Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 234

U.S. Syria Policy Is Under Fire From Allies

Allies of the U.S. role in the Syrian Civil War are criticizing Washington’s approach, even as Russian airstrikes continue to bombard the city of Aleppo in support of President Bashar Assad, who remains firmly in office nearly five years after the fighting began.

Criticism of the U.S. came from Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister who is leaving his post to head the country’s constitutional court, as well as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president. France and Turkey, along with the U.S., oppose Assad’s regime and support some of the rebel groups fighting the Syrian president.

“There are the ambiguities including among the actors of the coalition. ... I’m not going to repeat what I’ve said before about the main pilot of the coalition,” Fabius said in Paris. “But we don’t have the feeling that there is a very strong commitment that is there.”

Fabius has advocated—and President Francois Hollande had supported—a more muscular French foreign policy, including backing Assad’s ouster. He was a critic of the U.S. failure to oust the Syrian leader after the use of chemical weapons despite President Obama’s previous warnings the use of such weapons would constitute a “red line.” Fabius on Wednesday said he didn’t expect the U.S. to change its policy anytime soon—despite pressure on it to act.

“I don’t think that the end of Mr Obama’s mandate will push him to act as much as his minister (John Kerry) declares,” he said.

His comments came as Syrian forces, backed by Russian warplanes, continued to bomb the rebel-held city of Aleppo. The military offensive has prompted tens of thousands of people to seek refuge at the Turkish border. Turkey, which is already the largest recipient of Syrians fleeing the civil war, is reeling from the numbers it is hosting, and is tending to those fleeing Aleppo on the Syrian side of the border—a decision for which it has been criticized by the UN and others.

The Syrian civil war pits Assad against a coalition of rebel groups ranging in politics from moderate to Islamist. Assad is backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group, who are working to keep him in power. Some of the rebels are backed by the U.S. and its allies, including Turkey. Their stated goal is a Syria without Assad. Both sides are, meanwhile, fighting ISIS, which controls territory across the Syria-Iraq border, and is now making inroads in Libya.

But diplomatic efforts to bring the various factions together have been stymied by the campaign in Aleppo, and the battle against ISIS now appears to be atop Washington’s list of priorities in the region. To this end, the U.S. has enlisted a number of groups to fight against the Sunni militant organization. Among these the most effective have been Kurdish fighters—both in Iraq and Syria. Some of these fighters belong to Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD). PYD has close ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which operates in Turkey, and which Ankara views as a terrorist group.

In remarks in Ankara on Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, lambasted the U.S. support for PYD.

“Are you on our side or the side of the terrorist PYD and PKK organization?” he asked at a speech to provincial officials. He said Washington’s policies had turned the region into a “sea of blood.”

Turkey fears that gains made by the PYD fighters on the Syrian side of the border will embolden its own restive Kurdish population. Washington maintains it does not view PYD as a terrorist group.

In other coalition news, Canada said this week it would stop its airstrikes in Syria and Iraq on February 22 in line with a campaign promise made by then-candidate Justin Trudeau, who is now the prime minister. Canada contributed six planes to the effort. The government will, however, keep two surveillance planes in the region and increase effort to train Kurdish troops in northern Iraq.

When to Ignore Kanye West

There are quite a few plausible theories for why Kanye West tweeted “BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!!!!!!” last night. One might be that during a late night in the studio working on an album scheduled to be released in less than 48 hours, he decided to procrastinate and grab some publicity by tweeting out the most trollish thing possible (closely preceded and followed by more banal missives about sneakers and Michael Jordan). Another might be that he’d seen the news that a judge had dismissed Janice Dickinson’s defamation suit against Cosby’s ex-lawyer and mistook that small victory for the Cosby camp for a larger one. Or maybe he wanted to remind people of America’s innocent-till-proven-guilty paradigm, as if the entirety of the Cosby conversation in the past two years hasn’t already engaged directly with it. Or maybe he really believes Cosby is innocent, despite, as Sarah Silverman put it, the testimony of around 50 women with nothing to gain due to the statute of limitations on rape.

In any case, what a nice moment to think about the difference between art, artist, and audience.

