Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 883

Obama Says If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep It. For Real This Time

Admitting that "the roll-out has been rough so far," President Obama on Thursday morning announced that his administration is giving insurance companies a one-year grace period on cancelling policies. As for Healthcare.gov? It won't be perfect on December 1, either. "Buying health insurance is never going to be like buying a song on iTunes."

The president started by painting a picture of a system that was slowly starting to work. Including those people who gained health coverage under an expansion of Medicaid, "more than 500,000 Americans could know the security of health insurance for the first time in their lives." Only about 100,000 people signed up for coverage using state and federal exchanges, but some one million signed up for accounts, apparently intending to do so. He acknowledged problems, arguing that Obamacare was still an important change.

I'm willing to work with Democrats and Republicans to fix problems as they arise. This is an example of what I was talking about. We can always make the law work better. It's important to understand, though, that the old individual market was not working well. And it's important that we don't pretend somehow that's a place worth going back to.

"There are still 40 million americans who don't have health insurance at all," he said. "I'm not going to walk away from 40 million people who have a chance to get health insurance for the first time."

The change that the president announced is a modest one. Insurers already have the ability to preserve plans that don't meet baseline coverage and costs mandated by the Affordable Care Act, unless those plans expire at Obamacare's January 1 launch date. The shift from the administration — a shift that will be enforced through the Department of Health and Human Services — allows companies to hold off on forcing an upgrade of expiring plans for 12 months. At the same time, the president will demand that insurers explain both why the existing, extended plans don't meet the baselines set by Obamacare and offer more information about alternatives. 

More from insurance industry source on WH O-care fix: "This is a joke - doesn't change anything but allow WH to blame insurance companies"

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) November 14, 2013

In other words, as the insurance companies point out, this allows the administration to shift some of the onus of the cancellations onto insurers, some of whom have prematurely sought to cancel policies. In addition, it gives the administration 12 months to work out some of the law's other problems, revisiting the issue of cancellations, it hopes, without the website problems hanging over its head.

Ahead of Obama's remarks, House Speaker John Boehner said, "It's become clear that the American people simply can't trust this White House." He said he was "highly skeptical" that the president could use an administrative response to delaying cancellations — in part, because he wants to promote Rep. Fred Upton's measure that will come up for a vote tomorrow. That bill would let people keep existing plans for two years. 

As we noted earlier, the original ACA roll-out did not include this specific grace period. But support for the ACA has steadily eroded over the past few weeks as complaints have increased about cancellations. Earlier this week, former president Bill Clinton undermined that position by advocating that people be allowed to keep their plans.

The insurers are at least to some extent correct: this is in large part an attempt to shift political blame. At the Washington Post, Ezra Klein has a good analysis of the various fixes to the "keep your own plan" problem — and also explains why insurance companies are angry.

They've been working with the White House to get HealthCare.Gov up and running and they've been devoting countless man hours to dealing with the problems and they've been taking the heat from their customers over canceled plans, and now the Obama administration wants to make them into a scapegoat.

Asked about his dropping poll numbers, Obama indicated that he understood why Americans' views of him have changed. "I think it's legitimate for them to expect me to win back some credibility on the health care law in particular," he said. "And you know: That's on me." Regardless, he insisted that he didn't know that the roll-out of Healthcare.gov would be as flawed as it was. 

Had I been informed [about the site's flaws], I wouldn't be going out saying, "Boy, this is going to be great." You know, I'm accused of a lot of things, but I don't think I'm stupid enough to go around saying this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity a week before the website opened if I thought that it wasn't going to work.

The president was then asked if the website would be working for everyone on November 30, as the administration has repeatedly suggested. "It's fair to say the improvement will be marked and noticeable," he replied. "The majority of people who use it" will find that he works, he said. In other words: No, not for everyone.

Via Talking Points Memo, here's the letter the administration sent insurance commissioners. 

       

Cory Booker Has a Girlfriend

Today in celebrity gossip:Cory Booker has a girlfriend all of a sudden, Justin Bieber is back in America but is not yet free from persecution, and Mariah Carey hated being on American Idol.

