Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 897

Meet Tom Wheeler, the New FCC Chairman

Earlier today, the Senate confirmed Tom Wheeler as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission after Senator Ted Cruz lifted his objections to the nomination. Cruz was worried that Wheeler would fight for more stringent donor disclosure rules on political advertisements, but earlier today, Wheeler convinced Cruz that this was not a high-priority issue for him.

Wheeler has a long history in various sectors of the communications industry. He was formerly a leader of the cable industry and cellphone carrier lobby, and had most recently worked for a venture capital firm that funds tech startups. Those close industries ties gave some senators pause, but Democrat Jay Rockefeller, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee said that, "Tom Wheeler will be a strong advocate for consumers and the public interest at a time when the FCC is facing decisions that will shape the future of our nation’s telephone network and the wireless, broadband, and video industries." Rockefeller had previously expressed concerns back in the spring about Wheeler having potential conflicts of interest as chairman.

Wheeler said in a statement following his confirmation that at least some of his focus would be on the Internet, and said that, "We must all dedicate ourselves to encouraging its growth, expanding what it enables, and assuring its users’ rights are respected." Part of that effort would go towards persuading television broadcasters to auction off their licenses so that they could be used by mobile carriers for data transmission purposes. But that plan basically means asking a television broadcasters to voluntarily go off the air.

The Senate also confirmed another member to the FCC's board, Michael O'Rielly. With Wheeler and O'Rielly's appointments, the five-member board is operating at full capacity for the first time since commissioner Robert McDowell and chairman Julius Genachowski left in May and June, respectively. Since then, the commission has be run by acting chairwoman Mignon Clyburn.

       

Chris Brown is Going to Rehab

A day after Chris Brown was arrested for assault, the  R&B singer announced he was heading to rehab. Brown, whose felony assault charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor, was arrested along with another person in D.C. after an apparent altercation on Sunday night. 

Heres the statement a Brown spokesperson, given to E! News: 

"Chris Brown has elected to enter a rehab facility. His goal is to gain focus and insight into his past and recent behavior, enabling him to continue the pursuit of his life and his career from a healthier vantage point."

The statement doesn't specify what kind of rehab Brown will seek, though TMZ reported that he was seeking help for anger management issues, which would make sense. Despite few indications of a substance abuse problem, an anonymous source told E! that the singer was "self-medicating with weed and alcohol." Brown was arrested late on Sunday night after allegedly punching a man who approached him for a photo. ""I'm not into this gay s**t, I'm into boxing," Brown allegedly said to the man, hitting him. Buzzfeed reported that Brown was arrested with his bodyguard, Christopher Hollosy. On Monday, a judge dropped down Brown's felony assault charge to a simple assault charge, a misdemeanor. He was released without bail. 

Of course, this is neither the first time Brown has been in trouble for allegedly using a gay slur, or for using violence towards another human being. He's still on probation for a felony domestic violence conviction. That's for a 2009 assault against his now ex-girlfriend Rihanna. This also isn't the first time Brown has faced violating his probation. Earlier this summer, he got in trouble for refusing to hand over identification and then leaving the scene after a car accident. 

       

Ray Kelly Was Booed off the Stage at Brown University

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly was supposed to speak at Brown University Tuesday afternoon, but there was a problem: some members of the audience preferred to boo him off the stage instead. Kelly, who is not very well-loved in some circles for his support and implementation of "stop-and-frisk" law enforcement tactics, was supposed to give a lecture on "Proactive Policing in America's Biggest City" for the school's Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions. Here's a video of what happened instead: 

The Brown Daily Herald livetweeted some of the exchange: 

Students interrupt Kelly upon his arrival onstage, chanting slogans and criticizing #stopandfrisk. Kelly: "I thought this was the academy."

