy Schmidt didn’t seem to have many natural opportunities for song : It’s mostly set in a dilapidated basement apartment, and its main character (played by Ellie Kemper) is a liberated “mole woman” who has escaped from 15 years of captivity in an underground bunker.

But her roommate, the aspiring actor Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) proved the key to unlocking the show’s potential for music, something that only occurred to Richmond and the show’s writers well after Burgess (a theater veteran who has worked on Broadway for more than a decade) was cast. Burgess’s high tenor voice is an unusual and powerful instrument even within the world of theater—“He sings ‘Meadowlark’ in Patti LuPone’s key,” Richmond said admiringly—and the actor proved a quick study for Richmond’s compositions. “When you do something with him, he just gets it, musically, immediately,” Richmond recalled.

Kimmy Schmidt’s first season had several show-stopping numbers, like the bizarre ’30s movie musical “Daddy’s Boy” which closed out one episode, and Titus’s music video “Peeno Noir,” a one-minute bit of silliness that became such a sensation that Burgess has launched a line of beverages inspired by it. Richmond remains surprised by “Noir”’s success (he joked that the song was “Frankenstein-ed” together in post-production), but when the show’s writers gathered to break Kimmy’s second season, they embraced the potential of the show’s musical universe.

Most of season two’s episodes end with an impromptu musical number or dance sequence; often, Titus will just sit at his piano and recap the day’s adventures in typically surreal form. One episode, “Kimmy Gives Up,” is loaded with songs from “forgotten musicals” (all invented by Richmond) that Titus sings to his roommates. Another, “Kimmy Meets a Drunk Lady,” features a spate of very specific late-’90s pop parodies from an off-brand Now That’s What I Call Music tape. They’re the kind of challenges Richmond prepared for at SNL and 30 Rock, but because of Netflix’s binge-watch release style, the accomplishment and the variety of his work feels more staggering.

One musical-theater parody includes a triumphant Rogers and Hammerstein-type song about Helen Keller, and a mournful moment when Titus sits at his piano and starts playing in a distinctly minor key. “Eaten by birds! Digested by birds! Shat out by birds! Alone!” he cries, before being interrupted by his landlord Lillian (Carol Kane). “Steven Sondheim’s Pinocchio,” he says knowingly. It’s utter nonsense, but close enough, lyrically and musically, to something the audience can almost imagine existing. “[Fey’s] a Sondheim geek, and she knew the tapestry of words that he used,” Richmond said. “I think the first version was ‘Sondheim’s Gentleman Rapist,’ and I said, ‘Ah, maybe it should be something light, that everybody knows,’ and she said, ‘Yeah, Pinocchio.’ You can almost see Sondheim’s Pinocchio. It makes sense.”

For these parodies, from nerdy musical-theater gags to jabs at ’90s hits like Hanson’s “MMMBop” and R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly,” Richmond sometimes had only seconds to get a joke across. “For people who care about what different genres within genres sound like, you have to grab onto specific musical tropes and work them in really quickly,” he said.

“It’s a show where nobody’s really jaded ... and that in and of itself feels very musical.”

Every sitcom, no matter what its format, has something to help establish its joke rhythms—it’s hard to accept buffoonery and zinger upon zinger if a show is being presented with the utmost realism. Classically, it’s a laugh track from a live audience, but single-camera shows rely on all sorts of devices to punctuate their gags. For shows like The Office, Parks & Recreation, and Modern Family, it’s the mockumentary format, the cuts to talking heads that can help nail a punchline. For more complex works like Arrested Development, a narrator can help keep things in order. For Fey’s shows, Richmond’s score, which is much more noticeable and lively than on a typical sitcom, serves that purpose. On Kimmy, he said, the score (and upbeat theme song) prevents the show from swerving into consistently depressing territory.

“We’re going to have this girl coming out of the bunker, it’s going to look like she’s been down there for 15 years, so it had better feel sunny and bright immediately,” Richmond said. “Not just sunny and bright in a way that makes you want to vomit, but in a way that is hopeful, being shot out of a cannon ... it’s a show where nobody’s really jaded ... and that in and of itself feels very musical.”

