Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 924

Obama to Business: Time to Start Worrying About the Government

In a lengthy interview with CNBC's John Harwood on Wednesday, President Obama made a clear case to Wall Street: This isn't just another squabble. His obvious goal wasn't to spook the unflappable markets. It was a call for more lobbying.

The entire interview, which can be seen at right, might as well be overlaid with a blinking "CALL YOUR CONGRESSMEMBER NOW" sign. At first, Obama walks the new party line that he'll negotiate with Republicans once the government is operating and the debt ceiling has been raised. But he quickly transitions to his real point. "I'm pretty well known for being a calm guy," he says. But that calmness has been exhausted during this fight — as should CNBC viewers'.

Harwood: Wall Street's been pretty calm about this. The reaction I would say generally speaking has been — Washington fighting, Washington posturing, yada yada yada. Is that the right way for them to look at it?

Obama: No, I think this time is different. I think they should be concerned. I had a chance to speak to some of the financial industry who came down for their typical trip, and I told them that it is not unusual for Democrats and Republicans to disagree. That's the way the Founders designed our government. Democracy is messy.

When you have a situation in which a faction is willing potentially to default on U.S. Government obligations, then we are in trouble. And if they're willing to do it now, they'll be willing to do it later.

Harwood's point is reflected in the markets. Here's what the Dow Jones Industrial Average has done over the past five days — a dip when the shutdown kicked in, but little volatility or decline.

[image error]

However, the business lobby, as the Associated Press noted, has been an unlikely ally of the Democrats' on the shutdown. The meeting to which Obama refers was with over a dozen CEOs from large financial institutions, who presumably received the same message as the one above. On Monday, as the clock ticked down toward the shutdown, the Chamber of Commerce released a letter signed by over 250 business leaders urging Congress to "raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner and remove any threat to the full faith and credit of the United States government." This is an organization that only last November gave the maximum contribution to try and unseat President Obama and another $198,000 to other Republican candidates. But in this fight, it has his back. Harwood at one point raised the question explicitly.

Harwood: Can these Wall Street guys influence those people?

Obama: I think Wall Street can have an influence. CEOs around the country can have an influence.

I think it is important for them to recognize that this is going to have a profound impact on our economy and their bottom lines, their employees, and their shareholders unless we start seeing a different attitude on the part of that faction in Congress.

Our colleagues at The Atlantic outlined some of the effects those CEOs are likely already seeing. Obama's appearance on CNBC — the NBC family's financial news channel — was meant to link that damage to the actions of his Republican opposition. Obama's hope is that those CEOs might become more active in reaching out to their traditional allies in Republican districts and demand the shutdown be resolved. CEOs may never be as loud as the Tea Partiers embracing the current scenario, but they give a lot more money at fundraisers.

       

Come On, No. Harry Reid Doesn't Hate Kids with Cancer

Just as House Republicans maximized the political value of standing with veterans at war memorials on Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid provided conservatives with another talking point in the hearts and minds battle to convince America that Democrats are the shutdown villains after all. Reid, asked about a bill to fund the National Institutes of Health, including clinical trials for kids with cancer, Reid responded, "Why would we want to do that?" Within minutes, Reid became a kids-hating villain as the remarks circulated widely. 

First, some context: Reid, in a press conference on Wednesday, was addressing a series of bills proposed by the House Republicans to fund the parts of the government that everyone likes, instead of passing a "clean" resolution to keep funding the whole government without conditions, reopening the entire government. Those "mini" bills would fund parks and other D.C. attractions, veterans, the basic ability of Washington D.C. to use its own money, kids with cancer and other research projects at the National Institutes of Heath, and the National Guard. They face a veto from President Obama and a certain rejection in the Senate, because Democrats have declined to negotiate on the budget until the "clean" CR passes. Reid is worked up about the "mini" bills. For one thing, they're smart ways for Republicans to record Democratic votes against popular, vulnerable people — despite the fact that reopening the government would also support those same things, often with more funding. It's bad for the image. Speaking of which, here's the full exchange between Reid and CNN'S Dana Bash:

DANA BASH: You all talked about children with cancer unable to go to clinical trials. The House is presumably going to pass a bill that funds at least the NIH. Given what you've said, will you at least pass that? And if not, aren't you playing the same political games that Republicans are?

