Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 845

Americans Cyclists Bike the Least, Still Most Likely to Get Killed

In Amsterdam, there's safety in numbers. (AP PHOTO/PETER DEJONG)

It’s great for the environment. It’s salubrious. And it’s good, clean fun.

However, how safe it is varies considerably from country to country, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the club of the world’s more developed nations. Of the OECD’s 34 members, Americans are not only among the world’s least avid cyclists; they are also among the most likely to get killed. Here are a few interesting—if morbid—takeaways. Pedal safely!

OECD Roughly “17% of all cycling fatalities were involved in a hit-and-run crash in which one (or several) of their crash opponents fled the scene (2005-2011, FARS) – presumably the motorist(s). This is nearly four times the rate of hit-and-run involvement for all recorded traffic fatalities over the same period in the United States (4%).” “Investigating officers on the scene of fatal bicycle crashes in the United States found no contributory factor on the part of the motorist in 46% of cases.” “An overwhelming majority of fatal bicycle crashes occur in dry or clear atmospheric conditions – 94% in the USA and 87% in Europe.” “One quarter of (deceased) cyclists for which an alcohol test was performed returned blood alcohol values above 0.08 mg/ltr which constitutes a drink-driving offense in all 50 US states.” “In the United States, most fatal bicycle-vehicle collisions involved a passenger car or light truck (Sports Utility Vehicle) though 10% of fatal bicycle collisions involved a large truck.”

 

More From Quartz The Most Popular Quartz Stories of 2013 If the US Solar Business Is Booming, Why Are Jobs in It Declining? Get Ready for Really Expensive Almonds “In the United States, 36% of all fatal bicycle crashes for the period 2005-2011 occurred in junctions with another 4% in driveways (commercial and private) most likely caused by entering or exiting motor vehicles.” “In the United States, the share of fatal bicycle crashes occurring in low-speed zones was lower than in Europe – possibly because low-speed traffic calmed zones are relatively less common in the United States.” “In the United States, 27% of deceased cyclists for which helmet use was recorded wore helmets in 2010 and 2011.” “Red light running by cyclists … is an often-cited contributory factor in fatal and serious injury bicycle crashes (at least in the United States).” “Motorists were charged with traffic violations in nearly one third of all fatal bicycle crashes and investigating officers identified a crash-contributing factor on the part of the motorist in over half of all fatal bicycle crashes.” “Data from the United States indicate that cyclists were imputed with an improper action in 68% of fatal bicycle crashes (though, as noted earlier, this may be biased as the cyclist was not able to give their version of events).”
       

Miley Resurrected the VMAS in August 2013

Singer Miley Cyrus performs "Blurred Lines" during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, August 25, 2013. (REUTERS/LUCAS JACKSON)

The Year That Was, 2013 is far too large of a topic to tackle all at once, even when only focusing on the pop culture aspects. Breaking things down month-by-month feels like the smarter call. We'll be working our way through the year one month at a time, remembering the songs, films, TV, and other fun/horrifying stuff that we may well have already forgotten.

The #1 Song

August's number one song, just like it was for June and July, was Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines." The catchy pop tune had topped the charts and been the source of controversy all summer - a non-censored version of the song's music video shows a handful of topless models dancing around Thicke and featured-singer Pharell, and the song's "you know you want it," refrain makes it sound, well, pretty rapey. But in August, the scandalous single became better known as a vehicle for Miley Cyrus's jaw-dropping performance at the otherwise culturally irrelevant MTV Video Music Awards (8/26).

Miley, wearing little more than an aggressively provocative, tongue-baring expression, twerked across the stage and grinded on Thicke like she'd never heard of Hannah Montana. She prompted a wave of East to West Coast outrage, and quickly became a polarizing star - Miley fans lauding her courage to be sexual but not sexy in the soft, submissive way of most pop stars, and critics describing her dancing as ignorant racial appropriation. Even Sinead O'Conner (eventually) weighed in, with an open letter to the young star.  

The #1 Movie 

We're the Millers was August's top flick, beating out The Butler and the much-anticipated dystopian thriller Elysium. The Jennifer Aniston/Jason Sudeikis vehicle—about a wacky non-family stitched together by Sudeikis so he can convincingly stage a drug-smuggling familial RV trip—got less-than-stellar reviews. The Associated Press called it "the broadest of caricatures," but concedes that "as a diversion, one could do worse," which is basically all we want out of a late summer flick. 