Well this is interesting. Amid some swirling debate about the nature of his sexuality — is he gay? is he straight? can angels even have a sexuality? — it seems that Cory Booker, newly elected senator from the unfortunate but necessary state of New Jersey, has found himself a girlfriend. And what a girlfriend! Like Booker, she's a Yale law school grad, only she didn't go into anything as cynical and self-serving as politics. No, she's an entertainment lawyer out in the sun-blessed paradise known as Hollywood, where she does the earnest, thankless, but karmically rewarding work of helping movie stars get the most money possible in contract negotiations. So he's the shrewd go-getter, she's the cock-eyed optimist do-gooder, and I guess it's quite the complement. They've been together since she co-hosted a fundraiser for his campaign at a fancy restaurant in West Hollywood. Which... wait, why was a New Jersey senate campaign having a fundraiser at one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants in Los Angeles? The hell is going on here? Well, who knows. The point is... Uh, I guess the point is that if anyone ever writes an article about you that starts with "Despite being famously noncommittal about his sexuality," I'm very sorry, because that must be very strange. [Page Six]

Oh thank god. After a disastrous tour around the mysterious continent known to locals as "South America," Justin Bieber is finally home on good real American soil. His cute little private jet landed in sweet ol' Southern California yesterday, bringing the boy-king back to safety. Though, of course, the world continues to conspire against him — because the world is jealous, because the world looks at Justin Bieber, sees his downy-cheecked face and is envious of his youth, glares at his high-pompadoured hair and wishes for his boldness and daring, hears the cool croons of his music and thinks "I want it! I want it!" The world is jealous of Justin Bieber, and because the world cannot be Justin Bieber, which is all the world wants, the world has decided to punish him. And so even though the lad was back on American soil, free from the crude slings and arrows of those Southern Americans, he was still punished, cruelly. His private jet was searched by customs agents, as if Justin Bieber would be smuggling anything bad, anything illicit. A boy, sweet and innocent as he! O cruel place, cruel blue marble spinning in the lonely aether. Why must you torment this boy so? And then, what's this? South America is still not done with him! It seems that our childlike emperor could face actual legal charges in Argentina if officials find him suspect of desecrating the Argentine flag — a silly stupid sun caught between two blue nothings. See, what happened was that someone at one of Bieber's concerts in Argentina threw a towel emblazoned with the flag's image onto the stage and Justin used it to mop up the floor, so people are saying he was disrespectful of the flag. Which... what about the teen weirdo who threw the dang thing up on the stage? Who were they, Eva Peron? Some national hero? No, they threw the flag, which was a towel actually and not really a flag, onto the stage. This is silly. Stop your persecution, you horrid Nazi retirement community. How dare you. How dare. When will this assault on poor Justin Bieber end? What must this beautiful soul do to earn back fate's good graces? Pee in another bucket? If it's pee in another bucket, he's more than capable of doing that. We all know that. [Daily Mail; TMZ]

Mariah Carey was on the radio yesterday, and she was asked what her experience judging American Idol was like, and she said that she hated it and, seemingly referring to one of her coworkers, said her time on the show "was like going to work every day in hell with Satan." Aha. Interesting. So who might she be talking about? She said it wasn't Randy, she's known Randy for years, she likes Randy. So was it Nicki Minaj or Keith Urban? Who knows! There's really no way of knowing. Sure she and Nicki had their on-air "feuds" or whatever, but that was all ginned up for the cameras and anyone who says otherwise is a rube and a sap. So maybe it was Keith Urban! Or maybe it was Nicole Kidman, hanging around the set and hissing, literally hissing, at Mariah every time she walked by. Or maybe it was none of these famous people. Maybe it was some guy named Steve who worked in the control room. Maybe Steve was an utter nightmare and Mariah hated him and he hated Mariah, and so working there, for Mariah, was a living hell. Because of Steve. Horrible, horrible Steve. No one can figure out why he hasn't been fired, but he hasn't. So Mariah had to leave. I blame Steve. [Us Weekly]

The annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was last night, and it was quite the event, with Taylor Swift performing in a strange Union Jack costume and celebrities lining the sidelines to ogle the goods struttin' down the catwalk. One of those celebrities was singer/Voice coach/vaguely creepy man with a probably troubling secret Adam Levine, whose girlfriend, Behati Prinsloo, was walking in the show. And Levine was apparently very proud of her! People writes:

Later on in the show, when Prinsloo led the final "Snow Angels" section, The Voice coach led a standing ovation as she walked by in a sparkly lingerie set and pluming angels wings.

I'm sorry, but... a standing ovation? For a lingerie fashion show? I'm sure she looked great and did a good job of... walking... but I don't know if that really merits a standing ovation. That's just very silly. Call me a jerk if you want, but the only person who should get a standing ovation at a fashion show is the designer, so unless they wheeled out the mummified corpse of the original Victoria, then everyone should have remained in their seats. Rules are rules. [People]

 

       

Only Old White People Think Immigrants Threaten 'American Values'

Most Americans do not view immigrants as a threat either to America's economy or its culture, but key elements of the Republican coalition continue to express unease at the pace of demographic change, the new College Board/National Journal Next America Poll has found.