— Brown Daily Herald (@the_herald) October 29, 2013

'You are the terrorist, terrorizing our people,' shouts an audience member

— Brown Daily Herald (@the_herald) October 29, 2013

VP Marisa Quinn: "I have never seen in my 15 yrs at Brown the inability to have a dialogue." Quinn immediately interrupted by audience.

— Brown Daily Herald (@the_herald) October 29, 2013

Before the lecture, some students circulated a petition stating that Kelly would receive an honorarium for his speech. The petition asked for the school to instead donate that fee to non-profits working to end racial profiling, and for the cancellation of the lecture itself. Student reaction seemed mixed, with some, you know, participating and organizing the protest — about 100 individuals reportedly protested the lecture. Others were disappointed that Kelly wasn't given a chance to speak at all. Lisa Opdycke, a graduate student at the Taubman Center for Public Policy & American Institutions who attended the cancelled lecture, told the Atlantic Wire in an email Kelly was "visibly angry" as he left the lecture. Opdycke added that she doesn't agree with stop-and-frisk, but does "believe that this talk was a learning opportunity hijacked by a select portion of the Brown and Providence communities."

According to a statement from the university, officials decided to cancel the lecture after about 30 minutes of shouting and protest from the audience, which included both students and community members (the lecture was open to the public). Brown University President Christina H. Paxson wasn't too happy about the message sent by the cancellation: "The conduct of disruptive members of the audience is indefensible and an affront both to civil democratic society and to the University’s core values of dialog and the free exchange of views," she said.

Here's some context for why some students wouldn't want Kelly speaking at their university: earlier this year, a federal judge declared that Kelly's signature "stop-and-frisk" policy was unconstitutional, violating both the fourth and 14th amendments — a charge long-lobbied by critics at the practice. The city is appealing that decision, but it's not the only Kelly-era NYPD policy facing current scrutiny. Under Kelly's watch, the NYPD secretly infiltrated and collected intelligence on the city's Muslim community. That program was documented by a Pulitzer-winning series of reports from the AP. According to the AP, that program never led to a terrorism lead, despite its justification as a counterterrorism tactic. Communities United for Police Reform, a group critical of Kelly's stop-and-frisk policy, issued a statement to the New York Times arguing that his reception at Brown shouldn't really surprise anyone: "it’s not shocking that after directing policing that violates New Yorkers’ civil rights and the U.S. Constitution without any remorse," the statement reads, "That Commissioner Kelly would be poorly received.” 

Later on Tuesday, Brown University president Christina H. Paxson sent a letter to the entire Brown community concerning the cancelled speech. "This is a sad day for the Brown community," she writes. She adds: 

 I appreciate that some members of our community objected to the views of our invited speaker. However, our University is – above all else – about the free exchange of ideas. Nothing is more antithetical to that value than preventing someone from speaking and other members of the community from hearing that speech and challenging it vigorously in a robust yet civil manner.

The whole letter is now available on Brown's Facebook page. 

This post has been updated with additional information. 

       

Alabama's Strict Immigration Laws Just Got a Little Less Tough

The state of Alabama settled a handful of remaining lawsuits challenging its strict immigration laws on Tuesday, rendering a series of temporary enforcement blocks on aspects of the law permanent. Those provisions include a requirement to check the immigration status of public school students in the state. 

 HB56, passed in 2011, was seen as something of a canary for other states looking to pass restrictive anti-immigration measures. Tuesday's settlement, then, implies some basic boundaries for other states considering similar plans. The law's goal, in part, was to encourage undocumented immigrants to "self-deport," at least from Alabama, by making undocumented life more difficult. According to WSFA, the following provisions in the immigration law will now be permanently blocked: 

A provision requiring officials to check the immigration status of all children enrolling on public schools The criminalization of the act of giving a ride or renting to someone who is undocumented.  A provision criminalizing a failure to register immigration status.  A provision criminalizing contracts between Alabamians and undocumented immigrants  Two provisions criminalizing the solicitation of work by undocumented immigrants, and an undocumented immigrant's First Amendment right to solicit work. 

