Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 190

Intel gets defensive over report of massive design flaw in millions of chips

Intel Core i7 processors (Credit: AP/Charles Krupa)

It seems Intel got a rough start to 2018. As it stands, the tech conglomerate is facing a PR nightmare after a British tech publication, The Register, published a report alleging a massive design flaw in the company’s processor chips.

The report claimed that “programmers” were “scrambling” to fix the open-source Linux kernel’s virtual memory system. The forthcoming changes were expected to be announced at a Patch Tuesday, according to the original report, which also claimed Linux and Windows would be subjected to performance slowdowns on Intel products.

“The flaw is in the Intel x86-64 hardware, and it appears a microcode update can’t address it. It has to be fixed in software at the OS level, or go buy a new processor without the design blunder,” The Register reported.

Why exactly is this a crisis? Well, because the flaw could make many computers vulnerable to malware hacks. As Wired reporter Andy Greenberg explained: “So when a security flaw in computers’ most deep-seated hardware puts a crack in those walls, as one newly discovered vulnerability in millions of processors has done, it breaks some of the most fundamental protections computers promise — and sends practically the entire industry scrambling.”

Since the report was released on Tuesday, Intel has issued a defensive response, claiming these reports are “incorrect”:

Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect. Based on the analysis to date, many types of computing devices — with many different vendors’ processors and operating systems — are susceptible to these exploits.

The response goes on to say that the company is “committed to the industry best practice of responsible disclosure of potential security issues, which is why Intel and other vendors had planned to disclose this issue next week when more software and firmware updates will be available.” According to Intel, it released the statement today in light of “inaccurate media reports.” It claims to have already started to take steps to improve the “exploits,” and denies that any potential performance issues could be associated with the alleged flaw.

“Intel has begun providing software and firmware updates to mitigate these exploits. Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time,” Intel states.

Microsoft also released a statement in response to the report in The Register, according to Bloomberg.

“We have not received any information to indicate that these vulnerabilities had been used to attack our customers,” Microsoft said in a statement.

The news reportedly caused Intel’s shares to briefly drop off 3.72 percent on the NASDAQ before rallying in late-day and after-hours trading to finish near its market open.

In legendary act of chutzpah, Paul Manafort sues Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice

Paul Manafort (Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik)

Well, you can’t fault the man for lack of boldness. Former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is suing special counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Department of Justice. In a federal lawsuit, Manafort challenged his indictment, claiming that his business dealings were not connected to Mueller’s investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Washington Post reported: “Manafort’s attorneys argue in a 17-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington that the department exceeded its legal authority when Acting Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein in May ordered Mueller to investigate ‘links and/or coordination’ between the Russian government and Trump campaign, as well as ‘any matters that arose or may arise directly from’ that investigation.”

  

Manafort’s attorneys say in the suit that the broad order gives Mueller “carte blanche to investigate and pursue criminal charges in connection with anything he stumbles across while investigating, no matter how remote from the specific matter identified as the subject of the appointment order.”

His attorneys claim, “the investigation focuses not on Manafort’s actions with the Trump campaign in 2016, but alleged fraud, conspiracy and money laundering in his secret lobbying for pro-Russian Ukrainian groups, adding that he was interviewed by the Justice Department in 2014,” the Post reported.

Manafort was indicted in October on 12 counts related to unlawful financial dealings, including conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to launder money, which is, you know, illegal. His indictment includes conduct between 2006 and 2014 — “about a decade before the Trump presidential campaign launched — and have been known to the United States government for many years,” the lawsuit claims. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

“The actions of DOJ and Mr. Rosenstein in issuing the Appointment Order, and Mr. Mueller’s actions pursuant to the authority the Order granted him, were arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the law,” the suit says, evincing a level a neon ballsiness rarely seen in even professional wrestlers.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement, “The lawsuit is frivolous but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants.” Indeed, he has.

10 things from Michael Wolff’s tell-all Trump report you might have missed

Donald Trump; Reince Priebus; Mike Pence; Steve Bannon; Sean Spicer; Michael Flynn (Credit: Getty/Drew Angerer)

New York Magazine published edited excerpts from Michael Woff’s upcoming book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” on Wednesday.

Arriving in the form of a long report, which has already warranted a reaction from the White House, the article details alleged events spanning from before the election, when Donald Trump reportedly was more interested in the benefits of being president than the actual job itself, to after it. According to Wolff, who followed the administration from election day until mid-October, he conducted more than 200 interviews for the book that will be published on Jan. 9.

