Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 914

An American Citizen Was Found Dead in an Egyptian Jail

An American citizen detained in the Sinai Peninsula was found dead in his police station cell in what some officials are calling an apparent suicide. The State Department has confirmed the death of James Lunn, who was arrested in late August in Ismailia, near the Suez Canal. He was found hanging in his cell on Sunday.

While Lunn's death surely raises concerns over the conditions of Egyptian prisons, according to The Washington Post, "the State Department said Lunn had at no time complained to U.S. consular officials that he was maltreated by the Egyptians. It confirmed the Egyptians’ claim that Lunn was last visited by a U.S. consular officer Tuesday."

The New York Times reports that the reason for Lunn's being in Egypt are not immediately clear, as are the reasons for his detainment:

A statement from Egypt’s Interior Ministry said that Mr. Lunn had been arrested Aug. 27 during a security sweep of the northern Sinai after a car-bomb attack on a police station.

The statement said that Mr. Lunn had been in the area of the attack and was found with “a computer and maps of important facilities.” He was detained for investigation and transferred to Ismailia.

Egypt's leading newspaper described Lunn as a retired U.S. Army officer, a distinction that the State Department disputed. Lunn may have been headed to Gaza when he was initially detained, and had his imprisonment extended by another 30 days on Saturday.

[Pictured: Supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi are detained during clashes with riot police in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013. ]

       

israel Found an Underground Tunnel Over a Mile Long on the Gaza Border

They were never going to notice, right? Israel announced the discovery of an underground tunnel over a mile long dug out from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israel. The military contends militants were planning to use it to carry out attacks against Israelis.

Residents in a kibbutz, Ein Hashlosha, complained about an unusual noise near the Gaza border to the military last Tuesday. Sure enough, when the military went to inspect the problem they discovered an entrance to the one and a half miles long underground tunnel that's roughly 50-60 ft. deep, officials told the BBC, and would have taken about a month to build. The tunnel was allegedly in use  until the Israeli military discovered its existence last week

The Israeli military says militants were likely going to use the tunnel to carry out an attack. They have good reason to think so: in 2006, an officer with Israel's military was kidnapped by Gaza militants who entered the country through a similar tunnel. The military also told the BBC they found explosives hidden inside the tunnel during the week-long inspection that preceded the tunnel's official announcement. (They held back disclosing the discovery for security reasons during inspection.) 

Israel froze the transfer of all construction materials into Gaza after the tunnel's discovery, angering Gaza's Hamas rulers. One government spokesperson said Israel was "exaggerating things," and "trying to justify the blockade and the continuous aggression on the Gaza Strip." Another military spokesperson warned over Twitter that Hamas could build "thousands" more tunnels. Gaza does use a vast network of underground tunnels to Egypt to smuggle weapons and humanitarian supplies into the country. Egypt has resorted to drastic measures to combat the smuggling, too. 

[Pictured: Israels' prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, above ground.]

       

India Escaped With a Minimized Loss of Life After Cyclone Phailin

Cyclone Phailin was expected to be one of the most powerful, potentially deadly storms in history when hit land Saturday evening, dropping howling winds and buckets of rain on India's coastline. But the storm weakened considerably and the country escaped with a minimal loss of life. 

The storm was the strongest the country has seen in a decade, with sustained winds of approximately 124 miles per hour when it made landfall around 9 p.m. Saturday. But the storm lost its intensity quickly after coming ashore. Windspeed was cut in half, to about 49 miles per hour, by Sunday afternoon. In all, some areas will see up to ten inches of rain before the storm dissipates completely. Officials have so far confirmed 17 deaths, a number that's expected to rise once evacuation efforts can access more rural areas hit by the storm, but is also far below what some expected from the storm.

But, all in all, the storm was far weaker than what American forecasters had predicted. This fact was not lost on Indian officials, the Associated Press reports: 

Indian officials spoke dismissively of American forecasters who had warned of a record-breaking cyclone that would drive a massive wall of water — perhaps as large as 9 meters high (30 feet high) — into the coastline.

"They have been issuing warnings, and we have been contradicting them," said L.S. Rathore, director-general of the Indian Meteorological Department. "That is all that I want to say."