The settlement also includes an agreement from the state clarifying that police officers can't initiate traffic stops just to conduct immigration checks. That pertains to a provision nicknamed the "papers, please” measure, which granted law enforcement officials broad authority to demand proof of immigration status from individuals. The state will also pay $350,000 in legal fees. State attorney general Luther Strange provided the following statement to local news outlets on the settlement: 

"The Attorney General's Office has vigorously defended our state's immigration law in both the federal trial and appellate courts. The courts have upheld most of the Act but have also made clear that some provisions are invalid. We have a duty to follow the law as set forth by the courts. The filings made today inform the trial court of which claims must be dismissed and which provisions our of law cannot be enforced because of the Supreme Court's and Eleventh Circuit's rulings. It is up to Washington to fulfill its responsibility to enforce the country's immigration laws."

Some of the civil rights groups behind the lawsuits challenging the law praised the settlement, while vowing to work on repealing the remaining provisions of HB56. 

"This American Life" fans might know something about Alabama's immigration law. In a segment on the measures aired in 2012, the show explained that the law had a plethora of unintended consequences in the state before courts began temporarily blocking some of its more controversial provisions. In addition to discouraging businesses from setting up shop in the state, the law also effectively placed the entire Latino community there under suspicion during even routine, daily tasks like grocery shopping or going to school.

       

Mitch McConnell Already Faces a Negative Ad Blitz

Mitch McConnell's campaign will face a $300,000 negative ad campaign from the generally Democratic-supporting Patriot Majority PAC. That campaign, according to Politico, will run from October 30 through November 5 in every Kentucky market. McConnell is up for re-election in 2014, and faces a Republican primary challenge in May from Tea Partier and Kentucky businessman Matt Bevin. The Senate Minority Leader is already campaigning for re-election after facing challenges from both sides of the political spectrum. 

There are few details on the content of the PAC's ads for the new campaign. But the group has targeted McConnell before on a general "kick out the comfortable incumbent" platform: 

Although McConnell's relative silence during a Republican-led partial shutdown of the government may have been out of caution, he's getting hit from both sides on the unpopular move to force Obamacare reform legislation. From the left, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (his Democratic challenger) released a burning building-themed ad claiming that "Mitch McConnell can't light the house on fire and then claim credit for putting it out." From the right, Bevin criticized McConnell and other Republicans who worked on a compromise to end the shutdown. "There are a lot of naked emperors that are parading around in Washington," Bevin said of the deal. "These emperors need to be exposed." 

For his part, McConnell is fundraising on his role in ending the shutdown. Speaking at a Republican fundraising retreat, McConnell told donors that there would not be another shutdown on his watch. "This strategy could not and would not work," McConnell said of the conservative plan to prompt reform with a refusal to re-open the government. In the midst of the shutdown, a  poll by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling found that Grimes had a slight lead over McConnell in a theoretical 2014 face-off. 

       

Critics Can't Stop Comparing the Arcade Fire's 'Reflektor' to the Same Classic Rock

Critics taking to a new Arcade Fire record is about as expected as a dog taking to rawhide smeared in peanut butter, so The Washington Post's Chris Richards could at least be commended for livening up the debate about the band's new album, Reflektor. Richards blasts the album, out today, for a lack of "wit, subtlety, and danger" and mocks the group's perceived classic-rock allegiances—but they're the same allegiances the Arcade Fire's supporters are celebrating. 

It's Richards's lede that is drawing the most scorn:

Look, I’m sure they’re very nice people, but on their fourth album, “Reflektor,” Arcade Fire still sound like gigantic dorks with boring sex lives.

Which is funny, because—well, he's probably right! They do seem like gigantic dorks, given the ancient Greek allusions and disco flirtations that pepper their formidably ambitious fourth LP, and scientists have no reason to suspect frontman Win Butler and wife/bandmate Régine Chassagne's sex life is any more interesting than your average Montreal couple's, especially while weathering the stress of life on tour. And anyway, if the popular frenzy over Morrissey's memoir shows us anything, it's that music fans positively love gigantic dorks with boring (or possibly nonexistent) sex lives. 

