Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 981

Meet Peter Capaldi, the BBC's New Doctor Who

After two months of uncertainty, BBC finally announced Pater Capaldi will be the twelfth doctor on the long running cult sci-fi show Doctor Who after the current doctor, Matt Smith, leaves later this season. Smith announced his departure from the show at the beginning of June. The move shocked the show's dedicated fans and critics who had grown to love the youngest doctor ever. The big reveal of the doctor's new identity came at the end of a half-hour special on BBC America about the history of show, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. On the show, when a doctor dies the body regenerates with a new appearance and personality, allowing producers to keep the series going with a new actor. The switch will become official during the show's annual Christmas special at the end of the year. 

Bookies had strong odds showing Capaldi as the favorite to replace Smith. Gambling house William Hill saw a huge uptick in money on Capaldi getting the nod last week signalling he was the front runner. But some people doubted Capaldi would get the nod because the show's producers have a habit of going against the grain and hiring younger, lesser known actors to play the doctor. There was also a vocal movement pushing for the show to cast its first female doctor on the eve of the anniversary. 

But the producers decided to surprise the show's dedicated fans by going with an older, familiar face this time. Capaldi is probably best known for his role as Malcolm Tucker on the BBC's The Thick of It and the movie In the Loop. Dedicated followers of HBO's Veep will likely appreciate the casting decision, and possibly consider watching the sci-fi show now, when they hear The Think of It and In the Loop were helmed by Veep headwriter Armando Iannucci. Alan Sepinwall says the decision to cast Capaldi was "bloody marvellous." Elsewhere, Whovians are already warming up to their new time lord: 

Peter Capaldi is a tremendously nice man. He once left a voicemail for my friend @noboa in character as Malcolm Tucker, just because I asked

— Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) August 4, 2013

The new Doctor is introduced to the world, in the traditional British manner. pic.twitter.com/ZlRsROApBl

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 4, 2013

I like Peter Capaldi. If I were invested in Doctor Who, I'm sure I would find it a solid choice, if perhaps not adventurous.

— Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee) August 4, 2013

(Yes, the doctors are also occasionally called time lords.)

In the U.S., Lebron James used a half-hour television special to announce which team he would sign with. The show solidified him as one of the biggest villains in sports. In Britain, the same thing happens with nerdy television shows and everyone is pretty OK with it. Maybe they have something figured out that we don't. 

       

Graham Praises the President; Schumer Calls Putin a Bully

Former National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency director Michael Hayden said on Fox News Sunday that the administration's decision to close embassies in the Middle East because of a potential Al Qaeda terrorist attack may be a brilliant strategical move. The move could be designed to show the terrorist group that the U.S. is hot on their trial and that it may, potentially, scramble their plans. "The announcement itself may also be designed to interrupt Al Qaeda planning," Hayden said, "to put them off stride, to put them on the back foot, to let them know that we’re on at least to a portion of this plot line."

The President's decision was also earning praise from some of his loudest critics. Most notably, that blonde-haired Benghazi hunter from South Carolina. "We’ve learned from Benghazi, thank God, and the administration’s doing this right," Sen. Lindsay Graham said on CNN's State of the Union. "Shutting down of embassies makes sense." Graham credited the Benghazi attacks for making terrorists think they have some kind of upper hand over the U.S. "They attacked our consulate, they killed an Ambassador and nobody’s paid a price. After Benghazi, these Al Qaeda types are really on steroids, thinking we’re weaker and they’re stronger," he said. But the Republican also cautioned that we can't let some terrorist posturing scare the U.S. out of the Middle East forever. "This is an effort to terrorize us, to drive us out of the Mid East. And if we take the bait and try to come home and create a fortress America, we'll have another 9/11," he said. "So we have to show resolve, but we have to be smart." Graham said his planned trip to Egypt with Sen. John McCain is still on the schedule, though he wasn't certain when his flight leaves. Graham was also quick to credit the administration's knowledge of the attack to the National Security Agency's spying practices. "The NSA program is proving it’s worth yet again," he said. He also argued this should justify the NSA's programs to the lawmakers who have called for changes since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the NSA's data collection. "To members of the Congress who want to reform the NSA program, great. But if you want to gut it, you make us much less safe and you’re putting our nation at risk," Graham said. "We need to have policies in place that can deal with the threats that exist and they are real and they are growing."

