Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 974

New York City Has Fewer School Librarians Than Ever

The majority of New York City's high schools are ignoring state requirements by not employing enough—or any—librarians, according to recent estimations by officials. If the Department of Education gets its way, The Wall Street Journal reports, the state will soon waive those regulations entirely for city schools—a privilege not afforded to any other municipality in the state of New York. 

It's a simple dilemma, but one not easily resolved by educators and administrators: must schools hire and retain full-time library media specialists to provide students with their research expertise? In most cases, the state says yes. But some experts are pointing to—what else?—technological shifts as evidence that having fewer librarians is perfectly justified:

City officials say advancements in technology, shifts in teaching practices and the addition of classroom libraries have made librarians not as necessary as they once were. And as the city creates smaller schools, a full-time librarian becomes harder to justify.

"The notion that [schools] should stay exactly the same forever doesn't make sense," said Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city's chief academic officer. "We have to adapt, and we have to be responsive to what's actually happening in schools, and how kids are learning."

Librarians, naturally enough, disagree, pointing to their research specialties, which neither teachers nor the Internet cannot adequately match. "We're using a lot of online journals and trying to encourage them to use them as opposed to just going to Wikipedia, which is their first instinct, or just to do random searches on Google," Kate O'Connell, a librarian, told the Journal.

But the numbers are sobering enough. There are just 333 librarians in the city's schools today, which is roughly a 17 percent drop from four years ago. The Journal's Lisa Fleisher additionally points to changing school designs as a factor in the decrease.

"It's just very sad, because they don't value librarians," O'Connell, one among the 333, bemoaned.

       

Obama's NSA Reforms Dovetailed With a Reversal on His Drone Ones

President Obama's press conference pledge last Friday to enact changes to oversight of the NSA's surveillance system was noticeably similar to his speech in May outlining changes to government drone usage. A New York Times report on Monday indicates that the NSA press conference neatly coincided with a reversal on his drone proposals. In May, Obama suggested new limits on when the government could strike. In Yemen last week, those rules got more lax.

That May speech on drones, at the National Defense University, was the administration's first acknowledgement of its use of drones, and included information only recently declassified on past strikes. Clearly stemming from critique of the program, the president used the speech to outline how the military used drones as a tactic in the war against al Qaeda — which, he said, "is on a path to defeat" in in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "America does not take strikes to punish individuals," he argued, "we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people."

In an ancillary statement released to the media, the president explained how that process would change to better limit the use of drone strikes against targets.

First, there must be a legal basis for using lethal force, whether it is against a senior operational leader of a terrorist organization or the forces that organization is using or intends to use to conduct terrorist attacks.

Second, the United States will use lethal force only against a target that poses a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons. It is simply not the case that all terrorists pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons; if a terrorist does not pose such a threat, the United States will not use lethal force.

The list went on, including a range of other assurances, including that capture or "other reasonable alternatives" to the strikes didn't exist.

In the 24 hours before Obama spoke on Friday, the United States launched three strikes on targets in Yemen, killing at least a dozen people. The New York Times reports that those strikes used an expanded definition of a target in order to be carried out.

A senior American official said over the weekend that the most recent terrorist threat "expanded the scope of people we could go after" in Yemen.

"Before, we couldn't necessarily go after a driver for the organization; it'd have to be an operations director," said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate intelligence issues. "Now that driver becomes fair game because he's providing direct support to the plot."

The choice of words from the official is significant, particularly "couldn't." What the military (or CIA) once couldn't do in initiating a threat, it now can. Because, in practice, the rules changed in the direction of facilitating drone strikes. That was clearly not the impression the president gave in May.

Among the four changes to how the NSA conducts its surveillance that the president announced last week, none limited the ability of the agency to collect information outright. The two that might have that effect — reforms to Section 215 of the Patriot Act and external review of the processes — were presented without timelines. As the Times put it in a separate editorial, the proposals suggested that "all Mr. Obama is inclined to do is tweak these programs." Which was echoed in how Obama presented them: his proposals were a response to critique, not to an perceived ineffectiveness from their use to surveil terrorists.

