Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 204

This visionary sci-fi author sees the destruction of human civilization: predatory capitalism

(Credit: Warner Brothers)

The political theorist Frederic Jameson once observed that “it has become easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” But what if predatory capitalism finally destroys life on earth? That’s the question posed by science fiction writer Ted Chiang, who argues that in “superintelligent AI,” Silicon Valley capitalists have “unconsciously created a devil in their own image, a boogeyman whose excesses are precisely their own.”

In a new essay for Buzzfeed, part of a series about the forces shaping our lives in 2017, the acclaimed author of “Arrival” (Stories of Your Life and Others) deconstructs our fear of artificial intelligence; specifically, that of tech titans like Tesla founder Elon Musk. For Musk, the real threat is not a malevolent computer program rising up against its creator like Skynet in the Terminator films as much as AI destroying humanity by accident. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Musk imagines a mechanized strawberry picker wiping out the species simply as a means of maximizing its production.

“This scenario sounds absurd to most people, yet there are a surprising number of technologists who think it illustrates a real danger. Why?” Chiang wonders. “Perhaps it’s because they’re already accustomed to entities that operate this way: Silicon Valley tech companies.”

In Musk’s hypothetical, the destruction of human civilization follows the logic of the free market.

“Consider: Who pursues their goals with monomaniacal focus, oblivious to the possibility of negative consequences? Who adopts a scorched-earth approach to increasing market share?” Chiang continues. “[The] strawberry-picking AI does what every tech startup wishes it could do — grows at an exponential rate and destroys its competitors until it’s achieved an absolute monopoly.”

Ultimately, the catastrophe Musk and others foretell has already arrived in the form of “no-holds-barred capitalism.”

“We are already surrounded by machines that demonstrate a complete lack of insight, we just call them corporations,” Chiang continues. “Corporations don’t operate autonomously, of course, and the humans in charge of them are presumably capable of insight, but capitalism doesn’t reward them for using it. On the contrary, capitalism actively erodes this capacity in people by demanding that they replace their own judgment of what ‘good’ means with ‘whatever the market decides.'”

For Chiang, the operative word is insight. Our capacity for self-reflection, or the “recognition of one’s own condition,” is what separates humans from the Googles, Facebooks and Amazons. And it is this deficiency that makes these monopolies so uniquely dangerous.

“We need for the machines to wake up, not in the sense of computers becoming self-aware, but in the sense of corporations recognizing the consequences of their behavior,” he concludes. “Just as a superintelligent AI ought to realize that covering the planet in strawberry fields isn’t actually in its or anyone else’s best interests, companies in Silicon Valley need to realize that increasing market share isn’t a good reason to ignore all other considerations.”

New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush, suspended for misconduct, will keep his job

Glenn Thrush (Credit: Getty/Kirk Irwin)

Glenn Thrush, the New York Times White House correspondent and MSNBC contributor, will remain at the New York Times after being suspended following reports in November of possible sexual misconduct. Thrush will reportedly to return to the Times in one month.

Thrush, a star member of the White House press corps, will no longer report on beltway politics, according to a statement from the Times. His new assignment has yet to be announced.

In a statement, Times editor Dean Baquet wrote, “We have completed our investigation into Glenn Thrush’s behavior, which included dozens of interviews with people both inside and outside the newsroom.” Baquet added that, “We found that Glenn has behaved in ways that we do not condone.”

“While we believe that Glenn has acted offensively,” Baquet said, “we have decided that he does not deserve to be fired.” Rather, Baquet wrote, “he will receive training designed to improve his workplace conduct . . . In addition, Glenn is undergoing counseling and substance abuse rehabilitation on his own. We will reinstate him as a reporter on a new beat upon his return.”

Thrush is reportedly still in rehab at this time.

Full NYT statement from Dean Baquet not to fire Glenn Thrush following allegations of inappropriate behavior. https://t.co/zYzy0ce5mk pic.twitter.com/xL89BPXi4c

— Sydney Ember (@melbournecoal) December 20, 2017

It is unknown how or if Thrush’s new position at the Times will affect his ongoing work on a book about the Trump administration, which he is co-writing with fellow White House reporter Maggie Haberman.

Thrush became a person of interest in the ongoing series of revelations about the misconduct of men in media and industry following the November 20 publication of an article on Vox in which several of the writer’s former colleagues at Politico and women elsewhere alleged that Thrush made unwanted advances towards them, engaged in unwanted touching, and had a pattern of misrepresenting his relationships with them. The writer of the piece herself alleged that Thrush had touched her thigh unbidden and then possibly spread rumors about the encounter, reversing their roles, to their co-workers at Politico. There are other, more serious accusations in the piece.

Almost immediately after the publication of Vox’s piece, the paper suspended the star reporter and launched an investigation which, as Times reporter Sydney Ember wrote, “was led by Charlotte Behrendt, a lawyer in the Times newsroom, and involved interviews with more than 30 people in New York and Washington, both inside and outside The Times, according to a person briefed on the process. Ms. Behrendt compiled a report with her findings that was reviewed by Dean Baquet, the executive editor, and a group of top editors.”

