Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 979

Watch Anthony Weiner Almost Get in a Fight

Anthony Weiner's campaign for mayor is nothing if not consistent. Today, Weiner is in the news for referring to one of his opponents — one of his older opponents — as "Grandpa." Oddly, it's not quite as bad as it sounds.

NY1, a local news station in New York City, captured the exchange between Weiner and George McDonald, a long-shot Republican candidate for the position. McDonald has not been shy about criticizing Weiner, telling a forum last week that the Democrat is a “self-pleasuring freak.” When the two ran into each other today, McDonald reacted badly when Weiner touched him, as the Daily News reports.

Then this happened, via NY1.com.

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McDonald: I said keep your hands off me.

Weiner: I heard what you said.

McDonald: Don't put your hands on me ever again.

Weiner: Really? What's gonna happen if I do?

McDonald: What, are you a tough guy now?

Weiner: Yeah, I am. (mumbling)

Weiner: You have an anger issue.

McDonald: I don't have any anger issue.

Weiner: Yes, you do, Grandpa.

McDonald: (throws up his hands) Ooh, OK. They're going to love that.

The "they" to whom McDonald referred was probably the hosts of the event: the American Association of Retired Persons. McDonald had a point, of course, but the exchange was more contentious from both sides than has been represented.

Later in the forum, McDonald undermined his own argument against having an anger issue a bit, as at right. The audience reacted poorly.

But that still wasn't the extent of it. The Daily News reported on McDonald's other comments against Weiner.

“Believe me, it’s not nice to talk about. I didn’t have a nice conversation with my ten-year-old granddaughter about why one person is so much more famous that you, grandpa. What did he do? Why don’t you do what he did?” he said.

“Why do you want to ignore a person’s character and judgment?” he told the hostile crowd. “Believe me, you’ll be very disappointed if this person gets elected mayor. He doesn’t have any executive experience, never has anybody that works for him longer than three weeks, is only interested in himself and not your best interest, that’s for sure.”

Even after the event ended, NY1 reports that the dispute continued. Afterward, "McDonald got into a heated debate with a couple of Weiner supporters, forcing police to intervene."

In twelve months time, the odds are extremely good that neither of these men will be the mayor of New York, in part because neither is very good at controlling himself.

       

Buy Your Masterpieces on Amazon

Yesterday, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos moved into the world of journalism with his purchase of The Washington Post for $250 million. Today, he is taking on the art world, as his web retail giant introduced Amazon Art, a platform for customers to buy original pieces from 150 dealers and 4,500 artists.

Amazon previously unsuccessfully tried to enter the art world by teaming with auction house Sotheby's back in 1999. Today, it must deal with young Internet competitors Artsy and Artnet. The biggest added value of the site is its navigability, as TechCrunch writes. "The benefit of the new storefront is that it consolidates and makes searchable a collection that was previously fractured and spread across a number of smaller storefronts."

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The collection has some major names, including, as the image above shows in the left corner, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, and Marc Chagall. Amazon's most expensive piece belongs to Norman Rockwell, whose "Willie Gillis: Package from Home" (left, below) is listed at $4.85 million — and available with 1-click!

But Amazon Art also targets the regular Joes, as a section of its homepage focuses on affordable living room decor.

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And with its consumer base of millions, Amazon has an inherent advantage on other web-based competitors. After all, Amazon has already changed the book world; now, it has its sights set on art, too. 

       

Graham and McCain Didn't Solve the Egypt Crisis

Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain didn't manage to end the political unrest in Egypt during an Obama-sanctioned visit this week, the office of the country's current president is expected to announce on Tuesday. The two Congressmen arrived in Egypt on Monday, armed with strong words (and not much else) for the interim military leadership. According to Reuters, the country's presidency will announce the failure of "foreign mediation efforts," and declare the pro-Muhammed Morsi protests in the country non-peaceful. 