The rest of Richards's takedown is rife with references to rock giants, blasting the group for aiming high and "applying a pneumatic hammer to our classic rock pleasure centers." But his scorn is interesting; namedropping U2, Bowie, and the Talking Heads, among others, he makes precisely the same parallels that Reflektor's glowing reviews can't get enough of. It's just that in his hands, the comparisons are mockery—"the ponderous grandeur of U2" is a quality to be ashamed of.

And that's the most popular one: Achtung Baby-era U2. It was Buzzfeed's Matthew Perpetua who first dropped the parallel on Twitter, even before hearing the album, and it's stuck. Like the Irish act, Arcade Fire have ditched the earnestness of their youth, embracing irony and electro-pop in a two-for-one bargain. So it is that Pitchfork's Lindsay Zoladz praises the album's pop tracks as "reminiscent of the way Achtung Baby summoned the ghosts that had always been dormant in U2" and Grantland's Steven Hyden says Arcade Fire's snagging James Murphy is like "U2 using [Brian] Eno as a guide into Europop and industrial grime on Achtung Baby." David Fricke makes the exact same parallel in his review for Rolling Stone, because it's "a thrilling act of risk and renewal by a band with established commercial appeal and a greater fear of the average, of merely being liked."

There's also a Talking Heads trope making its way through the reviews, owing to Reflektor's funkiness. There are dance beats! Bongos and world rhythms! White people being funky are all genealogically descended from David Byrne, the logic goes, and critics are all too happy to indulge it. For Billboard's Chris Payne, Reflektor is "a new-millennium response to the Talking Heads' landmark, Brian Eno-produced album, Remain In Light" (that's high praise); for Stereogum's Tom Breihan, the record is "the band’s proud, obvious, self-conscious decision to attempt an Achtung Baby or a Remain In Light." But, again, in Richards's hands, that's a diss: Win Butler is "at his most irritating" when "pulling David Byrne’s oversize blazer out of the closet."

Scroll through a handful of reviews and you'll notice the rest, over and over: David Bowie's Low period (again, a confluence of Brian Eno and world influences), the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street (a landmark for the sprawling, double-LP statement), Radiohead's Kid A (we can non-ironically term Radiohead a classic rock act now, yes?), Fleetwood Mac (more seventies excess, more husband-wife bandmates). Nearly all crop up in the Post's review, albeit shaded with scorn.

No contemporary indie-rock act has drawn as much comparison to critical giants of the 1970s and '80s—not to the Beatles, but the Fab Four's glammier, flashier, funkier descendants. It's lazy, but we can't help ourselves—listeners clearly sense that the band is aiming for a grand, unapologetically huge statement on Reflektor, and whether they've succeeded or not, it's hard not to be bowled over by it, grasping through our vocabulary of comparably ambitious giants to express how it makes us feel and what it tries to do.

And frankly, plenty of those classics were made by gigantic dorks with boring sex lives, too.

       

There Will Be More 'Walking Dead,' Duh

Today in show business news: AMC makes an unsurprising decision about The Walking Dead's future, Homeland is chugging along in the ratings, and Steve McQueen is heading to television.

