Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 996

Debra Messing Goes to Broadway for Real This Time

Today in showbiz news: Debra Messing, male strippers, and Fred Thompson are all going to Broadway (in separate shows),  while the Sundance Channel is getting in the Jason Momoa (the really ripped guy on Game of Thrones) business.

[Note: While Richard Lawson is off busy memorizing all the offspring of Poseidon (Triton, Benthesikyme… Rhode… Herophile the Sibyl…), we have a guest showbiz news rounder-upper.]

Debra Messing, who recently starred in the pseudo-Broadway musical television series Smash, is heading to the real Broadway for the first time. The actress will be appearing alongside Brian F. O’Byrne in Doubt and Moonstruck writer John Patrick Shanley's new play, a romance titled Outside Mullingar. Messing will play a woman in rural Ireland infatuated with her cattle farmer neighbor (O’Byrne). The world will find out if Debra Messing can pull off an Irish accent when the play begins its run in January. [The Wrap]

Somehow, a Magic Mike musical actually moving forward (see below) is far from today's strangest piece of Broadway news; that honor goes to the story of Fred Thompson, the Republican senator turned Law & Order actor turned failed presidential candidate turned occasional Good Wife actor will be making his Broadway debut. Thompson is joining the adaptation of John Grisham's legal thriller A Time to Kill, in which he'll play the judge. The former politician is starring alongside Sebastian Arcelus and John Douglas Thompson, an English actor of no relation to Fred Thompson. Previews of A Time to Kill begin at the end of September with the full opening happening a few weeks later in October. [The Wrap / AP] 

Yes, a musical based on the hit Channing Tatum male stripping film Magic Mike is closer to happening and our own Esther Zuckerman has some thoughts about that. Producers of the musical—a raft that includes Tatum the film's director, Steven Soderbergh—have tapped Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey (writers of the rock musical Next to Normal) to compose the songs, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to pen the story. In addition to the musical, Tatum and Soderbergh are also working on a Magic Mike film sequel. One can only hope this means we get some other Steven Soderbergh musical adaptations—Behind the Candelabra would make for an incredible musical. [Deadline]

Jason Momoa, a musclebound actor who starred in Game of Thrones and the recent Conan the Barbarian reboot, will be playing the leading role in the Sundance Channel's next original drama series The Red Road. Momoa will play Harold Jensen, "a sheriff struggling to keep his family together" while trying to keep the peace between his hometown and a nearby Native American community. The hunky Momoa seems like an odd fit for the network's smart, sensitive aesthetic, but give Sundance the benefit of the doubt after the excellent dramas Rectify and Top of the Lake. If you haven't seen either of those shows, you should do so as soon as possible. [Deadline]

The Conjuring, the 1970s-set supernatural horror film from Saw director James Wan, grossed $3.3 million from midnight showings. Box office prognosticators believe the $20 million film may very well outgross far more expensive new releases Red 2, Turbo and R.I.P.D., budgeted at $84 million, $135 million and $130 million, respectively. Red 2's studio didn't release figures for midnight showings, but I can't imagine there were any midnight showings, as midnight is way too late for an AARP action film's main demographic to do any movie watching. Turbo and R.I.P.D. both star Ryan Reynolds—isn't that already an ominous sign after the disaster that was The Green Lantern? Not to mention that R.I.P.D. seems like a retread of some critically eviscerated box office flop from ten years ago. Incidentally, The Conjuring also has a much higher Rotten Tomatoes average (84 percent) than any other wide release film this weekend. [Variety / The Hollywood Reporter]

       

Everything Sounds Better in German

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cellphone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why, every day, The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

No matter what anyone says and no matter how harsh it sounds, German is still a pretty cool language (cool, however, doesn't necessarily mean beautiful): 

What we have here are the first moments of a little girl-giant robot friendship. Yes, folks, Comic-Con has officially begun:

Raise your hand if you think cats make better pets than dogs. Sorry, you're wrong. Watch this next video, and you will come to the realization that it is embarrassing that anyone could ever suggest as much:

Okay, so this is a mystery grandma absolutely killing it on the drums. That's all: 

       

A Reporter Is Forced to Testify Against His Alleged Source

A reporter for The New York Times will have to testify against a CIA official accused of leaking classified information to him, according to a split decision by an appeals court in Virginia. In effect, the decision removes a critical protection for journalists who report on government activity—exposing a gap that new proposals on media protections from Congress and the administration do nothing to close.

