Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 991

Hero Dog Saves Dartmouth Students from Ball Python

The missing three-foot ball python that escaped from a Dartmouth fraternity house and spent the weekend terrorizing the campus and the surrounding community was retrieved late Tuesday night thanks to the heroic efforts of a dog. The Dartmouth reports that a noble canine discovered the snake hiding in a hole under a wooden plank in the Tabard house backyard, not far from the cage he escaped from on Thursday. The coed fraternity sent an email last night informing members that the snake had been found. 

Connie Gong, the co-ed fraternity's president and person responsible for the python's care this summer, was the one who was first alerted to the snake's location by the dog. "[The hero dog] was yapping really loudly," she told the Dartmouth. 

The quiet community of Hanover, N.H., was put on watch after the non-poisonous and non-threatening ball python escaped at some point late last week from The Tabard. There was no danger to the general public, but still, let's face it: snakes are scary. The police were brought in to aide the search but were reportedly of no help. Experts guessed the snake would find a damp, dark place to hide not far from its cage.

Meanwhile, the campus remained in the grip of fear. It was left up to the sleuthing nose of the fraternity's canine pal to find the slithering fugitive. So here's to you, Hero Dog. You saved those poor Ivy Leaguers from a harmless snake.

The snake appears to have been returned to The Tabard. No word on what new precautions will be taken to avoid future escapes.

       

Sufjan Stevens Joins the War on Helvetica Light

[image error]The punk band Savages has committed a crime against typefaces, according to folk musician Sufjan Stevens, by choosing Helvetica Narrow for its most recent album cover.

True, many love the original Helvetica, introduced to the world in 1957 by our friends in Switzerland. But the skinny version of the classic font, weirdly spaced and italicized, amounts to what Stevens calls a "very uncool typography blunder,"  on his Tumblr. "Weight loss is the worst thing that can happen to an iconic font," he adds, citing the recent fracas over the Helvetica font in Apple's new iOS7. 

Indeed, many web designers are in Stevens's camp when it comes to lighter Helvetica fonts. Apple's decision to go with Helvetica Neue Light in iOS 7 was deemed sacrilegious by design-conscious tech geeks. Eventually, Tim Cook's design minions came to their senses and swapped out the thinned-out version for a more sensible Helvetica Neue (i.e., regular). 

But what is true for a smartphone giant may not hold for a punk band. In the case of Savages, the thinner Helvetica might actually be acceptable. "Light weights look cool (moreso at larger sizes) and work well in advertising and logos, but are generally harder to read," wrote Instapaper founder and Tumblr millionaire Marco Arment on his blog. Helvetica Light may have a bad rap because of the iOS7 disaster, but that should not condemn the whole typeface to obscurity.

Stevens criticism extends to other aspects of the album cover: "Also can we talk about the weird italics (unnecessary affectation, and very un-British), cramped leading (totally unforgivable) and unnecessary line break? Who the Fraggle designed this?"

       

Anthony Weiner Transformed a Facebook Complaint Into Cybersex

If you were wondering how to get seduced by Anthony Weiner, some insight: Send him a message on Facebook complaining about him. Hard to deny that he's a capable politician.

According to a report in The New York Times, that is how the young woman at the center of the new explicit-message revelations first came into contact with the former Congressman.

Not long after Mr. Weiner resigned from Congress, the 22-year-old woman reached out to express her disappointment in him.

Mr. Weiner responded and, within a week, their exchanges veered from politics to sex, with the pair trading dozens of explicit photographs, said Nik Richie, the editor of The Dirty, the blog that first documented the exchanges.

The Times notes that this is how it happened before, too: "In rapid and reckless fashion, he sought to transform informal conversations with female fans into graphically sexually exchanges."

[image error]Tuesday evening, BuzzFeed identified the young woman involved in the incident. Online, she used the name "Sydney Leathers," although it's unclear if that is her actual name. Pseudonyms are not uncommon in online communication, as Carlos Danger can attest. According to a Change.org profile with that name, Leathers lived in Princeton, Indiana. The Daily Mail reports that she blogged for a progressive website in that state — perhaps prompting Weiner's offer that he could help get her on a Politico panel on that subject.