Phailin still caused plenty of damage, though. Many houses made of mud or flimsy materials were washed away in the heavy rainfall. Some of the stranded were still in packed shelters on Sunday avoiding the rain. But the military has been deployed along coastal towns, like the hard-hit Orissa, to make sure recovery efforts went smoothly Sunday and citizens were able to find shelter. 

India's preparation efforts are being credited for preventing a massive loss of life because of the storm. (A similar storm in 1999 killed more than 10,000 people.) Phailin could have claimed more lives, but Indian officials were able to organize an astonishing evacuation effort, moving more than 800,000 people over the last few days. An improved communications system since the last destructive storm is what made the biggest difference, per The New York Times: 

There are many reasons for the change, but a vastly improved communications system is probably the most important. Nearly a billion people routinely use mobile phones in India, up from fewer than 40 million at the turn of the century. Even many of the poorest villages now have televisions, and India’s media market is saturated with 24-hour news channels that have blanketed the nation’s airwaves with coverage of the storm.

As fortunate as India was to limit the loss of life so dramatically, there's still plenty of wreckage to clean up Sunday as the storm makes its way through the country. The Guardian has a great gallery showing the preparation efforts, Phailin's aftermath, and the intense waves that did batter India's shore last night. 

       

Can 'Mob City' Make TNT a Place for Prestige TV?

TNT sure seems like it wants to get into the prestige TV game with Mob City. But how is this mob show different from all other mob shows?

Though TNT has been working with some high profile names on its scripted programming—Steven Spielberg, for instance, executive produces Falling Skies—it has not emerged as a real competitor to the likes of AMC or HBO. But according to Mob City's creator Frank Darabont, the creator of The Walking Dead and writer/director of The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, the network knows it has something special here and is acting appropriately. "We have such a fun, cool intense noir themed show," Darabont told a Comic Con audience Saturday in a recorded message. "I wanted to tell you how exciting the opportunity has been, that TNT has given us to do this show. They’re backing a very interesting and unusual approach here. They’ve shown great faith and great support."

That said, it's hard to shake that there's something familiar about the New York-set opening of the show, 18 minutes of which screened at Comic Con. It's dark, moody, and some of the real-life gangsters portrayed on screen are even players on HBO's Boardwalk Empire. In fact the show opens with a flashback to Boardwalk times, even though the majority of the action of the six-episode drama takes place in post-WWII Los Angeles. When the pilot ultimately leaves behind New York, you start to see glimmers of something that might be, even though you don't even get a glimpse at some of the main characters like Edward Burns' Bugsy Siegel and Milo Ventimiglia's lawyer. Comedian Simon Pegg shows up doing a great job in a funny-serious role as a guy that needs some help from Jon Bernthal's maybe not so good guy cop, Joe Teague. The show consciously draws from noir traditions with a no nonsense voiceover, shadowy corners, and smoke in everyone's eyes. Though it's easy to see where this could turn into something fun, almost pulpy, it's hard to know how much it wants to enter the ranks of the Breaking Bad's of the TV world. 

When it came time for the panel with actors Burns, Ventimiglia, and Robert Knepper those onstage turned to place Darabont in the canon of great TV auteurs. "It really was just about the storytelling and the words," Burns said about his choice to do the show. "These scripts are so good. When you look at what's happening in television right now that is where the great writing is." Burns even doled out the high praise that the show is "the most fun [he's] had as an actor since Saving Private Ryan."  

Still, in trying to distinguish the show from its predecessors the panelists seemed to have a harder time. When the moderator, TV Guide editor Debra Birnbaum asked why the "antihero" is so popular, there was a pause. "Now I've stumped everybody," she said. Knepper jumped in to talk about the "grey area" of the characters. When Birnbaum asked how the show is similar and dissimilar to other film noir and mob shows, Knepper also piped up with an equally vague response. "What makes each of these shows—whether they are movies or TV shows great—is that the story itself is very specific," he said, adding that it centers around "one specific event that happens that is a screw up that has to be covered up." He said it's not a "general, hey, we're doing a story about the 40s. It's a life or death situation we've got to figure this out right now." 