The Times itself reports on the decision.

In a 118-page set of opinions, two members of a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va.—the court whose decisions cover the Pentagon and the C.I.A.—ruled that the First Amendment provides no protection to reporters who receive unauthorized leaks from being forced to testify against the alleged sources who leaked to them.

James Risen, the reporter at issue, wrote a book in 2006 documenting a failed government plan to pass bad information to Iran. The government believes that the information about that plan, which was classified, came from CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. In 2011, the FBI subpoenaed Risen, demanding he testify against Sterling. Risen challenged that subpoena, leading to today's decision.

The Guardian's Spencer Ackerman captured the primary resulting sentiment: "Every national security reporter is threatened by this unfortunate ruling." Blogger emptywheel was more succinct. "This pretty much guts national security journalism in the states in which it matters."

Which comports with the dissenting opinion. The Times:

“Under the majority’s articulation of the reporter’s privilege, or lack thereof, absent a showing of bad faith by the government, a reporter can always be compelled against her will to reveal her confidential sources in a criminal trial,” he wrote. “The majority exalts the interests of the government while unduly trampling those of the press, and in doing so, severely impinges on the press and the free flow of information in our society.”

Over the past two weeks, both the Department of Justice and a bipartisan group of senators have introduced new rules and policies aimed at ensuring media protections. Those proposals stemmed from recent revelations about the government's subpoena of phone records from the AP and the administration's ongoing push to charge leakers with violations of the Espionage Act—actions which threaten the privacy of the reporters that detail the leaks.

But neither of those new policies apparently would protect Risen or reporters in similar situations. In effect, all three branches of the government agree: reporters should sometimes have to testify against their sources. 

The attorney general's new policy—which doesn't have the strength of law—protects reporters' materials, unless the reporter himself is implicated in a crime not related to news coverage. Here's the change Justice proposes:

[T]he Department will modify its policy concerning search warrants covered by the [Privacy Protection Act] involving members of the news media to provide that work product materials and other documents may be sought under the "suspect exception" of the PPA only when the member of the news media is the focus of a criminal investigation for conduct not connected to ordinary newsgathering activities.

That modification, you'll note, doesn't cover forced testimony.

New legislation proposed by Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina gets a little closer. Part of the goal of the legislation is to codify protections similar to those presented by Holder, with the aim of ensuring consistency under a new attorney general. While the bill does not yet appear to have been filed, the senators' press release explains its intended outcome. Noting that it "[p]rovides no ABSOLUTE privilege for journalists," it stipulates situations in which that privilege might be rescinded in the event of a leak of classified information: "when information would prevent or mitigate an act of terrorism or harm to national security." That's a vague standard.

The dissenting judge raised another key point in his response to the decision. Again, The Times:

In his dissent, Judge Gregory said that he would recognize a qualified reporter’s privilege in criminal cases—including national-security-related ones, depending on the newsworthiness of the information and the potential harm its dissemination could cause. He also argued that prosecutors had enough other evidence to make their case without Mr. Risen’s testimony.

“Whatever the limits of who may claim reporter’s privilege, it is clear that Risen—a full-time reporter for a national news publication, The New York Times—falls into the category of people who should be eligible to invoke the privilege,” he wrote.

Raising one last point of concern: A reporter from a more modest media outlet might not even have the benefit of a dissenting opinion if forced to testify.

Photo: A man cleans the lobby of the CIA. (AP)

       

Can Pulitzer Prize Winners Make the 'Magic Mike' Musical Good?

A Magic Mike Broadway musical is a thing that's actually happening, and Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr. reports today that producers have enlisted a Pulitzer Prize-winning songwriting team. Can they make this any good? 

There's always a jokey air over anything mentioning Magic Mike, partly because a movie about male strippers featuring Channing Tatum dancing to "Pony" seems like something of a punchline. But the movie—a Steven Soderbergh flick—actually ended up having elements of a somber recession story. So it's hard to know what a Magic Mike musical would look like. A fun romp with big production numbers involving men taking their clothes off to 1990s hip-hop? Something that embraces the movie's drama? A combination?