HARRY REID: Listen, Sen. Durbin explained that very well, and he did it here, did it on the floor earlier, as did Sen. Schumer. What right did they have to pick and choose what part of government is going to be funded? It's obvious what's going on here. You talk about reckless and irresponsible. Wow. What this is all about is Obamacare. They are obsessed. I don't know what other word I can use. They're obsessed with this Obamacare thing. It's working now and it will continue to work and people will love it more than they do now by far. So they have no right to pick and choose.

BASH: But if you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn't you do it?

CHUCK SCHUMER: Why put one against the other? 

REID: Why would we want to do that? I have 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force base that are sitting home. They have a few problems of their own. This is -- to have someone of your intelligence to suggest such a thing maybe means you're irresponsible and reckless --

BASH: I'm just asking a question.

In the video, it's clear that Reid was responding to the point brought up by Schumer — why fund kids with cancer, while ignoring, say, other vulnerable kids, or other populations impacted by the shutdown? Why choose? This has been the Democrats' stock response to variations on this question, usually from Republicans on the House floor. But Reid's answer, with a testy tone and a follow-up insult to a reporters' intelligence, caught on. This is how the exchange was picked up by Buzzfeed: 

Harry Reid: “Why Would We Want To” Help One Child With Cancer By Only Funding NIH? http://t.co/gsRrm7rRId

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) October 2, 2013

A position promptly defended, after readers pointed out that the context seemed a bit off in the headline: 

Darn you BuzzFeed, writing those misleading headlines in which you quote someone verbatim.

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) October 2, 2013

The National Republican Senatorial Committee picked up on this characterization of the remarks, sending out a blast asking "How out-of-touch and heartless can Senate Democrats be?" 

RT @AdamBaldwin: Hi @MHarrisPerry: To which community does the kid with cancer that Sen. Reid doesn't want to help belong?

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 2, 2013

'Why Would We Want To' Help One Kid With Cancer? http://t.co/9YUsCSqwCf

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) October 2, 2013

Reid calls Repubs "Anarchists" then says he is willing to sacrifice kid with cancer. MEDIA, WHAT WILL YOU DO? -- http://t.co/4xBz40BjAF

— John Nolte (@NolteNC) October 2, 2013

The fact that the talking point works is, in part, Reid's own fault. Reid has a long-documented history of saying mean things, including to reporters like CNN's Bash. And while Reid's comments are abrasive, their status as a chess piece in a game for public sympathy is at best disingenuous. Of course Harry Reid doesn't hate kids with cancer. That's not even what he said. Even though that point should be obvious, he's since defended himself by saying the remarks were taken out of context.

For those following the funding of cancer research before the current shut down, the current debate over whether Reid said a bad thing about cancer funding or not will read even worse: cancer research funds have been hurt since sequestration in a big way, whether Reid supports the "mini" CR to fund the NIH or not. Lawmakers opted to fix FAA funding after the sequester over restoring medicare funding to cancer clinics once the sequester took effect. The NIH has lost $1.7 billion in federal funding since last spring, and would lose $600 million more in the theoretical funding package that was supposed to take effect October 1st, prompting the National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins to say that the lost funds could have funded research for "next cure for cancer or the next Nobel Prize. But we'll never know."

       

Ronan Farrow: Future TV Star

Today in show business news: MSNBC is bringing a celebrity scion into the fold, a discarded show finds a second life, and Two and a Half Man makes it official with Amber Tamblyn.