Birnbaum added that one of the differences in this show too is that TNT is broadcasting it as an "event series" with six episodes over three weeks. That format has had some worried that perhaps TNT doesn't have a lot of faith in the series, but Ventimiglia framed it as a nod to the Netflix model. "What a genius set up," Ventimiglia said. "I personally, I binge watch shows. I don't know about y'all." The audience chimed in agreement. The actors on stage, however, did make reference to the possibility of a second season.

Will it all work? It starts December 4. Watch the new promo, also screened at the panel, below.

       

Iranians Making Fun of Netanyahu for Following a Naughty Twitter Account

[image error]Making fun of Isreali Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is becoming the favorite pastime for Iranians online. Netanyahu was taking some well-deserved flack Saturday after being caught following a racy Twitter account. Last week Iranians were sending him pictures of their pants. Now they're making jokes about what may or may not be going on in his. 

Meet Persian Hot Book, an Iranian sex education account, or the porn feed favored most by the Israeli head of state. Which is it? Why not both! The Times of Israel first noticed plenty of people poking fun at Netanyahu on Saturday for following the suggestive account. Netanyahu only follows 89 feeds on Twitter, as of this writing, but his most recent addition is Persian Hot Book, "the first library of hot sex books [in the] Persian language," according to the Times' translation of the account description. A few different people noticed around the same time Saturday afternoon. 

The abuse hasn't stopped since:

So, @PersianHotBook has 13 followers. One of them is @netanyahu.

— prrrsiankitten™ (@prrrsiankitten) October 12, 2013

@pooriast @prrrsiankitten Probably because @netanyahu was dumbfounded by this one wearing JEANS! https://t.co/JtzSsylKms ;D

— copperhead رویا‎ (@copperhead7903) October 12, 2013

#netanyahu is not only interested in #persian history but also the persian #sex @netanyahu following @PersianHotBook pic.twitter.com/E53bReFaxR

— Pouya Jamshidiat (@PouyaJam) October 6, 2013

Benjamin Netanyahu follows an Iranian porn account. The jokes write themselves. http://t.co/zPMHQ0nMS1

— Steve Rose (@steveplrose) October 12, 2013

Here's proof to my #PT concerning @Netanyahu's love for #Persian sex http://t.co/y49lIJmoPY

— عدو الأسد Moiz Muqri (@moiz_muqri) October 12, 2013

An hour after @ilanbenzion broke story on @netanyahu following Iranian porn feed, @netanyahu is still following Iranian porn feed.

— Elie Leshem (@leshemle) October 12, 2013

@BowenBBC @netanyahu modern diplomacy in action

— Karis Dowsell (@KarisJDowsell) October 12, 2013

It's been an up-and-down 24 hours for Netanyahu. He woke up Saturday morning to a profile in The New York Times that said he's feeling lonely lately and closed his day with this. 

       

Ted Cruz Dominated the Values Voter Summit Straw Poll

It's now very clear Ted Cruz is very popular among the those who frequent the Family Research Council's 2013 Values Voter Summit: he won the straw poll measuring early presidential candidates by more than 200 votes. Cruz tallied an astonishing 317 votes from the ultra conservative crowd. The next five candidates who came after Cruz -- Dr. Ben Carson, Sen. Rick Santorum, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Marco Rubio and Congressman Paul Ryan, respectively -- only had 319 votes between them. 

Outsiders finish 1-2-3 RT @mikememoli: Full Values Voter straw poll results, with @SenTedCruz clear winner pic.twitter.com/RiCFjg0ByD

— Reid Wilson (@PostReid) October 12, 2013

That's a pretty great way for the Republican lightning rod to close out the conference after his speech was interrupted by immigration reform protestors. CBN News is calling Cruz the "rock star," and Family Research Council chief Tony Perkins appointed him as the Tea Party's next big thing:

"The Values Voter straw poll reveals what conservative, Republican-leaning voters are looking for in a potential candidate. Values voters are looking for those who will refuse to be bound by the 'can't mentality' of the establishment and will challenge the status quo. In short, values voters, many of whom did not fully engage in the last election, are looking for a leader that will inspire them by challenging President Obama and speak clearly and directly to the challenges facing America."

Not everyone loves Ted Cruz. The Tea Party loves Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz loves Ted Cruz. But a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll says only 14 percent of Americans view Cruz favorably right now. Within that 14%, though, he's quite popular. 