Kanye fans don’t need to defend Kanye West on this. Everyone has their right to an opinion, and it’s worth remembering that the suspicion that Cosby’s being framed may stem from the true and painful history of black men unfairly convicted in courts of law and public. But the evidence is so overwhelming in this particular situation that it seems straightforwardly irresponsible to proclaim Cosby’s innocence in ALL CAPS and with 10 exclamation points to 18.5 million followers with no further explanation. Doing so means calling a lot of women liars. It means attempting to further shift the benefit of the doubt in the wrong direction in a society where sexual assault and rape is a widespread and documented problem.

For anyone who doesn’t care for his music, a tweet like this is easy to process. Kanye says a lot of ridiculous stuff; file this with all of that. But for people who do love much of his work, it’s something else. Kanye fans have grown accustomed to sorting through the rapper’s many eccentric public statements, often coming to believe that those statements actually contain a lot of wisdom—or at least reflect the thought process of a fascinating person. I’ve done this, a lot. It can be worthwhile to do so. The same talent that feeds his music also shapes his public persona, and listening to what he has to say can contribute to a better understanding of the subject Kanye’s talking about—celebrity culture, rap, racial politics, fashion—whether you end up agreeing with him or not.

But the truth is that listening to Kanye the celebrity is only ever an extra-curricular activity for people who listen to Kanye the musician. The same principle applies to all sorts of followers of all sorts of artists. Art is art because it expresses things that mere words or actions can’t. Kanye’s songs, as outrageous as they often can be, achieve this: No Kanye speech is as well-crafted or memorable as “Through the Wire” or “Runaway” or “No More Parties in L.A.” Perhaps Cosby’s supposed innocence will turn out to be a major focus of his new album T.L.O.P., in which case that would become a factor in how listeners evaluate his art (at the very least, it doesn’t seem like a topic that would make for very enjoyable listening). But until that eventuality, a tweet like this stands as a reminder of why there’s a difference between appreciating someone for what they make versus for who they are.

The question of how to treat excellent entertainers who are controversial in their personal lives will always be open to debate. Each listener or viewer draws their line in different places, as it should be. Each celebrity invites criticism when they do something stupid or cruel, as it should be, and as it is now for Kanye. But in the macro sense, history has shown that the offenses of an artist have to be quite extreme for large legions of genuine fans to remove them from their playlists, watch lists, or bookshelves.

Cosby’s case, in which longstanding rape accusations only began to take a toll on his legacy once dozens of accusers revealed their names and faces (and other celebrities began speaking out), is perhaps the best example of just how extreme the situation must get for an artist’s entire body of work to be undermined. And even after all of that, even after public opinion has turned, someone like Cosby will still have diehard defenders. As we’ve just seen.

The Supreme Court's Devastating Decision on Climate

However worrying Tuesday was for the success of xenophobic politics in America, it might have been more worrying for the planet’s climate.

In the early evening, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the implementation of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations which would limit greenhouse-gas emissions from the power sector.

Issued last summer, the rules are the centerpiece of the White House’s climate-change-fighting agenda, and they play a big part in the recent, tepid optimism about global warming. Without the proposal of the plan, the United States couldn’t have secured the Paris Agreement, the first international treaty to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions, last December. And without the adoption of the plan, the United States almost certainly won’t be able to comply with that document. If the world were to lose the Paris Agreement—which was not a total solution to the climate crisis, but meant to be a first, provisional step—years could be lost in the diplomatic fight to reduce climate-change’s dangers.

The plan’s ultimate legal future is unclear, for reasons I’ll get into in a minute, but the ruling is possibly devastating for the climate on a short-term basis. Moreover, it represents an early weakness in the new global strategy to mitigate climate change.

Here’s why: It had long been clear that many states would challenge the EPA regulations. Within hours of the rules’ final publication last fall, two dozen states sued the government to stop their implementation; eventually, 29 states in total joined the lawsuit. But some climate advocates hinted that these legal protests wouldn’t matter. Simply by existing, they said, the rules communicated that America was moving its energy system away from fossil fuels. Global investors would have to follow suit, they said, and divest from fossil fuels. In other words, even if the Supreme Court eventually struck the Clean Power Plan down, the damage would be done.