The Month in TV

Breaking Bad obsession was high in August, so high that actress Anna Gunn, who plays Skyler White, took to the pages of the New York Times to express her shock at the outsize bile directed at her character. She wrote:

“I have never hated a TV-show character as much as I hate her,” one poster wrote. The consensus among the haters was clear: Skyler was a ball-and-chain, a drag, a shrew, an “annoying bitch wife.”

The hatred was also directed at Gunn herself, who wrote that "One such post read: 'Could somebody tell me where I can find Anna Gunn so I can kill her?'" Hopefully threats on Gunn's life have ceased now that Breaking Bad is over. 

Late Show With David Letterman celebrated its 20th anniversary (8/29) by inviting back the show's first ever guest, Bill Murray. Murray, dressed as Liberace, hacks up Dave's stage in pursuit of a time capsule he ultimately finds ("This is from twenty years ago!") and then serenades him with a very Murrayish rendition of "I Will Always Love You." 

And Doctor Who fans everywhere learned in early August that the Peter Capaldi will be the twelfth actor to play the Doctor. 

Also...

People reacted very, very strongly to the casting of Ben Affleck as the next Batman, and the last day of the Electric Zoo music festival was canceled after two attendees died and four were hospitalized after using MDMA.

       

Iran Will Get Its First International Hotel In Three Decades

AP

Iran is going to get its first international hotel projects since the Iranian Revolution, part of a bold move by a hotelier horning in on areas that are generally perceived as dangerous. 

With the recent slackening of sanctions against Iran, the UAE-based chain Rotana has announced it hopes to have three hotels up and running in the next two or three years: two in Tehran, and one in Mashhad. They will be the first such projects since the Iranian Revolution, which deposed the Western-world-approved Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who owned a consortium of American hotels including three Hyatts. That fact, plus the ignition of a mistrust of foreign and American influence, caused the country to end all contracts with foreign hotel chains like Hilton, Intercontinental, Hyatt and Sheraton.

In May, Rotana's president Selim El Zyr hinted at plans to expand into Iran in an NBC News interview, lauding the country for its beauty and its underrated business sector.

Iran has got a huge untapped potential. Iran is a safe country, it's a beautiful country... You know, everybody is doing business in Iran. They put their head in the sand and they say, no, we're not. We know how this country is surviving. They are doing business.

Rotana also announced projects under way in other fraught yet emerging markets, including Afghanistan, Turkey, and Tanzania.

       

Nelson Mandela Was Probably Not Trained By Mossad

Nelson Mandela speaks next to former Israeli president Ezer Weizman in 1999. (AP)

As quickly as you can say "Tata Mandiba," the Nelson Mandela Foundation has swatted away allegations that suggest the late anti-apartheid leader received weapons training from the Israeli secret service. 

The claim sprung from a secret letter written in 1962 and revealed on Friday by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The letter spoke of a "David Mobsari from Rhodesia" who was trained in "judo, sabotage and weaponry" by "the Ethiopians," which Haaretz reported as referring to Ethiopia-based Mossad agents. The letter's subject line, "The Black Pimpernel," refers to an early nickname for Mandela, and it suggests that Mobsari was Mandela:

It now emerges from photographs that have been published in the press about the arrest in South Africa of the ‘Black Pimpernel’ that the trainee from Rhodesia used an alias, and the two men are one and the same.

A day after the claim was made, however, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said that it "has not located any evidence in Nelson Mandela's private archive... that he interacted with an Israeli operative during his tour of African countries in that year."

The foundation, dedicated to preserving Mandela's legacy, acknowledged that Mandela did receive military training in 1962, but that it was from Algerian freedom fighters in Morocco, and that later investigations proved that there were no links to Israel. 

It's worth noting that while it keeps his archives, the Nelson Mandela Foundation is hardly an objective voice in this matter, making this ultimately a game of he-said-Haaretz-said about a very recently deceased icon, so it's impossible to discern the truth. But according to ABC News, Mandela's African National Congress and Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization did enjoy close ties, including in joint military training, and Mandela has said that he would "never forget Israel's close ties with South Africa's apartheid regime."