While it’s debatable what’s fact or fiction within this preview of that book, it still creates a portrait of a president and an administration perhaps more clownishly inexperienced, petty, inept, ignorant, self-defeating and venial than previously imagined. In this, it’s a fun read, but also one that leaves you with a certain nausea.

Proof positive, here’s a nice Whitman’s sampler of juicy nuggets.

1. Nobody thought Trump would win the election — including Trump.

The report begins by capturing the climate of the Trump campaign prior to election day. Here we find it ensconced in something more like a “corporate back office” than a presidential campaign’s headquarters, which might be because nobody involved was reportedly in it to win it. Wolff says in the report that Kellyanne Conway was already eyeing on-air television gigs after the election, and Trump was just in it to become “the most famous man in the world.” In an alleged conversation, Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News, told Trump if he wanted wanted a career in television, he had to run for president first.

2. Trump was “baffled” by Robert Mercer’s $5 million donation to his campaign.

Another tidbit that suggests that Trump didn’t believe he’d win was that he wasn’t willing to front his own money in the campaign. According to the report, when Robert Mercer, a co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies and a major conservative donor, gave $5 million to the campaign, Trump was “baffled.”

3. Trump reportedly knew nothing about the Constitution.

Sam Nunberg, an advisor on Trump’s 2016 campaign, reportedly paid Trump a visit to “explain the Constitution.” Nunberg said, “I got as far as the Fourth Amendment before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”

4. Roger Ailes reportedly suggested John Boehner as chief of staff.

And Trump reportedly responded, “Who is that?” Allegedly, Trump initially wanted his son-in-law Jared Kushner for the post, but Ann Coulter reportedly stepped in and allegedly said, “But you can’t. You just can’t hire your children.” Ann Coulter: Voice of reason in the Trump camp.

5. Trump became a Silicon Valley fan thanks to an “anonymous” executive.

According to the report:

On December 14, a high-level delegation from Silicon Valley came to Trump Tower to meet him. Later that afternoon, according to a source privy to details of the conversation, Trump called Rupert Murdoch, who asked him how the meeting had gone. Trump went on to allegedly tell Murdoch that “these guys really need my help. Obama was not very favorable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.”

6. Murdoch and Joe Scarborough allegedly objected to Bannon being chief of staff.

Murdoch told Trump that Bannon was a “dangerous choice,” and Scarborough, the former congressman, told Trump “Washington will go up in flames.” Trump then turned to Reince Priebus, RNC chairman, but he was reportedly advised by Jim Baker, chief of staff for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, not to take it. According to the report, Priebus had his own concerns too. “He had come out of his first long meeting with Trump thinking it had been a disconcertingly weird experience. Trump talked nonstop and constantly repeated himself,” Wolff says in the report.

7. Bannon had some . . . interesting ideas on achieving peace in the Middle East/

The report details an alleged meeting that took place in Greenwich Village prior to Trump’s Inauguration where Bannon reportedly first proposed moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. According to the report, Bannon said:

“Day one we’re moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s all-in. Sheldon” — Adelson, the casino billionaire and far-right Israel defender — “is all-in. We know where we’re heading on this . . .  Let Jordan take the West Bank, let Egypt take Gaza. Let them deal with it. Or sink trying.”

In this meeting, it was also reportedly revealed that Trump was trying, and failing, to meet with Putin. “Putin couldn’t give a shit about him,” Bannon allegedly said, “So he’s kept trying.”

8. To Bannon, the real enemy was always China.

In the same alleged meeting, Bannon reportedly revealed that the Trump administration’s real enemy was China. According to Wolff, Bannon said:

“China’s everything. Nothing else matters. We don’t get China right, we don’t get anything right. This whole thing is very simple. China is where Nazi Germany was in 1929 to 1930. The Chinese, like the Germans, are the most rational people in the world, until they’re not. And they’re gonna flip like Germany in the ’30s. You’re going to have a hypernationalist state, and once that happens, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

9. Bannon tried to turn Trump against Murdoch.

According to Wolff, Bannon was allegedly trying to wedge his way in between the future president and the man who helped get him there:

Bannon wanted Ailes to suggest to Trump, a man whose many neuroses included a horror of senility, that Murdoch might be losing it. “I’ll call him,” said Ailes. “But Trump would jump through hoops for Rupert. Like for Putin. Sucks up and shits down. I just worry about who’s jerking whose chain.”