       

The Associated Press Thinks Canada Needed a Pick Me Up

Is Canada in the middle of an ugly stretch of bad luck that only Alice Munro can fix? The Associated Press thinks so.

[image error]The Press ran a story Saturday explaining how Toronto's scandalous mayor Rob Ford, the fall of Blackberry, and that pest Justin Bieber are among the many stories bringing Canadians down. That's where the AP comes in. "Cheer up, Canada," they say, because your writers are being acknowledged. The AP says Alice Munro winning the Nobel Prize for literature was a rare bright spot in the news coverage surrounding the Great White North lately,  the only thing the Canadian in your office can brag about. Canadians aren't really sure how to handle the slight dig from the AP, if the social media reaction is any indication. Munro is undoubtedly a hero, and the country is celebrating her big win, but there are other things Canadians can be proud of that the Associated Press maybe forgot:

Hockey season is officially under way and the country's most popular team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, are frustratingly good this year. Will they make the playoffs? Let's hope not! Leaf fans are the worst and they deserve to be sad so the rest of the country can laugh at them.  Drake is one of the most popular artists in the world right now. His new album, Nothing Was the Same, doesn't suck and is selling fairly well. Now he wants to do for the Toronto Raptors what Jay-Z did for the Brooklyn Nets. (No one expects that to happen, though.) Noted Canadian actor Jason Segel is turning the hilarious maple syrup heist into a movie, because Canadians recognize when the jokes write themselves.  Lorne Michaels still runs Saturday Night Live and, though we have some reservations about this season, that won't be changing any time soon.  The Canadian government was busted for spying on Brazil, and the Department of National Defense's new home was bugged before they moved in. But at least Canada didn't get awkwardly stood up over it.  This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada, so most people will have the day off on Monday. Everyone loves turkey dinners and long weekends, even Canadians. 
       

'Fifty Shades' Needs a New Leading Man

It's not often fan backlash campaigns work. But considering insane Fifty Shades fanatics prompted a need for beefed up security, maybe it's not all that shocking Charlie Hunnam officially won't be playing Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey movie.

Universal announced Hunnam (with the studio's consent) dropped out of the Fifty Shades movie at the last minute because his "immersive TV schedule... is not allowing him time to adequately prepare for the role of Christian Grey," according to the studio's statement. (Hunnam plays Jackson 'Jax' Teller on FX's wildly popular Sons of Anarchy.) 

Some are questioning Universal's excuse for Hunnam's departure. "His abs not flat enough?" asked Buzzfeed's Adam Vary. "Hmmm... Not sure I'm buying what they're selling," said TV Line's Michael Ausiello. "I would take this with a grain of salt," writes Deadline's Mike Flemming Jr., adding "all of this scheduling stuff had already been figured out before he made the deal to star with Dakota Johnson." 

The move to replace him was definitely made recently. Universal added extra security around their star for his Sons of Anarchy premiere this week, fearing Fifty Shades fan upset with his casting may do something drastic. And as Variety explains, Hunnam's late departure puts producers in a real bind: 

Universal and Focus will have to move fast to find a replacement as production was set to start at the end of the month.

This setback may cause a delay in production given how long it took to settle on Hunnam for the key Grey role.

So the long-awaited adaptation, slated for release next August, may get pushed back as the studio looks for a new leading man.

Fans were outraged when Universal announced Hunnam was slated to play Christian Grey instead of, say, Ian Somerhalder or Matt Bomer. A Change.org petition to have him removed from the project earned over 80,000 signatures. Hunnam acknowledged the angered reaction from Fifty Shades fans against him playing the millionaire main character in an interview earlier this week. "There are so many fans of that book and I know that on the surface, I'm probably not what everybody imagined," the actor told Entertainment Weekly. "Because reading is so personal and people bring a character to life in their imagination, they feel ownership over that character."  

But these things always pop up when crazed fans disagree with a casting decision. (You'll remember the great Baffleck backlash of 2013.) It's rare they actually get what they want. 

       

Studios Are Fighting Over Glenn Greenwald's Snowden Book

You had to know this was coming. There's a bidding war heating up between Hollywood studios over the rights to bring Glenn Greenwald's forthcoming tell-all book about the Edward Snowden affair to the big screen. 