What a strange day it's been for Ronan Farrow. First, the 25-year-old lawyer/diplomat/possible second coming's mom, Mia Farrow, suggested that Frank Sinatra might be his dad, not Woody Allen, as has long been believed. Then, word breaks that he's in talks to have his own dang show on MSNBC. He'd likely be on the weekend lineup, talkin' about various issues and whatnot. And wouldn't that be something! A 26-year-old with his own news show. Just a reminder to him that he has to wait until he's 35 to run for president. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Well, those of you who like such things ought to be excited. Ted 2 has an official release date. On June 26, 2015 you can all rush to the movie theater to get another helping of that wise-crackin' teddy bear, his weird human buddy, and I dunno some girl who like complains or whatever girls do. Though of course we'll all be a year and a half older then, so maybe some of you will have grown out of your phase that had you liking Ted and other such things. It could happen! Also some of us will be dead. That's just a fact. Sigh. [Deadline]

John Mulaney will have a sitcom after all. The Saturday Night Live shot a pilot for NBC earlier this year, a multicamera comedy loosely based on his own life, but the network passed on it. Eager to snatch away the comedy crown from NBC, and doing a good job of it so far, Fox ordered a new pilot and now they've picked it up to series. That's exciting! It's unclear if the old cast will be fully intact — Martin Short is said to still be on board as Mulaney's boss, while Nasim Pedrad and Elliott Gould might be out — but no matter what, this should be interesting. John Mulaney is funny. So maybe he made a funny show. [Entertainment Weekly]

I'm not sure how she's going to break the news to David Cross, but Amber Tamblyn has been made a series regular on Two and a Half Men. Yep. She was hired to do a five-episode test run, playing Charlie Sheen's dead character's long-lost daughter, and they liked her enough that she's got a steady gig. And hey, maybe it's not "cool" comedy like Cross does, but it pays the darn bills, doesn't it? And sometimes that's all that matters. [Deadline]

Homeland season two spoiler alert. You know how David Estes got blowed up in the finale? Well don't worry, the actor who played him, David Harewood, has just landed a great new gig. And it's on rival premium network HBO! He'll play a hard-charging CEO in David Milch's pilot The Money. Ah... David Milch, huh? So it'll look great and all the actors will be good but we'll have no idea what's happening. None. But still! Good for mean old Estes. I guess he sort of deserves it. Now we just need to get poor Chris Brody off that show and into a real gig. Come on, Teen Nick. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Universal has fired the head of Focus Features and is closing the New York offices. That's what Focus employees learned today. How was your day? [Deadline]

       

The Many Ways to Fix the Awfulness That Is Penn Station

"One entered the city like a god," moaned the architectural historian Vincent J. Scully Jr.; "one scuttles in now like a rat." He was referring, of course, to New York City's insufferable hellhole of a West Side train terminal, Penn Station. You can't get New Yorkers to agree on much—but no one doubts the awfulness of Penn Station.

Most solutions involve costly, ambitious construction projects. But those—if they happen, pending billions of dollars—won't come to fruition for decades.

In a new op-ed for The New York Times, former New York City Transit planner Robert Previdi suggests some solutions that don't involve, you know, razing the whole thing to the ground. To start, he writes, the ticket and scheduling centers for Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, and Long Island Rail Road need to stop "acting as if the other two don’t exist." Plus—and this one is jaw-droppingly obvious—the departure and arrival listings should be viewable on all areas of the station for transferring ease. Then there's the subject of the godawful businesses, especially in contrast to the far classier Grand Central:

A more inviting retail atmosphere would also improve the customer experience. Grand Central Terminal, owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, hired a professional leasing firm to manage the retail mix after the station was renovated in the 1990s. Union Station in Washington did the same thing. Both stations are now hugely successful as inviting retail and restaurant locations. Perhaps Penn Station could be, too.

Previdi's modest solutions are just the latest in a long line of recent proposals to spice up the joint. Most are quite a bit more ambitious. Here's a look at what's been floating around.

[image error]The Moynihan Plan

Named for the New York senator who proposed it, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, this one isn't particularly new—Moynihan died in 2003. No matter. Moynihan's idea is still bandied about as the Holy Grail of solutions to all that is awful about Penn Station. It's simple: take over the James A. Farley Post Office directly across from Madison Square Garden and create a new train station there.