10. Ivanka Trump allegedly said “impatience” is the cause of her father’s hair color.

Ivanka, who reportedly has her eyes set on being the first woman president one day, allegedly poked fun of her dad’s hair color to her friends. According to the report, she’d describe the “mechanics” of his hair routine, explaining that he uses “Just For Men” and the longer it’s left on, the darker it gets. “Impatience resulted in Trump’s orange-blond hair color,” Wolff wrote.

Meryl Streep calls out Melania and Ivanka’s silence in face of #MeToo

Meryl Streep (Credit: Getty/Justin Tallis)

In an interview in the New York Times today, actors Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, who star in Steven Spielberg’s “The Post,” discussed President Donald Trump and an era of alternative facts, complicity around #MeToo in Hollywood and the unexpected trials of being a vocal and visible celebrity. Streep, specifically questioned Melania and Ivanka Trump’s silence in the ongoing national conversation about sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.

“The Post” follows The Washington Post’s decision to publish the controversial Pentagon Papers in 1971, papers which revealed decades of misinformation coming from various administrations about the Vietnam War. Hanks told the Times, “We made this movie about 1971, but it really is about 2017.”

He continued:

The assault on the First Amendment under the Nixon administration was old school, a D-Day version of ‘Let’s stop this story because it’s national security and they’re traitors if they print it. Because if they dare print it, they’ll find out that we lied. And if they know that we’re lying, we can’t do our jobs.’ What’s happening now is this guerrilla war that is going on against the First Amendment. This idea now that has actually been verbalized by various people high up in the current administration, that there is such a thing as [an] ‘alternative fact.’ It gives validation to what is patently false, that the purveyors know is a lie, and worse, know that it is completely unconfirmed and is scurrilous. And in that realm comes some degree of the same message: ‘Don’t let them find out the truth, because if so we can’t stay in power.’ All of this stuff that was going on was not lost on any of us.

While Hanks’ candidness on Trump was poignant, Streep focused on the inequity of power and respect between Post editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katherine Graham, who ultimately made the decision to publish the Pentagon Papers after the Nixon administration blocked the New York Times from doing so. “Katharine Graham was someone who was a product of her time. It was the whole culture that undermined all women,” Streep said, noting that in “All President’s Men,” Graham’s role in the same narrative was totally erased.

When the conversation moved to Harvey Weinstein and what was perceived as Streep’s silence in response to revelations about his alleged pattern of sexual abuse, she retorted, “I don’t have a Twitter thing or – handle, whatever. And I don’t have Facebook. I really had to think. Because it really underlined my own sense of cluelessness, and also how evil, deeply evil, and duplicitous, a person he was, yet such a champion of really great work.” She added, “Some of my favorite people have been brought down by this, and he’s not one of them.”

Streep also discussed Dustin Hoffman and the filming “Kramer vs. Kramer” when during which the currently embattled actor slapped her. “This was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping,” she told the Times. “But I think those things are being corrected in this moment. And they’re not politically corrected; they’re fixed. They will be fixed, because people won’t accept it anymore. So that’s a good thing.”

Streep said that she has experienced abuse from people in Hollywood when she was “young and pretty,” but declined to go into detail because “I don’t want to ruin somebody’s mature life. I just don’t,” she said, emphasizing that there has to be forgiveness.

Interestingly enough, the strongest language Streep targeted not the perpetrators of sexual violence, Ivanka and Melania Trump. “I don’t want to hear about the silence of me,” she said. “I want to hear about the silence of Melania Trump. I want to hear from her. She has so much that’s valuable to say. And so does Ivanka. I want her to speak now.”

Rose McGowan called out Streep on Twitter last month for what called the actor’s hypocrisy after news spread that she would join the Golden Globes protests and wear all black to the ceremonies. “Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @GoldenGlobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real change. I despise your hypocrisy,” McGowan tweeted, and then deleted the post. Also, when Streep first responded to the allegations against Weinstein, McGowan accused her of not condemning him hard enough.

No, Meryl, IT’S A FUCKING CRIME. You are such a lie # ROSEARMY Meryl Streep on Harvey Weinstein allegations: It's 'the most gargantuan example of disrespect' – USA TODAY https://t.co/3E2oiCauME

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) December 8, 2017

McGowan has since stepped back her comments, but the noise created by them was sufficient to inspire a pro-Trump street artist to create a series of posters with images of Streep’s face pasted over with the words “she knew.” That artist has since said that he has no knowledge that Streep indeed knew about Weinstein’s behavior and, in fact, doesn’t care whether she did one way or another.