The show’s musical landscape has continued to evolve, as Richmond uses original songs as cues in future episodes (the Helen Keller number pops up in Titus’s scenes with his love interest Mikey). It’s a more deliberate approach than his time on SNL and 30 Rock partly because of the daunting freedom of the Netflix model. “All those years on 30 Rock, you were constantly making adjustments to whatever you were doing based on people viewing the show within a season—critics, audiences, studios, networks,” Richmond said. “For Kimmy, you’re out on your own, you commit to it.”

Viewers don’t know much about Kimmy’s third season (ordered by Netflix in January), but one thing promised by the second-season finale should have Richmond hard at work. “Titus is going to be on a cruise ship, singing,” he said, laughing. “That’s what season three has embarked on, writing him into the world of show business. I can’t imagine the writers are going to back away from that.”

A Red Dragon on the Red Planet

SpaceX, the spaceflight company run by Elon Musk, plans to send its Dragon spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018, the company announced on Wednesday.

The rocket will be known as—surprise!—a Red Dragon. From The Verge:

The company indicated that the capsules would fly on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, a bigger version of its Falcon 9; the rocket will launch the capsules to the planet to test out how to land heavy payloads on Mars. If successful, the endeavor would make SpaceX the first private spaceflight company to land a vehicle on another planet.

SpaceX plans to eventually attempt to send humans to Mars. Musk has previously said that he wants to build “a city” there.

SpaceX began delivering supplies to the International Space Station using its Dragon rocket in 2012. Earlier this month, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship in the middle of the ocean, marking the first time the company has been able to salvage much of the vehicle using this landing technique. The company failed to land the spacecraft four times before at sea, but had previously successfully landed it on the ground at Cape Canaveral in Florida. This new landing technique saves significant fuel costs and allows the company to reuse rockets.

Here’s the historic sea landing:

Why Trump Might Regret Playing 'The Woman Card' Against Clinton

On Tuesday, presidential front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump built on their leads for their respective parties’ nominations. In the process, they offered a preview of what could be a major—and particularly nasty—general-election theme.

On Monday, Clinton appeared at a town-hall event where she promised if elected, that half of her cabinet would be women. (Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did that last year.) Tuesday started off with Donald Trump on Fox and Friends, where he replied. “I call her 'Crooked Hillary' because she’s crooked, and you know the only thing she’s got is the woman card,” he said. “That’s all she’s got, and it is pandering. It’s a weak card in her hands. In another person’s hands it could be a powerful card. I’d love to see a woman president, but she’s the wrong person.”

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When Clinton went on stage Tuesday night in Philadelphia, she was more than happy to reply to that. “The other day, Mr. Trump accused me, of playing the, quote, ‘woman card,’” she said. “Well, if fighting for women's health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in.”

A little later in the evening, Trump spoke at his eponymous tower to celebrate his win. He left his most controversial comments for the end.

“Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she's got going is the women's card,” he said. “And the beautiful thing is, women don't like her. Look how well I did with women tonight.”

Tellingly, Mary Pat Christie—the first lady of New Jersey—appeared to roll her eyes as she stood behind Trump and listened him. (Her husband stuck to the weird, vacant stare he uses for Trump rallies.)

First, a fact-check: On a basic level, Trump is wrong. As The Washington Post notes, Trump has beaten his Republican rivals among women in the primary so far, by around 10 points overall; he outperformed that mark Tuesday. But that seems to be mostly a factor of his large lead in the race. To say that women particularly like him would be a vast overstatement. Poll after poll has shown that female voters really don’t like Trump. Gallup found this month that 70 percent of women have an unfavorable view of him. In March, Reuters and Ipsos found that half of American women have a “very unfavorable” view of Trump. Suffolk and USA Today recently found him at 66 percent unfavorable among women. (Unsurprisingly, he does better among Republican women than women overall.)

Do women dislike Clinton, as Trump said? They don’t exactly love her, it’s true. Gallup found her at a net negative-3 among women. (Her standing among women has tumbled over the last year in Gallup’s numbers.) Other polls are rosier. George Washington University found 51 percent of women have a positive view versus 47 percent negative. Suffolk found her at 42 favorable and 48 negative.