McCain, for one, was optimistic about the pair's chances for success in the country last week, explaining that they "have credibility with everybody there." The senators, who said today that the military overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood's elected government there was a "coup," asked the military leadership to release Islamist prisoners arrested after the uprising, set a time table for the adoption of a new constitution (and for new elections), and to refrain from violence in their future crackdowns on Muslim Brotherhood members and loyalists in the country. Graham, speaking with McCain after a meeting with military leaders, said:

"In democracy, you sit down and talk to each other. It is impossible to talk to somebody who is in jail...Some in Congress want to sever the relationship. Some want to suspend the aid. We have to be honest to where the relationship stands. ... We can't support Egypt that is not moving to democracy."

And while the senators, along with the Obama administration, may have acted with the best of intentions, Egypt's response has been lukewarm to downright chilly. Presidential spokesperson Ahmed el-Musalamani told reporters after the senators' visit that "foreign pressure [on the country] has exceeded international standards."  

As we've explained before, the biggest (and really, only) bit of leverage the U.S. has against Egypt right now is the $1 billion in annual aid. But the President's non-decision on whether Egypt is a coup or not has rendered any threat that the aid might stop if the country doesn't progress towards democracy once more somewhat toothless in the short term — at the moment, the administration just doesn't seem inclined to go there. 

       

Taco Bell's Waffle Taco Is Beautiful and Frightening and Full of Meat

The stomach-churning world of food combinations — where the cronut reigns supreme and the ramen burger is heir apparent — is set to welcome into its ranks a Frankenstein-like meal that may entice or revolt lovers of both Mexican food and breakfast.

Taco Bell's waffle taco, which was tested in five Southern California kitchens earlier this year, will be available at 100 new locations this Thursday. Soon, residents of cities as far and wide as Fresno, Omaha and Chattanooga will be able to drizzle syrup on fried waffles stuffed with sausage and egg. 

[image error]Reviews have been mixed. If you're into Taco Bell, this sounds like a good idea. If you're into not having clogged arteries, perhaps less so. Back in May, Erin Jackson at Serious Eats tried out an early version of the waffle taco and was underwhelmed. The waffle was "passably tasty," but the sausage was awful. "With its bouncy, rubbery texture, sheen of grease, and lack of any discernible animal origin (at least, from taste alone), a better descriptor would be brownmeat," Jackson wrote.

"This may be the only fast food product in history that would be vastly improved by substituting the protein component for Taco Bell's seasoned ground beef." Of her overall impression, Jackson wrote, "If they could, my taste buds would have called the cops." But at least one Instagram user had an overall pleasant waffle taco experience. "It was actually really awesome! Just don't put taco sauce on it," wrote sarah1ch5. "That was a bad idea." Good to know.

Well, keep in mind that this is the same company that thought mystery meat encased in taco shells made out of Doritos would sell. Guess what?  They have.

Of course, the waffle taco, despite its downmarket origins, is part of the same culinary mash-up trend that has given us the ramen burger and, of course, the cronut. For some, these combinations are ingenious, worth waiting in line for. Purists, however, may be disgusted by these combinations. As one user wrote on Twitter, "Taco Bell is unleashing a breakfast waffle taco to kill us all." Well, at the very least, you've been warned.

 

 

 

(Image via Instagram)

       

The Science of Sex with the Ex

Long regarded as the forbidden fruit of failed relationships, ex sex is now being heralded for its unrecognized restorative properties—by science! Sort of. 

The news comes by way of the Daily Mail, which reports on a recent University of Arizona study examining the traditionally taboo late-night encounters between extinguished flames. No scorned lovers were harmed in their lab. Instead, taking 137 newly divorced adults, researchers found that 82.5 remained in touch with their exes—and a whopping 21.9 percent pursued, err, conjugal visits. Surprisingly, those who made the beast with two backs after severing marital bonds found that it actually helped matters, at least from an emotional perspective:

Partners who hadn't accepted the break-up found the intimate encounters actually helped lessen the pain of divorce.

Meanwhile, partners who had accepted the break-up found sex made no difference at all to how they dealt with it, indicating that 'ex-sex' may not be quite as emotionally detrimental as we had previously thought, and that it can, in fact, have benefits for those who are not-quite over their relationship. 

Tracey Cox, a sex and relationship expert, told the Mail that "women benefited from having sex with their ex because it ultimately gave them 'closure' on the relationship"—a theory that seems to flip the conventional wisdom regarding ex sex squarely on its back head.

