Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 904

Fired White House Tweeter Accused Ben Rhodes of Leaking Stuxnet

Jofi Joseph, the White House national security aide who was fired last week after it came to light that he was behind the trollish Twitter account @NatSecWonk, made some serious accusations against Ben Rhodes, a senior official close to President Obama. Joseph accused Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor for communications, of leaking classified info about the Stuxnet virus to the press, The Daily Beast reports. Joseph made these accusations through @NatSecWonk over the summer, when he was anonymous. 

Thus far, the @NatSecWonk tweets that have gotten the most attention were the ones in which he called famous women fat. But these tweets are more serious. The Stuxnet virus is the joint U.S.-Israeli cyber attack meant to sabotage Iran’s nuclear centrifuge program. In June, speculation mounted that National Security Advisor Tom Donilon was to blame for the leaks, but @NatSecWonk insisted it was Rhodes.

"Gotta imagine Ben Rhodes is lawyering up now that a leak investigation is underway. If anyone in the Obama White House leaked, it was him," Joseph tweeted. And then two days later: "Folks, even if a National Security Advisor wanted to leak, he wouldn’t be the one doing the leaking. His staff would #keepyoureyeonbenrhodes." Joseph did not present evidence for these allegations.

Later in June, NBC reported that the White House was investigating Marine General James Cartwright in relation to the leaks. Cartwright is credited with presenting Stuxnet to the White House in the first place.

Rhodes has declined to comment on Joseph's allegations, but former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, who worked for Rhodes from 2009 through 2012, told The Daily Beast that Joseph's claims have no merit:

"I sat 10 feet away from Ben for two years and have worked closely with him since 2007. The guy has spent more time trying to prevent the publication of damaging classified information than you could ever imagine. These allegations are flat wrong, and they’re completely ridiculous to anyone who knows Ben and the work he does at the White House."

Joseph hasn't commented on his allegations against Rhodes. He apologized for "the series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments" and "to everyone I insulted" this week. 

       

Tom Hardy Is Playing Elton John—Bring On the Mashups

The news that Tom Hardy—best known for playing mumble-mouthed Batman villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises—would be playing Elton John in the film Rocketman gave the Internet joke factory a lot to work with. 

Hardy had been reported to be up for the part by the likes of Drew McWeeny at HitFix, but Focus Features confirmed today that the muscular actor would indeed be playing the singer-songwriter.  And the jokes flew on Twitter. 

Variations of "Benny and the Jets"—replaced by Bane, obviously—jokes emerged, regardless of proper spelling: 

@ditzkoff Baney and the Jets! I'm sorry.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) October 23, 2013

Buh-buh-buh-BAIN and the Jets http://t.co/39D3oEC74v

— Stuart Oldham (@s_oldham) October 23, 2013

The hashtag #EltonBane—seemingly started by Zap2it's Rick Porter—began spewing Elton John lyrics in the style of the grumbly-voiced baddie. 

[image error]

And one Twitter user found the perfect photos to convince us of the casting. 

@vulture I can see it. pic.twitter.com/L6dzrXv1CO

— Toby Herman (@tobyherman27) October 23, 2013

There was also outrage, confusion, and glee over the announcement. Of course, Hardy, though best known for playing Bane and other tough guys, has a wide variety of credits. Though he'll have to, perhaps, muscle down for the part, he'll likely have an interesting take. Hey, we live in a world where Gordon Gekko played Liberace. 

       

Pakistan Signed a Secret 'Protocol' Allowing Drones

The Obama administration's aggressive drone program in Pakistan came under renewed attack this week, with Amnesty International suggesting that the United States is engaged in war crimes and visiting Prime Mininster Nawaz Sharif describing the strikes as a "major irritant" in relations.

But what is obscured by the public dispute is that there has been, since the administrations of George W. Bush and Pervez Musharraf, a secret agreement in place by which Pakistani military and intelligence authorities have approved many of the strikes, U.S. and Pakistani officials say.

"The exact terms were never shared with civilians but there was a protocol between the Musharraf government and the Americans," says a former senior Pakistani official who would discuss the classified matter only on condition of anonymity. "When the civilian government came in [in 2008], it was informed about it but there was no renegotiation."