In other words, it’s not great. But just as Clinton may be getting a bit of a pass on her overall unfavorables because of Trump’s even worse numbers, the same may prove true among women. An election is a choice. Given the option between Clinton and Trump—with his long history of misogynistic comments, accusations of marital rape, and feud with Megyn Kelly—American women say they’d bite the bullet and vote for Clinton, by a 14-point margin in Reuters’s poll.

Not only is Trump wrong, but as Mary Pat Christie’s negative reaction suggests, he may have phrased his answer in one of the worst possible ways. This sort of attack might well work for Trump, if he could tap into resentments about the increasingly central role that gender has played in her campaign. But accusing Clinton of playing the “woman card” is a risky move, for all the reasons that her zinger in Philly suggested: It’s easily turned around into a positive.

But it also might be a counterproductive move for Trump. After studiously shying away from gender for most of her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton has made it a more central theme of this year’s run, as I’ve written before. In addition to her cabinet pledge, she has noted that she is considering female running mates, and she’s emphasized her credentials as a grandmother and mother—in addition to as a senator and secretary of state.

Suggesting that Clinton is only where she is because she’s a woman won’t sit well with women who are paid less in the workplace, have to fight harder for promotions, and are still badly underrepresented in the top tier of American business and politics. Their experience is not that women get to places where they don’t belong just on the basis of their gender—just the opposite, in fact. Given Clinton’s long, impressive resume, the argument is even harder to buy. (Questioning what, exactly, she has accomplished over the course of that career is fairer, and probably more fertile, ground.)

A close relation of Trump’s argument Tuesday is the claim that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be where she is without Bill Clinton—that her career is all just a coda to her husband’s. To a certain extent, there may be truth to that: There’s no substitute for the exposure to both publicity and the workings of power that a first lady can get in eight years in the White House. But there have been 45 first ladies, and only one became a senator, secretary of state, and likely presidential nominee afterwards.

It might be more illuminating to reverse the starting proposition: Would Bill Clinton be where he is without Hillary Clinton? It’s very easy to imagine the answer is no. When he first ran for office, in 1972, the couple were not yet married, and he lost. His next campaign was in 1976, after their union, and a win. Biographies show that Hillary was an essential adviser to her husband on both policy and politics. While her signature policy push of the Bill Clinton administration, the 1993 health-care overhaul, was a failure, she was viewed as a powerhouse in Arkansas. After she led a committee devoted to reforming the state’s schools, one dazzled legislator exclaimed, “Gentlemen, we’ve elected the wrong Clinton!” (Clinton aide Betsey Wright later told Connie Bruck that comment wasn’t as benevolent as it seemed: “That was an endearing but sexist statement. They were so amazed that a woman could be so smart.”) In 1992, Bill Clinton liked to say that by electing him president, voters would get “two for the price of one.”

No one is able to tell Trump what to do strategy-wise, and as his success so far shows, he seems to have an intuitive knack for campaigning. Nonetheless, continuing to attack Clinton on “the woman card” doesn’t look like a winning strategy for him in a general-election campaign. Over the course of her long career, Clinton has repeatedly turned sexist and arguably sexist moments into huge political winners. You might even say she wouldn’t have gotten this far without them.

The International Effort to Contain Chernobyl

Thirty years after an explosion at a Soviet nuclear power plant spewed radiation across Europe and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, workers continue the long process of securing the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.

Decades after the accident, dangerous radioactive materials remain at the site. Since 2010, workers have been building a massive, husk-like structure that will be moved over reactor 4, the unit that blew up in 1986, at the end of 2017. The shell—which will be 328 feet high and 541 feet long and weigh 30,000 tons—will separate the destroyed reactor from the environment for at least the next 100 years.

The structure is expected to cost more than $2.2 billion, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the London-based bank that manages the Chernobyl Shelter Fund. The fund was set up in 1997 to help facilitate donor money to the Ukrainian, Russian, and other affected governments. It is funded by contributions from more than 40 countries and organizations.