That's what makes Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey an interesting choice. The two are responsible for Next to Normal, the story of a bipolar woman who hallucinates about her dead son, which won the Pulitzer under strange circumstances in 2010. The thoroughly depressing show got rave reviews, but ultimately left this writer cold. That said, the show has good, catchy songs for the young people in the cast, a sign that bodes well for Magic Mike. Aside from Next to Normal, Kitt and Yorkey have the upcoming Idina Menzel starrer If/Then. Kitt also was part of the writing team for another seemingly silly movie-to-musical adaptation: Bring it On. 

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa will be responsible for Magic Mike's book. Aguirre-Sacasa has one of the book-writing credits on famous disaster musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. Fleming explains that he "helped turn things around when there was nothing but bad news on that musical and performers were dropping like flies from the complicated rigging." 

The movie Magic Mike surprised a number of people by being, well, good and thoughtful, and this creative team implies that the Soderbergh-produced musical could do the same thing. But ultimately, we'd be happiest about this if we got to see Aaron Tveit strip on stage. Here's Tveit singing "I'm Alive" from Next to Normal. 

 

       

Oops, Kosher Lube Is No Longer Kosher

What the Rabbinical Council of California giveth, it can also taketh away. The council may have erroneously given its blessing for the world's first kosher lube this week. Now, however, the very same council is claiming that it didn't know that "intended use" of a personal lubrication line called "Wet" was for sex and has walked back its certification. "Certification of non-edible items is common in the kosher industry, but the intended uses of these items as now revealed, was misunderstood," reads the official statement from the RCC,  as reported by the  Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And that's completely understandable, but...

C'mon, what other intended uses for a line of  personal lubricants called "Wet" can there be? Perhaps if one runs out of water on a slip n' slide? Or to prevent chafing?  Maybe. However, the first two products featured on the Wet website are anal lube and Wet® wOw™ Clitoral Arousal Gel, so there's no real room for misunderstanding there.

       

Judge: Detroit's Bankruptcy Filing is Unconstitutional

Citing the state's constitution, which bars actions that would reduce the pensions of public employees, a Michigan judge stepped in on Friday to block Detroit's historic filing for bankruptcy. 

As we explained yesterday, the city of Detroit owes $18.5 billion to various creditors, including to state pensioners. The financial woes of the city are so dire that in March Governor Rick Snyder appointed Kevyn Orr as Emergency Manager for the city (much to the dismay of many of the city's residents and elected officials). Orr was supposed to step in and steer the city away from financial ruin. That effort didn't go well, despite Orr's wide-ranging power over the city's governance. Towards the top of Orr's to-do list for the city, in order to avoid bankruptcy, was to strike a deal over pension funds. When groups representing pensioners caught wind of Orr's flirting with filing bankruptcy earlier this week, they objected, strongly. When the city actually went ahead to file, Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina filed orders relating to three separate lawsuits that would force the city to withdraw their bankruptcy filing and take no further actions to reduce pension benefits owed. The Detroit Free Press explains: 

Lawyers representing pensioners and two city pension funds got an emergency hearing with Aquilina Thursday at which she said she planned to issue an order to block the bankruptcy filing. But lawyers and the judge learned Orr filed the Detroit bankruptcy petition in Detroit five minutes before the hearing began.

Aquilina said the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees, including those in the City of Detroit. Snyder and Orr violated the constitution by going ahead with the bankruptcy filing, because they know reductions in those benefits will result, Aquilina said.

The state has already indicated that they will appeal Aquilina's decision, so the bankruptcy process can move forward. 

       

Hooking Up in College Is Only for the White, Rich, and Drunk

Apparently, the saucy myth of droves of students engaging in an endless orgy of casual of sex in college is in actuality more rare. As it turns out, the only people having casual sex in college are white kids, rich kids, and rich white kids.

"Only 14 percent of students hookup more than 10 times in four years and these students are more likely than others to be white, wealthy, heterosexual, able-bodied, and conventionally attractive, according to quantitative studies of hookup behavior," writes Slate's Lisa Wade, putting the New York Times's recent trend story in a new context by looking at race instead of gender. Wade cites a quantitative study from Indiana University's Laura Hamilton and the University of Michigan's Elizabeth A. Armstrong, who found data that support earlier studies that "found that white students, those who drink, and students with higher parental income are more likely to hook up."

Naturally, the mind begins to wander to institutions like George Washington University, the subject of a jaw-dropping Washington Post story of just how rich its students are. At GW, white reportedly make up 53 percent of the student body. There must be tons of hookups each night in Foggy Bottom! 