Even so, this official told National Journal that civilian leaders in Islamabad have made sporadic efforts to renegotiate. "Both [former President Asif Ali] and Sharif have approached Washington to say, 'Can we talk about it?'"

Sharif was expected to bring up the drone program in his White House meeting with President Obama on Wednesday.

Because the details are not publicly known, it is not clear to what extent the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus gained approval authority for all drone strikes. In his new book, "Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States and an Epic History of Misunderstanding," former Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani writes that the Pakistani ISI actually resisted U.S. efforts to keep its own government in Islamabad informed. "The CIA and the ISI [Pakistani intelligence] communicated regularly on the strikes," Haqqani says. "The ISI did not like Pakistani civilian officials finding out anything about their dealings with the United States about armed Predator drones, but the U.S. government wanted the civilian leadership to remain in the picture." The ISI, Haqqani added, was in the habit of "protesting against the drones publicly while privately negotiating over whom the drones would target."

But the two governments increasingly diverged over the nature of the enemy, with the ISI wanting to protect some of its jihadist allies in the struggle for influence with India and inside Afghanistan, and to target only certain al Qaida-linked groups. Trust between the two sides was badly damaged after the U.S. unilaterally targeted Osama bin Laden in a strike by Navy SEALs in Abbottabad in May 2011, completely surprising Pakistani military and intelligence officials.

Officials say that a major reason why the Obama administration resisted efforts by Congress to obtain the full range of its classified legal memos justifying so-called targeted killing was to protect the secret protocols with Pakistan and other countries, such as Yemen.

Last February, a legal expert outside the government who is intimately familiar with the contents of the memos drafted by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel told National Journal that the government-to-government accords on the conduct of drone strikes were a key element not contained in a Justice Department "white paper" revealed by NBC News. He said it was largely in order to protect this information that the targeted-killing memos drafted by Justice's Office of Legal Counsel were even withheld from congressional committees. "That is what is missing from the white paper but forms a core part of the memos," the expert said.

A Human Rights Watch report this week also criticized the U.S. drone program in Yemen, saying the targeted airstrikes against alleged terrorists have violated international law by killing innocent civilians. But a year ago, the new leader of Yemen—another country with which Washington has signed a secret protocol on drones—publicly endorsed America's use of drones within his borders. "They pinpoint the target and have zero margin of error, if you know what target you're aiming at," the new Yemeni president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, said at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

The Obama administration has consistently maintained that civilian casualties are minimal, and State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf suggested on Tuesday that the reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were inaccurate on that score. "There's a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports," she said.

Even so the Obama administration, jolted by new waves of anti-Americanism in Pakistan and the Arab world in reaction to the drone strikes, has been engaged in an intense internal debate over how to narrow the program. The administration believes it has removed most of "core al-Qaida" from its central home in Pakistan, and at the same time it's no longer quite as clear that "associated" groups or individuals will seek to target the U.S. homeland or U.S. interests the way bin Laden did.

Among those expected to influence this effort anew is Jeh Johnson, Obama's nominee to succeed Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security secretary. Administration officials point to a speech that Johnson, then the Pentagon's general counsel, gave in November 2012 setting legal standards for the drone war and laying out criteria for curtailing and even ending it. Johnson said "there will come a tipping point … at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al-Qaida and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such that al-Qaida as we know it, the organization that our Congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed." The war would then be expected to end—and with it, much of the drone program, Johnson suggested.

[image error]
MORE FROM NATIONAL JOURNAL Republicans Might Be Mad at John Kasich, But Voters Won't Be The Biggest Joke of the Obama Presidency Is Immigration Really Dead in the House?

Meanwhile, however, the Amnesty International report on Pakistan concluded that the "strikes have resulted in unlawful killings that may constitute extrajudicial executions or war crimes."

Sharif, who is seeking to repair relations with Washington, was somewhat more circumspect in a speech in Washington on Tuesday, noting that Pakistan's political parties have "declared that the use of drones is not only a continued violation of our territorial integrity, but also detrimental to our resolve and efforts at eliminating terrorism from our country."

He did not mention the secret protocol authorizing the use of drones within his country's borders.