But your reservations, if they exist, are not without warrant. If you're still pining for a former lover and they're just in it for nostalgia's sake—or to remember why they dumped you in the first place—you're sailing rocky waters, Cox warns. And science isn't nearly as good of a divorce counselor.

       

Streep and De Niro, Together Again

Today in show business news: Two acting royals team up once more, some early looks at The Counselor, and a glimpse of James Gandolfini in one of his last performances.

Acting juggernauts — powerhouses, forces of nature, phenomena — one a bit faded, the other never hotter, are teaming up for the fourth time. Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep have just signed on to costar in an adaptation of the novel The Good House, about a boozy New England realtor (Streep) whose life is thrown out of whack — or into whack? — by the return of an old flame (De Niro). So that sounds like a good project for them, doesn't it? In Streep's case, she might not have to do a somewhat predictable accent (though, that New England aspect could mean some clam chowdah-ing), while De Niro doesn't have to kill anyone grizzledly because, as far as I can tell, he's not a grizzled hitman/cop in this one. A welcome change of pace for both. Let's look forward to this. And then let's hope that we can get Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin in something again and all the good old couples will be together again. [Deadline]

Bravo continues its campaign to get some scripted shows on the network, having just ordered a pilot for Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, an hourlong dramedy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice alum Marti Noxon. The show is described as such:

a best-selling author of a self-help book series who is secretly hiding her separation from her husband as she starts to navigate her life as a single woman in her 40s in Los Angeles. She starts to side with and take advice more from her divorced friends rather than her married ones, and it leads her to some unexpected and life-changing experiences.

So... Hm. See, that sounds like a lot of the women who are on Bravo reality shows, right? But I'm just not sure that's what the network's audiences want to see from something scripted? That's maybe a weird or silly distinction to make, but I feel like, if they're making a scripted series, it should be more about the audience than the subjects of the reality shows. Like, reality should be about weirdo people you'd never meet in real life, whereas scripted should be more relatable? Meaning, for Bravo, twenty- and thirtysomething gals and gays doing silly things while drinking cocktails. That's maybe what their scripted shows should be? Maybe I'm completely off about Bravo's demographic and what that demographic wants to watch, but to me, it seems that way. But who knows. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Harrison Ford has been cast in Sylvester Stallone's Expendables 3, after Bruce Willis dropped out. Stallone tweeted out the news himself, seemingly angry at Willis, saying "GREEDY AND LAZY ...... A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE" after announcing the Willis/Ford swap. Uh oh! Old action dudes fighting! Hide your flower pots and umbrella stands. These guys are going to be knocking some things over. [Deadline]

In preparation for tomorrow's release of the first full trailer, here are two just-released clips from Ridley Scott's The Counselor, the crime thriller starring Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, and Rosie Perez, and written by Cormac McCarthy, his first-ever original screenplay. Looks dark and moody and talky, just as we expected.

And here, rather bittersweetly, is a trailer for the great Nicole Holofcener's new movie Enough Said, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus (I love, love, love that she's got a lead role in this) and, in one of his last performances, the late James Gandolfini. It looks like a sweet, gentle romantic comedy with just that little bit of wise sourness that Holofcener always brings to her movies. It's nice to see Gandolfini getting to operate as a regular, sensitive guy rather than some hulking brute. But of course it's sad, too,  because we know it's one of the last new things we'll see him do. Anyway, the movie looks good and features a great supporting cast, including Holofcener regular Catherine Keener and Nick Falcone, doing something without his wife, Melissa McCarthy, which must be a welcome change of pace. We should all go see this!

       

The U.S. Files Its First Benghazi Criminal Charges

The U.S. filed the first criminal charges stemming from an investigation into the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. Ahmed Khattalah, a Libyan militia leader long-believed to be a key player in orchestrating the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others, will face unspecified criminal charges. The Wall Street Journal indicates that other suspects were also charged, but only Khattalah's name has made it out into the public so far. 

The order detailing the charges is under seal, CNN reports, meaning that we don't know much about what, specifically, he'll face, or even if the U.S. is going to try to detain him. Khattalah gave an interview to the New York Times about a month after the deadly attack, during which he claimed that no one had even interviewed him about it as he refused to go into hiding. The paper also immortalized his predilection for fruity beverages: 

But just days after President Obama reasserted his vow to bring those responsible to justice, Mr. Abu Khattala spent two leisurely hours on Thursday evening at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping a strawberry frappe on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments.

