Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 867
December 1, 2013
Croatia Has Banned Same-Sex Marriage
AP Croatia, the newest member nation of the European Union, is also the latest country to ban gay marriage. A majority of Croats have voted to amend the country's constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Both Croatia's president and prime minister spoke out against the ban, but the majority of the Croatian parliament, the opposition party HDZ and the Catholic Church were in favor of it. The referendum was first proposed by a Catholic group called "U ime obitelji," or "In the Name of the Family." Ninety percent of Croatia's 4.4 million people identify as Catholic; with most of the votes counted, about two thirds were in favor of the ban.
While the vote is a blow to equal rights for homosexuals, the BBC pointed out that things have, on the whole, improved for them in the Balkan state:
In Zagreb's first gay pride parade in 2002, dozens of participants were beaten up by extremists.
Parades are now held regularly although under heavy security.
Clearly, there's still a long way to go.
Croatia joined the European Union in July after about a decade of negotiations. President Ivo Josipovic said then that "the accession of Croatia to the European Union is confirmation that each one of us belongs to the European democratic and cultural set of values."
Then, crowds celebrated the country's admittance in capital city Zagreb's Ban Jelacic square. On the eve of the same-sex marriage vote, crowds filled another Zagreb square, St. Mark's, to protest the ban.
National Zoo's 100-Day-Old Panda Is Named Bao Bao
AP / National Zoo The Smithsonian National Zoo's baby panda turned 100 days old today! And, in accordance with Chinese tradition, she got a name.
Yes, the cub that survived birth (her sibling was stillborn) and the federal shutdown that turned off our beloved Panda Cam is now named Bao Bao.
Pronounced "bow-BOW," according to the AP, the name means "treasure" or "precious." Over 123,000 votes were cast for the name (there were only five names to choose from, as the National Zoo was clever enough not to make this an entirely open poll because then we all would have voted for "Miley Cyrus" for the lulz).
The National Zoo live-tweeted the event:
An arch with scrolls is where the name will be revealed in both English & Chinese. #SmithsonianPanda pic.twitter.com/8jf6gJnlsP
— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) December 1, 2013
Lion dancers are leading the way to Panda Plaza! #SmithsonianPanda pic.twitter.com/BdVaPDoGlp
— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) December 1, 2013
Dennis Kelly, director of the @NationalZoo, welcomes the crowd to the Zoo for the naming ceremony #SmithsonianPanda pic.twitter.com/lLLG3B4oKu
— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) December 1, 2013
Asst. Sec. Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones of the @StateDept says thanks to the panda cam, we can all feel like proud parents. pic.twitter.com/vQoD6UzCig
— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) December 1, 2013
His Excellency Cui Tiankai, Ambassador of the People's Republic of Chinasays in Chinese tradition the 100 day celebration is very important.
— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) December 1, 2013
Ambassador Tiankai wrote the potential names in calligraphy on the scrolls which will reveal the name in a moment. #SmithsonianPanda
— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) December 1, 2013
The cub’s name is: BAO BAO! Bao Bao means “treasure” or “precious." #SmithsonianPanda
— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) December 1, 2013
And the first ladies of America and China, Michelle Obama and Peng Liyuan, sent video messages, although only Liyuan is holding a stuffed panda:
Bao Bao's father Tian Tian, who, let's face it, did very little of the work to get Bao Bao here, will nevertheless get a "special ice treat" to commemorate his daughter's name today.
If you'd like to see Bao Bao, you'll have to wait just a little bit longer: she'll make her public debut in January. Until then, you'll have to make do with Panda Cam.
'Fire' and 'Frozen' Team Up to Conquer Thanksgiving
Welcome, to the Box Office Report, where fire and ice make a very appealing combination for the holiday.
1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Lionsgate): $74.5 million in 4,136 theaters.
Though Katniss held her top spot weekend to weekend, her probably more notable victory came over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday. As Pamela McClintock at The Hollywood Reporter wrote, Catching Fire overtook Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to become the highest grossing Thanksgiving film of all time, earning $110.2 million Wednesday through Sunday. Yes, the Girl on Fire is indeed on fire.