The idea wasn’t for naught. Coal stocks tanked over the last year, and many of the largest American coal companies have filed for bankruptcy. In fact, opponents of the plan cited this exact effect in their brief: The “EPA hopes that, by the time the judiciary adjudicates the legality of the Power Plan, the judicial action will come too late to make much if any practical difference,” said one brief from the Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. He called the plan a “targeted attack on the coal industry.”

The court’s stay means that that effect might go on pause, at least domestically. It could also push the entire timeline for the regulations forward. Previously, states had to submit compliance plans by this summer, though they could request an extension to 2018. But now, the D.C. circuit isn’t scheduled to hear the EPA’s case until June, and any appeal wouldn’t wind up in front of the Supreme Court until the fall at the earliest. By that time, of course, the White House will have changed hands—which means, short of defending this regulation, the Obama administration is running out of ways to push climate in the direction it wants.

How much danger is the Clean Power Plan ultimately in? The Court’s stay is so “unprecedented”—even The New York Times calls it that, in stolid reporter voice—that no one knows for sure.

On the one hand, the high court has never before blocked federal regulation while a case about it was being heard by an appeals court. On the other, the Supreme Court is the reason why the Clean Power Plan could exist in the first place. The EPA issued the rules under the Clean Air Act, a 1970 statute that forms much of the basis of federal environmental law and which requires the government to limit “air pollutants” that might harm public welfare. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that “greenhouse gases fit well within the Act’s capacious definition of ‘air pollutant’” and thus the EPA was obligated to regulate them. The Bush administration’s EPA never quite got around to it. But the Obama administration eventually did, and quite ambitiously. Since 2010, as well, this president’s EPA has won most of its fights about the act.

Somewhat oddly, if the Clean Power Plan gets sullied by the Court, a future (Democratic) president’s EPA could take a more direct approach. Legal challenges to the rules have tended to focus on their mechanism under the Clean Air Act, not their ultimate target. If this plan gets thrown out, the act would allow the agency to more directly command and control carbon-dioxide emissions. The agency took a broader, gentler approach with its current plan; if it’s compelled to stick closer to the letter of the law, it could order far deeper cuts.

In a way, the Clean Power Plan mirrors the world’s approach. The world’s post-Paris climate strategy has been to talk a better game than it was actually playing. By adopting an ambitious climate agreement, and implementing incremental carbon-mitigating rules in many countries, the international community hoped to tell investors that it was time to get out of the fossil-fuel business. As John Kerry put it, by “sending a message to the global marketplace,” the world would transition away from coal, oil, and gas far more easily than a directly regulated (and politically impossible) change. But in the United States—the home of the only major political party that rejects climate science—some of the sellers in that marketplace are talking back.

The Clean Power Plan—and the EPA’s resolve to regulate greenhouse gases—depends on the same ultimate mechanism it always did: that Democrats win the White House in November. If they win, they can defend the regulation, alter it as needed, and they have time to favorably adjust the Court’s balance on future cases. And if the Republicans win? Who knows what happens, but it’s worth noting that no remaining GOP candidate supports regulation to halt climate change’s advance. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz don’t even think it’s real.

Who Drives a Driverless Car?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration––the U.S. vehicle safety regulator––has said the driverless computer Google created to pilot its self-driving cars can be considered, under federal law, “a driver.” The implications of this are huge, as Google and other tech companies develop vehicles that could make human drivers obsolete.

NHTSA originally sent its interpretations of the rules to Google’s Self-Driving Car Project on February 4, in response to a letter the tech giant sent late last year. But it was only this week that the federal regulator posted its response online.

“If no human occupant of the vehicle can actually drive the vehicle,” the letter reads, “it is more reasonable to identify the ‘driver’ as whatever (as opposed to whoever) is doing the driving.”

NHTSA said the move to driverless cars began with antilock brakes, air bags, automatic-emergency braking, and, most recently, with crash- and lane-departure warnings. In this trend, the regulator acknowledges, it is perfectly logical that technology continue with driverless cars, “and potentially beyond.”