House Republicans were also agreeing with the President, something that only happens when the planets align. Rep. Mike McCaul praised Obama's embassy decision on CBS's Face the Nation. "The administration’s call to close the 21 embassies was a very smart call, particularly in light of what happened in Benghazi when warnings were not headed," the House Homeland Security chairman said. "I’m glad to see to see they are taking this very seriously." McCaul has been briefed on the attacks and he says the threat is being taken so seriously "because of the specificity, because of where it's coming from, the level of chatter, it seems to be a fairly large operation." "It's giving the intelligence community quite a bit of pause," he said. 

Sen. Chuck Schumer called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "school yard bully," on CBS's Face the Nation. "The relationship between the United States and Russia is more poisonous than any time since the Cold War because of all of this," Schumer said. The "all of this" Schumer was referring to is the ongoing brouhaha over the legal status of NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The former contractor was granted a temporary asylum in Russia this week. "Putin’s behaving like a school yard bully," Schumer said. "Unless you stand up to that bully, they ask for more and more and more. Always going out of his way, Mr. Putin is, to poke us in the eye with Iran and Syria, now with Snowden." Schumer had a drastic idea for how the President could respond to his Russian counterpart's latest defiance. "I would urge the president not to go to the bilateral meeting next month," he said. That would give Putin the kind of respect he doesn’t deserve."

Rep. Eric Cantor would not commit to holding a vote on the Senate's bipartisan immigration bill that would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants when the House reconvenes in the fall during his appearance on Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace tried to make it easy for Cantor: "A simple yes or no, are you committed to a vote this year on a path to legalization?" But the House Majority Leader would only say that Congress will vote on bills without specifying which ones. "We will have a vote on a series of bills at some point," Cantor said. "And it will deal with a variety of issues. Border security is a really important issue because it goes to that trust factor, as well." In effect, his reply boiled down to a half-hearted promise that Congress would legislate on something, he's just not sure what. Cantor said the Senate's bill was unsatisfactory because "there's a lot of doubt being cast on whether the folks who voted for that know even what, in the end, was voted on, because of the scramble to get the votes in the -- in the last piece of that legislative activity," he said. But Cantor also promised that the House will take up immigration at some point, and they'll do it better than the Senate, too. "We're going to do it a lot more deliberative and smart in the House," he said.

Oh, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum left the door wide open for a potential 2016 Presidential run during a roundtable conversation on NBC's Meet the Press. Santorum is traveling to Iowa this week, a move that often signals a politician is mulling a bid for the White House. "I’m open to looking at a presidential race in 2016," Santorum said when asked about his aspirations. "But we got a little ways [to go]. We got elections in 2014." So he's receptive to the idea of thinking about running for the Republican nomination. But not until after the mid-terms. His presidential comments come about 11 minutes into this video: 

       

Someone Drove Directly Into a Crowd of Tourists in Venice Beach

The man who drove his car into a busy Los Angeles tourist destination Saturday evening, killing one person and injuring 11 others, turned himself into police later on that night and is now being held on $1 million bail. Around 6 p.m. Saturday evening, a blue Dodge charger going around 60 miles per hour drove directly into a crowd of people on the Venice Beach boardwalk before speeding away. In the chaos after the crash, the driver, who was later identified as 38-year-old Nathan Campbell, hopped out of his car and split. One victim is now in critical condition and two more are in serious condition. Alice Gruppioni, a 32-year-old Italian native, was killed in the crash. "This guy had an intent to create mayhem and massacre a lot of people," one witness told a CNN affiliate. 

Campbell's motivation remains a mystery, and the security camera footage of his actions prior to the crash offer no clues, either. The Associated Press reports Campbell can be seen sitting on the boardwalk and watching the sunset for several minutes before getting into his car, driving only a short distance and running the Charger into the busy crowd of pedestrians. Campbell allegedly turned himself in to a Santa Monica police department a few hours after the crash, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police officials confirmed his arrest and his bail during a press conference on Saturday morning. 

The boardwalk is a hub for tourists in the area and the crash happened at a peak time for pedestrian traffic, so there were plenty of witnesses to the crash. And the picture painted by their statements is chaotic and tragic. "I saw somebody flying up in the air," Daniel Regidor, who was running nearby, told the Times. "When I came upon the scene, there were a bunch of people on the ground, bloodied." Daniel Jenkins said the car "started basically losing control" before driving directly into a crowd of people, including some street vendors who normally set up along the boardwalk. Tourists flock to the area, and one woman normally sells turtles in the area. "All the turtles flew everywhere," Jenkins said. 