[Full disclosure: I went to Villanova, a pretty expensive school where white students make up 76 percent of the student body. However, during my years there, I did not really spend that much time studying other students' sexy liaisons, so I cannot definitively tell you if there was plenty of sex going on.]

It seems that rich, good-looking, white men and women who drink are basically the Magna Carta Holy Grail of college sexers, right? 

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But when you recall that many four-year colleges are playgrounds for the rich and white, the study's results are not all that revolutionary. First, consider that white students accounted for 61 percent of all undergraduates, according to the U.S. Census. And then take into account that 80 percent of college students drink according to the National Institutes of Health report.

And then factor in the financials: A 2006 UCLA study found that the incoming class of 2005 "came from households with a parental median income of $74,000—60 percent higher than the national average of $46,326." And ABC News reported this past May that there's a growing trend of colleges offering more financial aid to rich students in an effort to woo them — at the expense of poorer students, of course.

And Wade points out, "[P]oor and working-class students, who are often the first ones in their families to attend college, tend to take it much more seriously and don’t take for granted that they’ll finish, so they party less." In other words, they go to college in order to actually, you know, study. Stupefying, isn't it?

Photo by: Poznyakov via Shutterstock.

       

'Stand Your Ground' Laws Are Winning

On Tuesday, the same day that Attorney General Eric Holder said that "Stand Your Ground" laws "sow dangerous conflict," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer called her state's version of the law "important" and a "constitutional right." And Wednesday, Florida state Sen. David Simmons called Holder's comments "inappropriate" and "inaccurate." Stand Your Ground may be getting more attention now after the Zimmerman verdict, but the laws themselves don't look like they're going anywhere.

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And that's not for a lack of effort from critics of the self-defense policy. While the exact laws differ somewhat from state to state, Stand Your Ground laws justify the use of force in self-defense when there's a reasonably perceived threat. It's on the books in some form or another in more than 21 states. Florida was the first to adopt the law, and the state is the focus of the law's critics now. Those critics range from Stevie Wonder (who has decided to boycott any state with a Stand Your Ground law) to the dozens of student activists who crowded Gov. Rick Scott's office on Tuesday.

But the critics aren't limited to Florida. In New Hampshire, the state's attorney general on Wednesday called for "another look" at the state's Stand Your Ground law. "I think what it can do is cause a situation to escalate that doesn't need to," he said.

That may sound promising to the law's detractors. But the thing is, the New Hampshire attorney general's office never supported Stand Your Ground to begin with. But it still passed. And the attorney general supported its repeal earlier this year. But that failed. The state's struggles are just one example of how steep of a climb it is to peel back Stand Your Ground nationally. As New Hampshire's Union Leader put it, the state will "have to endure without live performances from Stevie Wonder from now on." In Florida, meanwhile, opponents of the law don't seem to think they have a chance.

In Iowa, there's even one lawmaker who this week proposed to introduce Stand Your Ground to the state. A version of Stand Your Ground failed in 2012 after passing the House, but now it looks likely to return in the next legislative session. Iowa's not alone: A bill to expand Stand Your Ground was introduced recently in Ohio. On Wednesday, the bill's backer, state Rep. Terry Johnson, said that "you need to be able to defend yourself, you need to have a clear idea that this is a basic right that you can exercise at that moment, at that time."

At the federal level, Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., offered a resolution in February "urging the repeal of Stand Your Ground." And in 2012, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, submitted the Justice Exists For All of Us Act, which would have outlawed any state statutes that do "not impose a duty to retreat" before using force, outside of the realm of domestic abuse. That bill was eventually referred to committee, where it died at the end of the 112th Congress. The only real hope for critics of Stand Your Ground at the federal level looks to be from the Justice Department's investigation into the law, but we'll see how that goes.

Without a doubt, more states will look at their Stand Your Ground laws in the coming weeks. And the outrage and frustration over the death of Trayvon Martin, and the role Florida's law played in it, isn't likely to just disappear anytime soon. But right now, with Stand Your Ground firmly entrenched and with serious institutional and financial support from the likes of the National Rifle Association, the laws are so far winning out. 

       

Another Conservative Blogger Makes an Unexpected Endorsement

Erick Erickson sent an email to his RedState.com subscribers this week endorsing an "Instant Millionaires" financial newsletter, written by analyst Mark Skousen. Erickson touted Skousen's newsletter, available for the low price of $99.95 for one year, as the "best investment advice I know of, bar none." The twist? Ann Coulter endorsed the same newsletter in a nearly identical email to her followers almost four years ago.