But there's a catch. As Michael Kimmelman revealed in a 2012 piece for the Times, "the open secret about the Moynihan plan is that Amtrak alone would move across Eighth Avenue." That accounts for a scant five percent of the harried commuters contending with Penn Station's madness on a daily basis. What will we do with you, Long Island Rail and New Jersey Transit? The Moynihan Plan is a bit of a mixed bag, Kimmelman says:

It’s true that the Moynihan plan will eventually improve a few access routes to subways and commuter trains. But it will add no new tracks and have limited effect on the congestion and misery of Penn Station.

The Kimmelman Solution

Kimmelman goes on to propose his own plan, of course, and it's not so simple. Here's the gist. Eighteen acres of land will soon be developed at the site of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the Far West Side of Manhattan. Kimmelman advocates moving Madison Square Garden to the site, away from its current "flimsy, aging eyesore" of an arena. With the Garden out of the way, Penn Station is free to expand to into a new train hub underground.

"The argument to move the Garden now is about looking ahead toward a booming new West Side," Kimmelman writes. "A light-filled Penn Station, a monument to the city’s best self and biggest dreams, should become its gateway."

Of course, such haughty language hints at just the flaw in this plan: it would take hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps dozens of years to complete. Commuters suffering Penn Station's hellish realities presumably want a solution in place before they've retired.

The "Architectural Ballet" Solution

No, this has nothing to do with the downfall of the New York City Opera. This one basically amounts to "Hire A Smart Architect Who Can Make Penn Station Not Look Dreadful." But James S. Russell, writing for Bloomberg Businessweek, phrases it so much more elegantly:

The station could choreograph the movement of people among station, subways and arena into an architectural ballet bathed in gorgeous light drawn from above. A talented architect could recapture much of the glory of the 1910 McKim Meade & White station, demolished to widespread horror in 1963.

Come to think of it, that's basically what Previdi is proposing, albeit without any detail provided, isn't it?

[image error]The Paris Solution

Writing for The Observer in August, Stephen Jacob Smith made the case that Penn Station ought to do away with such haughty architectural ambitions and simply take a hint from Paris's Châtelet-Les Halles: linkage. Or "through-running," as it's more technically termed. He might be onto something.

Here's how it works. You know how NJT trains travel from Tenafly or Englewood or whatever and arrive in Penn Station and then turn back around to the Garden State? There's a better way:

...instead of making a capacity-taxing reverse maneuver, they’d run straight out to Queens and Long Island, much like a subway. As it is now, said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, “we use half the capacity of the station and the tunnels going in and out to service empty trains.”

Duh. Smith also suggests (wait for it)...

The Build-a-Tunnel-Between-Penn-Station-and-Grand-Central-Already-For-Christ's-Sake Solution

Okay, this one is self-explanatory. But it's been bandied about before and Chris Christie shut it down and anyway, you could argue the impressively quick Grand Central–Times Square shuttle isn't that much of an extra hassle. (As long as you know better than to try getting out at Times Square and walking the rest of the way.)

All photos: Associated Press

       

Grover Norquist Would Never Demand Things from Congress Except Last Monday

According to an interview Grover Norquist gave the Washington Post, he's just a sober, smart-guy type, not prone to standing outside the Capitol demanding things. Except when he did that on Monday, apparently.

Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, creators of the legislative no-tax pledge, gave the interview to the Post's Ezra Klein playing off that well-honed image of a wise elder statesman of the conservative right. He used the moment to criticize the current predicament of congressional Republicans — especially the role played by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, whose insistence on defunding Obamcare "pushed House Republicans into traffic." 

Norquist complained about Cruz and, without naming them, the Heritage Foundation, with which Cruz toured the country criticizing Obamacare this summer. Norquist used the interview (which is very interesting and well worth a read) to contrast such activism with his own efforts.

Unlike some other institutions in this town, I work to give some reasonable advice to members of Congress and shape public opinion. I don’t micromanage the negotiations of House and Senate guys with the White House or stand outside the negotiations and announce somebody should lay down a nonnegotiable demand with a tactic and a date attached to it.