The issue is complex—and, at its core, addresses our relationships with our vehicles: the way we drive, brake, or even change lanes. Some vehicle-safety laws are so specific NHTSA says it would have to completely revisit or overturn them. Take rearview mirrors for example: Google seems to argue that a rearview mirror in a driverless car is unnecessary. It also argues that standard equipment like hand levers for turn signals and brake pedals could be hazardous because the human driver might interfere with the car’s self-piloted operation. The company has built at least one version of its driverless car without brake pedals or a steering wheel.  

While NHTSA acknowledged that many of Google’s concerns may have to be addressed through new laws, it did make an interpretation of the larger issue: Who drives a driverless car?

NHTSA’s answer seems to be quite clear:  “In this instance, an item of motor vehicle equipment, the SDS (Google’s Self-Driving System), is actually driving the vehicle.”

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A Harry Potter Sequel—for Everyone

When J.K. Rowling announced last October that her Harry Potter series would get a new story—in the form of a play that featured her beloved book characters as adults—fans greeted the news with mixed feelings. As I wrote at the time, it was exciting to see the author experiment with a new medium and a non-Harry-centric tale in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The play picks up the story 19 years after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and focuses on Harry’s relationship with his son, Albus Severus. The casting choices that were later announced—with a black actress, Noma Dumezweni, in the role of grown-up Hermione—were even more heartening.

And yet. I complained that few of Rowling’s millions of fans would be able to actually attend (or afford tickets to) the two-part play during its run in London’s West End: “The nature of the theater experience means the vast majority of fans won’t get to experience the communal joy of seeing what Rowling’s dreamed up for them. They’ll be trying not to feel too sad that the first new Harry Potter story in almost 10 years won’t be one they can binge-read the day it comes out.”

Praise Dumbledore’s beard, I was wrong. The publisher Scholastic announced Wednesday that both parts of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child would be published as a script book, to be released in the U.S. and Canada just after midnight on July 31, 2016—roughly the anniversary of when Hagrid would have visited Harry for the first time with a messy birthday cake and a letter in tow, to change his life forever. (The play—written by Jack Thorne and based on a story by Rowling, Thorne, and the director John Tiffany—has its official world premiere the day before.)

Little, Brown Book Group will publish a print version in the U.K., and Pottermore will publish a digital version of the book that should make it available to readers in other countries. The book released July 31 will be a “special rehearsal edition,” featuring a version of the script used during the show’s preview period, when changes can still be made to the story. A “definitive collector’s edition” will be published later.

Sure, squinting at stage directions and lines of dialogue in the wee hours of the morning won’t quite be the same as sitting in a spacious theater and letting a talented crop of actors tell the newest Harry Potter story, with the help of beautiful set design, costumes, music, lighting, and special effects. But it’s likely that most readers won’t care, knowing that dry eyes and a stiff neck are small, and very familiar, prices to pay for a chance to visit that world again.

The Fed Chair's Warnings About the U.S. Economy

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen has pointed to risks to the U.S. economic outlook that could provide clues to how many times the central bank raises short-term interest rates in 2016.

“Financial conditions in the United States have recently become less supportive of growth, with declines in broad measures of equity prices, higher borrowing rates for riskier borrowers, and a further appreciation of the dollar,” Yellen said in prepared remarks to Congress on Wednesday. “These developments, if they persist, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity and the labor market, although declines in longer-term interest rates and oil prices provide some offset.”

In December, the Fed raised interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade—from between 0 percent and 0.25 percent to between 0.25 percent and 0.50 percent. At that time, Fed policymakers signaled four rate increases in 2016. But global economic uncertainty, and growing worries about China, make those increases seem less likely.

Yellen, in her prepared remarks noted:

Foreign economic developments, in particular, pose risks to U.S. economic growth. Most notably, although recent economic indicators do not suggest a sharp slowdown in Chinese growth, declines in the foreign exchange value of the renminbi have intensified uncertainty about China's exchange rate policy and the prospects for its economy. This uncertainty led to increased volatility in global financial markets and, against the background of persistent weakness abroad, exacerbated concerns about the outlook for global growth. These growth concerns, along with strong supply conditions and high inventories, contributed to the recent fall in the prices of oil and other commodities. In turn, low commodity prices could trigger financial stresses in commodity-exporting economies, particularly in vulnerable emerging market economies, and for commodity-producing firms in many countries. Should any of these downside risks materialize, foreign activity and demand for U.S. exports could weaken and financial market conditions could tighten further.