The poll found little concern about economic competition from immigrants: 63 percent of those polled said "immigrants coming to this country today … mostly take jobs Americans don't want," while only 19 percent said they "mostly take jobs away from American citizens."

Those numbers did not vary widely among almost all major groups. Roughly four-fifths of Hispanics, two-thirds of Asian-Americans, and three-fifths of both whites and African-Americans said immigrants mostly take jobs Americans don't want. So did about three-fifths or more of Republicans, Democrats, and independents, and comparable numbers of Americans at all income levels.

Nearly as broad an overall consensus emerged when the survey asked adults whether they believed "the growing number of newcomers from other countries are a threat to traditional American customs and values." In all, 56 percent of those surveyed disagreed with that sentiment, while just 41 percent agreed.

That wasn't statistically different from the last time the Next America Poll measured this issue in October 2012; at that point, 55 percent of adults rejected that statement, while 42 percent agreed. Both of those results show a shift toward greater tolerance since spring 2009, when the Pew Research Center tested the question. At that point, a slight 51 percent to 43 percent majority said that newcomers threatened American traditions.

[image error]Yet the question of immigrants' cultural impact—in contrast with their economic effect—continues to divide Americans across racial, educational, generational, and partisan lines. In the new survey, whites, particularly the older and blue-collar whites at the core of the modern Republican electoral coalition, expressed much more discomfort than other groups did about the cultural impact of immigrants.

The College Board/National Journal Next America Poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, surveyed 1,272 adults ages 18 and older from Oct. 14-24, in English and Spanish, through landlines and cell phones. It includes oversamples of 245 African-Americans, 229 Hispanics, and 107 Asian-Americans; the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points for the overall sample, with larger error margins for the subgroups. The poll is one component of National Journal's Next America project, which examines how changing demography is changing the national agenda.

Not surprisingly, the poll found that the fastest-growing immigrant groups overwhelmingly reject the notion that newcomers are threatening American traditions. Asian-Americans disagreed with that statement by a resounding margin of 71 percent to 25 percent, and Hispanics dismissed it by 67 percent to 31 percent.

African-Americans, the poll found, also rejected the idea by a comparable 65 percent to 33 percent. That continued a major shift in opinion among blacks: Support for the idea that newcomers undermine American values has steadily fallen among African-Americans from 62 percent in 2009 to 47 percent in 2012 to only one-third now. (The belief that newcomers are undermining American values among Hispanics never reached nearly as high, but has also declined from 42 percent in 2009.)

Whites, though, remained closely divided on the question in the new survey, with 47 percent agreeing that newcomers are threatening American customs and values and 50 percent disagreeing. That's a modest shift toward acceptance from 2009, when a 52 percent majority of whites saw newcomers as a threat while only 43 percent disagreed. (Compared with last year, the results show little change among whites; at that point, 45 percent endorsed the statement and 54 percent rejected it.)

This narrow overall split masks sharp cleavages among whites that follow familiar political lines. Consistently, groups central to the GOP coalition expressed much more unease about the ongoing demographic change than other elements of the white community.

Among whites without a college education, a group that broke strongly for Mitt Romney over President Obama last fall, a 53 percent to 44 percent majority agreed that new arrivals are threatening American values. By contrast, among college-educated whites, who divided more closely in the presidential election, just 34 percent accepted the statement; 64 percent rejected it.

Likewise, a 54 percent to 43 percent majority of whites older than 50 viewed the new arrivals as a threat to American values; a solid 58 percent to 40 percent majority of whites younger than 50 did not. Older whites have become a cornerstone of the contemporary GOP coalition. Finally, whites who identify as Republicans or lean toward the party backed the statement by a 55 percent to 43 percent margin; whites who identify as Democrats or lean toward the party rejected it by 61 percent to 38 percent.

[image error]These class and generational differences were much more muted among nonwhites: minorities older and younger than 50 rejected the statement by a virtually identical 2-1 margin, and minorities without a college degree were only slightly more supportive of the idea than minorities with one.

The contrasting sentiments among whites capture some of the pressure facing Republicans as they navigate through racially charged issues like immigration reform. While other polls have found that even a majority of whites and Republicans favor a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally, these results point to a deeper unease about America's changing face among groups on which Republicans now heavily rely. Evidence from this and other surveys suggest those bedrock attitudes provide part of the foundation for the resistance to government spending, particularly on transfer programs for the poor, central to modern GOP ideology.