       

In Australia, Money (or Gold) Actually Does Grow on Trees

Eucalyptus leaves, notorious for allegedly getting unassuming koalas high as they endlessly much away, can apparently be laced with gold.

According to a study by scientists from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRPO), parched eucalyptus trees in Western Australia are sucking up water containing gold particles from deep below the surface, and trapping them in the leaves. Their report, which was published yesterday in the online journal Natural Communications, confirms for the first time that gold found on eucalyptus leaves indicate a deposit below the surface. National Geographic reports further:

The researchers compared eucalyptus tree leaves at gold prospecting sites in Western Australia with leaves from trees 2,625 feet (800 meters) away. They also grew eucalyptus trees in greenhouses with potting soil dosed with gold particles, as well as in normal potting soil without gold. Leaves preferentially stored microscopic gold particles about eight micrometers wide on average. Study authors speculate the particles came from underground, seemingly taken up by the root system of the trees. About 20 leaves needed to be sampled to statistically reveal the presence of gold underneath the trees.

These eucalyptus trees aren’t exactly making it rain, however. Lead author Dr. Melvyn Lintern said it would take gold from 500 eucalyptus trees to make one wedding band. Lintern adds that his team has found other species of tree and shrub to contain traces of gold. The findings hold significance for miners, who could use gold-laden trees as an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to detect the location of the precious metal. 

       

The Secret, Conservative Email List No One Wants to Join

The National Review interviewed Steven Baer, the man behind what must be America's least fun conservative email list. Baer, a major conservative donor, sends threatening and insulting emails to groups of Republicans who do things he personally does not like. Although many of the recipients aren't even sure how Baer got their email, the messages leave little mystery about Baer's political beliefs: "The subject of one Baer thread is 'Values Voters Vaginitis'" the National Review explains, "a reference to accusing social conservatives of being prostitutes to the GOP." And once Baer checks you in to his list, you can never leave: "Baer has mocked those who try to unsubscribe," the Review's Jonathan Strong explains. 

Another example: Baer sent an email to a bunch of members of Congress on the night before the shutdown ended. That email was more or less a list of primary deadlines for incumbent Republicans who might vote for a piece of shutdown-ending legislation: “Now let us dine on RINO flesh," it read, according to the National Review. And no one seems to know how Baer got the emails of so many members of Congress. This isn't the email contact listed on the website of a legislator for public use. These are the emails kept private from everyone except for inner posses of aides. Baer insinuates to the Review that he has people on the inside to help him get contacts, but doesn't elaborate. In addition to the "dozens" of Republican congressmen on the list, Baer also emails the Koch brothers, Foster Friess, Matt Kibbe, Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist, Erick Erickson, and Rick Santorum. Those names are often sent openly in the "to" field of Baer's missives. 

And while it seems that the content of many of the emails are unwelcome to its recipients, Baer, remember, is a major donor. He helped fund Rick Santorum's 2012 campaign for the presidency (read more on his role in the campaign here). So here's the Heritage Foundation's Jim DeMint trying to talk Baer away from funding a specific project to just straight up donating to the think tank: 

In the long e-mail threads, Baer offers to donate $500,000 to anyone willing to fund the kind of hard-hitting television ads targeted at the “wimpy,” “squish,” “RINOs” Republicans he is disgusted with. A response from Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint included in the thread says as DeMint has discussed with Baer, he appreciates his “passion and zeal for freedom and the future of our country” and would love to accept a “no strings attached” donation, after which “your country will be in your debt. . . . And I will too.”

But Baer's main issue is abortion. He, apparently, believes that Rick Santorum — Rick Santorum — is tied to the funding of international abortion, and therefore regrets his alliance with the socially conservative candidate. Baer told the Review that he wasn't interested in mincing words with Republicans over what he believes, hence the tone of his emails: "I’m just interested in the truth. The truth is that House Republicans are actively financing abortion subsidies. John Boehner’s House Republicans have become the world’s biggest abortion financiers. Efficacy is another question. I think truth comes first.”

       

Missouri Turns to Compounding Pharmacies for Lethal Injection Drugs

Facing a shortage of mass-produced drugs, Missouri will rely on a private compounding pharmacy to make the state's lethal injection drug. That means the state will resume executing prisoners after Gov. Jay Nixon put the capital punishment schedule on hold earlier this month. The drug, pentobarbital, is used in 13 other states to execute prisoners. Facing pressure from several different groups, Nixon had backed away from a controversial plan announced earlier this spring to start using propofol for executions, a drug that's never been used in capital punishment before. 