In other words, those nebulous changes are meant to assuage concerns, not to actually change the processes with which people took issue — mirroring the proposals on drones. Once a situation arose in which the proposed drone policy required modification to expand their use, the administration appears to have done so. Offering skeptics plenty of justification for taking his new NSA proposals with quite a few grains of salt.

       

People Are Bringing Fake Service Dogs to Restaurants

The second half of The New York Post's intrepid investigation into phony service dogs dropped today, showing us that if the spirit moves you to go through the trouble of obtaining a fake vest and ID tag to make your dog look like a service animal, you can indeed take your canine to any restaurant you want, provided you have no moral qualms about doing so.

That's what the Post discovered when it sent a reporter into fancy restaurants — the legendary Le Cirque among them, "where waiters even brought a bowl with water and ice cubes" — with a dog that wasn't there to help with any disability. The lovable pup just came along because, you know, dogs are fun to have around. And it sucks that there's a law against pets in restaurants, right? Turns out that law is actually pretty easy to subvert.

"Hampton — showing off his phony 'service dog'  patch we had specially embroidered — happily slobbered as he wolfed down an 8-ounce salmon filet," reads an investigative report from the Post's Tara Palmeri, who explains that current laws prevent the restaurant from verifying if Hampton was a real service dog: 

[T]he maitre d’ couldn’t ask, because the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits businesses from demanding a canine’s credentials. It also doesn’t allow managers to ask its human companions about their 'disability.'

The scheme isn't all that new. Famed "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan's blog noted this growing trend back in 2012, pointing out how the Internet was inundated with fake service dog kits. And SF Weekly's Joe Eskenazi looked at this disturbing trend all the way back in 2009:

Without ever laying eyes on the creature in question, Animal Control staff is legally mandated to grant the service tags to anyone who brings in a note on the letterhead of a doctor or therapist and then signs an affidavit stating he or she is not committing fraud

So what's the harm in having Fido enjoy the tasting menu at Per Se? Other than potential annoyance to other patrons, these non-service dogs sully the reputation of real service dogs, who are taught to be submissive, calm, and respectful to others. 

 "People with legitimate service dogs are being questioned more than ever, and their fear is that they will have to carry around identification stating their disability," an expert told Cesar Millan's blog.

Diana Taylor, girlfriend of Mayor Bloomberg and New York's first lady, told the Post, "It’s unfair for people to take advantage of a system put in place to really help those who need it." Amen to that. Just get a dog-sitter for the night.

       

Five Best Monday Columns

Bill Keller in The New York Times on the case for Bill Thompson for Mayor of New York The former executive editor of The New York Times sizes up the candidates running to succeed Michael Bloomberg as New York mayor, and finds much to like about Bill Thompson. "Thompson is, in his demeanor and his approach to public service, the anti-Weiner — even-keeled, not self-aggrandizing, careful, decent," Keller writes. As Luis Miranda, Jr., publisher of the Manhattan Times, writes, "So Carlos Danger is 'el griton', @BilldeBlasio the left, @Quinn4NY the right and @BillThompsonNYC the real deal!" Politico deputy managing editor Anne Cronin tweets out a relevant quote from Thompson himself, which Keller included in the article, on why he stands out from the other candidates: "It is the one thing that I’ve learned to live with: people will contrast you to people who shout." ProPublica president Richard Tofel tweets "Bill Keller makes the case for Bill Thompson better than Thompson has, at least so far."

Ben White and MJ Lee in Politico on the severity of the upcoming fiscal fight Wall Street doesn't seem too worried about the possibility of a government shutdown this fall, but finance circles should be alarmed about the risks of Congressional inaction. "[T]here is a real chance that the fall of 2013 will be more like the summer of 2011, when a near-miss on the debt ceiling led to a ratings agency downgrade, a huge sell-off in the stock market, and yet another hit to an economy that might otherwise be heating up nicely," White and Lee warn. Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider notes, "That the Democrats may not be willing to bargain at all over the debt ceiling seems like the big dynamic that makes this time different than those other times." The piece shows that "Wall Street still doesn't get DC..." tweets Katy O'Donnell, reporter for Main Justice. "The implications of this piece on Congressional dysfunction are so depressing," writes The Guardian editor Heidi Moore.