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MORE FROM NATIONAL JOURNAL The GOP's Unhealthy Bias Against Obamacare Ted Cruz Isn't Done Trying to Repeal Obamacare The Politics of Ben's Chili Bowl

The Next America poll found that whites that consider newcomers a threat to America's values consistently expressed more resistance to government activism than those who do not. For instance, while nearly three-fifths of whites who do not consider newcomers a threat said the economy would benefit from reaching President Obama's goal of significantly increasing the share of Americans with some postsecondary degree, only about two-fifths of whites who are uneasy about the demographic change agreed. Whites resistant to the change were also more likely than whites comfortable with it to believe that tax cuts, as opposed to increased education spending, would provide the biggest boost to their local economy.

Perhaps most tellingly, whites who are resistant to the demographic change were much less likely than whites who are comfortable with it to say they considered the persistent income gaps between whites and minority families a "major problem" for the country. Even more telling was the divergence on a question that gave respondents four options for closing that income gap.

Whites comfortable with the demographic change split closely, with 35 percent saying the best option for narrowing the gap was "more personal responsibility in the minority community," an additional 32 percent picked increasing the number of minority college graduates, and the final one-fourth preferring either increased integration or enhanced antidiscrimination efforts in the workplace. But among whites who believe newcomers are threatening American values, only about one-fifth picked increasing minority college graduates, and just more than one-sixth backed a civil-rights response. A solid 55 percent majority of these whites said the key to narrowing income gaps is for minorities to assume more personal responsibility.

       

'Maleficent' Teaser Reminds Us Why 'Sleeping Beauty' Was So Scary

Of the classic animated Disney movies, Sleepy Beauty was easily the scariest, and Angelina Jolie is here to remind us why in the teaser trailer for Maleficent, the live-action take on the story with the villain in the forefront. 

The teaser is narrated by Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning, doll-like as usual), who plays with fairies and addresses Maleficent. In the climatic moment she says, "don't be afraid," to which Jolie's Maleficent replies: "I am not afraid." Aurora encourages her to come out. "Then you'll be afraid," Jolie purrs and emerges from the darkness to display her unreal cheekbones. (Seriously, they are unreal. Are they enchanted? Is this a plot point?)

It's nice that the movie, directed by Robert Stromberg, seems to be sticking with a lot of the iconography from the original, including Maleficent's horns and the terrifying thorny branches she uses as a weapon, but there are reasons to be wary. For instance, John Lee Hancock -- director of The Blind Side and Disney's upcoming Saving Mr. Banks -- was recently called in to write scenes to be reshot. We're holding out hope that this will be good, creepy, maybe a little campy fun.   

       

Thanks, Obama: Healthcare.gov's Covergirl Is Being Cyberbullied

ABC News has the scoop sought by a number of outlets (including the one you're reading now) for six weeks: an interview with Adriana, the vaguely ethnic, smiling young woman that was the face of Healthcare.gov just long enough to become the face of its failures. 

Because of the glitches, the backlash, and conspiracy theories from conservatives who believe she is an illegal immigrant and thereby a first horseman of the apocalypse, Adriana is keeping a low profile. She didn't even give ABC her last name because of the cyberbullying she endured in the wake of the rollout. "I mean, I don't know why people should hate me because it's just a photo. I didn't design the website. I didn't make it fail, so I don't think they should have any reasons to hate me," Adriana told ABC News.

Hate is a strong word, especially for someone who is just smiling next to a bunch of logos. But since the rollout Adriana's has become the Mona Lisa for healthcare, and her face became a sponge for all the discontent that failed rollout wrought. There were photoshops (this is one of the more tame ones out there):

And sites like the conservative social news site Twitchy, along with The Washington Post, noticed that she no longer no appeared on the site late last month (around 3-4 weeks after the site went live). Some were intrigued (CNN ran a segment on the mystery of Adriana), and some just used the opportunity to make fun of her like this photoshop adept Twitchy reader:

ABC explains that "speculation swirled that Adriana might not be a legal resident of the United States, and therefore not even eligible for the health care exchange." This was a bit harder to find. But on AboveTopSecret, a conspiracy-theory driven site, there's a long thread where multiple users asked if Adriana was an illegal immigrant or even real. "I'm leaning more towards computer-generated 'American looking' face...ie. she never existed," one skeptic wrote.  