Ummmm, duh. AMC has renewed its wildly popular James Joyce exercise show The Walking Dead for a fifth season. Duhhh. Just this on repeat basically. Come on, of course AMC was going to renew The Walking Dead. Not only is it very popular, but Breaking Bad is over, Mad Men is on its way out, The Killing never really caught on, and who even knows what's going on with Hell On Wheels. If AMC doesn't have The Walking Dead they will soon be right back where they started. So yeah, it stays. It stays for a long time, I'd think. The real news here is that, amazingly, showrunner Scott Gimple is staying with the series! It feels like the showrunner gets killed off every season, but not this time. What a twist! This show really keeps you on your toes, doesn't it? Though, this probably means they're going to kill off a key grip or something. Sorry, Gary. [Entertainment Weekly]

Meanwhile on Showtime, Homeland is finding its sea legs after a wobbly beginning to the third season, and that's new steadiness is being reflected in the ratings. Sunday night's episode, the fifth of the season, brought in 2 million viewers in its initial broadcast, and 2.51 million over the whole night. That may seem like small potatoes, and it is in comparison to, say, The Walking Dead, but this is Showtime we're talking about, and a grim, moody psychological thriller about mental illness, geopolitics, and jazz. Two and a half million people in America watching that, on a premium channel, on a Sunday night? That's impressive. When you factor in DVR and On Demand and all that, nearly 7 million people are watching the show every week. Which is very good! The show's a hit, is the point. Despite all the crying and saxophone music, the show is a hit. [Deadline]

12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen is developing a drama series with HBO, working with writer Matthew Michael Carnahan (World War Z) on a series about "a young African-American man with a mysterious past as he experiences life in New York high society." That sounds interesting! Maybe it has some shades of Six Degrees of Separation? That could be quite something. Especially if the show somehow involves this scene. Because that is a very good scene. Do it, McQueen. [The Hollywood Reporter]

If Girls is renewed for a fourth season, which it most likely will be, Andrew Rannells will become a series regular. That's exciting, yes? His character, mean but fun Elijah, is one of the best on the show — and he's actually a fully realized person rather than just being a bitchy gay stereotype. Which is saying something, even in 2013. So, yes. Yes to this. Renew this show. [Deadline]

Mark Bomback, the guy who wrote The Wolverine, has been hired to do some touch-ups on the 50 Shades of Grey script, after playwright Patrick Marber did a pass. The Hollywood Reporter says of the hire, "The move is interesting as Bomback is clearly an action guy." Well, yeah. I mean, it's my understanding that 50 Shades is a lot of action, if you get my drift. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Hubba hubba. Duhhhh. Oh, wait, no, duh was for the other thing. Anyway. Sex. The movie is about sex. [The Hollywood Reporter]

       

Manhattan Housing Prices Rose After Sandy, Because What Could Go Wrong?

If you were wondering, a massive, multi-day blackout and unprecedented flooding only briefly made people not want to live in Lower Manhattan. The rest of Sandy-ravaged New York, however, is faring more poorly.

Real estate website StreetEasy.com analyzed real estate listings and sale prices for three quarters surrounding last year's massive storm. What it found will surprise only those who are not familiar with the hyperactive real estate market in the city.

[image error]The transaction volume for Manhattan properties in Zones 1 and 2 increased at a considerably faster rate than properties in other zones. Immediately following Sandy, there was a 64% increase in the number of closings compared to the prior year, while other zones in Manhattan experienced a 41% increase. In the intermediate and long terms, closings for Zone 1 and 2 properties increased by more than twice as much as properties in other zones. Median closing price in Zones 1 and 2 jumped 23% by the intermediate term driven by the intense spring selling season.

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Emphasis added. Those zones are depicted in the map at right. Zones 1 and 2 — red and orange — are the areas most likely to flood in the event of a storm; during Sandy most areas in each zone did. In fact, the map displayed is the updated map created after the superstorm in an effort to provide better guidance around flood risks.

Yet those obvious risks — really, deeply obvious — didn't faze buyers. Below, a look at how year-over-year listings changed in Manhattan in the aftermath of the storm.

Change in number of closings Change in listing price

In every quarter — the one right after Sandy, this spring, and this fall — listing closures increased more in the most flood-prone parts of Lower Manhattan than in the rest of the city. While prices dropped in the year-over-year quarter right after the storm, they bounced back strongly in the second quarter of this year, up dramatically over the same period in 2012.