As of November 2015, the Chernobyl fund received close to $1.5 billion from more than 40 countries, including members of the fund:

Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the European Community, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

And non-member nations:

Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Croatia,Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Korea, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, the Slovak Republic , Slovenia, and Turkey.

The Soviet Union at first sought to handle the fallout of the explosion on its own. About 200,000 people from across the USSR, emergency workers dubbed “liquidators,” arrived at Chernobyl between 1986 and 1987 to participate in the cleanup process, becoming exposed to high doses of radiation, according to the World Nuclear Association. By 1990, just as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, the Soviet government acknowledged the need for outside help in the cleanup process. A United Nations resolution for “international cooperation to address and mitigate the consequences at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant” was drawn up. Between March 1990 and June 1991, 200 experts from the Soviet Union and 24 other countries conducted 50 field missions to examine the area. A special task force—under which the Chernobyl fund would be established—was created in 1992 to coordinate international efforts.

The accident killed some 30 people in the weeks after and exposed thousands of others to toxic radiation. About 120,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area, including 43,000 from the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, famous for the photos that have emerged from the radioactive ghost town. The health effects of exposure for millions of people have been hotly debated since.

Memorials in Ukraine, Russia, and elsewhere were held Tuesday to mark the anniversary of the tragedy. Relatives and friends of the “liquidators,” thousands of whom have died since the explosion, held photos of the workers and placed flowers on their graves.

A Woman In Military Command of North America

General Lori Robinson moved a step closer Tuesday to becoming the head of U.S. Northern Command. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved her nomination, which will be voted upon in the U.S. Senate, and, if confirmed, Robinson would be the first woman to ever serve as a combatant commander.

Time listed Robinson last week as one of 2016’s most influential people. She was nominated to the magazine by Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois Democrat, who wrote why Robinson’s appointment to the NorthCom post would be so significant.

In the military, a combatant command is the ultimate job. It’s the pointy tip of the spear, overseeing the people carrying the rifles and flying the aircraft. Northern Command, created the year after the 9/11 attacks, is also prestigious because it protects our homeland. That is such a tremendous commentary on where we are as a nation.

For years, women were barred from combat roles, closing off their route to the senior leadership. General Robinson’s appointment makes clear to every female lieutenant that the top jobs are now open to them.

President Obama nominated Robinson for the position in March. U.S. Northern Command oversees defense and support of all North America, and includes the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and includes land, air, and sea units. Robinson was previously commander of the Pacific Air Forces, and her confirmation makes her one of the most senior U.S. military leaders in North America. A spokesman for the Senate Armed Services Committee said Robinson could be approved by the full Senate end of the week.

Big Ben to Go Silent

Britain’s famous Big Ben clock tower will go silent for several months starting as early as next year as it undergoes some much-need repairs. Such a long hiatus is rare since the clock first rang across Westminster in 1859.

The British House of Commons said Tuesday the clock and bell would shut down while the entire Elizabeth Tower––where Big Ben is housed––undergoes three years of renovations. The United Kingdom Parliament’s website has a lengthy Q&A, where it outlines what will be fixed on the clock, tower, and bell.

We are undertaking key internal and external conservation and refurbishment works, including waterproofing and addressing severe condensation problems as well as modernising the building to improve standards in safety, access and visitor and workspace facilities. The project includes:

Work to prevent the clock mechanism from failing, as it is currently in a chronic state.
Addressing urgent problems caused by decay to the fabric of the building, both internally and externally.
Health & safety and fire safety improvements, including installation of a lift.
Enhanced energy efficiency through modern lighting of the tower face and other measures.

Overall the project’s aim is to repair and conserve the Tower, upgrade facilities as necessary and to ensure its integrity for future generations.

After a fire destroyed the Palace of Westminster in the 1830s, the Houses of Parliament decided that renovations to the buildings should include a new clock tower. Architect and designer Augustus Pugin drew the plans for the tower, and it was completed in 1859 and stood 315 feet tall.

These days, the clock requires continuous repair. Its last significant renovation was in 1985, when along with a good cleaning the green-and-gold clock face was painted black and gold. During the latest renovation, workers will return the clock face to its original Victorian color scheme. The work will begin in 2017 and will last three years, though the bell will only be down for a few months of that time. The bell last took a break from chiming in 2007, for six weeks of repairs, and in 1976, for nine months.