On Monday, Norquist said something else. On that day, September 30, Congress was playing what's come to be known as "CR ping-pong," with the House proposing funding measures loaded with qualifiers, and the Senate stripping out the House's qualifiers and sending them back.

One particularly contentious proposal came from Louisiana Sen. David Vitter. Vitter championed that amendment as removing a special exemption for Congress, forcing them to accept coverage under Obamacare (technically, the Affordable Care Act). In reality, the amendment would have simply removed the co-pay members of Congress and their staffs receive for insurance coverage which will already transition to coverage provided through one of the exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act. It was nearly universally excoriated, including by conservative outlets.

At a press conference on Monday, Vitter called for the amendment to be adopted, to treat Washington "like the rest of America." Klein himself explained why that clearly isn't the case in an article last week. And yet there was Norquist on Monday, standing behind Vitter, offering his own words in support of the Vitter amendment which was scheduled for a floor vote in the House shortly afterward. (Norquist's segment starts at about the 7:30 mark in the video below.)

"We need to say that Washington should live by the same rules as the rest of the country — in Obamacare and in other things. This legislation and the leadership by the members here is very important and I think that if the American people focus on this, this is one of the things that even Harry Reid's Senate is going to have to agree to."

This was Norquist quite literally standing outside the negotiations and announcing that the House should lay down a demand with a tactic and a date attached to it. Two days ago. And it was a demand that Klein himself said "hurts taxpayers, fixes nothing." 

Norquist built his reputation on this sort of mix, insisting that he is a sober analyst of fiscal policy to one audience and to another excoriating a government still too big to drown in a bathtub. Klein's new interview largely focuses on the politics, but also grants Norquist the space to opine on how the Republican party deals with economic issues. Vitter isn't mentioned.

Photo: Norquist, left, stands outside the Capitol with Republican senators including Vitter, right. (AP)

       

'Super Fun Night' and TV's Weird Girl Problem

Rebel Wilson's Super Fun Night has honorable intentions. The show aims to put truly weird female misfits at the center of a network television show, the only problem is: it doesn't work. The show ends up being less funny than uncomfortable and cruel. It's unfortunately more proof that TV doesn't know how to deal with weird girls. 

Super Fun Night, which premieres tonight on ABC, tells the story of Kimmie Boubier (Wilson) a capable but awkward lawyer, who has two equally (if not more) awkward friends. The girls try to cope with their terrible social lives by planning activities every Friday night. In the episode airing tonight—which was not the show's pilot, it should be noted—the women go to a piano bar, and Kimmie signs up to perform to get over her fear of singing in public. 

In her profile of Wilson for New York, Lynn Hirschberg wrote that "Wilson imagined Kimmie and her friends as true uncomfortable outsiders, rather than TV’s standard popular beauties who are cosmetically nerdy in order to seem interesting, relatable, or relevant." The main problem with the show, is that instead of humanizing these outcasts, their flaws are the central joke of the show. Bits, which we assume are supposed to be funny, involve Kimmie putting on her mouth guard, skipping inappropriately around her law office, ordering consolation pizzas, and struggling to putting on Spanx. The joke with Kimmie's friend Marika (Lauren Ash) is that she's mannish and threatening. The joke with her friend Helen-Alice (Liza Lapira) is that she's very innocent. We're asked to laugh at them because they are weirdos, not to identify with them.

It doesn't help that the show's main villain is a pretty but super bitchy co-worker of Kimmie's, as if women are either beautiful jerks or unattractive losers. No, the people on the show aren't actually ugly, but the show wants to play up the leads' relative unattractiveness. In Hirschberg's profile Wilson says: "The women from wardrobe are lovely, but they don’t get that I want to dress as Kimmie, and Kimmie does not have the best taste. The girls in the show are at the bottom of the social pole, and it’s hard to communicate that to the network. It’s important they understand that comedy is not about looking good." 