2. Frozen (Buena Vista): $66.7 million in 3,742 theaters.
The ice of Disney's wonderful animated musical Frozen may not have been powerful enough to overtake the fiery Hunger Games mockingjay, but Disney's not crying. In fact, while the movie may have made $66.7 over the three-day weekend, it made $93 million in five days, giving it the best Thanksgiving debut of all time, McClintock reported, beating the $80.1 million made by Pixar's Toy Story 2 over five days in 1999. Catching Fire and Frozen now have the "first and second largest three-day and five-day Thanksgiving grosses, respectively," according to Andrew Stewart of Variety. For what it's worth, the success of these two also means that two films starring women—some of which were, yes, animated—were the biggest moneymakers this holiday.
3. Thor: The Dark World (Buena Vista): $11.1 million in 3,286 theaters.
The God of Thunder couldn't over take the ladies of Catching Fire or Frozen, but he plodded along.
4. The Best Man Holiday (Universal): $8.5 million in 1,717 theaters.
Also still in the top five? The Best Man Holiday, the film that almost dethroned Thor a couple of weeks ago.
5. Homefront (Open Road Films): $6.9 million in 2,570 theaters.
The Jason Statham/James Franco/Winona Ryder drama (ha! yes!) performed to its expectations, according to Stewart. What's notably not on the list? Spike Lee's hyper-violent Oldboy, which underperformed, even for its not-very-wide release. Black Nativity, starring Jennifer Hudson also underperformed, grossing only $5 million over the five day weekend. Ray Subers at Box Office Mojo had estimated that it would make at least $15 million.
No, @GOP, Unfortunately Rosa Parks Didn't End Racism
The GOP seems confused Sunday morning. The official GOP Twitter account told people to remember Rosa Parks for "her role in ending racism." The implication here is that racism is already over. At least, that's how many people understood the message online.
Rosa Parks is undeniably an American hero. On this day in 1955, Parks refused to sit at the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus. She was arrested, and quickly became a leader in the civil rights movement. She "fought against" racism, and helped end segregation. But she did not, in fact, end racism.
Unfortunately racism still very much exists. In fact, racism exists within the Republican party. Sometimes Republican racism is accidental. Sometimes Republican racism interrupts a major conference. Sometimes Republican racism can't be explained away with tired cliches.
Prominent black Republicans know racism is still a huge problem — especially within the party.
Given the stakes, and who the message was coming from, the tweet was sure to catch fire. And, not shockingly, it did. The response was swift and damaging. A hashtag was created, #RacismEndedWhen, so people could guess the exact moment in history when it happened — a moment missed by most, apparently.
The GOP's social mistake was nothing more than a misguided attempt to remember a great American woman who deserves at least a moment of your thoughts today, likely written by a 20-something social media intern. For some reason the Tweet is still up almost two hours later.
If you're still wondering how to properly remember Parks, here are some examples:
The ones who are crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do. #MLK #RosaParks pic.twitter.com/oFc2QOlEhf
— Jerry Mitchell (@JMitchellNews) December 1, 2013
This is police report on Rosa Parks, Montgomery, Alabama, today 1955: pic.twitter.com/QQeGXABH94
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 1, 2013
Respect. RT @pourmecoffee 58 years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat: pic.twitter.com/V9aZETGnU7
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) December 1, 2013
Healthcare.Gov Now Works 90% of the Time, All the Time
The White House released its progress report covering the frantic repairs done to the Healthcare.Gov website over the last few months, and the results are promising, if not perfect.
"The status of HealthCare.gov in October was marked by an unacceptable user experience," bluntly reads the opening line in the official report on the Obamacare fixes, written by the Department of Health and Human Services. The problems contributing to the unacceptable user experience: slow response times, unexplained error messages, and frequent outages. "For some weeks in the month of October, the site was down an estimated 60 percent of the time," the report says.
Which is why the report is more than happy to tell you Healthcare.Gov now works over 90% of the time, according to Jeffrey D. Zients, the Obama adviser leading the website repair effort, who spoke with reporters Sunday. The website still isn't perfect — it still crashes occasionally — but it's certainly working a lot more than before, according to Zientz:
...the average system response time is under 1 second; the error rate is "consistently well below 1 percent"; the online system is stable — not crashing — more than 90 percent of the time; as many as 50,000 shoppers can use the site at the same time, or up to 800,000 visits a day.
This is the administration's argument they followed through with the November 30 improvement promise. And they say as much in the last line of the report. "While we strive to innovate and improve our outreach and systems for reaching consumers, we believe we have met the goal of having a system that will work smoothly for the vast majority of users," the report says.
The report gets into these results in much more detail — with images and graphs and charts! — and shows just how drastically Healthcare.gov has turned around the last few months. The site still isn't perfect, and it's still a little unreliable, but now it's the little engine that can instead of the little engine that can't.