What’s endlessly frustrating about this conversation is the volleying of accountability between women, and women only. McGowan wants Streep to speak up. Streep wants Ivanka and Melania to comment. But what about the men? Monday, 300 women in entertainment backed a campaign to end sexual harassment in the workplace, and largely, men are still silent, still complicit in the system they created. Perhaps in Streep’s next interview, she’ll call on the president instead of his daughter or his wife to weigh in.

“The X-Files” returns to a world gone mad

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in "The X-Files" (Credit: FOX/Ed Araquel)

Now that we’re well and deeply marinating in the post-truth era, a smidgen of a tinfoil hat fanatic exists in all of us. He’s been there all along, mind you, that little voice that spins impossible explanations and alternative facts to what we see and hear. Facts and studies be damned — what we really want, what we’ve always wanted, is to believe in the unbelievable.

Chris Carter has long played with this idea in the mythology driving “The X-Files,” a series that seemed like it would have enough content to ensure it would never run out of weirdness of explore, until it did. The presumed series finale in 2002 was a disappointing mess, as was the 2016 revival’s final episode, which lazily presented a world-ending scenario comparable to the worst episodes of “24” (As if you need reminding, bad episodes of that series were absolute stinkers by any standard).

Any presumptions that we’d seen the end of “The X-Files” were premature. Like The Cigarette Smoking Man, this series has a talent for bouncing back even after looking really, most sincerely dead. The different is that now, it is very much in its element.

The latest episodes of “The X-Files” return to Fox on Wednesday at 8 p.m., and skeptics may be surprised to discover how well it has returned to form, despite Carter’s stubborn insistence of drawing out a thread involving FBI Agent Fox Mulder’s obsession with aliens and the child he has with his partner Dana Scully.

“The X-Files” will always have its hardcore devotees, the folks who never wanted the series to go away, and who hounded Carter and the show’s stars Gillian Anderson, who plays Scully, and David Duchovny, the man behind Mulder, to continue their saga. If the show’s 2016 felt out of place, as it were, perhaps part of the reason for that is that Carter and the show’s other writers, including Glen Morgan, Darin Morgan, and James Wong, were lacking sufficient inspiration.

But these episodes were produced in 2017, a year overflowing with discussions about the manipulation of news and information and all the ways in which far-fetched falsehoods found purchase with a public hooked on echo chambers and siloed into tribes by social media. The result is a series of episodes all but intoxicated by the fears of fake news.

Actually, it’s even worse. As a villain in an upcoming episode puts is, we’re so befuddled by the deluge of “alternative facts” that he and his kind can operate in the open by dispensing “phony fake news,” which we used to know as that outdated thing called fact. “They want you think all conspiracies are nutty so that you can ignore the ones that are true,” a character insists.

He’s explaining why his story sounds crazy, but isn’t. Handily he’s also explaining our reality. These days,  Mulder’s distrust of government reports and belief in cover-ups no longer makes him the outlier. Actually, we’re a lot closer to seeing the world the way he does now that we ever were before.

That may be why these new “X-Files” episodes feel sharper, tighter and smarter than the first attempt at its revival.

In the new season, Mulder and Scully accept the charge of saving the world, and part of that involves finding their child William. This thread lends a tangible purpose to the season’s standalone episode, a promise that we’ll work our way to another link in the series long-running lore. In truth, season 11 shapes up to be a parable about how little control the common person has when facing the apocalypse.

That’s always been true of this show, of course. But “The X-Files” of 2018 also peers at another horrifying reality of its doomsday scenario: that the end of the world is really mostly a problem for those of us who don’t have a part to play in its plan. You know — anyone who isn’t obscenely wealthy and powerful.

Much of our current tension is defined by the widening gap between the wealthy and everyone else, a notion this season echoes by positing that this has long been the design of a cabal of powerful beings, some of whom may not be of this Earth. And that should allow the viewer a smidgen of emotional distance as evildoers lay out their plot to destroy humanity, but we all just came through 2017, right?

Smartly, these new episodes sustain balance the show’s Rod Serling-style fictions with a paranoia, terror and humor reminiscent of “The X-Files” at its best, particularly an upcoming written by Darin Morgan, the writer behind the legendary episodes “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” and “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” as well as the best of 2016’s batch, “Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-monster.”

The hours that expressly deal with the show’s primary mythology — including this week’s premiere, written and directed by Carter — are the weakest of the new batch. They’re also matched set; the 11th season debut, “My Struggle III,” picks up where “My Struggle II,” aka that botched 2016 season finale, left off.