Other states have been more successful in attempts to experiment with new, untested drugs for executions to make up for dwindling supplies from large manufacturers. Florida tried out a new lethal drug last week during the execution of William Happ, who is now the first person to die from a state-sanctioned lethal injection of midazolam hydrochloride. But Missouri faced additional pressure from doctors in the state against its decision to use a new drug in lethal injections. Here's, in part, why: propofol is an extremely popular anesthetic in the U.S., and its top manufacturer is German. In response to Missouri's flirtation with the drug for executions, many worried that the E.U. would impose sanctions on its export to America, limiting the supply across the board. Missouri ended up promising to return its European supply of propofol to ease concerns that it could be used in the U.S. for capital punishment. 

So now, Missouri will join a handful of other states turning to compounding pharmacies for pentobarbital, a move that's controversial because of the increased secrecy — and decreased regulation — implicit in it. Unlike drugs made by larger manufacturers, compounding pharmacy products, usually mixed for individual patients, aren't regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota now rely on compounding pharmacies for execution drugs, while Georgia and Colorado have indicated their intent to do so in the future. It's one of a dwindling number of options available for states set on continuing to use capital punishment. 

Anti death-penalty activists have adapted a pretty successful strategy to minimize the supply of lethal drugs for executions: by encouraging large drug manufacturers to take sides on the issue and refuse to sell their products for that purpose. Many manufacturers, especially those in the UK and Europe, have done exactly that. As stockpiles of existing drugs, including pentobarbital, expire, states are forced to find alternatives that are both constitutional and available. Missouri was almost immediately sued after altering its capital punishment regulations to allow propofol, otherwise known as the drug blamed for Michael Jackson's death. In response to that suit, the state's Attorney General threatened to start executing prisoners with the only other method allowed by state law — the gas chamber. That idea never materialized. Missouri's next scheduled execution is on November 20th. The Missouri Department of Corrections declined to comment to the Atlantic Wire on the state's current supply of pentobarbital, or to provide additional details on its relationship with the compounding pharmacy. 

       

Prepare Yourself for Another Season of 'Homeland'

Today in show business news: Showtime renews one of its most popular series, Comedy Central's new late night show has a successful debut, and American Horror Story is bigger than ever.

Though people are a little down on this season, even after Sunday night's craaaazy twist, the ratings for Homeland are still pretty good, so Showtime has decided to go ahead and renew it for a fourth season. When broadcast, On Demand, and DVR numbers are all put together, about 6.5 million people watch each episode of the show, which is pretty good. And Showtime needs those eyeballs now that top-performer Dexter is dead and buried. (Or lumberjacking in Alaska, whatever.) The network has also renewed Masters of Sex for a second season, a vote of confidence for a rare Showtime drama that isn't at least to some extent about people murdering each other. I mean, they're f--king each other's brains out, but that's just an expression. [Entertainment Weekly]

Comedy Central's new Chris Hardwick late night show, which is called @midnight because that will in no way seem completely dated in a few years, debuted last night to pretty good ratings, especially with, as Deadline puts it in its headline, the "Target Young Guy Crowd." Which, calm down, Kevin Spacey, just means the same farty, college-guy audience that watches Tosh.0 and The Jeselnik Offensive and all those other Comedy Central shows. That same demographic tuned into watch Hardwick's debut in force. More guys 18-24 watched @midnight than did The Colbert Reporter in the slot right before. So that should please the particular advertisers being courted here, which are probably, I dunno, some cars, the Axe corporation, maybe Dos Equis. Well done, Hardwick! Everyone's almost forgotten about Singled Out. That's coming any day now, I'd think. [Deadline]