Jonathan Weil in Bloomberg View on false claims from Eric Holder Last year, Attorney General Holder boasted that 530 people had been criminally charged in the Justice Department's crackdown on mortgage fraud. However, on Friday, that figure was revealed to be wrong, with the number being 107. Weil argues that this "charade" was an attempt by the Administration to "persuade the public that they were being tough on financial crimes," when in fact its "books were cooked," he writes. Ed Morrissey of Hot Air sarcastically writes, "Hey, they only inflated those claims by 80% and 90% — or looking at it from the other direction, 500% and 900%. Shouldn’t they get a chance to round up to the nearest 1000%?" Former senior reporter for ThinkProgress Zaid Jilani agrees with Weil that the purpose of Holder's false numbers were to "overstate its actions on mortgage fraud." Weil calls for an apology, but Seeking Alpha financial contributor Frank Constantino goes further: "Holder needs to go. Makes bad #govt look worse," he writes.

Laurie Penny in The New Statesman on the angry debates of punditry The current combative debates between talking heads on TV and radio "is, in essence, boxing for people who were bad at PE," writes Penny, who has appeared on these debate shows the past four years. "There are many wonderful things about British journalism and this is in no way one of them." British GQ and The Guardian contributor Alex Hannaford tweets about Penny's article "on the 'stage-managed spleencockery' that is ruining news journalism." "Too much heat not enough light?" asks BBC radio assistant producer Luke Mulhall. And writer Gabrielle Monaghan for The Sunday Times and Irish Independent cynically tweets "Suspect these debaters create these adversarial personas for TV + often don't believe own arguments!"

Jay Rosen in Pressthink on Jeff Bezos and Edward Snowden As the new owner of The Washington Post, Amazon CEO Bezos will one day have to make a call on a Snowden-like revelation and stand up to government secrecy. "When his free press moment comes — and it will come — will Jeff Bezos answer the bell?" Rosen asks. "This @JayRosen_NYU post ... is hereby emphatically endorsed," writes Barton Gellman, the Post national security reporter who broke 
    

Here’s Who Might Want to Buy BlackBerry

BlackBerry is putting itself up for sale. After a week of rumors that served to build interest, the company announced today that it is open to being bought, in its most direct (and probably most desperate) acknowledgment of that possibility. According to a news release submitted to Canada’s securities administrators:

The company’s board of directors has formed a special committee to explore strategic alternatives to enhance value and increase scale in order to accelerate BlackBerry 10 deployment. These alternatives could include, among others, possible joint ventures, strategic partnerships or alliances, a sale of the Company or other possible transactions.

 

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That’s a lot of possibilities, though a sale would probably make most sense. While BlackBerry’s handset business is struggling, the company has plenty of cash on its balance sheet, a portfolio of patents, and a private, secure network for emails and messages. That makes it an attractive prospect for various buyers. Here are some who might be interested:

Private equity: BlackBerry may just find a niche again if only it could get away from quarterly targets and constant scrutiny from investors. That could make it attractive to private equity players to pick it up relatively cheap (its stock market capitalization is around $5.4 billion), fix it up, and sell it on—or to strip it bare and bury it. Microsoft: BlackBerry has been floundering for several quarters, which means there’s been plenty of time for prospective partners or buyers to consider their position. Microsoft was one such candidate; its CEO Steve Ballmer reportedly approached BlackBerry—then called Research in Motion—about a partnership akin to the one it shared with Nokia. That didn’t work out but with full control of BlackBerry in the offing, Microsoft may want to follow Google’s example and control its own handset maker. Oh, and there’s the BlackBerry’s patent portfolio as well, which could come in handy. Huawei/Lenovo/Xiaomi: What do you do if you’re a Chinese manufacturer without brand recognition in North America but with a desire to sell to the world’s most profitable market? Lenovo bought IBM’s personal computer business in 2004 and worked its way into the American imagination through its use of the ThinkPad brand. Huawei, which has had great trouble getting into Western markets, may find a Canadian company an attractive proposition for the brand cover it provides. Or Xiaomi, which only serves the Greater China market at the moment, may like the idea of a readymade market presence for its phones. The Canadian government, which has to approve the sale, would probably refuse such a deal, especially since BlackBerry is cleared for defense use. Canada: This one is admittedly unlikely. Despite BlackBerry’s continuing troubles, Canadians remain proud of its successes. The government may decide, like the French did with DailyMotion, that national pride is more important than business sense, and keep the company Canadian. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is reportedly interested. It wouldn’t make much sense, but nationalism is a strange thing.
       