Happily the leaden feel of the premiere doesn’t appear to be representative of the season as whole, which may re-earn any viewers disillusions by what recently came before. Besides, now we understand a new truth: Indulging conspiracy theories can be fun, until doing so obscures the truth so completely as to place our very existence in mortal jeopardy. It’s a scary new world, and “The X-Files” is finally getting around to welcoming us to it.

Time’s Up: How the celeb-led anti-harassment movement breaks from Hollywood convention

Shonda Rhimes; Kerry Washington; Ashley Judd (Credit: AP/Jordan Strauss/Getty/Valerie Macon/Duane Prokop)

Over 300 notable women Hollywood actors, writers and directors have responded to the flood of #MeToo stories and accusations — precipitated by the allegations of sexual abuse levied against producer Harvey Weinstein — by joining together to fight sexual harassment the workplace in a new coordinated initiative.

Commendably, and somewhat surprisingly, this new effort, which has been in the works since September of 2017, is geared towards addressing the issue not only on the sets and in the conference rooms of the entertainment industry, but in the offices, factories and fields in which most American women actually labor.

Yesterday, the organizers 0f the effort, called “Time’s Up,” announced their intentions Monday in an open letter in the form of a full-page ad in the New York Times. The advert called for “a significant increase of women in positions of leadership and power across all industries,” and announced a legal defense fund to support women and men victims of sexual misconduct at work. So far, Time’s Up has raised over $14 million of its $15 million goal.

From Tracee Ellis Ross, to Eva Longoria, to Halle Berry, to Reese Witherspoon, many celebrity women posted the letter to their social media pages proudly affirming their support and signatures.

Those goals, those milestones, are welcome and notable. But of almost equal interest is the provenance of Time’s Up’s message. The letter of solidarity offered by Time’s Up is less a work of Hollywood PR crafting than a follow-up and response to a similar letter released by Alianza Nacional de Campesinas (the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance).

That earlier letter was signed by over 700,000 women farmworkers in November and was addressed to women in Hollywood and elsewhere who’ve come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment at work. The letter said that “Even though we work in different environments, we share a common experience of being preyed upon by individuals who have the power to hire, fire, blacklist and threaten our economic, physical and emotional security.”

It was a reminder to the very visible women speaking out against Weinstein, James Toback and others — a group which includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Rose McGowan, Lupita Nyong’o and more — that not all women had the ears and eyes of the media pointed towards them, that not every victim or perpetrator was a bold name, that not every #MeToo story would find headlines and some measure of justice or address. In it, the women of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas said they believed and stood with the women of Hollywood, seeing themselves as equals no matter how society would have it.

The letter from Time’s Up acknowledged exactly the privileges of wealth and visibility that the entertainment industry affords many of its players and even its victims of sexual misconduct. Yes, it made clear that the women behind it were from Hollywood. But in a rare move for the industry, the ad turned attention back to the public, amplifying the experiences of women from less glamorous and high-profile industries.

The letter read:

To every woman employed in agriculture who has had to fend off unwanted sexual advances from her boss, every housekeeper who has tried to escape an assaultive guest, every janitor trapped nightly in a building with a predatory supervisor, every waitress grabbed by a customer and expected to take it with a smile, every garment and factory worker forced to trade sexual acts for more shifts, every domestic worker or home health aide forcibly touched by a client, every immigrant woman silenced by the threat of her undocumented status being reported in retaliation for speaking up and to women in every industry who are subjected to indignities and offensive behavior that they are expected to tolerate in order to make a living: We stand with you.

Hollywood stars often involve themselves in cartable causes, but rarely do we see them engaging in peer-to-peer communications while doing so. Times Up responds to and speaks with Alianza Nacional de Campesinas on terms set not by the entertainers, but by the farmworkers.

Now, yes, part of Time’s Up involves celebrity advocacy efforts that feel more symbolic than active, like actors wearing all black to the Golden Globes. Yet Time’s Up  still seems geared for accountability. While the daily media coverage of survivors from Hollywood is important, the women behind this initiative say they want to “want to lift up the voices, power, and strength of women working in low-wage industries where the lack of financial stability makes them vulnerable to high rates of gender-based violence and exploitation.” It’s an enlightened position that walks further toward true social justice than we most things we see coming out of the industry.

Aside from calling for equal pay, opportunities, and benefits for women — which Time’s Up sees as essential for upending the unequal work environments that foster abuse and harassment — the group is also seeking “greater representation of women of color, immigrant women, and lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women whose experiences are significantly worse than their white, cisgender, straight peers.” It’s a drumbeat we’ve heard more and more often from women in the industry, but here it is spelled out perhaps more clearly, more poignantly.