Here's what we know about her. She is a native of Colombia and a permanent resident of the United States, married to an American man and with a young child. She lives and works in Maryland, and she actually volunteered to have her photo taken in exchange for allowing the photos to be used for Obamacare. 

Shortly after Healthcare.gov went live, The Atlantic Wire contacted contractors who'd helped with the site's design and construction in an effort to determine Adriana's identity. We were told that she had volunteered to have her photo taken by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for the Affordable Care Act's rollout, though a representative of that agency told us that her contact information wouldn't be shared.

The agency was tight-lipped, obviously aware that Adriana was increasingly the face and symbol of an unpopular site. The agency still maintains to ABC that Adriana's picture was removed from the site solely because "Healthcare.gov is a dynamic website," not because Adriana asked. Adriana wasn't happy about the site's response either, ABC News reported: 

"Like I said it was shocking. It was upsetting. It was sad. We were having a hard day when we read all this," she said. "And in a way, I'm glad that my son is not old enough to understand, because you know whatever happens to you, it hurts them too."

Despite her cyberbullying, Adriana says things have calmed down and she's risen above the fracas like a majestic, healthcare-dispensing phoenix. "They didn't ruin my life. I still have a job, I'm still married," Adriana told ABC. "That didn't really crush me to the ground. I'm fine. Now I laugh about it."

       

'Fifty Shades of Grey' Moves into the 2015 Fray with Valentine's Day Release

Forget 2014, 2015 is on its way to being one of the most massive movie years in recent memory. The Avengers sequel, Batman vs. Superman, Star Wars and now Fifty Shades of Grey. 

Entertainment Weekly's Nicole Sperling reports that Fifty Shades has bumped its release date from August 2014 to February 2015. A February release date is usually not a great sign for the quality of a movie, but one could always argue that it gives Universal a perfect Valentine's Day marketing platform for the sex-focused film. 

Now, as Sperling points out, this makes the Fifty Shades release the centerpiece of an entire month, which it wouldn't have been in August, when it was set to go up against Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and possibly more with studios avoiding June and July because of the World Cup. "The strength of this book is really worldwide, so we want to be able to take advantage of women who are invariably on vacation with their families during the month of August in Europe," Universal's Donna Langley told Sperling. 

But moving Fifty Shades into 2015 is more proof that it's going to be one hell of a year for highly anticipated movies. May has The Avengers: Age of Ultron, June has Jurassic World and Fantastic Four, July has Terminator, Batman vs. Superman, and Ant-Man, November has the next James Bond film and the final installment of The Hunger Games, and December has Star Wars: Episode VII. And we're still more than a year out from the start. That's not to say that 2014 isn't busy -- Summit will try to launch the Divergent franchise in March, and May has both The Amazing Spider-man 2 and X Men: Days of Future Past -- but there's something particularly fierce about what's coming in 2015. 

 Of course, it's early yet, and things could move around. Independence Day 2, just got bumped to 2016. 

       

Obama Really Needs a Win Right Now

Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran's Prime Minister Javid Zarif almost reached a deal to dissolve Iran's nuclear weapons program, which would have been a real win for the administration after a long dry spell. Of course negotiations fell through, Kerry blamed Iran, and Zarif fired back—with a tweet. "He tweeted?" Stewart asked. "We haven't talked for 34 years, we get together and you fucking tweet a break up? That's what you do? Takes a lot of balls."

Stewart asked Senior International Affairs correspondent Samantha Bee how the administration was taking this diplomatic setback. "Oh, they really needed this one, Jon. Obama just really needed this win," Bee said. "There was that whole mess with the NSA, Congress holding up all of his appointments, and the Healthcare.gov rollout was just pathetic." Bee called it a disaster, stuck inside a travesty, wrapped in incompetence, aka a clusterfucken. Plus there's a new software glitch. "Now, when you try to sign up for Obamacare, your computer punches you in the dick," Bee said. "I mean, how do you not think about that when you design a website?" 

With all that on his plate, Obama just wants something to go right. "He's so desperate for a win he's playing Call of Duty: Ghost on easy just to rack up the achievements," Bee added. The staff, to cheer him up, even set up a game of pick up basketball for him.

But even that didn't go well. "A big boned girl in a flannel nightgown just won the game with a tomahawk dunk," Bee said. "Dammit Pepper, why would you do that?" Seems like nothing's going right for the administration these days.

 

       

They Came to Adore Her: A Night in Bethlehem with Sarah Palin's Fans

About 700 people showed up at the first stop on Sarah Palin's tour promoting her new book about the War on Christmas. Or: 701, including me.