Khattalah, long connected to the U.S.'s investigation into the attacks, continues to give interviews to the press. More recently, the militant spoke to CNN, during which he repeated his claim that no one had spoken to him about the attacks. But now, Khattalah will be one of the first to face charges, as the U.S. apparently looks to demonstrate some real progress on their investigation as the anniversary approaches. It's not clear when the Justice Department will make those charges public, but previous statements from Attorney General Eric Holder indicates that it should happen soon. 

       

American Tourist Damages Ancient Italian Statue, Embarrasses Us All

Well, everyone, cancel your European vacations, because one unidentified Missouri man has ruined it for all Americans potentially traveling abroad. Museum officials at Florence's Museo dell'Opera del Duomo confirmed Tuesday that a 55-year-old Missourian snapped the finger off of a 600-year-old statue by medieval sculptor Giovanni D'Ambrogio. The statue depicts the Virgin Mary. Museum officials are not happy. Obviously.

Apparently, the tourist was trying to measure the finger on the statue when he broke it off. It's not known why he was measuring it. To make a full-scale replica in his Missouri home? Because men just like to measure things? Timothy Verdon, the museum's head, pointed out how wrong this was: "In a globalized world like ours, the fundamental rules for visiting a museum have been forgotten, that is, 'Do not touch the works.'" 

Don't touch the works. Pretty simple. One day, Americans are going to get this, but until then, let's hang our heads in shame. For his part, the tourist apologized and looked, allegedly, "very disappointed." 

Photo by Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.

       

Slain Tsarnaev Friend's Father Will Sue FBI for Wrongful Death

The father of Ibragim Todashev, the 27-year-old friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev who was killed during an FBI interrogation in Florida, will sue the agency for wrongful death. That's according to a TIME scoop, which notes that Abdulbaki Todashev's case is getting help from the ACLU. 

The FBI still doesn't really have their story straight on what happened that night (the agency is conducting an internal investigation into the matter), but the outline of the series of events leading to Todashev's death goes like this: Ibragim, at his Orlando home, faced several hours of FBI interrogation in a room full of law enforcement officials, at which point he was apparently ready to confess to an unsolved murder officials were interested in because of a connection to Tsarnaev. Then, the FBI has said both that Ibragim attacked the agents either with a knife, or a metal pole (or maybe a broomstick), or nothing. He was then fatally shot. 

According to TIME, Abdulbaki Todashev, who is from Chechnya, carries around a briefcase containing what he believes is the evidence that will help him win his case: 

The photographs in his father’s briefcase seem to raise more questions about the death than they answer. On a recent afternoon in Moscow, he laid them out across the table of a diner, starting with the family photos he had taken of his son with his 11 siblings in Chechnya. In one of the frames, Ibragim stands with several of his younger brothers at a boxing club in Grozny, the regional capital, where he began his training to become a mixed-martial arts fighter. In another, he grapples during a professional cage fight in Florida, surrounded by rows of American fight fans. Then his father shows the photos of his body, rent with wounds, that his friends in Florida had taken while preparing him for burial. One close-up of the top of his head appears to show two bullet holes about half an inch apart from each other. “He was shot seven times,” his father says. “In the heart and in the head. What is that if not murder?”

The father also hired a private detective to help him document his side of things, including interviews with his son's neighbors, and photographs from inside the apartment itself. The lawsuit apparently stems from Abdulbaki Todashev's frustration with other law enforcement officials as he's tried to obtain documents to support his case, including the Florida medical examiner's autopsy report. He told TIME that the suit wasn't intended to seek financial compensation. 

       

How Roger Ebert Managed His Digital Afterlife

On the Internet, nobody knows you're dead. 

Your data and personal accounts and digital identity—content that is increasingly being referred to as your "digital estate"—remain in the cloud, of course. But what's to become of it all? Should your Facebook profile remain accessible, your Instagram archived? And who should have access?