       

New York Assemblyman Allegedly Told Aides About His Penis Tattoo

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Allegedly, married New York assemblyman Dennis Gabryszak is a butt guy who likes attempted infidelities with 20-somethings and massages with happy endings – something his political career may not get the chance to enjoy.

As first reported by the Albany Times-Union, three of the Buffalo-area politician's former aides have charged him with making their work environment inhospitable, serving Gabryszak (and his chief of staff, for ignoring their complaints) with a sexual harassment suit.

Among the things the aides allege Gabryszak told them that you will also wish you didn't know about the 62-year-old: he offered one aide a $100,000-a-year job to leave her fiancé; he sent a video of himself receiving a blowjob; he invited them for hotel stays and massage parlor visits; and he has a tattoo on his penis, which if nothing else has to be objectively one of the worst things one can do to one's own penis. He also made such bone-headed (you'll see what I did there in a second) sexual advances as this:

I got a boner when I walked into the office today when I saw you.

This, dear readers, is a horrible, terrible sentence to say.

While the allegations remain just that, and haven't been proven in court or otherwise, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and the Erie County Democratic Party chairman have already called for Gabryszak to step down. 

According to the Times-Union story, Gabryszak would not comment on the issue, and said "he did not have a problem with the women involved," which is kind of exactly what the problem isn't. 

Beyond the sheer lechery of the claims, which purportedly took place between March and October, what makes Gabryszak's alleged actions even more audacious is the fact they actively flouted New York House Speaker Sheldon Silver's past pledge to run a clean ship after May allegations that 72-year-old assemblyman Vito Lopez had asked female staffers to grope him and fondle his cancerous tumors. (Lopez resigned and has been fined, thank God.)

       

Protesters Smashed a Google Bus Window in Oakland

AP

An ongoing series of Bay Area protests against private shuttle buses for Google and Apple employees went next-level, with Oakland protesters smashing out a window of a Google Bus and telling the workers to leave.

On Friday during the morning rush hour, anti-gentrification protesters blockaded two buses carrying Google employees in Oakland and an Apple bus in San Francisco. But in West Oakland, a blockade turned abruptly violent according to employees in the bus.

My Gbus got hit by protesters in Oakland and they broke a window. pic.twitter.com/VGCyhBLgyd

— Craig Frost (@craigsfrost) December 20, 2013

That came as a surprise as other demonstrations were carried out peacefully. Local TV station KQED reports the San Francisco protest went off without a hitch. 

Ultimately, however, the violence may muster little in the way of meaningful change. "One likely consequence of Friday’s events: security people will start riding the buses," writes The New York Times' David Streitfeld. 

The protest was an escalation of simmering frustrations in the Bay Area about giant tech companies like Google and Apple providing employees plush perks without contributing to the development of city infrastructure. Protesters are also frustrated by the displacement of city dwellers, with landlords evicting tenants and raising rents to meet high demand from tech workers.

In a manifesto artfully titled "Get The Fuck Out of Oakland," protesters laid the blame directly on the heads of the companies and their employees:

You are not innocent victims. Without you, the housing prices would not be rising and we would not be facing eviction and foreclosure. You, your employers, and the housing speculators are to blame for this new crisis, so much more awful than the last one. You live your comfortable lives surrounded by poverty, homelessness, and death, seemingly oblivious to everything around you, lost in the big bucks and success. But look around, see the violence and degradation out there? This is the world that you have created, and you are clearly on the wrong side.

It's the same kind of discontent that helped Bill de Blasio to the mayoralty in New York City, but San Francisco is in a tough, different kind of spot. It has both one of the world's highest concentration of billionaires and one of the largest US populations of homeless people. A wealthy venture capitalist even dared to propose a world where Silicon Valley was its own state. And the companies, whose advanced, plush campuses are gleaming reflectors of their success, are in the difficult-to-sustain position of exuding social benefit while profiting heavily. "Because of the rhetoric of the companies, you think that they would want to do that, and maybe the disappointment is that they might not want at all to do that," said Roman Mars, the Bay Area-based host of the podcast 99% Invisible.