The girls on Super Fun Night are definitely new for TV. TV's weird girls are often supporting players. The Big Bang Theory was originally about male nerds and a hot girl. Mayim Bialik's Amy Farrah Fowler didn't show up until later. The offbeat, outcast girls that tend to most frequently succeed on television as leads are a) pretty and b) snarky and/or wry. Long story short: they aren't that weird. Take, for instance, Daria of Daria or Lindsay Weir of Freaks and Geeks. Daria and Lindsay may not have run with the quote-unquote cool crowds, but their looks (yes, we know Daria is a cartoon), alt-fashion, and wit made them cool to viewers. 

Still, in a way Super Fun Night seems like Wilson's answer to Fox's New Girl, which stars Zooey Deschanel as Jess, a socially awkward schoolteacher. When that show began in 2011 its main source of humor was Jess's strangeness. She sang to herself, did funny voices, was so awkward with men that she couldn't even say the word "penis." Meanwhile, she was doing all of this with the gorgeous face and perfect body of, well, Zooey Deschanel. Ultimately, the show only started becoming the great show it is today when it toned down Jess's weirdness, making it more organic and based on the reality of Deschanel's own quirky style. In one episode she brilliantly tells off another woman who criticizes her love of girly things. The show also upped the weirdness of her male roommates, making it one bizarre sitcom family. The humor started to arise out of the specific performances, not character descriptions. 

That brings us to the biggest, and probably the most easily fixable problem with Super Fun Night. In trying so hard to make her characters truly weird, Wilson has undermined her own weird humor that was so brilliantly on display in Pitch Perfect, the movie that helped catapult her to fame. Instead of trying to make us laugh at unpalatable characters, Wilson should just be her own weird self. 

       

The NFL Channeled Big Tobacco in Its Denial of Concussions

The National Football League long knew about the dangers of concussions and, for years, worked to mislead the public, according to a new book League of Denial, which compares the actions of the NFL to those of the tobacco industry. Excerpts of the book from ESPN investigative reporters and brothers Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru appeared on ESPN and Sports Illustrated today, and the book will be fully released next Tuesday.

[image error]When the NFL settled a massive concussion lawsuit brought on by 4,500 current and former players last month, it did so without having to legally admit any wrongdoing. But whether the NFL admits it or not, the Fainaru brothers found much damning evidence that the sports giant lied and maneuvered its way out of taking action to stop concussions, and actively misled the public and players as to their dangers. This is the same book, it should be noted, whose information was being used by ESPN and PBS for a collaborative documentary. That is, until ESPN dropped out of the agreement, reportedly caving to NFL pressure to do so. A preview of the documentary can be seen on BuzzFeed Sports.

One of the key targets of the book is the 1994 Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) committee, which, as implied by its name, found concussions to be relatively minor injuries. But the board had little scientific expertise, as the Fainarus wrote via ESPN:

The MTBI Committee was run by a man who would become Tagliabue's personal physician, Elliot Pellman, a rheumatologist and New York Jets doctor who had no previous experience in brain research.

Pellman would become the go-to concussion expert for the NFL, until he was later found to be falsifying his doctoral resume. The MTBI's conclusions were later disavowed by two of its own members. But not before the NFL utilized a jock-sniffing contact at Neurosurgery magazine to publish a series of concussion-denial studies despite its rejection during peer-review stage. One study came to a particularly and obviously egregious conclusion: "Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis," it read. A cursory glance of a regular fall Sunday would have quickly ruled that conclusion out.

The comparisons to Big Tobacco, which denied the links of smoking to heart and lung diseases for many years, are compelling. "The NFL's strategy seemed not unlike that of another powerful industry, the tobacco industry," the authors write, "which had responded to its own existential threat by underwriting questionable science through the creation of its own scientific research council and trying to silence anyone who contradicted it."

The NFL has taken steps in recent years to admit that concussions are a problem worth addressing. But, as the authors themselves note, "The story is far from over."