A Twitter account linked to Leathers points to a domain, FollowSydney.com, which at one point listed "Sydney's Hero's." Third on the list: Anthony Weiner, just behind the president and Bill Maher. That domain no longer has any content — but it appears to have been renewed at some point Tuesday.

The Times indicates that Leathers "declined repeated requests to discuss the matter." Nor has Weiner offered any new response. On Wednesday evening, he will join other mayoral candidates at a forum in the Bronx. Among them, Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, who has called on Weiner to withdraw from the race. Weiner will likely respond to criticism of his behavior somewhat differently at the forum than he did with Ms. Leathers.

       

Five Best Wednesday Columns

Amy Davidson at The New Yorker on the end of the road for Anthony Weiner We can respect the decision of Anthony Weiner's wife Huma Abedin — a Hillary Clinton aide — to stay with her husband after another round of revelations of online infidelity, "but her grim insistence that he really ought to be mayor isn’t owed the same deference. Maybe Abedin was brave, but to what end?" Davidson writes. "This is the Preternatural Political Wife." Weiner is clearly wrong for the position, despite Abedin's pleas. "The issue here isn’t prudery but his pettiness, recklessness, and shaving of the truth," Davidson writes. "Maybe all politicians lie; maybe many husbands do. But, as voters, do we have to listen?" Davidson "is spot on," tweets The Wall Street Journal writer Carmel Melouney. Weiner and Abedin were reminiscent of the Clintons during their Monica Lewinsky scandal, and The Sunday Times editor Sarah Baxter asks, "Will Weiner's racy texts as Carlos Danger put voters off returning Bill Clinton to the White House? #Huma = #Hillary."

Jay Rosen in PressThink on the rise of the personal franchise news site The personal franchise site that mixes news, analysis, and opinion — think Ezra Klein's Wonkbook at The Washington Post, or the move of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog to ESPN — is the biggest thing going for major media brands right now. "They avoid a holy war over news vs. opinion while quietly letting the distinction corrode," Rosen explains. "This is a recognition that the formal structure makes no sense." Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of The New York Times, calls it a "Smart piece on Nate Silver and the rise of other 'personal franchise' players in media." The new model still has some issues, though, as Wired writer Maryn McKenna notes that "most lucrative 'personal franchise' media sites run by men."

John Arquilla in Foreign Policy on Iraq as America's best-run war Arquilla compares the three wars of the last decade — in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya — on a 1-10 scale for various military factors, and finds that Iraq was the most effective war effort. "This suggests to me that the results achieved in the conduct of the war in Iraq — despite the debatable context of the conflict — may prove of great future value to soldiers and strategists," such as in a potential coming war with Syria. "I think mostly goes to show why traditional principles of conventional warfare don't apply to insurgencies," tweets Steve Negus, AP editor and a former Iraq and Egypt correspondent. But Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, writes that Iraq is only the most valuable "if you use very silly metrics."

Noam Scheiber in The New Republic on the next chairman of the Fed Who will Obama select to replace Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve? Not Larry Summers and his terrible bedside manner, Scheiber hopes. "If Summers were to preside by strong-arming and browbeating those who disagreed with him — a methodology he’s been known to favor — he might score a few tactical victories. But he would risk strategic defeat," because the Fed committee generally requires true consensus. Instead, current Fed vice chairman Janet Yellen and her "solid track record" would be a better selection for Obama. Scheiber "makes the deepest, most informative case I've seen for Yellen over Summers at the Fed," tweets New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait. Why exactly does Obama prefer Summers? "My pet theory: a guilt-ridden Obama promised him job after passing him up last time," Businessweek national correspondent Joshua Green speculates.

Stephen R. Kelly in The New York Times on the open border with Canada That other, less controversial U.S. border to the north was once wide open, as French Canadians from Quebec poured into America at the turn of the 20th century. "The United States not only survived this unregulated onslaught, it prospered," Kelly writes. These immigrants took difficult, low paying jobs in factories and were vilified by Americans, but stayed and slowly assimilated over time. Sound familiar? "What the French Canadian experience shows is that our current obsession with border security is inconsistent with our history, undermines our economic vitality and is likely to fail," he adds. "Somehow we survived the influx of Canadian illegal immigrants," senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Edward Alden sarcastically tweets. Evan Annett, an editor for Canada's The Globe and Mail recommends a read "on the great Québécois migration and the futility of an airtight U.S. border."