Johnny Manziel Indicted

The former Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel was indicted for assault on Tuesday by a Texas grand jury on domestic violence charges. He is accused of repeatedly hitting his ex-girlfriend, Colleen Crowley, and even threatening to kill her, the Associated Press reports.

The incident allegedly happened in Dallas in January. The misdemeanor charges could carry a one-year jail sentence and a fine of up to $4,000.

A local Dallas CBS affiliate reports:

According to police records, Crowley tried to jump out of the moving car and get to safety, but Manziel stopped, dragged her back into the car and hit her. Crowley told the valet at Hotel Zaza, “Please don’t let him take me,” according to her police report, “I’m scared for my life!”

Since winning the Heisman Trophy as a star quarterback at Texas A&M in 2012, Manziel’s personal life has often been fraught and quite public. His alcohol consumption made headlines and became a distraction for his playing career. In early 2015, Manziel checked himself into rehab for alcohol addiction. His problems on and off the field finally became too much for the Browns, who released him on March 11.

Afghanistan’s Barred Vice President

Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum has had to cancel his upcoming trip to the U.S. because the State Department threatened to refuse him a visa.

The State Department has previously called Dostum, a former U.S. ally, “the quintessential warlord.” Despite Dostum’s past, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who previously referred to him as a “known killer,” put him on the ticket to win the 2014 presidential election.  

The New York Times explains:

Mr. Dostum’s ascent to the vice presidency of Afghanistan, despite his past, exemplifies a central American failure in a war it is now fighting for the 15th year. In its effort to defeat the Taliban, the United States has built and paid for a government that is filled with the kinds of warlords and power brokers whose predatory ways helped give rise to the insurgent movement in the 1990s, and who American officials say pose as much of a threat to the stability of Afghanistan as the insurgents themselves.

The Times reported that American officials passed on their threat to deny Dostum a visa to the Afghan government just days before Dostum was to leave for the U.S. Dostum had been scheduled to speak at the UN about narcotics trafficking, despite accusations he has profited from the trade. To avoid further public embarrassment, the Afghan government canceled Dostum’s trip to New York and Washington. The newspaper adds:

At the outset of the war, Mr. Dostum fought alongside Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces to oust the Taliban, and he was initially very close to the United States military. In the years immediately after the Taliban fell, he was known to show American guests at his compound in the northern city of Shibarghan a pistol that he said had been given to him by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who was then in charge of the United States Central Command.

But Mr. Dostum quickly fell out of favor with his American patrons over his open defiance of the new government in Kabul. In 2004, the United States even sent a B-1 bomber to fly mock bombing runs over his house after his militia seized control of a city in northern Afghanistan from the government.

How Steph Curry’s Injury Changes the NBA Season

By all accounts, the news about Steph Curry’s knee injury in the NBA playoffs was about the best the Golden State Warriors could have gotten. The star point guard is injured for at least two weeks with a sprained MCL after slipping on the court in a game against the Houston Rockets; an MRI showed the sprain to be the most minor of its type. In a game where an awkward fall can mean an 18-month absence, Curry’s comparatively small break is a respite for the Warriors. But it could still cost them the only thing that matters: an NBA championship.

In the hours after news of Curry’s injury broke, Vegas oddsmakers dropped the Warriors, overwhelming favorites to win the title for the entire season, down behind the San Antonio Spurs. If Curry returns to the court after two weeks, he’d be back in the middle of the second round of the playoffs. But he might take a little longer to rehabilitate, or return in a slightly diminished state, and those variables could be enough to knock what was statistically the greatest team in NBA regular-season history (finishing with a record-setting 73-9 record) into also-ran territory.

Before Curry’s injury, the Warriors were cruising toward a repeat of the NBA title they won last season, having beaten the legendary-wins record of the 1996 Chicago Bulls and perfecting the free-flowing offense that had made them such a phenomenon in the league. But Curry was pivotal to all of that: His ability to shoot three-pointers at prodigious quantity and efficiency had led him to a historic year from a statistical standpoint, one that made it almost impossible to devise an effective defense for him. On the rare occasions that Golden State lost over the 2015-2016 NBA season, Curry might have an (atypical) off shooting night.