       

WASPs Were Awesome, WSJ Essay Mythologizes

AP

Do you long for the days when a greed-free generation of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants championed social causes? Do you hate the fact that you have to be smart to get ahead these days? If the answer is yes, you'll love this essay in The Wall Street Journal.

Penned by Joseph Epstein as an excerpt from his new book, "A Literary Education and Other Essays," the essay makes the totally straight-faced argument that WASPs were pretty much unimpeachable, as opposed to the meritocracy espoused by such things as the American dream promised in the Declaration of Independence.

Under WASP hegemony, corruption, scandal and incompetence in high places weren't, as now, regular features of public life. Under WASP rule, stability, solidity, gravity and a certain weight and aura of seriousness suffused public life. As a ruling class, today's new meritocracy has failed to provide the positive qualities that older generations of WASPs provided.

Also, their farts smell like flowers.

Let's brush past the significant chunk of the essay where Epstein devotes a shocking amount of rhetorical space to rating just how WASPy some famous Americans were (FDR: 10 out of 10! The Kennedys: a zero, because they were a bunch of phoneys!) It most notably makes the argument that times were pretty darn halcyon when our ant hill was run by our power-hoarding WASP overlords, instead of the workaday hassle of, oh, working hard to make good things happen.

Trust, honor, character: The elements that have departed U.S. public life with the departure from prominence of WASP culture have not been taken up by the meritocrats. ... A financier I know who grew up under the WASP standard not long ago told me that he thought that the subprime real estate collapse and the continuing hedge-fund scandals have been brought on directly by men and women who are little more than "greedy pigs" (his words) without a shred of character or concern for their clients or country. Naturally, he added, they all have master's degrees from the putatively best business schools in the nation.

They may be someone else's words, sure, but Epstein still trumpets the incredibly weird claim that people who work hard to get ahead are inherently very greedy and only want what's best for them, instead of back in the old days, when your family's good name was enough, which is in no way greedy or self-serving. "Thus far in their history," he goes on to write, "meritocrats, those earnest good students, appear to be about little more than getting on, getting ahead and (above all) getting their own. The WASP leadership, for all that may be said in criticism of it, was better than that."

Ugh, said Twitter.

OMFG. With no WASP anything to suck, Epstein hallucinates about their tradition of selflessness, sacrifice etc. http://t.co/JMHMPbZjlV

— M H Rudolph (@by_mhrudolph) December 21, 2013

Ah, for the "character" of power, philanthropy and graciousness bought by exploited labor. @WSJ, I'm a WASP and I don't buy a word of it.

— Anne Jamison (@prof_anne) December 21, 2013

@jimsciutto @WSJ That WASP/meritocracy article completely befuddled me. Was it really supposed to be taken seriously?

— Kristina Makansi (@readwritenow) December 21, 2013

There is much to unpack here: conservatism, Victorianism, immobility. It's gross. The Late, Great American WASP http://t.co/a2CwlxJb8P

— Michael Miles (@miles120) December 21, 2013

I live in a world where this is a false dichotomy. How about you? http://t.co/3WctZTXzel via @jimsciutto

— Margarita Noriega (@margafret) December 21, 2013

"The Late, Great American WASP." Ahahaha look at this delusional racist shitsack. http://t.co/YlnpKtvTA4

— Jeb Lund (@Mobute) December 21, 2013

lmao the most recent comment on the WASP article. Tell me what the last names of each man mentioned have in common. http://t.co/sx4mNLuEMb

— Jeb Lund (@Mobute) December 21, 2013

It is worth noting that WASP, according to a 2010 essay by Kevin Schultz in the journal Historically Speaking, is a term first created in the 1960s by the civil rights movement, seeing their oppressors as white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. Fifty years ago, WASPs made up 75 percent of the highest rungs of the political, military and academic elite. Things are different, now – and despite the writer's laudatory claim that "doing the right thing, especially in the face of temptations to do otherwise, was the WASP test par excellence," it seems fairly clear that we're able to do right, too, in rejecting this essay.

       

Could This Be Johnny Depp's Return to Form?

At one point Johnny Depp was known for his skills as a thespian, not his ability to wear too much eyeliner and mumble with a drunken grace. Seems like Depp wants to remind us that he can be great in the trailer for his latest movie, Transcendence. 