Thrush himself had no comment on the statement or decision and remains off Twitter. He had already written in response to the Vox article saying, “I apologize to any woman who felt uncomfortable in my presence, and for any situation where I behaved inappropriately,” adding, “any behavior that makes a woman feel disrespected or uncomfortable is unacceptable.”

While the nominal transparency of the Times’ management here may be laudatory (it’s at least somewhat remarkable that the paper assigned one of their writers to report on this), the decision stands in contrast to the treatment handed out to other media figures standing down similar accusations. The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, Vox’s Lockhart Steele, The Paris Review’s Lorin Stein, NPR’s Michael Oreskes, NBC’s Matt Lauer, MSNBC and NBC contributor Mark Halperin and many others in the field have all either been terminated or forced to resign following allegations not significantly different than those lodged against Thrush. What, if anything, differentiates this case from the others is unclear.

In his statement, Baquet explained that “each case has to be evaluated based on individual circumstances,” adding that, “we believe this is an appropriate response to Glenn’s situation.” He ended by saying “The Times is committed not only to our leading coverage of this issue but also to ensuring that we provide a working environment where all of our colleagues feel respected, safe and supported.”

Congress fiddles while America burns

(Credit: AP/Getty/Salon)

Have you listened to the president lately? Every time he faces a microphone, he’s talking about collusion. Well, “no collusion” anyway. “What has been shown is no collusion, no collusion,” he said after his former National Security Adviser plead guilty a couple of weeks ago. “There has been absolutely no collusion.” Last Monday, after his return to the White House from Camp David, Trump told the press “There’s no collusion. No collusion whatsoever.”

He’s gone from denying that neither he or his campaign had any contact with Russians, to denying that the contacts they had amounted to anything, to denying “collusion” with any Russians during the election. Meanwhile, his legal factotums are out there with the backup assertion that if there was any “collusion” with Russians, it wasn’t illegal.

That’s where we find ourselves as we near the end of Trump’s first year in office, folks. They’re actually out there preparing to admit that while Russia helped Trump get elected last year, there wasn’t any law against it.

You would think that the United States Congress, even as several of their committees are investigating collusion between Trump and the Russians, might get around to making sure that no hostile powers have the ability to steal the midterm elections scheduled for November of 2018, less than a year from now.

But nooooooo. When they finally got around to passing an actual law this week, what was it? Did they pass the trillion dollar infrastructure bill Trump has promised for two years to fix stuff like, say, railroad tracks? No.

Did they pass a bill funding the Children’s and Infants’ Health Program (CHIP) which provides health coverage to over 9 million poor children in this country, who are currently without coverage? No.

Did they pass any new laws that would prevent Russia from interfering in our elections next year? No.

Did they pass any new laws to make it more illegal than it already is for Russians to hack into American election campaigns and steal confidential information? No.

Did they pass any new laws making it illegal for the governments of hostile nations like Russia to place political advertisements on media platforms like Facebook and Twitter? No.

Did they pass any new laws effectively making electoral “collusion” with the Russians or any other hostile nations illegal? No.

What did they do instead? They passed a massive tax cut for millionaires and billionaires that will add an estimated two trillion dollars to the deficit and not incidentally raise taxes on many middle class families, especially those living in states with high state and local taxes, that’s what they did. It’s the only piece of major legislation the Congress has passed this year, after failing in its attempt last summer to repeal Obamacare.

So with the aid of the Russia-Trump timeline kept by Bill Moyers & Co., let’s take a trip back in time and have a look at the tsunami of collusion with Russians and lies about it that comprised the secret strategy behind the Trump campaign of 2016.

You think your vote in the 2018 midterm elections is safe from Russian mischief? Have a look at what the Congress of the United States has been ignoring while they were passing tax cuts for billionaires:

On March 29, 2016, Donald Trump hires Paul Manafort as an adviser to his campaign. Manafort is a former Republican campaign operative who has extensive contacts in the Ukraine and Moscow with Russian intelligence officials.

On April 26, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos is contacted in London by a foreign national who has numerous contact with Russian intelligence officials. Papadopoulos is told that the Russians have “dirt” on Hillary Clinton and emails from her campaign they want to provide to the Trump campaign.

On June 3, Donald Trump Jr. receives an email from a British PR person who has extensive contacts with Russian oligarchs and intelligence officials informing him that the Russians are in possession of information that will “incriminate” Hillary Clinton and want to meet with him.

On June 9, the meeting between Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort and several Russians with intelligence ties takes place at Trump Tower.

About the same time, CIA Director John Brennan starts noticing suspicious contacts between Russians and officials of the Trump campaign. He refers this information to FBI Director James Comey.

On July 7, Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page travels to Moscow and gives a speech at the New Economic School. He also meets with Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.  