'Elysium' Underwhelms But Avoids Flop Territory

Welcome to the Box Office Report, where a bald Matt Damon holding a big gun will always just be a bald Matt Damon holding a big gun. 

1. Elysium (Sony): $30.4 million in 3,284 theaters

Elysium's respectable first weekend tally is a bit of a disappointment, apparently, because expectations were so high. District 9 debuted with $37.4 million in a similar summer timeslot, in mid-August 2009, so there were hopes this could match or surpass that. We know who Neil Blomkamp is now, Matt Damon was starring and it was supposed to be the smart summer blockbuster that saved us all. Part of those expectations were dashed earlier this week when the flick landed with a thud instead of a bang among critics, and that reception seems to have carried over at the box office. 

2. We're the Millers (Warner): $26.6 million in 3,260 theaters

This delightfully wacky comedy had lower expectations, and while it's not a breakout hit, this is certainly respectable for Jason Sudeikis' big post-Saturday Night Live movie debut. There may be hope for that boy yet. 

3. Planes (Disney): $22.5 million in 3,702 theaters

And then there's Planes, the Disney movie designed to look like a Pixar movie. It's a Cars spin-off because, you know, all modes of transportation can speak in this hellscape. That Planes made this much money with the glut of family movies playing right now is a testament to the power of the familiar. Tune in next summer for the third instalment in this series, Trains. 

4. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (Fox): $14.6 million in 3,031 theaters 

Poor little Percy Jackson is the last new movie on this list. There are four new movies this week! Which is great for box office writers tired of talking about Despicable Me 2 but it also means there's gotta be a loser, and it seems Percy Jackson it is it. Sorry, Percy. He seems like such a nice kid, too.

5. 2 Guns (Universal): $11.1 million in 3,028 theaters [Week 2]

And picking up the slack is the weekend's only top five holdover, the one about two old guys being tough and shooting things. 

       

Edward Snowden's Dad Is Going to Russia

Edward Snowden's father has the appropriate paper work filed for a quick vacation to visit his son on the beautiful sunny Moscow shores, where he'll tell his leaker son to stay put. Or at least to never come home. Lon Snowden announced his travel plans with his attorney, Bruce Fein, Sunday morning on ABC's This Week. Fein said there are no firm plans for the elder Snowden to visit his son yet, but he'll have arrangements made "very soon." But the Snowden patriarch made perhaps the biggest wave when he said he'll advise his son to stay away from the U.S. for a while. "I’m not open to it, and that’s what I’ll share with my son in terms of a plea deal," Lon Snowden said, when asked if he'll tell his son to return home. But Snowden said the only was he'll support his son's return is if he's guaranteed a fair trial. "As a father I want my son to come home if I believe that the justice system … is going to be applied correctly," he said.

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Sen. John McCain revealed he wants the President to do much more than cancel his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his appearance on Fox News Sunday. He said it was "fine" that Obama cancelled the meeting, but more measures must be taken according to the Arizona Republican. "The president comparing him to a kid in the back of the classroom, I think, is very indicative of the president’s lack of appreciation of who Vladimir Putin is," McCain said. "He’s an old KGB colonel that has no illusions about our relationship, does not care about a relationship with the United States, continues to oppress his people, continues to oppress the media and continues to act in an autocratic and unhelpful fashion." McCain suggested the U.S. take a harsher stance supporting things Russia opposes beyond this "symbolic" gesture from the President, like expanding the Magnitsky Act, a bill passed last year to enforce more human rights in Russia. McCain also suggested helping Georgia join NATO and expanding defense systems in Russia. "We also need very badly to understand that Mr. Putin does not have the United States-Russia relationships in any priority and treat him in a realistic fashion," McCain said. "That’s the way to treat Mr. Putin, not just cancelling a meeting."