       

The A-Rod Steroid Nightmare Is Almost Over

The drawn out and dramatic saga between Alex Rodriguez and Major League Baseball is heading towards its inevitable conclusion after talks have allegedly broken down for the final time. The New York Yankees third baseman talked himself into a corner and will finally receive a lengthy suspension on Monday for his association with the Biogenesis steroid scandal. 

According to reports from ESPN's TJ Quinn and Andrew Marchand, the New York Daily News's Bill Madden, Michael O'Keefe and Teri Thompson, and The New York Times's David Waldstein, negotiations between Rodriguez and league officials broke down Saturday and have, for all intents and purposes, ended for good. Rodriguez's comments after a game with the Yankees' Double A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder, apparently infuriated Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig. The embattled slugger tried to meet with the MLB on Saturday, but Selig refused. MLB Players Association executive director Michael Weiner reached out to organize a meeting between the league, the PA, the Yankees and Rodriguez's representatives on Saturday; the league declined the invitation. 

Barring any last minute bargaining, Selig will finally suspend Rodriguez on Monday for the rest of this season and all of the 2013-2014 season, too. The suspension will cover more than 200 games and shave two years off the slugger's contract with the Yankees that's set to expire in 2017. Whether or not a lifetime ban is still in play is unclear. Twelve other players will be suspended with Rodriguez on Monday, with most receiving 50 games. 

Rodriguez is planning to appeal any suspension, which would normally allow him to play until the appeal is sorted. But Selig is expected to invoke his powers as commissioner to keep Rodriguez off the field by using a clause to protect the best interests of baseball while the two sides determine a suspension with an arbitrator. 

Now the Yankees stand to save around $36 million off A-Rod's contract if the third baseman is suspended for two whole seasons. 

On Friday, Rodriguez said the league and the Yankees were conspiring to keep him off the field. "When all this stuff is going on in the background and people are finding creative ways to cancel your contract and stuff like that, I think that’s concerning for me," Rodriguez told reporters in Trenton. He hasn't played a game in the majors yet this season after having hip surgery in January. If a suspension isn't announced Monday, he's expected to rejoin the Yankees. "I'm flying to Chicago," where the Yankees are scheduled to play the White Sox, Rodriguez said Saturday. 

Early reports suggested the league had a substantial case built against Rodriguez, one much stronger than the league's evidence against the Milwaukee Brewers' Ryan Braun, who was suspended last week for the rest of the 2013 season. 

The league allegedly has Rodriguez nailed to a wall. The Miami New Times     

Newsweek Finally Has a New Owner

Barry Diller was finally able to correct a mistake on Saturday when the business mogul finally sold the digital remains of Newsweek to IBT media, the owners and publishers of the International Business Times. Maybe there's something in the air. News of the sale was nearly simultaneously reported by Capital New York's Tom McGovern and Joe Pompeo, Buzzfeed's Peter Lauria and The Hollywood Reporter's Erik Hayden on Saturday evening. 

How much did IBT pay for the old weekly news magazine? No one knows. The price can't be much lower than when it last changed hands. Sidney Harmon and Barry Diller's IAC/Interactive paid $1 for the magazine and its liabilities when they bought it from The Washington Post Company in 2010. IAC/InterActive chairman Barry Diller has been running the magazine ever since, merging it with The Daily Beast and installing former Vanity Fair editor Brown as the editor of both properties. Despite the buzz created by Brown's Newsweek covers, it ceased publishing in December. 

But the former staple of every dentist's office has been struggling from the get go, and Diller was honest about regretting the purchase. "I wish I hadn’t bought Newsweek," Diller told Bloomberg in April. "It was a mistake." Earlier this week, the New York Post reported billionaire Jay Penske, the owner of Variety and Deadline.com, was "kicking the tires" about a potential Newsweek sale. 

But now Newsweek will have a new digital sister in the International Business Times. The fledging news startup was launched in 2005 by Etienne Uzac and Jonathan Davis and saw a dramatic uptick in readership over the last few years. The news operation is currently being run by Jeffrey Rothfeder, a former Bloomberg News editor. As if forecasting the future, IBT moved its operation into the former Newsweek headquarters at 7 Hanover Square two years ago. Uzac and Davis told Buzzfeed they started thinking about purchasing the weekly around that time. 