The letter also “fervently urge[s]” the media to spend as much time covering the accusations from victims from all industries as it does on those coming from Hollywood. It’s refreshing and valuable to see the primary beneficiaries of the media’s obsession with centering the dialogue around workplace misconduct on Hollywood offering a corrective to it.

The organizers of Time’s Up say they hope the legal defense fund and other partnerships and efforts can help victims and survivors without resources fight against sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace and ensure that there are consequences for all perpetrators, both for those with famous names and for those without. Overall, it’s an important and admirable initiative during a time when dialogue has led to little action, especially for women outside of Hollywood.

Those behind Time’s Up seem to understand that, while the national conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace was ignited in Hollywood, for there to be any degree of real progress, accountability and justice, the conversation cannot stay there or exist just in headlines and PR-vetted apologies.

Yet it’s a familiar look for anyone concerned about social justice in this country. Here, as almost always, the oppressed are forced to topple the systems that oppress them. After basking in what’s right about Time’s Up, one is left wondering about the men who could be supporting it with their voices, about the men who created the systems that allowed predators to thrive in the first place, about the men in positions of legal, corporate and legislative power who could help enact change. As Roxane Gay wrote in the New York Times, “It’s time for men to start answering for themselves because women cannot possibly solve this problem they had no hand in creating.”

But the group isn’t waiting on them to activate. As it says, time is up for men who ignore or contribute to workplace misconduct. Now, will they step up, too?

Table for one: The controversial art of dining solo

(Credit: Getty/RossHelen)

From 2014 to 2016, OpenTable saw a 62 percent increase in reservations for tables for one throughout the country. Is this because people like — or are even growing to prefer — dining alone, or is it purely circumstantial?

In this episode of “The Lonely Hour,” food writer Jamie Feldmar talks about why she appreciates a restaurant meal with herself, echoing statements she made in a Serious Eats article she wrote entitled “In Defense of Eating Alone.”

“Some of my best food memories revolve around shared meals, with many plates passed for many hours among many busy mouths,” she wrote in 2014. “Foodways and folklore often revolve around the pleasure and ritual of eating with others, correctly noting the connection between sharing food and sharing love. But there’s a different kind of pleasure that comes from paying undivided attention to what’s going on on your plate or in your head. It’s a quieter satisfaction, but in a world with so much noise, sometimes more deeply felt.”

On the show, Feldmar shared some practical reasons why she likes to dine alone. “It makes it easier to get into crowded restaurant, and I can get whatever I want and not have to share it with anyone.”

And on a philosophical level, she said, “It gives me a chance to reset. My life and my work are very social and filled with a lot of stimulus and human interaction. And I love people and I love having an active social life and professional life and they bleed into each other, but it can be can be overwhelming. I like spending a little bit of down time, a little bit of quiet time, in my own head, where I can focus on the things that I need to spend some time thinking about.”

“The same way the human body needs to sleep every night to restore itself physically, I think the human brain needs alone time to restore itself mentally,” she added. “And if you’re someone like me who loves to eat, it’s great to combine that alone time with the activity of eating.” There’s no shame in dining alone and there should be no stigma attached to it, in her eyes.

A videographer who goes by the name Keff challenged Feldmar on this episode of “The Lonely Hour.” He thinks the stigma is there to prevent the long-term costs for human happiness and health that come with this kind of anti-socialization. “The more you eat alone, the more out of touch with humanity you become,” he said.

Keff produced a short film underscoring his concerns about solo dining called “Party of One.” In it, a Taiwanese immigrant who recently moved to New York City is perplexed by the culture of dining alone, and finds it sad. He comes from a place where eating together is a highly valued part of each day.

“I hear dining alone being presented as this empowering, liberating thing here in the States,” Keff said. “It’s seen as independence. And it can be, but I also wanted to take the devil’s advocate point of view of that.”

Then New York chef Amanda Cohen talks about why she not only reserved the bar seats at her Dirt Candy restaurant for solo diners the entire week of Valentine’s Day, but also why she created a special tasting menu for them.

And finally, we discuss the most private of private dining situations, eating alone at home, with Samantha Rose Widder. She just finished a masters in food studies at New York University, where she completed a project that studied the emotions connected to this kind of solo meal taking.

Listen to the episode below.

The Lonely Hour is a podcast that explores the feeling of loneliness—and solitude, and other kinds of aloneness—at a time when it may become our next public health epidemic. The show is co-produced by Julia Bainbridge and The Listening Booth. Julia, the host and creator, is an editor and a James Beard Award-nominated writer. Listen to all of the episodes published on Salon so far here.