(Book cover via Amazon)

       

The Effects of the Government Shutdown, Mapped

Depending on your outlook, the government shutdown that began Tuesday at midnight is either a sort of legislative diet or it is an unnecessarily damaging disruption of the lives of millions of Americans. We scoured local news sites (and the very helpful Twitter feed of the Huffington Post's Sam Stein) to find examples of how the shutdown has affected people across the country.

Below, a map of the United States allowing you to click on states and see the news stories we've turned up. Not included: the 800,000 people currently furloughed or the closure of national parks in nearly every state. The bright red states on our map are those we thought we particularly striking examples of how the shutdown is affecting America. (Washington, D.C., is pretty small, so click here to view it.) We also tried to categorize the negative effects for the sake of clarity.

Have suggestions for stories that should be added? Let us know in the comments.

[image error]

Ohio Twenty-seven 8th graders from Columbus raised money with bake sales and babysitting for a class trip to D.C. this week. They were disappointed to find that they couldn’t visit any of the museums on their itinerary
Link. Rating: Inconvenience Virginia Up to 5,000 civilian employees at military base Fort Lee near Richmond have been furloughed. Many expressed worries about not receiving their paychecks
Link. Rating: Financial burden Hawaii Medical research halted on “a vaccination for rat lungworm disease -- a gastrointestinal infection that causes eosinophilic meningitis in humans.”
Link. Rating: Life-threatening Alaska Geological research halted in Anchorage, scientists unsure when they’ll be let back in their building
Link. Rating: Financial burden Pennsylvania National Cancer Institute conference canceled in Pittsburgh
Link. Rating: Inconvenient Massachusetts Pay delayed for workers at the Westover Air Base
Link. Rating: Financial burden D.C. NIH had to deny child cancer patients for clinical trials
Link. Rating: Life-threatening Veterans have launched an informal protest of the closure of national memorials
Link. Rating: Inconvenience Minnesota Three hundred Air Force Reserve workers and 1,200 military technicians with the National Guard are furloughed without pay in Minneapolis
Link. Rating: Financial burden Missouri GI Bills processing delayed because workers in the St. Louis VA office are furloughed
Link. Rating: Financial burden Columbia College is offering payment plans for students relying on military assistance
Link. Rating: Financial burden New Hampshire 2,000 shipyard workers out of work in Portsmouth
Link. Rating: Financial burden New Mexico A recent widow of a Forest Service firefighter in Albuquerque was told she won’t receive benefits for weeks. She has two children
Link. Rating: Financial burden Arkansas 85,000 meals for children and 2,000 for infants will not be provided through WIC in Little Rock
Link. Rating: Life-threatening Public service workers who assist at homeless shelters will see a pay drop (they were only making $11,000 a year before the shutdown)
Link. Rating: Financial burden California There are only 287 workers containing the Rim Fire now, down from 4,500 a month ago
Link. Rating: Life-threatening Alcatraz is losing revenue from 5,000 visitors a day while it’s closed
Link. Rating: Financial burden Some tech companies with government contracts aren’t getting paid
Link. Rating: Inconvenience Illinois At least 73 federal workers in Chicago have been temporarily laid off
Link. Rating: Financial burden Colorado Summit County firefighters furloughed without pay. An entire unit was shutdown
Link. Rating: Financial burden / Life-threatening Connecticut Thirteen Head Start programs shut down, meaning parents have to scramble to find alternate daycare arrangements for their kids
Link. Rating: Financial burden Florida Army contract workers in Germany from South Florida were told to sign up for unemployment in light of the shutdown. One woman is stranded in Germany with no way to pay her bills
Link. Rating: Financial burden Social Security offices are not issuing new Social Security cards, Medicare cards, or proof of income letters
Link. Rating: Inconvenience Jacksonville’s Naval Hospital had to furlough part of its workforce, so it will be harder to get appointments at the hospital and fill prescriptions
Link. Rating: Inconvenience South Carolina A Headstart program in York County will cancel pre-kindergarten programs for almost 900 children starting Friday
Link. Rating: Financial burden North Carolina 4,500 federal workers have either been furloughed or had their hours cut. This is especially affecting the Department of Health and Human Services, which may not be able to carry on with hospital inspections
Link. Rating: Financial burden North Dakota A National Park worker wrote furlough notices for 40 employees, and then one for herself. Their backpay is not guaranteed when the government reopens
Link. Rating: Financial burden Idaho Meals for 42,500 pregnant women and children in the state are in jeopardy -- there won’t be any vouchers left by Monday
Link. Rating: Life-threatening A search for a 63-year-old missing woman was slowed after federal workers at the Craters of the Moon National Monument were furloughed. The woman’s family is now reaching out to experienced hikers to help
Link. Rating: Life-threatening Louisiana The state had to close its Commodities Supplemental Food Program, which serves 64,000 pregnant women, children, and seniors each month (via Anita)
Link. Rating: Life-threatening
       