       

J.K. Rowling Reveals How She Picked the Pseudonym 'Robert Galbraith'

Coming up with a pseudonym like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling did with the very mundane-sounding Robert Galbraith is actually pretty easy. The first step is think of a hero that isn't the same gender as you and make sure you never used his or her name in anything you've written before.

After shocking the literary world by coming clean about her Robert Galbraith alter ego and then creating an avalanche of sales for her book, The Cuckoo's Calling, Rowling is finally revealing the story behind her pseudonym. "I chose Robert because it is one of my favourite men’s names, because Robert F. Kennedy is my hero and because, mercifully, I hadn’t used it for any of the characters in the Potter series or The Casual Vacancy," Rowling writes on the Robert Galbraith website. People can relate to that, right? 

Coming up with the last name Galbraith is a little harder to explain. Rowling writes: 

When I was a child, I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith’, and I’ve no idea why. I don’t even know how I knew that the surname existed, because I can’t remember ever meeting anyone with it. Be that as it may, the name had a fascination for me. [...] 

So, apparently, if you never, ever made up a name for yourself as a child, you might be out of luck here. But even though Rowling took elaborate measures to create such a ho-hum name, there are still people out there actually named Robert Galbraith. And Rowling knows the newfound attention on that name is partly her fault.  "I can only hope all the real Robert Galbraiths out there will be as forgiving as the real Harry Potters have been. I must say, I don’t think their plight is quite as embarrassing," Rowling wrote. 

Taking a page from Rowling's book, I will now just begin writing posts under the name Dolly Munroe. 

       

Polanski Victim Makes a Statement with Her Memoir's Haunting Cover

[image error]Samantha Geimer looks young and beautiful, her hair glowing in the sun and her eyelids heavy, in the photo that graces the cover of her forthcoming memoir. But the story behind the photo makes it haunting, The Hollywood Reporter's Andy Lewis reveals: the image was snapped by director Roman Polanski less than three weeks before Polanski raped Geimer. 

The use of the photo for the cover of September's release The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski, Lewis writes, is highly symbolic for Geimer. "Since the incident, the media has always illustrated the story with a picture of Polanski," Lewis explains. "Geimer finally wanted to put her own face on the story, and this picture reflected the starting point for her."

Geimer (then Gailey) was 13 years old when the photo was taken in February of 1977, during their first photoshoot, in which Polanski—whom she met through her mom—he had her pose topless. In early March, he took her to Jack Nicholson's home on Mulholland Drive, where he gave her drugs and raped her.

According to Lewis, Geimer writes about the importance of the photographs to her and how they came into her possession during the civil suit filed in 1988: "During the civil suit, his lawyer had to turn those photos over to me. These photographs, important both legally and historically, would likely have never been discovered if not for the civil suit." 

Polanski has been living in exile since the 1978 trial. Geimer has since advocated for his case to be dismissed. 

       

Aaron Hernandez May Face Charges for a Double Murder in 2012

Prosecutors are trying to convince a grand jury to charge former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez with the unsolved shooting deaths of two men that took place outside of a Boston nightclub in 2012, according to the Boston Globe.

According to reports from the Globe and the local Fox affiliate last month, Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado were killed on July 16, 2012 after a fight broke out at the Cure nightclub in Boston's theater district between two groups of people. In one corner was Abreu and Furtado, and in the other was Hernandez and his crew. Abreu and Furtado, two old friends who grew up together in Cape Verde, left the club in a BMW with three others. A few blocks away, an SUV with Rhode Island plates pulled up and opened fire on the BMW and killed Abreu and Furtado. It should also be noted that, if proved true, Hernandez will have played a full season of football (barring injuries and such) after killing two people. 