John Dean: Nixon “might have survived if there’d been a Fox News”

John Dean (Credit: AP/Alex Brandon)

John Dean knows first hand about White House investigations. The former Nixon White House counsel who became the star witness for the prosecution during the Watergate hearings had a message for President Donald Trump: Your idea that Robert Muller’s Russia investigation will wrap up soon is “wishful thinking.”

Speaking to Politico’s “Off Message” podcast, Dean said he finds it “remarkable” how little the Trump team has learned from past White House investigations including Watergate. “Every signal they’ve thrown from the get-go has been ‘we’re covering this up,'” he told Politico. “While Ty Cobb says he’s cooperating with the prosecutors, turning over documents and witnesses and what have you. Well, those witnesses should have all been marched down there to the grand jury and said, ‘We’ve got nothing to hide.'”

“I can only conclude they are hiding something,” Dean added, saying that he doesn’t know exactly what or whether the Trump campaign’s actions were in fact criminal or not, but that the administration’s behavior doesn’t point to pure innocence.

Since Watergate is Dean’s point of reference, he discussed the many similarities. He warned Trump and his counsel not to be overconfident about what Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos knew and could tell Robert Mueller.

“They didn’t know how much I knew,” Dean said of Watergate. “I knew much more than they thought I did . . . With Flynn and his proximity, he had even more proximity than I did.” Dean also warned that even if Trump is considering to pardon Flynn, “that doesn’t end his testimonial responsibilities,” Dean said, “in fact, to the contrary, he can be indicted again for perjury.”

Dean also cautioned Trump that ignorance is no defense. “Unfortunately, motive and intent in the law are different. What they thought [was that] because what they were doing was purely political, and trying to minimize the impact of this blundered break-in at the Watergate, they had no criminal intent,” Dean said. “Well, they intended to do the actions they did, which was stop the investigation. That’s what Trump did. His motive is irrelevant.”

Dean noted that there is one major difference between Watergate and the Russia collusion investigation, explaining that today’s political climate, social media and the existence of Trump’s favorite broadcaster, Fox News, set a very different stage. “There’s social media, there’s the internet; the news cycles are faster,” he said. “I think Watergate would have occurred at a much more accelerated speed than the 928 days it took to go from the arrest at the Watergate to the conviction of Haldeman and Ehrlichman and [John] Mitchell, et al.” He added, “There’s more likelihood he [Nixon] might have survived if there’d been a Fox News.”

 

 

Twitter genius edits Disney World’s Trumpbot into real-life presidential photos

(Credit: Twitter/bornmiserable)

As if Walt Disney’s animatronic version of President Donald Trump isn’t frightening enough, we can now see what it would look like if the animatronic figure became the actual leader of the free world.

For no other reason than to provide some quality entertainment to finish off the year, Twitter user @bornmiserable posted edited photographs of the real-life Trump on his Twitter feed last week, images that replace the president’s face with that of his dead-eyed, soulless mechanical doppelgänger. The results did not disappoint.

I replaced .@realDonaldTrump with his Disney animatronic figure and honestly, it's an improvement pic.twitter.com/o0G12K22bH

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 29, 2017

After initially only creating three edits, the user began responding to requests for various bespoke images of the Play-doh-faced gollum replacing the flesh-and-blood president.

another, requested by .@Browtweaten: pic.twitter.com/sQ1g5BS2qd

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 29, 2017

one more, just because I can: pic.twitter.com/7tj3gO3lu3

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 29, 2017

requested by a few, here's the "orb" photo: pic.twitter.com/cc7wyRjTyM

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 30, 2017

hey everyone, it's .@realDonaldTrump doing what he was elected to do: stand around looking constipated at golf courses pic.twitter.com/cBu9xaaTE0

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 31, 2017

yet another one, requested by .@WoodyLuvsCoffee: pic.twitter.com/DFGyuqyuP6

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 31, 2017

and hey, who can forget this moment in Trump's illustrious road to the White House: pic.twitter.com/lNkfw8XIDJ

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 31, 2017

and then there's that time .@realDonaldTrump was on .@FallonTonight: pic.twitter.com/98N5tAYA8R

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) December 31, 2017

pic.twitter.com/HUOG1pPFca

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) January 1, 2018

and then there was the debates where he loomed over .@HillaryClinton (suggested by .@Browtweaten) pic.twitter.com/b8qQzPSTcd

— Born Miserable (@bornmiserable) January 1, 2018

It’s all so fake that it’s just too real.