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez talked about his similar feelings towards Putin on ABC's This Week. "We seem to be more invested in this effort to create a relationship with Russia that can be productive for both countries more than [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is," Menendez said. "And so it seems to me that as we've tried to restart this relationship several times, that maybe now is a moment to pause and think about how we're going to move forward with Russia."

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus for the first time responded to reports Fox Television Studios would be producing the Diane Lane-starring Hillary Clinton miniseries with NBC ahead of the 2016 election during his interview on CNN's State of the Union. Priebus refused to criticize Fox News for their participation in the Hillary hysterics, despite promising to boycott NBC and CNN for their work. "Our party has to quit availing itself to biased moderators and companies that put on television, in this particular case, documentaries and miniseries about a particular candidate that we all know is gearing up to run for President," Priebus said. When host Candy Crowley pressed him, arguing what Fox was doing was no different than CNN and NBC, Priebus refused to budge. He compared boycotting Fox over this to boycotting Diane Lane for staring in the movie or Diet Coke for being served to the grips. "I'm going to boycott the company that puts the miniseries and the documentaries on the air for the American people to view," he said. "I'm not interested in whether they used the same sound studio, or they used same set."

Rep. Steve King tried to defend his offensive comments about undocumented immigrants on NBC Meet the Press, only to get smacked down by Republican strategist Ana Navarro. King made headlines when he said that "for everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert," while discussing the repercussions of immigration reform. King briefly had an interview with David Gregory wherein he refused to accept that what he said was wrong. "My numbers have not been debunked. I said valedictorians compared to people who would be legalized under the act that are drug smugglers coming across the border. My characterization was exclusively to drug smugglers," King said, despite Gregory explaining how there's no evidence what he said is true. There's no way to track how many valedictorians or drug smugglers would benefit from reform. King wasn't backing down. "Then, what's their number? How many valedictorians do they suggest? And I’ll tell you, I've seen the drug smugglers," he said. "For this to be characterized by Dick Durbin as valedictorians, I'm telling the American people that I recognize that. ... But this proposes to legalize a lot of people that will include the people who are drug smugglers up to the age of 35."

Things seemed over and done with, and Gregory moved on with the show's roundtable discussion. That's when Navarro made a shot at King, so Gregory brought him back on. "I think Congressman King should go get some therapy for his melon fixation. I think there might be medication for that. I think he's a mediocre congressman with no legislative record and the only time he makes national press is when he comes out and says something offensive about the undocumented or Hispanics," Navarro said. She did acknowledge he was "helpful" because other Republicans have been publicly distancing themselves from King. "First of all, I spoke only of drug smugglers. And if Ana understands the language, she should know that. I didn't insult her or other Republicans," King responded. "I’m not undocumented, congressman, I vote," Navarro shot back. "There are people in America who are dying today because of our immigration policy and our open border. … We need to secure the border first, restore the rule of law. Then we can have this discussion that you want to get to, let's not be insulting people in the process," King said. "You're going to talk to me about insulting people, congressman?" Navarro asked. Then Navarro really let King have it. "This is a man who couldn't even get elected senator in Iowa. That's why he's not running there. This is a man whose district has been polled and supports immigration reform in the majority. So, you know, he is -- this is his call to fame," she said. 

       

Will We Finally See the Cheap iPhone at Apple's Special Event?

We know when we're going to get a new iPhone from Apple now, but we don't know which iPhone they're going to show us. Who knows, there could be two or three different new iPhones. AllThingD's Kara Swisher reports Apple will unveil its latest iPhone update on September 10 at a yet-to-be-announced special event. But how many new iPhones we'll see unveiled is the real mystery here. There are two obvious potential reveals: a faster, sleeker iPhone 5 and a cheaper alternative. 

Everyone is expecting Apple CEO Tim Cook to come out and give us a shinier version of the current iPhone. But rumors have persisted for months now that we're finally going to also get a cheap, affordable iPhone this fall. Whether or not that phone is coming is still a mystery, but the recent uptick in cheap iPhone leaks and rumors are probably a good indication it will finally reveal itself. 