If you're Palin, there's only one place better than Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, to launch a book about Christmas: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, only about 70 miles west of New York City, where she had spent Tuesday giving interviews (to mixed reviews). Except that Bethlehem doesn't have a Barnes & Noble, so the event was actually in Easton — just a smidge east of Bethlehem, but distinctly less symbolic.

Palin's tour was announced on her prodigious and popular Facebook page, which lists a slew of events between now and Thanksgiving in service to Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. The wreath-fronted book is a 256-page tribute to Jesus being the reason for the season is dedicated to combatting seasonal homogeneity and fighting the commercialization of Christmas by selling books at $16 a pop. Tuesday was the first day it was available for sale, so I decided to follow the Republican star to Bethlehem to see a Christmas book be born. 

Not primarily because I was interested in Sarah Palin, but because I wanted to meet the people that were similarly inspired to come. It's a good thing that the plan wasn't to ambush Palin for an interview. Perhaps given past problems, there is only one way to actually get to meet Sarah Palin. There is also only one way to get a picture of Sarah Palin. And there is only one thing you can get Sarah Palin to write in your book. In order:

To meet her: Get a bracelet marking your place in a long line snaking through the store and out onto the sidewalk. (Savvier attendees showed up first thing in the morning to get low-numbered bracelets.) Your ticket, of course, is the book, which you must buy and cannot buy more than four of.

For a picture: Get an officially sanctioned photo taken by Palin's photographer which you can then access online.

What you can get signed: "S. Palin," in green ink on the book's title page.

That's the complete menu. If you are a reporter who drove from New York who wants a picture of Palin signing books, there are barricades to prevent you from getting your picture. There are burly staffers who, no, won't make an exception for reporters who would like to get a picture and, no, won't take the reporter's camera and take a picture for them. To talk to Palin or even get a glimpse of Palin, you have to be willing to invest time and money in Palin. It is as efficient as a slaughterhouse: people are tagged and wend their way in, vanish from sight, and then reemerge — albeit in one piece and very happy.

The refrain from those who met Palin (who the Associated Press reports was wearing a custom sweatshirt telling readers that said "It's OK to wish me a Merry Christmas!") was this: She was so nice. She was so nice, Rob from Bethlehem told me. She was so nice, Dick and Mary Kay from a small town two-and-a-half hours away said. She was so nice, insisted a group of four women from Wyomissing (Ashley, Melissa, Courtney, and Debbie). "We were expecting her to be nice," one of them said, "but you just never know." Another: "I just didn't know she'd take so much time, because there were so many people." The first (maybe? I lost track): "Wanted to know our names." Another, talking over both: "Really personable." Two high school students in field hockey jackets said Palin was "very nice," and that the experience was "really neat." "She made it seem like it was an honor to meet you."

When people came out with their signed books, passing the line of people waiting outside on the cold sidewalk, the refrain shifted slightly: It's worth it. Dick and Mary Kay were telling me how they 1) were pleased that Todd Palin was there, too, 2) felt an "instant bond" with the former governor, and 3) told the Palins that they were taking a trip to Alaska on the strength of Sarah's TLC reality show. A man came walking out past us and the line. "It's worth it!," he yelled, and again, "It's worth it!" The line nodded appreciatively.

No one I spoke would have needed to be convinced. There was no indifference among those who turned up for the book-signing, which, of course not, why wait in line to meet Sarah Palin if you don't care about her. But this wasn't just fandom. It was respect and admiration. Multiple people told me that they wanted to meet Palin because she was an historical figure. "Who knows if you'll ever get to meet someone that made a run for the VP, this close and personal," one mother told me, explaining why she brought her 12- and 15-year-old daughters to the store. (Asked if they were excited to be there, the teens seemed sorrrrt of excited.) Everyone in line I spoke with was a Sarah Palin fan; everyone I spoke with had voted for her in 2008. What they appreciated most about the former governor varied: her faith, her conservative values, both. That she decided to come to Eastern Pennsylvania was not an opportunity to be missed. One family, a young mother and father and their toddler trumped us all for symbolism: they'd come to Bethlehem from nearby Nazareth. 

The crowd was almost entirely white, which probably isn't much of a surprise, but otherwise fairly diverse. A broad range of ages, a broad range of (conservative) philosophies. Well-coiffed older women and their middle-aged daughters and guys in Giants gear. Kids in school clothes and Tea Partiers (like Dick and Mary Kay) wearing souvenirs from past rallies. Two men in ties that I spoke with had driven up from Philadelphia straight from work. Two older men told me that they were Reagan Democrats, lured into the Republican fold in 1980; others noted that they'd been Republicans their entire lives.