Everyone's Listening to that Song from the End of 'Breaking Bad'

Like "Don't Stop Believin'" at the end of The Sopranos, when Breaking Bad ended on Sunday to the sounds of (spoilers?) Badfinger's "Baby Blue," it was easy to predict that the song would be getting some extra attention, but now there are some actual numbers to go along with the track's resurgence and they are large. The track is currently no. 15 on iTunes.

Billboard reports that the track has seen a 3,000 percent bump in sales since the finale, with over 5,000 downloads since Sunday. That gives the track its largest-ever single week of digital sales, and the song could reappear on the Billboard's Rock Digital Songs chart ("Baby Blue" peaked at no. 14  on the Hot 100 in 1972).

Even more astounding is Spotify's 9,000 percent spike in the minutes following the episode's end. Business Insider got a chart from Spotify showing a large spike shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday. Then it dips as people slept the episode off, and picks up again as everyone woke up wanting to here Badfinger in the year 2013. Even though Spotify has come under fire for its low royalty rates—the service divvies up royalties in proportion to user activity ("For example, we will pay out approximately 2% of our gross royalties for an artist whose music represents approximately 2% of what our users stream.")—that's still a nice uptick for a song that's more than four decades old. 

       

Banksy Is Spending October in New York City

Legendary graffiti artist Banksy has announced a new exhibition of sorts called "Better Out Than In" which is described on its website as "an artists residencey on the streets of New York."

The Village Voice managed to track down the first piece, seen above, on 18 Allen Street on the Lower East Side. Accompanying the graffiti was a phone number (1-800-656-4271 #1), which when dialed, plays the following message:

Hello, and welcome to lower Manhattan. Before you, you will see a spray art by the artist Bansky [sic]. Or maybe not. It's probably been painted over by now. If, however, you can still make it out, you're looking at a type of picture called "graffiti," from the Latin "graffito," which means "graffiti, with an 'O.'" The children in this case represent youth, and the sign represents, well, signs.

Now let us pause for a moment to consider the deeper meaning of this work. Okay, that's long enough.

This piece is typical of Bansky's output, relying as it does on life-sized characters viewed at a level perspective in monochrome. This, in fact, is achieved by spraying automotive spray paint through an intricately-cut shape in a piece of cardboard. Or to give it its proper term: cheating.

What exactly is the artist trying to say here? Is this a response to the primal urge? To take the tools of our oppression and turn them into mere playthings? Or perhaps it is a postmodern comment on how the signifiers of objects have become as real as the objects themselves.

Are you kidding me? Who writes this stuff? Anyway, you decide. Really, please do. I have no idea. 

So it certainly doesn't look like Banksy hasn't lost any of his defining trait: thumbing his nose at the ridiculousness of highbrow criticism. Attempts to dial a different extension besides 1 yielded a message saying that the extension was not available "at this time."

The graffiti has already undergone further vandalization.

Found the new #Banksy - Allen St btwn Hester + Canal in Chinatown #NYC http://t.co/VeRvU1NHaz pic.twitter.com/66Lq4UDcBJ

— Lainna Fader (@lainnafader) October 1, 2013

I cant believe this artwork by #banksy was vandalised in NYC just in a few hours!