Greenwald's book, set for a March 2014 release from publisher Metropolitan Books, promises to be the definitive account of how a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, was able to leak damaging details of the secret spy agency's surveillance practices. So it's not all that surprising that 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Entertainment and HBO were all jockeying for the movie rights, according to The New York Times' Michael Ceiply. (This is likely a different project than the Snowden movie shopped by the William Morris Endeavor this summer.)  Nothing is signed and delivered yet, but the official Greenwald-Snowden movie is coming. 

At least one studio has already pulled out of the bidding because of the myriad legal and logistical issues that plague the telling of Greenwald's Snowden story. The ending, really, is the project's biggest issue. Snowden is holed up in Russia, dodging extradition from the U.S. You'll remember that his stay is supposed to be a temporary one. We don't know what happens next, so neither does the studio, and that could have a huge effect on the movie's historical significance. Zero Dark Thirty wasn't made until years after Osama bin Laden was killed. That story had a beginning, middle and end before it was made into a movie. Snowden's is still in its second act. 

That's what made Fox back out of negotiations. But there are other legal complications that studios need to watch for, as Cieply explains: 

Further complexities involved the structure of any proposed deal. Mr. Greenwald is selling the rights to his book and may include his own life rights. But his journalistic collaborator, Laura Poitras, and Mr. Snowden have not put their own life rights for sale, according to the people briefed on the film. That leaves potential buyers to rely on legal precepts of fair use in portraying them, or on their assurances that they will not seek to interfere with a movie.

Speaking of Zero Dark, the eventual Snowden movie will also anger politicians in much the same way the Bin Laden movie did. Backlash from lawmakers over the movie's accuracy (in particular its portrayal of the CIA's interrogation practices) arguably cost the movie in the Oscar race. Zero Dark was let off the hook eventually, but not until after award season passed, and Zero Dark went home mostly empty handed on Oscar night. And this was over a movie about American troops killing Osama Bin Laden. The potential backlash for a Snowden movie would likely be much, much greater. 

       

What It's Like to Work for a Nine-Year-Old in a Sweatshop

Few people learn what working for a nine-year-old feels like. (Most would consider the idea of working for a nine-year-old like the butt of a good SNL sketch.) But a Toronto Star reporter went to Bangladesh, was embedded in a sweatshop and learned nine-year-olds make the most forgiving bosses in the most unforgiving conditions. 

Working conditions in Bangladesh garment factories have been scrutinized since an eight-story factory collapsed, killing 1,127 people. There was a brief push for retailers to sign a legally binding agreement to enforce better conditions for workers in the world's second largest clothing exporter, but most American companies declined to participate. 

The Star's Raveena Aulakh worked for four days in a small, windowless factory sewing shirts. A cabbie she met on a previous trip told the factory owner "that his wife’s cousin (me) was an Indian woman who had recently moved to Dhaka, knew a few words of Bengali and needed a new start." That she was able to infiltrate a factory was itself a victory: screening incoming employees became common practice after the collapse. But she got the job, and her boss was a nine-year-old named Meem. 

The conditions in the factory were not ideal by any means. The factory was two stories, each floor "about half the size of a basketball court" with roughly two dozen sewing machines. There were no windows, and only three ceiling fans cooling workers from the intense heat inside the room.

Meem started working at such a young age because her family needed the financial support. She liked hairclips and glitter, like any nine-year-old girl, when she wasn't sewing or helping the others. As Aulakh struggled to stay sane during her short stint working at the factory, she eventually realized the precocious little girl was covering for her the entire time, inspecting her shoddy work to spare her the wrath of the temperamental floor boss prone to yelling at his workers: 

She told me to give her everything I trimmed and not put it in the done pile. I didn’t understand until it dawned on me that I wasn’t any good at my job. I was clumsy and I nipped at least twice. She “checked” so that I didn’t get into any trouble with Ali. She knew I was on trial at the sweatshop and if I didn’t trim the threads well, I would not last long.

The nine-year-old was making sure Aulakh could stay employed. She had no idea the new lady working at the factory was a journalist. She was looking out for a co-worker who, she thought, needed the money the same way her family did. You should read the entire fascinating, infuriating, unbelievable story at the Toronto Star.