As our lives and identities are increasingly managed online and channeled through social media, the notion of digital estate management has become less of a dystopian punchline and more a topic of genuine concern—but only five states have addressed the question, NPR's All Tech Considered blog notes today:

Only five states have enacted laws so far to address digital estate management, according to an article in the journal CommLaw Conspectus. There is no uniform federal law. Without it—and if you're in a state without clear-cut digital estate guidelines—the various service agreements of Internet companies govern what happens to our digital identities after death.

That can be problematic because of privacy concerns and the lack of uniformity in policies among Internet and social media companies.

Those five states include Oklahoma, Idaho, Rhode Island, Indiana, and Connecticut. Elsewhere, as NPR's Elise Hu chronicles, your online afterlife (or your loved one's) is at the behest of the service agreements of the tech companies in question, most of whom haven't really figured out a plan to address human mortality, either. Take, for example, the case of Anthony Cannata, who committed suicide in 2011:

The murky rules around digital asset management made the 20-year-old's suicide even more painful. Before taking his own life in 2011, Cannata uploaded a photo to his Facebook account that showed him holding a gun to his mouth. His family and friends petitioned Facebook to remove the photo or grant them access to his account to remove it after his death. But because they faced obstacles in getting access, the disturbing photo stayed online for more than a month, not removed by Facebook until Cannata's mother sent the company a newspaper article about the situation.

Absent any established legal policy, a handful of morbid-minded web entrepreneurs have launched services with names like Legacy Locker and DataInherit to help you secure your digital life. The New York Times Magazine profiled the curious business in early 2011, and it seems the whole thing made some readers queasy, one going so far as to call it "the latest cyberspace craze devoted to self-delusional egotism." 

But two-and-a-half years later, we may be out of the wilderness: we've seen how digital estate management looks, roughly, in at least one high-profile case.

When beloved film critic Roger Ebert passed away in early April, he left behind some 800,000 Twitter followers, 100,000 Facebook fans, and one of the most well-respected film criticism websites and oeuvres in existence. Ebert's empire didn't fade to black when the critic died—his verified Twitter account continued tweeting (albeit a little more sporadically than before), and his website, RogerEbert.com, deferred to a new staff of writers and editors. Most of the time, Ebert's widow has introduced tweets with "CHAZ HERE" to minimize disorientation (which seems to come with the territory when one tweets from beyond the grave). But in one instance, she fired off a tweet that Roger apparently wrote before his passing:

Even when the theater has gone dark, the story is still alive in you.

— Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) May 16, 2013

In a recent letter announcing a new Twitter account, @EbertVoices, Chaz claims that followers were able to tell the difference, and she explains how Roger gave her the keys to his digital identity in the final months of his life—and how she handled it after his death:

Starting in about March of this year he began to give me the secret code to his Twitter and Facebook accounts and he told me to make sure I kept his Twitter account up-to-date. I thought this was strange, but I didn't pay much attention to it. [...] So when he passed away and some suggested that we shut down his Twitter account, I remembered his admonishments against it. He knew that it could be disconcerting to some people to see his picture pop up if he was no longer here, so I changed the photo. At a lovely tribute to him in the south of France during the Cannes Film Festival, Julie Sisk at the American Pavilion got 250 people together on the beach and took a photo of them giving a "500 Thumbs Up Salute." That is the photo we switched to. (I have to admit that I still miss seeing the old photo of Roger.) 

"Roger wanted us to use this account only for certain tweets," Chaz explained in a May 23 tweet from Roger's account. "He wanted us to have a Twitterchat, and we are working out the plans for it," she adds in her letter.

Widely recognized for his comfort with social media platforms during his lifetime (particularly after he lost the physical ability to speak), Ebert may well be a digital pioneer in death, too. That's not to say he used a service like Legacy Locker or hired a lawyer to manage his digital estate (if he did, Chaz isn't saying). But as death loomed closer, he became proactive about ensuring his accounts were in capable hands and his wishes understood. Sure, it can be creepy to see a dead person tweet from the digital beyond (just ask those following former New York City mayor Ed Koch at the time of his death), but give the man some credit for thinking ahead.

You may not have 800,000 Twitter followers and a world-famous film site. But chances are you have digital accounts of some personal value, and what will become of them if you die tomorrow?