You can check out the whole report here:
HealthCare Gov Progress Report Final by Anthony DeRosa
Four Dead After Train Derails in New York
Photo showing how close the derailed train was from going into the river, via Jonathan Maggio on Twitter. Four people died and dozens more were injured after multiple train cars derailed Sunday morning in New York.
Officials confirmed with 
November 30, 2013
Actor Paul Walker Killed in Car Crash
Actor Paul Walker speaks to media members as he arrives to attend the premiere of the film Fast Five in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday April 15, 2011. (AP PHOTO/FELIPE DANA) Paul Walker, known most famously for his role in the Fast and Furious action franchise, was killed in a car accident in the Los Angeles area on Saturday. He was 40 years old.
According to reports from TMZ and other outlets, Walker was the passenger in a car driven by a friend that was involved in a single-car accident in which both men were killed. The incident was confirmed in a statement on Walker's own Facebook page. The actor was leaving a charity event in the town of Santa Clarita, north of L.A., when the accident occurred.
Paul Walker, in addition to playing one in movies, was a car guy. Had a long conversation with him about cars a few years back.
— MattHardigree (@MattHardigree) December 1, 2013
Based on witness reports and photos taken at the scene, the car, believed to be a Porsche belonging to Walker, appeared to crash into a tree or some other structure and burst into flames. No other cars were involved, but an exact cause has yet to be determined.
A lifelong resident of California, Walker worked in Hollywood nearly his whole life, starting as a child model and actor when he was just a toddler. Although he appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows throughout his career, the role he will forever be known for is as cop-turned-street racer Brian O'Conner in five of the six films in the Fast and Furious franchise. The seventh installment, also featuring Walker, is currently in production and slated for release in 2014.Video apparently shot at the scene of Paul Walker crash http://t.co/dngkPpj85e
— Jon Passantino (@passantino) December 1, 2013
The Reunited Pixies Now Sorely Lacking a Bassist
Just a few months after releasing their first album in 22 years, The Pixies, once again, are missing a very important piece.
Kim Shattuck, The Pixies' bass player, who joined the band this year, broke the news in a Facebook post Friday evening. From the sounds of things, she was fired:
Super disappointed to learn that my time with the Pixies ended today. Amazing experience. Looking forward to focusing my attention back on the Muffs and our upcoming new album. All the best to everyone.
With Shattuck in the line-up, the band finally released new music, EP-1, nine years after they reunited, and 22 years after their last album — 1991's Trompe le Monde.
Shattuck joined The Pixies this summer, taking over the vacant bass duties for the seminal Boston band, but NME reports early signs pointed to friction within the group. Kim Deal, a beloved-by-fans founding member, quit in June. "It's currently unclear who will be playing bass," Pitchfork notes. "It's not currently clear who will be playing bass now in the absence of both Kims," remarks Rolling Stone. Deal allegedly quit over recording, touring, and the responsibilities that come with being a full time musician. Maybe she's had a change of heart — the band has a North American tour starting in January — however unlikely that may seem.
Someone needs to put a Kim Deal return to the Pixies on their Christmas list and hope Santa's watching.
Everyone Loses with That Viral Airplane Story
By now you've probably seen the story of Elan Gale, a producer for ABC's The Bachelor, and his airport hijinks with "Diane" while traveling to see family for Thanksgiving. It's awful, and you should hate it.
Here's the gist: on Gale's flight was this lady, whom he named "Diane," and she was unfairly giving the airline staff a hard time about missing her connecting flight. (The flight they shared was delayed.) Gale bought her a drink and wrote her a little note saying she should be nicer to the staff; it's the holidays and everyone's suffering together. She responded with her own note expressing how unammusing she found the situation. This set off a lengthy back and forth that culminated with, out of nowhere, Gale telling Diane to suck his dick. She slapped him. Now Alec Baldwin's weighing in. This Storify will fill in details:
Got everything? Excellent.
Before long, Gale's story was picking upworthy steam online, and before it could finish, Buzzfeed turned it into a post. (Obviously.) That sent Gale's tale over the viral nova, and before long it was clogging up every available social media feed. But now there are questions about its accuracy, and whether or not we should champion a guy who, clearly, was also behaving like a jerk.