Newsweek, which still publishes a weekly digital magazine, will run jointly alongside the International Business Times. It will also inherit its old website back. Newsweek.com will stop forwarding to the Daily Beast homepage soon. "We are 100% digital with a track record of successfully growing online media properties," Davis said in a press release. "The Newsweek brand is strong around the world and we believe there is significant potential to leverage that as well as enhance the editorial offering and continue to modernize the operations and approach. We are excited to add Newsweek to our portfolio of growing news brands and to pursuing the great opportunities ahead together."

       

Josh Brolin or Ryan Gosling May Be the New Batman

It hasn't even been a month from the huge Comic-Con announcement that Batman will be in the next Superman movie and the rumors and speculation about casting are already hitting a fever pitch. And, yes, the one and only Ryan Gosling's name is in the mix.

The thirst for the Batman casting scoop is rising at an alarming rate, thanks largely to how little we know about the new project. The script is still being written and Christian Bale has already said he won't play the Caped Crusader again. But we now know just a little bit more thanks to The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit. 

Despite my Atlantic Wire colleague Esther Zuckerman's doubts, Gosling's name is being mentioned as a potential Bruce Wayne. But Warner's frontrunner so far, according to Kit, is Gosling's Gangster Squad co-star Josh Brolin. Brolin fits the Batman the film studio wants: one that's a bit older, "established and rugged," Kit says, who has been donning the cape and cowl for a while. Batman on Film, a small fan site, first reported that Warner was looking for an older Bruce Wayne to star in Superman vs. Batman. 

Other names that are allegedly being thrown around: British actor Richard Armitage, True Blood star Joe Manganiello, Pacific Rim's Max Martini, and Watchmen star Matthew Goode. But everyone is cautioning that things are still very much in the early planning stages and that things could change in an instant. Besides, Brolin is such an obvious choice you might as well shut things down now. 

       

There Was a Poop Plane in Australia

It turns out a recent flight took a turn for the toilet after a group of passengers were infected with a virus that caused them to spend more than 12 hours in the air while barely being to contain the their stomachs' contents. The flight was so awful it sounded like the "poop cruise"'s second cousin. 

You may remember the "poop cruise" that was stranded in the Gulf of Mexico last February because CNN made into this huge thing. The passengers were running out of food and supplies and things got messy. CNN's coverage became the punchline to a million bad jokes, even some from The Atlantic Wire, and became synonymous with the Jeff Zucker era at the 24 hour news network. 

But this sounds so, so much worse. Jalopnik called it "the poop plane from hell," and, well, they're right. Sixteen passengers on a 13-hour Qantas flight from Chile to Australia were taken to the hospital after they, along with a few others, contracted symptoms consistent with norovirus while in the air, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Norovirus causes the stomach and intestine to inflame, and leads to stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhoea. 

A group of students and teachers returning from a school trip spent the entire flight pooping and vomiting because, officials believe, the group acquired the virus prior to boarding the plane. And, to make matters worse, the Australian Associated Press reports the Boeing 747-400 only had four toilets. Three people were carted off the plane on a stretcher. Lisa McCormick, an unlucky passenger who was luckily not infected with the gastrointestinal illness, described the ordeal to a local news outlet: 

She said they "unfortunately were rather sick for the whole entire flight. What a terrible way to end their holiday".

"It just gradually wore through them all as the flight wore on, and it was 13 hours so it was a very long flight for them,"she said.

To make things easier for everyone on board, the Australian AP says the infected passengers were moved to the back of the plane. That probably didn't help the smell much, but it didn't hurt, either.

There's no word whether the Australian CNN covered the flight as extensively as the poop cruise. 

[Image: a Qantas Boeing that made an emergency landing in the Philippines in 2008 because of some visible damage to the plane's exterior.]

       

The President Blocks an Apple Sales Ban at the Last Minute

The Wall Street Journal reports the administration just awarded Apple with a significant victory in their patent war with Samsung. A looming sales ban on older generations of iPhones and iPads was blocked by the White House, Apple's only hope, at the last minute. The International Trace Commission ruled at the beginning of June to block the sale of some older Apple products because they infringed on a Samsung patent concerning simultaneous transmissions on 3G networks. The President, or a Federal Circuit Court, was Apple's only hope. Today was the last day the administration could reverse the ITC's decision. 