Not everyone in the store was there for the Palin event, though most clearly were. A store employee, who told me she wasn't supposed to be talking to me, said that the number of people buying non-Palin books was lower than normal, especially given the season. One family I ran into in the parking lot had come to the store to buy a book and for the kids to study. That wasn't possible.

Given that the event was held in a relatively small city in Pennsylvania that had been losing its population since the steel industry collapsed, there was an impressive representation of the governor's home state. Connor, a 13-year-old who was far less shy than his mother, was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with "Alaska," which he got in Alaska on a trip. Connor is a "really big fan" of Sarah Palin, though he was only eight when she ran in 2008. Connor goes to "Corncob High," his middle school's nickname since it's located "right in the middle of a corn field" near Allentown. Connor's bracelet identified him as number 548, meaning he still had a wait in front of him before he got his book signed.

Ashleigh Strange was sitting by the coffee bar wearing a bright green Alaska T-shirt and no book-line bracelet. Ashleigh was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, and moved to Bethlehem only about four months ago. She voted in the 2008 election (for a third party) and happened to be present at the park where Palin resigned her governorship in 2009. When she saw a notice in the store last week about Palin's upcoming appearance, Ashleigh decided to swing by, since it's "been four months since I've seen another Alaskan."

Ashleigh, unlike the others there, wasn't in line with Palin's message. "You have a 'war on Christmas' almost the way you'd have a 'war on birthdays.' Everyone celebrates a different way." And she wasn't very excited about the re-born, post-governorship Palin. "She kind of dropped off the face of the Earth," Ashleigh said, "and I kind of stopped hearing about her." Palin "was a good governor when she was in Alaska — and then she left," Ashleigh said. "And now the public perception of her, through her own actions and SNL and that kind of thing kind of swayed public opinion and made her into a different person." (One couple in line joked that the person waiting to sign their books was actually Tina Fey. "It's a fake-out!")

Others had a different reaction to the media's treatment of Palin. One of the men in the ties suggested that Palin is "very polarized at this point," but that "in spite of the number of attacks against her, she keeps plugging away." I overheard another man, wearing a minister's collar, loudly telling a nearby group that the media "attacked her and not McCain."

(I also overheard a little girl who walked by a table covered with books and pointed one out to her mother. "Oh! Malala!," she said. "She was on TV. She got shot in the head or something, but she's okay.")

Near the help kiosk in the center of the store stood Lillian and Vince. Lillian is a tall African-American women with dreadlocks; Vince, slightly shorter and a bit gruff. The two hadn't seen each other in about a decade, after becoming friends as customers at the same Chinese take-out joint. But there they were, fake-fighting about politics in the Barnes and Noble.

Lillian is not a Palin fan. She was there out of curiosity, she told me. But, "like her or love her, she's still an historical political figure." Vince is a bigger fan — he planned to tell Palin that she "has beautiful eyes" — and identified himself as "more or less" a Tea Party supporter, because Tea Partiers are those who support the Constitution of the United States. This prompted a side argument between the two, in which Lillian pointed out that the Constitution itself took a little wrangling to ensure equal rights and Vince responded that it was Southern Democrats that opposed the Civil Rights Act.

Vince "supported Sarah but not McCain" in 2008 — though the pair got his vote. Lillian, though, voted for Barack Obama. "I had to vote for Barack," she said. "For the historical impact? My grandmother. I had to do it. You can say: Oh, you just voted for him because he's black? Yes! I did! You know why? Because history was flawed. And I had to make it right."

As I was talking to one couple, a man drove by in a pick-up truck. "I hope she runs again!" he yelled out the window. Some of those I spoke with shared that sentiment, adamantly offering their eternal support to Palin in any future political campaigns. But here's the thing: Most didn't. Some gave tepid support to the idea of backing Palin in 2016; as the mother of the two semi-excited teens told me, it would depend on her "values and viewpoint" having not changed. Connor, the kid in the Alaska sweatshirt, said he wasn't sure if he'd support Palin when he could vote someday, nor did the field hockey players. Some thought the toll from 2008 and ensuing critique made a Palin candidacy impossible. Dick and Mary Kay — the most stereotypically Tea Party types, who drove the six hours to D.C. for the "Restoring Honor" rally — said that they wouldn't back Palin against, say, Ted Cruz. "We gotta get the old farts out of there," Mary Kay said, taking care to point out that I could quote her on that. Palin didn't seem to be included in that descriptor, but the point was: fresh blood.