Depp's IMDB page reads like a graveyard for big-budget franchises and kiddie popcorn fare. The last time Depp was in a movie for adults, in which he really came to show us Johnny Depp, Actor was four years ago, in 2009's Public Enemies, when he played the outlaw John Dillinger. Before that, he was nominated for Best Actor in Sweeney Todd, and won the Golden Globe, but it gets worse until you clear that first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

While Depp has another Pirates movie and an Alice in Wonderland sequel on the way, the Transcendence trailer marks the first time in what seems like decades that Depp isn't doing a movie for Disney or Tim Burton or mailing in a performance beside someone like Angelina Jolie. This time he enters the House of Christopher Nolan, who executive produces, for a sci-fi thriller with Morgan Freeman and Kate Mara directed by Wally Pfister, Nolan's longtime cinematographer. Depp plays a   scientist who focuses on sentient artificial intelligence. Once he gets shot by an anarchist group, Rift, his injuries force his partner, played by Rebecca Hall, to move his consciousness to a computer. Depp's becomes the thing he strived to prove could exist, and then chaos, of course, with the army and guns and some Skynet-inspired techno-terror.

Depp wearing his serious shoes for the first time in a long time is a welcome sight to behold. Hopefully the movie delivers when it debuts in theaters on April 18, 2014.

       

IAC Fired Embattled PR Director Justine Sacco

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Update, 3:57 p.m. Per CNN's Brian Stelter, IAC fired Justine Sacco on Saturday. ""We take this issue very seriously, and we have parted ways with the employee in question," the company said in a statement. 

Original: Late Friday afternoon, before boarding her long flight to South Arica from London's Heathrow airport, InterActiveCorp communications director Justine Sacco tweeted a "joke." It went over poorly. That is probably the easiest way to sum up the ongoing Sacco saga, which now involves questions social media's role as judge, jury and executioner in the public square. 

Sacco tweeted this before her flight to South Africa for the holidays, presumably to visit her family: "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" Her joke wasn't funny. But it was a prominent PR executive for a major corporation making a joke she should know better than to make, and in no time the world noticed. Sacco's tweet was then picked up by Valleywag; IAC owns plenty of web properties, like Vimeo, Ask.com, Match.com, The Daily Beast and Dictionary.com. Things started to heat up from there. 

Hat-tip to Business Insider for the capture:

IAC issued a statement against the tweet, and removed Sacco from their corporate website. Sacco's offensive tweet, and her entire Twitter and Facebook accounts were deleted shortly after she got off the plane. Aids for Africa registered JustineSacco.com and used it to distribute information about AIDS research and fundraising. (Donate today!) Apparently her dad is furious. But, so far as anyone knows, Sacco remains employed by IAC. 

Anger poured in at a steady rate over social media while Sacco was in the air, protected from the angry mob that started "taking unconscionable delight in the misfortune of others." Buzzfeed lists were made. Twitter ridiculed the comms director for her horribly racist tweet, and started theorizing about what will happen once she emerged from her airborne protection. #HasJustineLandedYet became the toast of Friday night Twitter. 

IAC eventually distanced themselves from Sacco, but had to explain they couldn't take immediate action because Sacco was unreachable — you can't call someone on an international flight: 

This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight, but this is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action.

Her job status is currently unknown. 

But then something strange happened — someone actually went to the airport, watched Sacco get off the plane, took pictures of Sacco and listened to Sacco speak with the people who greeted her at the airport. Zac even spoke to her father. (Some information on social media said he was identified as Desmond Sacco, a South African mining billionaire, but this is apparently not true.)

Sacco's father said he's "incredibly ashamed," called his daughter a "fucking idiot," and condemned her comment: 

Just had a chat to @JustineSacco's father. He's South African. He didn't want to raise her in South Africa because of racism.