Staying on the ratings beat, the third season of American Horror Story is shaping up to be quite a hit for FX. In the all-important 18-34 demographic, the new season's second episode bested a network record set by Sons of Anarchy. While Anarchy still reigns overall, AHS had 7.26 million people tune in or watch its latest episode On Demand and DVR (within three days of broadcast), which puts it pretty close to the top of the heap. Makes sense. It's a good, Halloween-y time of year for the show, this season has a really interesting cast and premise, and these shows grow in word-of-mouth momentum now that people can play catch-up in the off-season. Will the fourth season thus be even BIGGER? Well, I suppose that depends on the theme. Obviously Ryan Murphy is now thinking of doing something spooky/sexy about a "Target Young Guy Crowd," but that might not have the broadest appeal. Might have to put that one on the back burner, Ryan. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Remember Libby from Lost? Poor, prematurely doomed Libby? Well, she was played by an actress named Cynthia Watros, and now Cynthia Watros has a new job! She'll costar in a new MTV, yes MTV, pilot called Finding Carter. The show actually has a pretty interesting premise. From Deadline:

It centers on teenage Carter, who has the perfect life with her fun-loving single mom Lori until a police bust reveals that Lori abducted her as a toddler. Now Carter must return to the family who thought they had lost her, including her biological mother Elizabeth (Watros), a tough police detective who was devastated by the disappearance of her daughter and will stop at nothing to catch her kidnapper. As she navigates brand-new parents, a twin sister, high school and boys, Carter vows to find Lori before the police capture the only mom she’s ever known and put her behind bars.

That sounds kind of cool, right? I don't know if it's exactly in line with MTV's current stable of shows — it might involve grownups too much — but if the network picks it up, I'll be eager to watch. Plus it's just nice that Libby has a job after Lindelof and Cuse did her dirty like that all those years ago. Karma didn't forget you, Libby. It was just waiting for the right time. [Deadline]

Here, for no particular reason other than that it is strange, is Sean Penn giving a seven-minute speech before presenting Julia Roberts with an award — a Best Supporting Actress award for August: Osage County. Seven minutes! Mostly he talks about how much he likes to watch her eat on screen. He also calls her "prismed rainbow lightning" and mentions that they are neighbors. Oh Sean Penn. Oh hugely over-indulgent, self-important speeches about Hollywood actors. Why are they so good? I don't know, but they are. So here's one.

       

Here's a Reason Ellen DeGeneres Might Be a Bad Boss

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cellphone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

Ellen DeGeneres seems like a fun boss 364 days out of the year. Today happens to be that one day where she isn't and sends a couple of her employees to a terrifying haunted house: 

'Tis the season for horror movies. It's also the season where people tell you all the parts in horror movies that don't make a lick of sense: 

This robot is amazing. If we could throw money at it, we would.  

And, finally, because the Game of Thrones bad lip-reading went so well, here's more: 

       

The Working-Class Crisis: What People Earn Doesn't Cover What Housing Costs

Earlier this month, the former frontman for Talking Heads, David Byrne, wrote an essay about how New York was losing its artistic heart and creative edge because of the rising cost of living. “Middle-class people can barely afford to live here anymore, so forget about emerging artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, journalists and small business people,” wrote Byrne. “Bit by bit, the resources that keep the city vibrant are being eliminated.”

The plight of artsy types in cities gets a lot of attention these days, perhaps because it is personally relevant to lots of people in the media. And yes, working artists are vital to any city, especially a place such as New York that bills itself as a cultural capital. But forget, for the moment, about the artists. The deeper and more systematic erosion of urban life is happening among a less glamorous set of people—the ones who fill the tens of thousands of jobs that undergird every single U.S. city.

These are the home health aides, the fast-food workers, the janitors, the teachers’ aides, the delivery people, the manicurists, and countless others who are making more than minimum wage but less than enough to meet the soaring cost of living—not just in New York, but in cities around the country. These people, increasingly, are falling off the shaky ladder of economic viability, and many are being pushed into homelessness.

According to statistics from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, overall homelessness in the United States declined slightly from 2011 to 2012, falling by 0.4 percent. But the number of people in homeless families actually rose over the same period, by 1.4 percent. The NAEH report states what may seem like the obvious to account for the problem: “Homelessness is essentially caused by the inability of households to pay for housing.”