"The case against Hernandez appears to be strengthening," an anonymous source told the Boston Globe this morning. An investigation into court documents by the Boston Herald revealed the SUV with Rhode Island plates was recovered at Aaron Hernandez's uncle's home while police were gathering evidence related to the murder of Odin Lloyd, the person Hernandez is accused of killing in an industrial park not far from his North Attleborough home. A source speculated to the Globe last month that Lloyd may have had information on the double shooting, and that may have been Hernandez's motive to kill Lloyd. 

The case against Hernandez in the Lloyd murder investigation is already fairly strong, with mountains and mountains of evidence working against him and a witness pointing the finger at him already. But he remains innocent until proven guilty. What won't help Hernandez is that the story of Abreu and Furtado matches another shooting being investigated that involves Hernandez. A similar nightclub brawl, this time in Florida, when the guys on the other side who left the club were shot at a few blocks away. 

As Deadspin points out, Hernandez is due in court later today for a procedural probable cause hearing and, at the same time, Hernandez's former coach Bill Belichick will speak with the media for the first time since his arrest. Should be an interesting day in Boston. 

       

Is Demand for Apple Products High or Low? It Depends Who You Ask

Following yesterday's Apple earnings report, the tech press can't decide what to make of consumer demand for iProducts. "Demand Woes Bite Apple," declares one major newspaper, when another writes "Apple Tops Expectations on Strong iPhone Sales." So, which one is it? Further investigation doesn't provide much enlightenment:

Apple’s Growth Rocket Has Hit A Wall The High-End Smartphone Market’s Saturated? Not for Apple.

There is a pattern, though. Maybe iPhones are selling well, but everything else isn't? Nope:

iPhone sales set new record for quarter while iPad sales slow No, the market for Apple’s tablet isn’t reaching saturation point

Digging into the articles doesn't gives us a definitive answer either. The running narrative is that iPhone sales were strong, since Apple sold 31.2 million phones this quarter, up from 26 million one a year earlier. But then we get this from The Wall Street Journal's Ian Sherr. "Apple and its rivals have faced increasing concern that the consumer electronics industry's boom over the past few years has started to slow," he writes. "That phenomenon was evident in Apple's latest quarter, when it sold 20 percent more iPhones than a year earlier, but more customers opted for cheaper models."

Later down, The Journal couches that claim with a quote from famed Apple analyst Gene Munster. "This is a tired product, it's been out three quarters. That says something," he said, suggesting the sales numbers are pretty good considering. "What it comes down to is people spend a ton of time on their phone, and they're willing to spend a little more for the quality." Earlier didn't we learn that many of Apple's phone sales went not to the 5 but older models, proving people are only willing to spend so much for new phones?

During news events like these, in which everyone has access to the exact same financial statements of a big company everyone needs to find their own way of tackling the news. And, the third quarter earnings report of a company that hasn't released a product all year isn't really going to say much. But, that doesn't mean reading into it is the way to go. iMore's take says it best: "It's a lull in the product cycle and we know it, but Apple's doing fine." 

       

What Did Huma Abedin Really Learn from Hillary Clinton?

As the many glowing profiles of Huma Abedin in recent months have noted, she learned a lot working as Hillary Clinton's right-hand woman since the 1990s. But maybe the biggest lesson Abedin learned was not just how to help her husband survive a sex scandal, but how to launch her own political career.

[image error]On Wednesday, spurred on by the latest turn in her husband Anthony Weiner's serial online sexual embarrassments, Harper's Bazaar published an excerpt of an essay by Abedin that will run its September issued, titled "The Good Wife," in which she explains why she decided to stand by her man. Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after his first sexting scandal and then apologized on Tuesday for newly released sexts exchanged last summer under the name Carlos Danger. The essay comes with a portrait of Abedin looking approachable and friendly in a feminine green dress, ruffled and belted at the waist. "Three years ago I was a single workaholic," Abedin confesses. But a lot has changed since then:

My friends will tell you that I don’t like calling attention to myself. For years I spent my professional life at the back of the room, far from the stage or the microphone. I kept my personal life private, even as the people I was close to lived in the public eye. But all that changed two years ago, and Anthony and I have spent these past few years working through the very private challenges we faced on a very public stage. So when people tell me they’re surprised to see me out on the campaign trail, I understand because, trust me, no one is more surprised than I am.