The Fed chair, in her remarks, did not explicitly detail the central bank’s plans to raise rates this year, but we should get more signals during her semiannual testimony to Congress on Wednesday and Thursday.

Still, Yellen did say that the U.S. should continue on the path of moderate growth, citing ongoing employment gains and faster wage growth. And, she noted, global economic growth will likely pick supported by accommodative monetary policies.

“Against this backdrop,” she said in her testimony, “the Committee expects that with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace in coming years and that labor market indicators will continue to strengthen.”

The Fed’s next policy meeting is scheduled for March 15 and 16.

  

A Major Blow to Obama's Climate-Change Plan

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday night blocked the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for the duration of legal challenges against it, placing President Obama’s foremost effort to combat climate change in serious jeopardy.

The Court’s order in West Virginia v. EPA, which is currently being heard in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, comes weeks after 29 states asked the justices to issue a stay. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their request for a stay in January.

The Court also granted stays in four other cases challenging the Clean Power Plan. All four justices from the Supreme Court’s liberal wing—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—dissented from each of the stays without comment.

The Clean Power Plan is the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s regulatory fight to limit carbon emissions causing anthropogenic climate change. Obama announced the plan last summer. By November, 29 states joined a lawsuit against the federal government to prevent the rules from taking effect.

If adopted, the plan would push state utilities to retire old coal-burning electricity plants and, in many cases, launch their own carbon markets, similar to those run in Europe and China.

The plan’s existence let the U.S. push for an ambitious Paris Agreement, the first international climate accord, which was signed in December. Its provisions also would ensure U.S. compliance with the bilateral emissions-limiting agreement signed with China last year.

Advocates hoped the plan would stay in force through this legal fight—in part so that, regardless of which party wins the presidential election, utilities would be forced to divest from fossil fuels and especially coal. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders back the regulation, while no major Republican candidate for president supports it.

The Court’s order all but guarantees that the legal fight over the plan will outlast the Obama administration itself. The D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments on the case in June; a decision could follow in the late summer or early fall. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case after that, a final ruling likely wouldn’t come until after the 2016 presidential election in November.

Exit L.A.’s Most Cinematic Bridge

If you want to film a car chase in Los Angeles, here’s the playbook. Head downtown. If you’re coming from the west, exit the I-10 freeway at Grand Avenue. Then turn north, maybe on Alameda, where you’ll speed past warehouses and fast-food spots and strip joints. When you get to Sixth Street, maneuver around to Santa Fe Avenue, named after the old railroad line. At this point, Sixth Street is now elevated, running above you. As soon as you’re in the shadows of the overhanging structure, make a hard left. Suddenly, you’re in a long, unlit tunnel. The only daylight comes out of a rectangular opening a few hundred yards ahead of you. Hit the gas (everybody does) and when you burst into the light, pull the wheel hard to the left and head north.

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What you’ve just done is illegal—you need a permit—but you’ve arrived, and you know this spot. You’re underneath the Sixth Street Viaduct, the most iconic and most beautiful (at least according to general consensus) of the 13 pre-World War II spans that traverse the city’s eponymous river, separating downtown from East Los Angeles. You might recognize it from the 1978 film Grease, where it was the site of John Travolta’s climactic drag race. Or, in digitized form, from Grand Theft Auto, the video game that seeks to train junior carjackers and flesh traders. Or from Them, the 1954 classic of paranoid science fiction, featuring giant irradiated ants that crawled from the very tunnel you just exited. Or from dozens upon dozens of music videos, from Kanye West to Madonna to Kid Rock.