The playoffs are different. Teams play each other over and over again, getting used to their opponents’ offensive schemes and finding gaps in their defensive armor. Strong teams like the Spurs, the Los Angeles Clippers, and the Cleveland Cavaliers will pose a serious threat to the Warriors if they’re missing their star—that’s how critical one player is in the sport, and how a team can shift from cellar-dwelling dud to playoff contender in a season by acquiring one transformational athlete. It’s why teams will intentionally “tank” a season just to get a better chance at getting the number-one pick in the draft the next year.

Curry was acquired through the draft, as were most of the Warriors’ key talents (including the guard Klay Thompson and the forward Draymond Green). With Curry injured, the backup Shaun Livingston will slide into his position, and while he’s been a crucial player for the team this year, the two couldn’t be more different. Curry took 886 three-point shots this season, making 402 of them and setting an NBA record. Livingston took 12 and made two. The Warriors thrive on the success of their legendary “splash brothers” backcourt, where Curry and Thompson bomb long-range shots all night and make other teams tire themselves out on the defensive end trying to stop them; that’ll all have to change while Curry’s not on the floor.

So who could win now? The Spurs, made up of reliable veterans with many championships to their name (including Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili) along with the younger stars Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge, had always been considered the team with the best shot of stopping Golden State. Their path to the finals now looks easier, especially since the Clippers’ star player, Chris Paul, was also knocked out with an injury Monday night (fracturing his hand in a game against Portland). The Clippers beat the Spurs in the playoffs last year, but if they met them this year, they’d put up less of a fight. On the other side of the bracket, LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers remain the overwhelming favorites to emerge from the NBA’s Eastern Conference, and have avoided the injury woes that plagued their stars last year.

More than anything, Curry (and Paul’s) injury underline just what a crucial element luck is to any successful title run in sports, particularly in the NBA where an unbeatable five-man unit can be upended by a simple slip on the court. Curry’s Warriors captured the NBA title last year partly because they avoided any major injuries, leading to the narrative among some commentators that they were “lucky,” especially to run into a Cleveland team in the finals that had lost two of its three star players to fractured kneecaps and dislocated shoulders.

Curry’s reaction to the punditry? “I apologize for us being healthy, I apologize for us playing who was in front of us,” he told reporters last October. It was an enjoyably sarcastic retort from a player who mostly avoids such harsh rebukes in the press, but it also proved unsettlingly prophetic. “I apologize for all the accolades we received as a team and individually. I’m very, truly sorry, and we’ll rectify that situation this year,” he said. Golden State is hoping he’ll be back in time to prove his own words wrong.

Why a Judge Ruled North Carolina's Voter-ID Law Constitutional

A judge in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, ruled Monday night that the state’s strict new voting law is constitutional, delivering a major win for conservatives who have sought to tighten laws across the country, and dealing a blow to efforts to stop those laws.

Judge Thomas Schroeder’s opinion—included in a massive, 485-page ruling—upheld the full swath of HB 589. Passed by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in 2013, the law changed a slew of North Carolina’s voting rules, including reducing early voting, eliminating same-day registration, banning out-of-precinct voting, and ending pre-registration for 16-year-olds. Perhaps most prominently, the bill instituted a requirement that voters show photo ID to cast a ballot.

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The Past Goes On Trial in North Carolina

Legislators and other proponents of the bill argued that the voter-ID law was a commonsense measure, and that it and other changes were needed to prevent fraudulent voting. The law’s opponents, meanwhile, pointed that there were practically no documented cases of voter fraud in the state, and argued that the changes would disproportionately affect poor and minority voters in the Old North State—voters who are more likely to vote Democratic, which they argued was not a coincidence. Much of the trial focused on whether there was real evidence of fraud, and whether the law actually disadvantages minorities. Both sides brought a barrage of experts to back their view.