For the people I spoke with, Palin was no longer a politician. She was a communicator, a symbol of conservatism and Christian forthrightness and traditional values. Of the three or four people I asked, none could remember who they'd voted for in the 2012 Republican primary. Politics, for most of us most of the time, is a clunky, complex irrelevance. For many, it seemed, Palin had moved outside of that sphere into the realm of symbolism. They showed up to buy a book that hadn't been widely reviewed, that, for all they new, contained nothing but blank pages. But its message and the name on the front were good enough. Buying the book and meeting Sarah Palin were reinforcements of a world view —  central to who they are and what they believe.

When I said above that Palin didn't offer personalized signatures, that turned out not to be entirely true. As I stood outside of the bookstore talking to Rob ("I told her she's a young, female Reagan") a woman with him jumped in. "She personalized a book for my 90-year-old Aunt Marge," she said, "and that was very nice of her." Marge loves Sarah Palin, but didn't want to come because it was "too late" and there were "too many people." I asked if the woman was going to give the book to Marge now or wait for Christmas. "I was going to save it for Christmas," the woman responded, "but I'm going to get in my car and take it over to her now because ..." She took a breath. "She's 90. She's going to love it."

Inside, behind ad hoc walls emblazoned with the Barnes & Noble logo, out of the sight of everyone but those willing to commit to the relationship, Palin kept signing books. Or so I assume.

       

Tons of Food in the Philippines Isn't Getting to Starving Typhoon Survivors

Countries all around the world have responded to the humanitarian crisis in the Philippines with more than two tons food and emergency water. Unfortunately, a lot of it is going untouched because the hardest-hit areas are nearly impossible to reach. "I don't think that's anyone's fault. I think it's the geography and the devastation," UNICEF Spokesman Christopher De Bono told reporters.

Organizations like World Food Programme, which has already delivered 2,700 tons of rice to the country, are having a tough time getting that food into the mouths of hungry survivors because the damage left by Typhoon Haiyan has blocked roads and access routes to those areas. In Tacloban, airstrips have been cleared but there's a bottleneck of deliveries that's reduced aid to a trickle. "Mayor Romualdez said that the city desperately needed trucks and drivers to distribute relief shipments of food that are piling up at the city’s airport," The New York Times reported, adding that Romualdez also needs those trucks for more depressing reasons. Tacloban needs "heavy equipment and personnel to pull decaying corpses out of the unending mounds of debris and collapsed houses that stretch across this city," the Times reports. 

The Times also reported that the chaos prevented those bodies that have been recovered from being buried. A recent attempt to deliver more than 200 bodies to a mass grave was canceled because of security concerns, as there have been rumors of gunfights between home and business owners and looters.

100's of volunteers working 24/7 packing food parcels for #haiyan at @philredcross HQ in Manila pic.twitter.com/JNN73ZdQyw

— Patrick Fuller (@Pat_Fuller) November 13, 2013

The glimmer of good news is that relief workers are making progress in Tacloban and Guinan and made their first food deliveries on Wednesday."WFP food distributions underway in Tacloban this morning. Rice provided to 3,000 people," the World Food Program announced this morning. Three thousand is just a start — the Filipino government said over 2 million people need food aid. 

5 days since #Haiyan hit. 5 days has got to be the LIMIT for people to withstand thirst, hunger, injuries. Pace of relief MUST pick up NOW.

— Kristie Lu Stout CNN (@klustout) November 12, 2013

       

Menino Is Headed to Boston University

Outgoing Boston mayor Thomas Menino will help launch an Institute on Cities at Boston University next year after he leaves office. The program is intended to help address urban issues and "might offer boot camps for city officials, act as a clearinghouse where municipalities could compare data, and serve as a think tank for urban problem solving."

In an interview at the university, Menino said that, "in a few years we want to be the leading university when it comes to urban America." The longtime mayor has agreed to a five-year contract beginning in February, about a month after he leaves his post as the city's top official, and does not currently plan to teach courses at the school.

Asked if he really turned down Harvard for BU, Menino first said "no comment" then added "I don't wear bow ties" #wcvb #bosmayor #mapoli

— Janet Wu (@WuWCVB) November 12, 2013

As for other details, though specifics are prevented from being divulged, Menino's compensation will likely be comparable to other professors at the university—around $150,000—and he says that he began avoiding dealings with potential employers while in office last January, shortly before he announced that he would not seek another term.

Menino is also planning to write a book about his time as a politician.