According to Film L.A., the organization that helps the film industry book municipal locations, over 80 movies, television shows, music videos, and commercials are shot on or underneath the Sixth Street Viaduct each year. That’s partially because of the bridge’s swooping metal arches, perched on an art-deco concrete platform; and partially because of the river underneath and that access tunnel: if you want to film something set in Los Angeles that makes reference to the city’s automotive culture, or if you’re just looking for a place to shoot a car chase that’s cheaper and more available than a clogged freeway, the channelized, concretized bed of the Los Angeles River is your best choice.

Except that the bridge officially no longer functions that way, as of last week. It’s going away completely. And the river? It’s on its way to becoming a river again.

* * *

Peter Kent spent much of the 1980s and ‘90s working as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stunt double. You can see him aboard a Harley-Davidson in Terminator 2—which many car-chase enthusiasts believe contains the greatest vehicular pursuit ever filmed—racing down a narrow, junk-strewn concrete creek that feeds into the Los Angeles River. He’s filmed underneath the Sixth Street Viaduct dozens of times, including the shoot for the former California governor’s The Last Action Hero, and he was genuinely shocked when I told him earlier this fall that demolition would soon begin on the span.

“Why?” he asked.

I explained to him what many Los Angeles residents—as well as city officials and sad-but-resigned preservationists—already know: The Sixth Street Viaduct (it isn’t officially classified as a bridge; the term viaduct means that the structure crosses over multiple features, in this case two sets of train tracks, two freeways, and numerous city streets, in addition to the river itself) has cancer.

Each of the 10 bridges that cross the L.A. River in downtown Los Angeles is unique. Built through the 1920s and the early 1930s, they remain the most visible and lovely expression of the then-chief city engineer Merrill Butler’s belief in the “City Beautiful” movement: the late 19th/early 20th-century design philosophy that, as William H. Wilson wrote in his 1994 book about the phenomenon, saw “Americans attempt to refashion their cities into beautiful, functional entities. That effort involved a culture agenda, a middle-class environmentalism, and aesthetics expressed as beauty, order, system, and harmony.”

Butler wanted each bridge to have a theme or aesthetic that represented the city and his design philosophy. His Macy Street Bridge (the street is now called Cesar Chavez Avenue, but the bridge retains its original designation) runs along the old Camino Real, the route used by Spanish conquistadors and missionaries as they explored California in the 17th century, and includes baroque-inspired spiral columns and the city seal of Los Angeles. Further south, the Olympic Avenue Bridge features balusters separated by round forms emblazoned with an acanthus leaf pattern, mimicking a design common in the Greek and Roman eras.

The Sixth Street Viaduct’s aesthetic is more modern—or at least, modern to 1932, when it was built. The lines are mostly art deco. Louis Huot, the architect who designed it, said: “The viaduct is conformable to the automobile which it carries across the chasm.” In other words, it wasn’t just a bridge over a river; it was a bridge between eras, ushering in Los Angeles’s dedication to the automobile. Over time, the span also served as a cultural connector, acting as a gateway between downtown and points west to the Latino communities of East L.A., Boyle Heights, and beyond.

At the same time, the Sixth Street Viaduct has proven to be as dysfunctional as it is beautiful. Since the span was so large, a shortcut was taken: water from beneath the bridge—that’s most likely why the access tunnel now familiar to filmmakers was built—was used to mix the structure’s concrete. The result was a building material with a high alkali content; that led to an alkali-silica reaction that cracked and crumbled the bridge’s undercarriage. Over the years, the bridge was patched, often with heavy, metal plates, which further weighed the span down. By the early 2000s, the California Department of Transportation had estimated that the viaduct had a 70 percent chance of collapsing during the next major earthquake.

In the end, the bridge had to be replaced. Even preservationists agreed. “We are very sad to acknowledge that the 1932 Sixth Street Viaduct cannot be saved,” the Los Angeles Conservancy said in a news release. “Despite years of research and consultation with experts worldwide, the Conservancy and others could not find a way to halt or reverse the alkali-silica reaction that is slowly destroying the bridge.”

* * *

On a Saturday night in early October, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti threw a sort of farewell party for the viaduct. The idea was to close the bridge, put up a gigantic movie screen, and show Grease. One last hurrah. I understand the choice behind that particular film, but there were other choices that probably show the bridge in a more realistic light. Those include Repo Man, in which the bridge’s gritty glory is captured in an encounter between Emilio Estevez, Harry Dean Stanton, and the “Rodriguez Brothers,” the film’s “gypsy dildo punks.”