The other thing to watch for is Cook announcing an increase in screen size. iPhone users have clamoured for larger screens to combat their insecurities when sidled next to Samsung phones. The different in screen size has bothered Apple fanboys for a while now. It's one of the most obvious ways Apple phones don't measure up to their counterparts. But things may finally be equal on a purely metric level. God knows they're an overly smug crowd to begin with. It'll only get worse now. 

       

The Fruits of Eliot Spitzer's Expensive Comeback Campaign

Eliot Spitzer sure is spending a whole lot of money on this bid for New York City comptroller, but is he getting a worthy return on his investment? According to just released campaign finance reports, documented Sunday morning by The New York Times, the New York Post and the New York Daily News, Eliot Spitzer has so far contributed $3.7 million out of his own pockets to finance his campaign. Of that small fortune, he's already spent roughly $2.5 million since his campaign launched on July 7. Comparatively, Stringer has only raised a modest $310,595 in the same time period. He's only spent $173,355. His coffers are full, though, and things will surely get ugly sooner than later. 

The cost to play for Spitzer was high enough. The former governor had to pay $271,000 just on petitions to get his name on the ballot opposite current Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer. Yes, Eliot Spitzer spent more getting his name on the ballot than Scott Stringer has in the last month on his campaign. Oh, and you'll be shocked to hear Stringer is already attacking Spitzer for his deep-pocketed tactics. "Eliot Spitzer spent more per day getting his name on the ballot than the average New York City voter makes in a year," Stringer spokesperson Audrey Gelman told the papers.

That's a huge amount of money for Spitzer to spend on a campaign in a little over a month but such is life when you're re-entering politics for the first time after you resigned as governor over your affinity for high-priced escorts. 

Surprisingly, Spitzer doesn't have a huge lead after spending so much more on than his frugal opponent. Recent polls either paint Spitzer ahead of Stringer by a mile or an inch, depending on who you choose to believe. Spitzer led by 12 points among likely voters in the last Wall Street Journal/NBC 4 New York/Marist poll, but his lead was trimmed to four points among likely Democratic voters in the latest from Quinnipiac University. So Stringer isn't entirely out of the woods just yet -- campaigns can turn around in an instant, as Spitzer's scandal prone pal Anthony Weiner recently showed us with his bid for mayor. 

But we're now entering the heart of the campaign when the spending will ramp up ahead of election day. Stringer has $4.6 million cash on hand and hasn't yet started advertising on television. Meanwhile, Spitzer already spent $2 million on TV ads. It's a head start Stringer will have to fight aggressively to overcome. 

       

AOL's Patch Conference Call Didn't Go Very Well

AOL is trying to makeover Patch so that it can be, you know, profitable. But that long journey got off to a rough start on Friday when AOL chief executive officer Tim Armstrong spontaneously fired an important executive live on a conference call for taking a picture. 

That strangest part is there's a recording that leaked out to Jim Romenesko. Armstrong won't care about that, though, because he was explaining how he's not worried about Patch, the company's network of local blogs, when the unceremonious axing happened. In the middle of an explanation about the company's direction, and how leaks don't bother him, Armstrong decided someone had crossed a line and decided to get rid of the employee right there on the conference call. This is what the call sounds like, per Romenesko:

If you think what’s going on right now is a joke, and you want to joke around about it, you should pick your stuff up and leave Patch today, and the reason is, and I’m going to be very specific about this, is Patch from an experience — Abel, put that camera down right now! Abel, you’re fired. Out! [Momentary pause.] If you guys think that AOL has not been committed to Patch, and won’t stay committed to Patch, you’re wrong. 

That's it. With that, an employee was gone. And Abel isn't just a lowly intern snap-chatting during a conference call, which makes the whole thing even stranger. Armstrong fired Patch's creative director Abel Lenz on a conference call with a thousand people listening in. Lenz has so far remained quiet about the dust up, only offering this "no comment" Path update since being dismissed. 

Employees were scared enough because AOL just announced they're going to shut down hundreds of Patch blogs. Why taking a picture during the conference call became a fireable offense remains a mystery. But to get rid of an important cog in the machine on a whim in such an embarrassing fashion seems like a good indication that, just maybe, things aren't going as well as Armstrong would have us believe.