That inability is mushrooming, driven by increasing rents across much of the country and wages that aren’t going anywhere. According to the NAEH, 38 states registered an increase in fair-market rents between 2010 and 2011, with the average cost of a two-bedroom rental increasing by 1.5 percent nationally. At the same time, median household income decreased by 1.3 percent nationally, with only 14 states reporting increases. The number of households spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing—more than 50 percent!—went up 5.5 percent over the same period, with some 6.5 million households exceeding that threshold.

And the number of people living at the edge of homelessness has been increasing even more rapidly. Between 2010 and 2011, the number of poor people living “doubled up” in households—and thus at higher risk of experiencing homelessness—was up by 9.5 percent nationally, increasing in all but 11 states.

In some cities where rent is rising the most quickly, homelessness seems to be following suit:

Seattle and Portland are among the top 10 metropolitan areas with the biggest rent gains in 2012, according to a Trulia analysis of the 25 largest rental markets. At the same time, homelessness is on the rise.

A one-night tally taken in January of unsheltered homeless people in parts of King County, which includes Seattle, found a 2 percent increase compared to the same areas a year earlier. In the Portland region, 5 percent more people were living on the streets or in shelters on a night in January 2013 than in 2011.

“There is just a mismatch between what people earn and what it takes to pay for housing,” Sheila Crowley, chief executive officer of the Washington, D.C.-based National Low Income Housing Coalition told Bloomberg News. “Unemployment continues to be persistently high, and wage stagnation at the low end seems to go out as far as the eye can see.”

New York is in the lead of this troubling trend. As Ian Frazier writes in an extensive New Yorker piece about the city’s homeless policy this week, the working poor don’t stand a chance in the city’s bruising housing market (emphasis mine):

Manhattan is now America’s most expensive urban area to live in, and Brooklyn is the second most expensive. Meanwhile, more than one in five New York City residents live below the poverty line. Nearly one in five experiences times of “food insecurity” in the course of a year—i.e., sometimes does not have enough safe and nutritious food to eat. One-fifth of 8.3 million New Yorkers equals 1.66 million New Yorkers. For people at the lower-middle and at the bottom, incomes have gone down. The median household income in the Bronx is about thirty-three thousand dollars a year; Brooklyn’s is about forty-four thousand. Meanwhile, rents go steadily up. A person working at a minimum-wage job would need 3.1 such jobs to pay the median rent for an apartment in the city without spending more than thirty per cent of her income. If you multiply 3.1 by eight hours a day by five days a week, you get a hundred and twenty-four hours; a week only has a hundred and sixty-eight hours.

According to the Coalition for the Homeless in New York, the number of homeless people in New York City rose by 60 percent over the past decade, to nearly 51,000 in June of 2013. That number includes more than 12,000 homeless families.

The simplistic answer to this growing problem is to say, well, those people can’t afford to live in New York. They’re going to have to move. But that would ignore the reality of people’s lives (not to mention that reality that a city without low-wage workers would essentially grind to a halt).

Families that experience homelessness, and those at risk of homelessness, almost by definition lack the financial resources to make a move to some cheaper place hundreds or thousands of miles away. They are understandably reluctant to sever ties to family and friends where they have lived for perhaps all their lives (this reluctance is wise, as the risk of homelessness increases among people who live far from social support networks). And they are ill-positioned to find a job in a far-off cheaper city before they move there, meaning that even if they were able to make a wrenching move, they could find themselves in the same position once again.

“It doesn’t matter whether you think they should behave in a rational economic way and move,” says Nan Roman, the president and CEO of the NAEH. “They don’t. We have to deal with reality.”

Even moving to a suburb within commuting distance of jobs is unrealistic for most low-wage workers. The cost of housing is still significant, and the cost of transportation much greater: grueling commutes and finding adequate child care for longer hours take another kind of toll.

Roman, who has been working in the field since the 1970s, says that the housing landscape faced by working-class and poor people is profoundly different today than it was then. “There’s fewer and fewer places for working-class people to live,” she says. “There used to be a surplus of affordable units. You could always find a place to live.” But the destruction of single-room occupancy hotels and other forms of low-income housing ate away at that supply. Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs that paid a decent wage have largely vanished from many American cities, and the service jobs that replaced them simply haven’t kept pace with the cost of living.