There’s no official listing of every scene ever shot on or under the viaduct. Tim Kirk, a local film producer, suggests that 1952’s Without Warning, about a serial killer who hunts down and murders women who resemble his estranged wife, dumping their bodies beneath the bridge, was one of the earliest. There’s also Roadblock, a 1951 noir featuring a corrupt insurance agent and a seductive blonde; the former meets his demise under the span.

History helps explain the 1932 structure’s first two decades of relative anonymity—or at least, non-notoriety. In the earliest pictures of the bridge—during and right after its construction—what’s most notable is that the Los Angeles River, beneath, is free-flowing, devoid of concrete. The river was often dry even in that era, but when winter rains hit, it was capable of great destruction, leaving its banks and devastating communities.

As the city grew and industrialized, such floods became more and more deadly. Finally, after a 1939 flood that swept away homes and houses along the river’s banks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers transformed the river into what Joe Linton, author of Down by the Los Angeles River, describes as a “freeway for water.” Today, nearly all of the waterway’s 51 miles are lined with concrete. When it rains, that water rushes toward the ocean—wasting millions of gallons of fresh water, but also effectively ending the floods that so devastated the city.

The channels that came along with this transformation—so essential to flood control, but also to the image of Los Angeles as a cold, impersonal, over-paved place—didn’t appear under the Sixth Street Viaduct until the bridge was seven years old, right around the beginning of World War II. At that time, Hollywood’s film industry was preoccupied with uplifting dramas and cornball, patriotic musicals. It wasn’t until after the war, as the Film Noir Foundation notes, that audiences began responding a more “adult-oriented type of film”—with the darker plot points and longer shadows that made the viaduct an ideal filming location.

The entire aesthetic—a concrete “river,” and a bridge that lent it a lost-world appeal—is in the process of vanishing.

Los Angeles began building freeways the same year the river was covered over in concrete; by the early 1950s, mass transit was disappearing from the city, in favor of modern highways. It was no accident that during this time the car chase morphed from something wacky—imagine the bumbling Keystone Kops of the silent era, in their creaky, overcrowded clown wagons—to a cinematic form that literally turned vehicles and roadways into characters. Perhaps the most influential example of this is H.B. Halicki’s all-chase-all-the-time Gone in 60 Seconds, released in 1974. Though that film’s scenes are all shot near the beach, in Los Angeles’s South Bay, the remake of the film, starring Nicholas Cage and released in 2000, includes extensive river chases and scenes shot at Sixth Street.

And now, it is going away. Not just the viaduct, but the river itself, in many ways. Over the past two decades, a grassroots movement to reclaim the Los Angeles River has gradually gathered steam. Two years ago, a portion of the river just north of downtown reopened to kayakers. Bike paths have been extended toward the river’s origin point, in the San Fernando Valley. Pop-up coffee shops and restaurants began to appear in former industrial areas adjacent to the banks. Still, the 10-bridge stretch through downtown—with the Sixth Street Viaduct at its center—remained off limits. The extensive and stacked infrastructure throughout the area made it difficult to determine how the concrete walls could be removed or modified.

That changed about a year ago, when federal officials finally approved a $1.3 billion plan to, according to Mayor Garcetti, “reestablish scarce riparian strand, freshwater marsh, and aquatic habitat, while maintaining existing levels of flood risk management.” Though it won’t be gone in 60 seconds, the entire aesthetic—a concrete “river,” and a bridge that lent it a lost-world appeal—is in the process of vanishing.

It’s easy to see why many L.A. filmmakers spent 2015 rushing to grab their last shots on the viaduct. A few hours before the mayor’s showing of Grease, the city suddenly announced the event would be moved to the next bridge to the north, the less-splendid Fourth Street Bridge. The result was a confused and sparse crowd, and my wife and I wondered why the last-minute change had been necessary. After the screening ended—and after Olivia Newton John remade herself as a tight-leather-pants-wearing, cigarette-smoking fast-girl for Travolta—we headed toward Sixth Street. As we crossed into East Los Angeles, we noticed that one of the lanes ahead was closed.