No one? That's hard to believe if you've followed Weiner's public rehabilitation, reportedly carefully managed by Abedin. First they gave their baby photos to People. (Weiner was still sexting back then.) Then they gave a confessional interview to The New York Times Magazine. Then Abedin recorded a campaign ad with Weiner, then she gave an interview to New York that resulted in a glowing profile.

[image error]And of course, yesterday, she literally stood by her man at a difficult-to-watch press conference, her first, and, basically, said there's nothing to see here. "We discussed all of this before Anthony decided he would run for mayor, so really what I want to say is, I love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him," she said. What many saw, though, was a wonderful performance by Abedin herself, adding to the chorus of people urging Abedin to run for office herself. 

"I feel for Anthony's wife Huma.  Life and love is so complicated.  I think she was brave," MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski tweeted. Her colleague Andrea Mitchell responded, "brave and completely committed to him. If he gets to a runoff it is thanks to Huma's 1st news conference appearance." Slate's Hanna Rosin said Abedin offered a new model for wronged political wives — neither the silent sufferer nor out for revenge. "I thought she sounded real, and plainspoken, and, even in that excruciatingly awkward situation, she retained the poise and dignity that I’ve always admired in her," The Washington Post's Sheila Weller writes. Even The Daily Mail was nice. 

In fact, Abedin was a better politician than Weiner. "Weiner was thoroughly unconvincing," Rosin says. "He sounded rote, impatient, almost bored." But Abedin? "Abedin by contrast claimed she was nervous, like any woman would be, but as soon as she started to speak she was calm, composed, and utterly natural, even as she told a room full of reporters what a 'whole lot of therapy' it took to keep her marriage together." And, according to Weller, maybe her decision to stick with Weiner shows she's even more wonderful than we first thought: "Some very accomplished women who make head-scratching marital choices may even be exhibiting a special kind of strength."

Hillary Clinton, too, went through many somewhat humiliating steps to help her husband's career (including allowing herself to be photographed dancing with him in a bathing suit) which in the long run helped her own. Her public approval ratings shot up. She was elected to the Senate. When she ran for president, and her husband said embarrassing things, she only got more sympathy. "It would take ten Freudians to explain what Bill Clinton did to Hillary in South Carolina," an aide told the authors of Game Change. But it would only take a couple political strategists to explain why she stuck with him.

       

Rich People Are Over the Hamptons

Richard Kirshenbaum, noted rich person and New York Observer columnist, has news for us: rich people are pretty much over the Hamptons. In his most recent "Isn't That Rich" column, Kirshenbaum explains that Manhattanites who were once happy to summer on the exclusive little stretch of Long Island are now leaving their house lights on timers and heading to Europe. These people will never sell their Hamptons houses, but they also don't want to spend time in the land of d-bags and bros. 

Kirshenbaum gives us info about his (mostly anonymous) friends who are fleeing to the Greek islands to avoid the "social pressure of the Hamptons." The whole column is rife with juicy tidbits about unimaginable wealth and the people who have it. Including:

one reference to John Paul Getty casual mentions of Capri, Sardinia, Saint Tropez, Mykonos, and Antibes a mention of $100-a-pound lobster salad "from you know where" women taking Xanax on planes  parents not talking to their children one woman being "honest" when she says it's time for a "frickin' upgrade"

And so on. Kirshenbaum quotes one couple who now vacation on their decision to keep a Hamptons house but never stay there:

The wife munched on the cracker with some marinated eggplant. “While we may only spend 30 days a year there, I view owning a Hamptons property as part of a diversified real estate portfolio,” she said. “And as far as I’m concerned, 11962 is the primest.”

Toasting over a pitcher of sangria, the husband added, “When I’m buying a business today, I look at EBITA—earnings before interest, tax and amortization. When it comes to owning a home in the Hamptons, it’s EBITFV, earnings before interest, taxes and family values. You can’t put a price on it. As the kids get older they come back — and that’s when they want a bigger house.”

Whatever the reasoning, one thing is clear: there are a lot of empty pools in the Hamptons right now. Let's go.