Again, that's only Lower Manhattan, where most housing wasn't significantly damaged and the power outage could be seen as a fluke. In the most heavily damaged (and generally less in-demand) parts of the city, prices and sales plummeted. Everything near the water saw lower prices and fewer sales — except for prices in Coney Island.

[image error]

It's not only because of the flooding that buyers may avoid the coastline. With recent revisions to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's flood maps, homes in areas adjacent to the shore are likely to see the cost of mandated flood insurance increase dramatically, unless legislation is passed to prevent it. Those increased insurance costs, though, are meant to internalize some of the risk of living in an area that, as we've seen, is prone to damaging floods.

For New York renters, the real estate situation was different. A broker at the firm Douglas Elliman outlined how to StreetEasy: "Renters were put in a 'take it or leave it' situation since... inventory was so low. The next renter was waiting in line and wouldn’t make a fuss about storm damage or zone designation." If those sadsack renters want to avoid spending every hurricane season pumping floodwater out of their windows, there's a simple solution: Just scrape together the $1.1 million that your average Manhattan property went for this summer, and move.

       

The First Round of Syrian Chemical Weapon Inspections Is Complete

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has announced that the first round of inspections in their ongoing effort to destroy chemical weapons caches in Syria. The team of inspectors currently carrying out the U.N. Security Council's resolution was only able to visit 21 of the 23 identified sites. The other two were located in conflict zones that posted a substantial threat to civilians.

The group said in its brief press release that "The two remaining sites have not been visited due to security reasons. Efforts by the Joint Mission to ensure the conditions necessary for safe access to those sites will continue."

The current plan to destroy equipment necessary for mixing chemicals and loading weapons with said chemicals is expected to be completed by the start of November. Skepticism still remains among American officials, however, about whether or not 23 is actually an accurate quantity of weapons sites. From The New York Times:

A central question is whether Syria has given complete details of its program and an arsenal estimated to include 1,000 tons of chemicals and nerve agents. Although Syria disclosed 23 sites, American officials said in September that they believed at least 45 sites were involved.

According to a European diplomat who has seen relevant documents, Syria has now reported the existence of 41 chemical weapons facilities at the 23 sites it disclosed, information that may help close the gap between Syria’s disclosure and the figure initially stated by American officials.

The Washington Post reports that officials familiar with the disarmament operation believe that the November deadline, the first stage of the plan, will be met, and that the majority of equipment has been rendered inoperable. In addition, they said that Syrian officials tasked with providing site access and security to inspectors have not attempted to obstruct the efforts in any way.

       

R. Kelly Fans Were Unable to Positively Identify R. Kelly

It's a mystery a la Murder, She Wrote: a scheduled appearance by R&B superstar R. Kelly in Louisiana on Saturday turned to brief scandal on Monday after fans alleged that the person they saw onstage was not actually Kelly himself. A representative for the performer later told Pitchfork that it was in fact R. Kelly in person on Saturday, but not before local news station KNOE aired a report about it.

In the report, an anonymous tipster claims that she bought tickets to see R. Kelly at a "birthday extravaganza" called Ced's All Black Affair at the Monroe Civic Center, but had to wait hours for him to go onstage. Once the supposed impersonator came on, he lipsynced for four minutes before leaving. She then claims to have seen the impersonator in a restaurant the next day but was blocked from taking pictures.

[image error]Then, in an even more bizarre turn of events, Cedric Johnson, the event's organizer, sent KNOE a text message that claimed he had been duped, and he would be offering refunds (the video above differs slightly from the report posted on KNOE's website, which includes the text at right). After the report aired, he then contacted KNOE that though the message came from his phone, he was not the one who sent it.

After the story was posted on Pitchfork, a spokesperson for R. Kelly reached out to say that it had actually been him at the civic center on Saturday night, and explained the brevity by clarifying that it was billed as an appearance, and not a concert.

[Pictured: R. Kelly performs at the 2013 BET Awards]