As reported earlier, the figure was unveiled at the Hall of Presidents in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, on Dec. 12, quickly becoming a source of mirth and terror. Currently, the Trumpbot stands alongside the previous 44 U.S. presidents and recites a speech with audio provided by the actual Trump. It’s an address that largely fails to capture the president’s bombastic nature, inflammatory asides and frequently misleading rhetoric, just as the animatronic fails to properly portray the his steely, reptilian squint. As Salon previously reported, some Twitter users edited audio of some of Trump’s more controversial quotes onto video of the Trumpbot to fix this problem.

The Hall of Presidents open in 1971, and highlights some of the most prominent moments U.S. history. While all 45 presidential animatronics feature audio recordings, Trump joins former Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as the only figures to read full speeches.

Last month, performer Jay Malsky was removed from the Hall of Presidents and, subsequently, Disney World after yelling “Lock him up!” during the Trumpbot’s speech. Screaming in the dark at a mannequin with the ability to speak, but not the ability to listen or change, Malsky became the voice of 2017.

Alex Jones hates on “The Last Jedi,” calls Carrie Fisher an “old lizard”

Alex Jones; Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (Credit: Getty/Ben Jackson/Lucas Films)

There’s been at least some debate over the quality, narrative and tone of the critically lauded “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” with not a few conservative and men’s rights commenters attacking the film, and its actors, for its perceived slights to white men.

Into this fray waddled one Alex Jones, who would like you very much to know that he’s perturbed by the franchise’s newly found narrative equality between male and female characters.

In a video published by the Infowars host Des. 29, Jones said, “This new film, if you call it that,

‘The Last Jedi’ is like the last ‘Star Wars’ movie I think I can ever watch, because it’s like Russian roulette to go see this.” Oh? Really? How so?

“It had some great graphics and some fun stuff in it,” Jones admitted, “but subjecting myself and my children to every bad guy being a man and all of the commanders being women, like seven deep, like, ‘This commander dies, so it’s this woman and then it’s this woman,’ and then they go, ‘The chain of command, it goes to this woman, and the chain of command.’ And it’s all about women are in the chain of command. Beat me over the head. Beat me over the head.”

One can imagine how that must have been difficult for Jones.

This is not to say that Jones was against women being generals, senators and whatnot. “I mean, I get, like, don’t have stereotypes,” he said. “Show that women can be in power positions, as if that hasn’t happened throughout history. Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, you name it.”

But he noted that some of these historical women were not quite heroes, at least according to him. He noted the “bad role” of early reproductive-rights campaigner Margaret Sanger and Queen Elizabeth II, whom he called “a known admitted Nazi-heiling Hitler, but that’s OK, according to everybody, because she’s liberal.”

Returning to “The Last Jedi,” Jones added, “but this is just the beating you over the head to patronize women, and show them in SWAT team uniforms running around, and to be the police, and to be in charge and the men are a bunch of idiots that have to be put in line, and it just goes on and on.”

He then turned his attention to the late lamented star of the franchise, Carrie Fisher, who passed away a year ago last Wednesday. “And then poor Carrie Fisher, you can see her tweets and videos before she died, and that was during the filming, she died right at the end of filming, she died right as it ended, she flew back, he said.”

He continued, “I’m not saying it’s a star murder or anything, but we know in Hollywood sometimes when they think you’re finally done, if you die right after your last record, your last movie, then it triples or quadruples your portfolio.” So, no, Jones wasn’t claiming that Disney and other forces conspired to kill the beloved actor and author in order to increase the box-office totals of what was already likely to be the highest grossing film of 2017 — but, then again, who can say, really.

He then said of Fisher, “But she just completed it perfectly. Flying back, I guess celebrating or whatever, had a bunch of different drugs in her systems and things. And I’m very sad for her, thought she played the goddess archetype very, very well, did a great job in the first films, had a long life, a lot of substance problems.”

Not that Jones was insulting Fisher. “I don’t put her down,” he said.

He then noted that seeing her in the “The Last Jedi,” was “like watching an under-the-bridge dweller, like we have near the office, who I try to bring food and stuff, who, she looked like a basically an old lizard that lived under a bridge or something that could hardly talk.”

And that, everyone, is how Jones capped off 2017, hating on the highest-grossing film of the year — one that owns a 91 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes — and saying its beloved, fiery star resembled a barely articulate reptile. He also said that “Communist China saves us in almost every movie,” these days because the state has bought “controlling interest” in all the  major Hollywood studios, so there’s that.

See the whole segment below, though note that there are spoilers for “The Last Jedi.”