U.S. trade representative Michael Froman ruled to block the sales ban because it would give patent holders "undue leverage," but said Samsung could still press the issue further in court. The ban would have blocked the sales of AT&T models of the AT&T and T-Mobile models of the iPhone 4 and 3GS, and AT&T-enabled 3G versions of the iPads 1 and 2. If you think those products don't make money anymore, you are wrong. 

This is undoubtedly a huge win for Apple in their ongoing sparring session with Samsung over patents, and if their arguments in this case are any indication this dispute won't be settled anytime soon. Per the WSJ: 

Apple argued to the trade representative that the ban was inappropriate because Samsung had committed to license its patented technologies that were included in industrywide standards for wireless devices.

Samsung said Apple was the one that started the global patent wars between the two companies. It said the iPhone maker had sought to avoid paying for licenses of Samsung's patents.

When the arguments presented to the President are "Samsung promised," and "Apple started it," as if this was a dispute was being waged by two kids who just finished hitting each other, you know the fight is far from over. 

 

Apple-Samsung decision

 

       

Jason Sudeikis' First Post-'SNL' Job Is Coaching British Football

Jason Sudeikis won't have to worry about finding work after leaving Saturday Night Live. He's already got a new job, in a way, as the coach of the English Premier League's Tottenham Hotspur F.C. It's a drastic career change, sure, but one he can probably tackle. 

Of course, none of that is true. But this NBC Sports Network promo making the rounds today is too fantastic not to highlight. Sudeikis plays Ted Lasso, an American college football coach with a fantastic name trying to learn the rules of football, which is not the same sport as American football. This will be the first season the Premier League is broadcast on NBC and the network is breaking out all the stops ahead of the August 17 kickoff. 

The video has a one-joke premise, as many have noted: this American knows nothing about the differences between the two footballs. Lasso struggles to figure out how many quarters are in a game of British football, how many points are scored when the ball is kicked over the net, and how offsides works. (Lasso can't be blamed for that last one, though, as we still have a hard time figuring that one out sometimes.) 

But the video gets some great jokes in about the different clubs in around the League. While Tottenham fans may take offense to Lasso adding an -s to the end of Hotspur, the video is garnering the approval of the other hardcore and casual football fans. No one is going to complain if you call Manchester United the EPL's Dallas Cowboys. And Tottenham fans can console themselves with the cameo from their golden boy, Garreth Bale, near the video's end. Bale's appearance also leads to one of the video's best lines. 

       

The Weinsteins Want to Reunite with Miramax

The Weinstein brothers are potentially reuniting with with the film studio that made them millions and solidified their names as major players after an ugly eight year separation. The hype began in movie industry circles late Friday when Variety reported Harvey Weinstein and Miramax chairman Tom Barrack had lunch in Saint-Tropez two weeks ago to discuss a possible merger of Miramax and The Weinstein Company. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday morning that discussions are "still at an early stage," but "issues remain to be resolved before a deal could be concluded," their source cautioned. 

But Deadline's Nikki Finke threw some cold water on the merger speculation. "Even while on vacation I can tell you definitively [reports of a merger are] overblown," Finke wrote late Saturday. "I’ve learned a merger is impossible because of The Weinstein Co’s structure," she added. (Her "exclusive" report Friday afternoon about the lunch between Weinstein and Barrack didn't include anything about a merger detail, only that the two sides were looking to work together in the future.)

Barrack said "there could be many things for us to do together in the future," in an email to the Journal. 

So who knows what information is accurate, but one thing is certain: this would be a huge shake-up within the film industry, one that would finally bring the two brothers and the production house they built into an Oscar-machine back together. Harvey and Bob Weinstein rose to prominence producing indie flicks for Miramax, which they named after their parents, in the 80s and 90s. They cashed in and sold the production house to Disney in 1993, and continued to work with the House of Mouse for another 12 years before an ugly 2005 split. But fences are being mended all over Hollywood, apparently, with Weinstein making nice with Disney to make Artemis Fowl movie. 

Before this, you would be hard press to find someone who would describe the relationship between Barrack and the Weinsteins as anything but "chilly." When Disney was selling Miramax in 2010, Barrack's group of investors outbid the Weinsteins for their old baby. 

But the potential deal would give the Weinstein brothers access to the extensive archive of classic films from which they made their name, and put Miramax abruptly back into the producing game after spending the last few years promising and never delivering a return to original content. The company has survived on lucrative licensing deals.