Roman doesn’t have an easy answer for how to solve the urban housing crisis. She points to the success of rapid re-housing programs, which have helped newly homeless people get new housing quickly by paying deposits and moving costs, as well as negotiating with landlords—although the federal funding for that assistance is running out. She believes that everyone who earns less than 30 percent of the area median income should be provided with rental assistance. She says that government needs to help create more affordable housing, and points out that we subsidize other housing types in countless ways, such as the home mortgage tax deduction. But in the current political climate, of course, every dollar of funding is a battle.

MORE FROM THE ATLANTIC CITIES Russia's Disappearing Movie Theaters Will the U.S. Ever Get High-Speed Rail Anywhere? Americans Vastly Overestimate How Diverse the Country Really Is

The abundant backlash to David Byrne’s essay included plenty of comments suggesting that people who want to find cheap rents and artistic ferment should just suck it up and leave New York, making their way to Newark, or Philadelphia, or Detroit, or Wichita. Fair enough. But even if you can’t bring yourself to care about the fate of sculptors being priced out of Bushwick, it’s surely time to realize that the lack of affordable housing is a profound threat to the ecosystem of the city itself. You simply cannot run a place like New York or Seattle or San Francisco without working-class people.

New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio has made affordable housing a centerpiece of his campaign. If polls are any indication, he will soon have the chance to put his money where his mouth is. For many New Yorkers on the edge, it won’t be a minute too soon.

On the national level, Roman says, she is concerned about what will come next. “I’m a very optimistic person,” she says, laughing. “I work for an organization called the National Alliance to End Homelessness. I believe we can solve this, I believe we can be smart. But I’m worried at the moment. People just don’t make enough to pay for housing.”

Top image by James Stuart Griffith via Shutterstock.com.

       

Samsung and Starbucks Are 'Bullying' Chinese Customers, Says China's State TV

Chinese state media just took aim at another foreign company: Samsung, which happens to make the most popular smartphones in the country. Late on Oct. 21, China Central Television (CCTV) ran a segment lambasting the South Korean company for charging Chinese customers for repairs of defective phones. The aim is to “protect domestic consumers from the bullying of foreign brands,” according to a government consultant interviewed. CCTV said software in Samsung Note and S series smartphones causes them to crash.

The report came just a day after CCTV and the China Daily attacked Starbucks for charging Chinese customers more than in other countries. (Starbucks has said that its prices in China reflect the higher costs of rent, employee training, and sourcing coffee and milk in the country.)

The difference between the two stories is the reaction they’ve elicited, at least online. The bulk of over 28,000 comments on CCTV’s Starbucks story on Sina Weibo, a massive Chinese microblog, were critical of the report, according to Tea Leaf Nation, a site that monitors social media in China. Internet users called the coverage unnecessary and questioned why state media devoted resources to investigating expensive lattes instead of issues like the rising costs of housing or healthcare.

By contrast, the half-hour segment on Samsung—with interviews of customers like a recently graduated young woman who spent over 4180 renminbi (about $680) on a Samsung phone that she says crashes 30 times a day—has gotten less attention from domestic and international media. But it is eliciting an angrier response from online users. On Sina Weibo, a link for the CCTV program prompted over 1,000 comments, many of them resentful. One blogger said, “The people’s interests are being infringed upon. The government should use the law to help protect the people.” Another said, “Boycott Korean goods!” (Samsung has said in response to the accusations, “We remain committed to providing the highest quality products and services. Upon verification of these reports, including their technical aspects, we will respond accordingly.”)

MORE FROM QUARTZ Why US Carbon Emissions Are Failing Even as the Economy Grows Apple Just Doubled Down on its Biggest Advantage in Mobile Why a $2,999 Mac Pro Is a Great Deal

The attack on Samsung isn’t all that surprising. China’s leadership has been critical about foreign firms’ dominance of the country’s smartphone market, now the world’s largest. Earlier this year, CCTV aired a news program that accused Apple of treating Chinese customers as “second-class” and not offering to repair faulty iPhones for free.

Samsung could learn from that scenario. Apple’s initial response was to issue a curt statement defending itself. But the attacks from Chinese media continued, worse than before, and may have started to sway some consumers who were previously skeptical of the CCTV piece. Apple eventually issued a long and contrite apology. Samsung might be smart to go ahead and do the same.

Jennifer Chiu contributed reporting.