Schroeder, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that while North Carolina had been on the progressive end of the spectrum of voting, the new rules were simply retrenchment and were constitutional. He said the plaintiff—a group that included the North Carolina NAACP, the Justice Department, and others—“failed to show that such disparities will have materially adverse effects on the ability of minority voters to cast a ballot and effectively exercise the electoral franchise.”

Schroeder’s decision to uphold the law was not unexpected. The plaintiffs have already vowed to appeal the decision to a federal appeals court.

The trial was held in two phases. The first, which began last July, focused on the early voting, out-of-precinct voting, and same-day registration portions. Because of last-minute changes to the voter-ID section of the law—legislators created a process by which voters could cast a ballot by swearing they had a “reasonable impediment” to getting a photo ID—a trial about the ID requirement was not held until January. Schroeder upheld both halves of the law in his ruling.

The voting law was passed shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down a crucial section of the Voting Rights Act that required certain states and jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to receive “pre-clearance” from the Justice Department before changing their voting laws. While Republicans had been considering changes already, the ruling allowed them to expand their ambition. “Now we can go with the full bill,” Senator Tom Apodaca, chairman of the rules committee, said at the time.

With the Voting Rights Act in the background, the fight over HB 589 became a referendum on the past, and whether the new rules were—as the plaintiffs charged—a revival of Jim Crow rules like literacy tests, intended to weed out black voters.

“This is our Selma,” said the Reverend William Barber II, the head of the state NAACP and an organizer of “Moral Mondays,” a series of huge demonstrations in Raleigh and elsewhere that have gone on since Republicans took control of the state and began passing a series of very conservative reforms.

The defendants disagreed. “The history of North Carolina is not on trial here,” a lawyer for Governor Pat McCrory said at the trial.

In the end, Schroeder sided with the defendants. “There is significant, shameful past discrimination. In North Carolina's recent history, however, certainly for the last quarter century, there is little official discrimination to consider,” he wrote.

“There is significant, shameful past discrimination. In North Carolina's recent history, however, there is little official discrimination to consider.”

Once the central story in the Old North State’s political battle—the state has become hyperpolarized in the years since Republicans won control of the General Assembly in 2010 and the governorship in 2012—the voting-rights story has been pushed to the side more recently by the even-hotter controversy over HB2, the recently enacted law that bans transgender bathroom accommodation in state facilities and preempts city rules on transgender accommodations, LGBT non-discrimination, and living wages. In the hours before Schroeder’s ruling was revealed on Monday, Moral Monday protestors were demonstrating in the streets of Raleigh against HB2.

During the voting-rights trial, the defendants presented evidence that the tools that had been eliminated were disproportionately used by black voters. But the defendants countered by showing that black turnout in 2014, when all but the voter-ID portion was in effect, actually increased over the previous midterm elections, a jump the plaintiffs attributed to a contested Senate election and grassroots organizing after the law. The defendants also argued that the law couldn’t be unconstitutional because several other states offer similarly few accommodations.

But North Carolina’s rollback is one of the most dramatic in the nation, and if it stands, it’s expected to serve as a model for other conservative legislatures to pass similarly strict laws. That’s one reason both sides have put so much emphasis on the fight in North Carolina. The outlook for the plaintiffs has always seemed somewhat more promising at the circuit court, where they would argue before a panel of three judges. (That court granted them a preliminary injunction to block certain provisions at an earlier stage in the process.) Many observers expect that regardless of the result at the appeals court, the case will end up at the Supreme Court. The death of Justice Antonin Scalia—and uncertainty over whether Merrick Garland, President Obama’s pick for the vacancy, will be confirmed—makes it tough to predict the result there.

The plaintiffs hope to get an appeal in process in time to get a ruling ahead of November’s election, or at least to have the law put on hold. It’s not clear whether the courts can and will move fast enough. That means that while HB 589 may have a lasting national legacy, it might also play a role in this year’s election. McCrory is in a tight race for reelection against state Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat. Meanwhile, the chaotic Republican race has put the Old North State in play in the presidential race as well. The state voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but demographic changes make North Carolina a potential swing state. And even if the law causes only a small variation in turnout, that could have a big impact on the result: When Barack Obama carried North Carolina in 2008, he did so by just 0.32 percent.