Melissa Stettons, allegedly one of Gale's friends, asked why more people aren't questioning whether Gale's story has any ring of truth to it. Gale has proof, like pictures of the notes they allegedly passed, but at no point did he take a picture of Diane. He already broadcast to the world her complaints to airline staff, and then live-Tweeted the rest. So why not snap a creepshot? Stettons found two eerily similar times when Gale pulled weird "pranks" online, though they were not as well received. Stettons doesn't question the story's accuracy, she says, but someone should. "We are all just lemmings taught to believe anything we read on the internet," Stettons writes.
Liz Dwyer also challenged Gale's version of events in a post on her Los Angelista blog, titled "Since When Is Telling a Woman to Eat Your Dick Standing Up For Service Workers?" that was also eventually republished on Buzzfeed. She argues, very fairly, that perhaps Diane was wearing a medical mask because she's gravely ill, and perhaps her unreasonable behavior can be explained because this might be the last Thanksgiving she'll get to spend with her family. Surely that detail would go viral too. And why exactly did he tell her to suck his dick? "I can't help but wonder if Diane had been built like the Rock and named Dimitry if Gale would've passed his "eat my dick" note up to seat 7A," she writes. Also, Dwyer notes, Gale's story probably doesn't get shared, is not a win, and doesn't capture our attention if he's anything but a white man:
I also wondered what would’ve happened, and whether the general public would’ve found it hilarious and awesome, if a black man were tweeting about telling a white woman to eat his dick. Yeah, I really wish a black man — or a man who looked Middle Eastern — would pass a note to a white woman on an airplane saying “eat my dick.” I doubt the flight attendants would’ve given a wink and nod, as they appear to have done to Gale.
A note telling her to be more considerate next time would have sufficed. But he was obnoxious from the beginning, and eventually he crossed a line. Regardless of Diane's possible illness, Gale is just as much of a jerk, if not more so.
That Buzzfeed was able to take advantage of both sides of this story — pushing Gale's original tweets and the ensuing backlash — proves no one wins here. But that's also the tired cycle of the internet publishing: something happens, there's backlash, and then backlash against that backlash. It's a cycle we're all guilty of falling into. That we're for some reason spilling time, ink and HTML code over this story proves how desperate we are to outrage about outrage, to keep the wheels spinning, to talk about something — anything. Even one random guy's airport story that you, under any normal circumstances, wouldn't listen to at a bar.
Flying over the holidays is hard enough without a woman behaving like a jerk to airline staff, a guy telling her to suck his dick as some misguided attempt at nobility, and that story getting posted around the Internet as some kind of #win! Next time everyone should sit down, be quiet, and not celebrate when humans are jerks to each other. Happy holidays.
How a Lost Chalice Helped the U.S.-Iran Negotiations
The chalice, via the State Department's Twitter feed. New details are still leaking out about the diplomatic hoops diplomats were required to jump through in order to make the historic nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran happen. In this chapter, all they had to do was return a stolen chalice.
According to this insane L.A. Times story, the U.S. was debating how best to acknowledge Hassan Rouhani's election as Iran's new president. The two countries were already knee-deep in secret, back-channel negotiations, but, on the surface, the relationship was cold as ever. One diplomat convinced the President's foreign policy team the best way to get in the country's good graces, is to return the 7th century, priceless Iranian chalice they've long wanted.
An art dealer illegally smuggled the chalice, looted from an Iranian cave, into the U.S. in 2003 to orchestrate a multi-million dollar sale. The State Department heard about his plan, confiscated the chalice, and it sat in a climate-controlled warehouse ever since. The diplomats knew Iran wanted it back.
Most importantly, retrieving the chalice earn Rouhani praise in Iran, endearing him to hardliners and building confidence among his people. So when both leaders were in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, the plan was set. Instructions were given to the diplomat who cares for the chalice explaining how to return it:
U.S. and Iranian diplomats can talk with one another on a short list of issues, such as helping the Iranians set up a bank account or get diplomatic license plates.
The U.S. diplomat called the Iranian contact for such matters and said he had something to deliver before Rouhani left. The Iranian agreed to meet.
Quickly, the diplomat took a photo of the griffin and printed a card explaining its history and why it was in U.S. hands. The Iranian contact might not recognize the object, he worried.
Thinking a cardboard box was no way to present a precious object, he bought a white gift bag at Hallmark, choosing that color so as not to imply it was a gift.
"Plain white gift bags are actually kind of hard to find," he said in a recent interview.
The Iranians love the gift, and accepted the gracious offer to build relations. Two days later, Rouhani and Obama were talking on the phone like it was no big deal, as if the two countries speak more often than once every three decades.
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