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

Yup. @JustineSacco HAS in fact landed at Cape Town international. She's decided to wear sunnies as a disguise. pic.twitter.com/2I3WZQCIci

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

Justine's dad is apologeti & basically in tears."I decided to raise her in the US. SA was too racist". Oh, the irony! #HasJustineLandedYet

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

When she stepped out into the greeting area. Her sister/friend greeted her with "Don't worry. It'll blow over soon" #HasJustineLandedYet

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

Justine's dad isnt (outwardly) racist. He stopped to have a chat with me. "she better know she'll be paying for this!" #HasJustineLandedYet

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

"I'm so incredibly ashamed of her. She's a fucking idiot" - Justine's dad to me. #HasJustineLandedYet

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

Justine's dad is like many South Africans who fled the county post '94. He believed "the country would be a shithole" #HasJustineLandedYet

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

He reminds of me of the many (often racist) South Africans I met while living in Australia, who couldn't embrace change #HasJustineLandedYet

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

Justine and her sister / friend. She's on the phone to someone. "No! I really didn't think it would!" She said. pic.twitter.com/HAMxdquPOG

— Zac (@Zac_R) December 21, 2013

The Internet had figured out her flight information — Google offered the info when you searched her name Friday evening — and Zac, who is not a reporter, decided to meet Sacco at the airport. "I live close enough that the trip didn't matter," he told one Twitter user, when asked why he went to the airport. "I couldn't believe her tweet. Had to see of it was real." 

The reaction over social media, from which Sacco could not defend herself, prompted questions about the roles Twitter and Facebook play in these scenarios. "So is something like the Justine Sacco tweet-mob good because it reinforces mores about social behavior, or bad because it is mob justice?" asked GigaOm's Matthew Ingram on Saturday morning. Mashable's Chris Taylor wondered whether "the mob's response" fed and strengthened the beast that is Justine Sacco: 

There's a fine line between slamming Sacco for her blatant what-guys-I-was-just-kidding buffoonery, and taking an unconscionable delight in the misfortune of others while playing Big Brother on their lives. Quite apart from anything else, that sort of attention may play into the worst tendencies of someone who would write that. It grants her notoriety, maybe even a career in news channel punditry. She can pour out an apology to Barbara Walters.

What happens next is anyone's guess. IAC may stand by her, perhaps at least through the holiday season, or they may give her the boot in short order. The company has not issued a new statement since she landed. But, let's be real here, this is an Internet bred and born controversy — if she pours out an apology anywhere, it will be on Katie Couric's new Yahoo! show. 

       

Pope Tells Vatican To Stop Being Like A Gossipy High School

AP

In his traditional Christmas speech, Pope Francis hit pause on his criticism of social inequality to turn inward, telling Catholic bishops and priests to play nice in the school cafeteria and check their Mean Girls attitudes at the door.

Delivering his first of such speeches to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis sounded more CEO than religious leader, thanking everyone for a good year and also taking a minute to remind them of the company code of conduct, a "holiness of life" expected out of each Catholic priest:

Holiness in the Curia also means conscientious objection to gossip! We rightfully insist on the importance of conscientious objection but perhaps we, too, need to exercise it as a means of defending ourselves from an unwritten law of our surroundings, which unfortunately is that of gossip. So let us all be conscientious objectors; and mind you, I am not simply preaching! Gossip is harmful to people, our work and our surroundings.

In short: Gossiping is, like, totally uncool, you leaders of a major religion.

The mention of priestly etiquette comes in the same week as a significant reshuffling of top Vatican posts, with arch-conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke among those losing key titles. Burke then proceeded to cast his cut-eye at the pontiff on US news networks for daring to hope for change in the Church:

The service of the Roman Curia is part of the very nature of the church, and so that has to be respected. I can't imagine that somehow the Roman Curia is going to take on a completely different figure. It just doesn't make sense.

Over the nine months of his papacy, Pope Francis has made international headlines for his views on external world matters – on poverty, on capitalism, on relations between Jewish and Muslim faiths – earning fans as well as critics, who believe he has taken stances on matters where religious leaders don't belong. However, the Christmas missive shows signs that the difficult task of in-house reform the pope hopes to helm will not take a back seat to his global interests. When he first arrived, Pope Francis said that he wanted a less bureaucratic and more pastoral, useful church, and has called for more women to be involved with the cloth.

The Christmas speech to the Curia is seen as a major standard-bearer for the year to come. Pope Benedict XVI's Christmas speech last year made clear his beliefs on the sanctity of the traditional family, dismissing gender theory.