They were filming a car commercial.

This post appears courtesy of CityLab .

A Riot in Hong Kong

After six hours of conflict early Tuesday, street fires in the Mong Kok neighborhood burned among overturned bins, trash piles, and bricks pulled free from sidewalk.

The fires were only part of the protest-cum-riot in the Hong Kong district that culminated in a reported 54 arrested, and an estimated 90 police officers, and unreported number of protesters, injured.

The conflict began around 10 p.m. Monday night, out of police efforts to clear hawkers from street celebrations on the first night of Chinese New Year. The vendors typically sell food—the hashtag #Fishball Revolution emerged from the protest, inspired by a food popularly sold by vendors—and other items out of unlicensed carts. But when police came to clear them out, they were met by protesters and activists who gathered to defend the vendors. The protest escalated into a riot, according to reports, and some protesters threw bricks and bottles at police, who responded with batons, pepper spray and, eventually, two warning shots.

At a news conference following the riot, which ended around 8 a.m., Lai Tung-kwok, Hong Kong’s secretary for security, said police took “all necessary actions.” He said authorities were investigating the possibility the riot was premeditated. Edward Leung Tin-kei, the leader of Hong Kong Indigenous, a group that advocates greater autonomy for Hong Kong, was arrested during the protests.  

Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive, and various political parties decried the riot, while some protesters and civilians condemned the police response as heavy-handed.

The riot was the most violent since the pro-democracy unrest in 2014.

Lai, the secretary for security, discouraged further protests as the New Year festivities continue in Hong Kong.  Police with riot gear are stationed in Mong Kok for Tuesday night’s celebrations.

Restoring Voting Rights for Felons in Maryland

The Maryland General Assembly restored Tuesday the right to vote for more than 40,000 released felons, overriding a veto by Governor Larry Hogan. Maryland’s Senate approved the bill on a narrow 29-18 vote, while the state House of Delegates voted 85-56 in favor of it on January 20.

Under the state’s previous laws, felons regained the right to vote after completing their entire sentence, including probation or parole. The new law restores voting rights to felons who are no longer imprisoned, but are still under probation or parole.

About 44,000 Marylanders will regain their vote under the new law, according to the Washington Post. The law goes into effect in 30 days, just over one month before the state’s primary elections on April 26.

Legislators in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly have overridden all six vetoes issued by Hogan, a Republican, in the latest legislative session. In his veto statement last May, Hogan argued the current law “achieves the proper balance between the repayment of obligations to society for a felony conviction and the restoration of various rights,” including the right to vote.

Only Maine and Vermont impose no barriers on felon voting, and even allow prisoners to cast ballots while incarcerated. Restrictions in the other 48 states vary by crime and sentence. Maryland’s current system follows the general norm, in which states require a felon’s release from prison and completion of probation or parole before his or her voting rights are restored.

A small number of states are far more severe. Florida, Iowa, and Kentucky impose lifetime bans, though all three states have mechanisms to lift it. In November, outgoing Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear signed an executive order that restored voting rights for 140,000 nonviolent felons. His successor, Matt Bevin, rescinded the order shortly after taking office in December.

Overall, the Sentencing Project estimates that roughly 5.85 million otherwise eligible Americans can’t cast a ballot due to felon disenfranchisement. Perhaps the most dramatic effects are felt in Florida, where more than 1 in 10 Floridians cannot vote due to the state’s severe restrictions. Like virtually every other aspect of the criminal-justice system, its impact is felt disproportionately among black and Hispanic communities, with almost one-quarter of Florida’s black voting-age residents disenfranchised as of 2014.

The contested 2000 presidential election offers the most striking example of the impact of felon disenfranchisement. Republican candidate George W. Bush won Florida by a razor-thin margin of 537 votes, giving him a narrow victory in the Electoral College. But a 2002 study in the American Sociological Review concluded that if the state’s 827,000 disenfranchised felons had voted at the same rate as other Floridians, Democratic candidate Al Gore would have won Florida—and the presidency—by more than 80,000 votes.