Media Matters' Eric Hanaoki pointed out how heavily Erickson's email lifts from Coulter's below:

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Hanaoki reports:

Both Erickson's and Coulter's emails were sent through Eagle Publishing's The Human Events Group, which represents the email lists of both conservative commentators. The company lists a rate of $6,250 for renting RedState's list, though it's not clear if an Erickson-penned endorsement bumps the cost. Skousen's website, like RedState, is owned by Eagle Publishing. 

But Erickson responded on Twitter, denying he got paid to endorse the newsletter:

Sorry Media Matters, but I happy to support a good friend. Didn't earn a penny. http://t.co/8ML6gC0yIa

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 18, 2013

In 2011, Politico reported that Eagle was prepared to sell Erickson's endorsements to a "handful of [conservative] organizations." Erickson denied the report, claiming, "my endorsements are not for sale." 

Featuring paid endorsements on blogs or in email newsletters is nothing new. But common ethics suggest that the author of the blog or email should disclose the fact that they're being paid. Fashion bloggers often run into trouble with this issue, featuring clothes on their blog that they were either given for free or paid to wear and then failing to mention how they acquired the goods.

This week, we've seen a few conservative bloggers accused of creating sponsored content. Buzzfeed reported that a Ukrainian group paid for bloggers to write positive posts about the Ukraine government, and Erickson's fellow RedState blogger Breanne Howe and Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro both wrote posts that mirrored the group's talking points. Howe and Shapiro blogged back in October praising Ukraine's ruling Party of Regions. Both admit to using talking points provided by a proxy, but deny being paid. 

Erickson made one other notable endorsement this week: Liz Cheney for Senate. He probably did that one for free. 

Image via Media Matters

       

Why Conservatives Love Black Twitter

[image error]Conservatives finally got the Trayvon Martin race riots they made up earlier in the week in the form of an angry Internet mob called "Black Twitter." Per the Drudge Report, Black Twitter gets credit for "Torpedoing Zimmerman Juror's Book Deal." To the regular Drudge reader, this signifies that a powerful cohort of angry black people bullied a juror into giving up her book deal. And just as Rush Limbaugh, and various other conservative bloggers warned, the black community got irrationally angry, but instead of smashing in store windows and shooting people, they took to the Internet. 

Unfortunately, "Black Twitter" is far from violent. It's a community of people on the Internet who talk about things related to race, as BuzzFeed's Shani O. Hilton explains it:

Black Twitter is, loosely speaking, a group of thousands of black Twitterers (though, to be accurate, not everyone within Black Twitter is black, and not every black person on Twitter is in Black Twitter) who a) are interested in issues of race in the news and pop culture and b) tweet A LOT.

Black Twitter had been talking about the Trayvon Martin case since the trial began. "The constant hum grew as everyday people turned to the livestream and tweeted what they saw," Hilton explains. The focus turned to Juror B37 when news came out about the book deal, after one black tweeter started a change.org petition:

After murdering Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman was acquitted, even though juror B37 admitted (in a CNN interview) that Zimmerman "went too far", and didn't "stop at the limitations he should've stopped at". Now that very juror, who allowed Trayvon Martin's killer to get away, is writing a book. Please don't allow this person to profit off of the injustice that they've served to the American public. We deserve better. Trayvon Martin's family deserves better.

Then, the word spread on Black Twitter, and, a Drudge asserts, these people successfully bullied the Juror into backing down from the book deal.

It's the perfect symbol of unreasonable retribution that conservatives had hoped would happen in the form of pillaging—but only if you disregard what Twitter is and how everyone else on the site uses it. "Black Twitter’s power makes perfect sense—as long as you don’t consider black Twitterers to be some mysterious 'other' group," notes Hilton. Any group of people on Twitter can make a hashtag and tweet about it. The "Twitter mob" isn't limited to angry black people. Occupy Wall Street, feminists, Anonymous—they've all aggressively angry-tweeted things until they got their way.

That tactic isn't very violent, either. If anything, it's the Internet version of a peaceful protest—so much so that, Essence's Jeannine Amber insists Martin Luther King Jr. himself would use it. "If Dr. King was alive today, of course he would use Twitter because that's how everyone is getting out the messages to the most number of people most effectively and you know you have the farthest reach," she told CNN.