On July 18, Trump campaign adviser Senator Jeff Sessions meets privately with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the Republican National Convention. Campaign adviser Carter Page meets separately with Kislyak. Maneuvering on the platform committee by Paul Manafort and other Trump campaign officials removes a plank critical of Russia for its invasion of the Ukraine and Crimea and inserts a friendly plank advocating softening sanctions on Russia.

On July 22, WikiLeaks releases its first tranche of Democratic National Committee emails. It is reported that WikiLeaks very likely received the emails from contacts within Russian intelligence.

In late July, senior FBI officials meet with candidate Trump and warn him that it is highly likely that Russian intelligence will seek to infiltrate and influence his campaign. They ask Trump to have his campaign notify the FBI of an contacts with Russians. There is no evidence the Trump campaign ever contacted the FBI about this.

On July 27, at a Florida press conference, Trump says “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to emails which had apparently been deleted from Hillary Clinton’s private server after she was Secretary of State.

Also at the end of July, the FBI opens an official investigation into collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign.

On August 4, CIA Director Brennan speaks to the Director of the Russian Security Service (FSB) and warns him not to get involved in the American political campaign.

Also in early August, the American intelligence community forms a task force to investigate Russian influence on the American presidential election. CIA Director Brennan informs President Obama that Russian President Vladimir Putin is personally involved, giving Russian government officials instructions to help defeat Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump.

On August 12, the first tranche of DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) emails are released by Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0. On August 15, more DCCC emails are released by the Russians. On August 21, still more DCCC private emails are released.

In late August, CIA Director Brennan briefs the so-called “gang of eight” congressional leaders of both parties about Russian hacking intended to benefit Donald Trump. This meeting remains a secret for months.

On September 8, Trump campaign adviser Jeff Sessions meets with Sergey Kislyak again, this time at his Senate office.

In early September, Obama officials meet with the 12 most senior congressional leaders of both parties and inform them of Russian hacking intended to influence the presidential election. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell objects to this information being made public for fear it will “influence” the election. This meeting also remains a secret for months.

On September 15, more DCCC emails are released by Russian intelligence seeking to influence voting in the states of New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, and North Carolina.

On September 22, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Adam Schiff issue a joint statement revealing that at an intelligence briefing, information had been revealed that Russia is trying to undermine American elections.

On September 23, more DCCC emails are released. On October 4, Russian intelligence leaks documents from the Clinton Foundation through Guccifer 2.0.

On October 7, WikiLeaks begins posting emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Also on that date, the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Homeland Security issue a statement stating that “The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations . . . We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” 

On November 8, Donald Trump wins the American presidential election.

On November 10, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister reveals that the Kremlin had communicated with Trump’s “immediate entourage.” Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks denies this, claiming the Trump campaign had “no contact with Russian officials.”

On November 12, a Russian politician close to Vladimir Putin posts on Facebook that he had contacts with the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica, an digital adviser to the Trump campaign. He claims that the intent of the contacts was to help Trump win the election.

On December 13, Jared Kushner meets at Trump Tower with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Sergey Gorkov, the director of the Russian state-owned bank, VEB. Gorkov was appointed to the bank by Vladimir Putin. He is also a graduate of the Russian intelligence school.

On December 29, Michael Flynn, by now appointed to be Trump’s National Security Adviser, calls Ambassador Kislyak and promises that Trump will lift sanctions on Russia after he takes office.

On January 3, 4, and 5 of 2017, Trump issues several tweets attacking the American intelligence community for finding that Russia had attempted to influence the election.

On January 6, immediately following Trump’s attacks on them, the FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency release a public report stating that “Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.” The report concludes that “the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible.”

On January 10, Buzzfeed publishes the “Steele Dossier” containing numerous instances of connections between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. Also on that date, Jeff Sessions misleads the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing for Attorney General, denying that he had any contacts with Russians during the campaign. Also, Trump denounces the “Russia story” as “fake news.”

On January 11, Trump issues more tweets against the Steele Dossier. At a news conference that day, Trump begins his cascade of lies about Russia by denying that there were any contacts between his campaign and Russians.

On January 14, Trump tweets that the Steele Dossier is “a campaign fraud.”

On January 15, in an interview with the Times of London, Trump says “we should trust Putin” on charges about Russia, and claims the Steele Dossier was “made up.”

On January 19, the New York Times reports that Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Carter Page are all subjects of an investigation into Russian hacking and collusion.

On January 20, Donald Trump is inaugurated 45th President of the United States.

On January 23, at his first official press briefing, Sean Spicer denies that Michael Flynn talked to Ambassador Kislyak about Russian sanctions.

On January 24, in an interview with the FBI, Flynn lies to the FBI, denying that he talked to any Russians about sanctions.

On January 26, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates goes to the White House and tells Counsel Don McGahn that Flynn lied to the FBI about Kislyak and sanctions.

On January 27, former campaign adviser Papadopoulos lies to the FBI about his contacts with Russians during the campaign. Also on that day, White House Counsel McGahn calls Sally Yates back to the White House and asks her, “Why does it matter to the Department of Justice if one White House official lies to another?”

On January 30, Trump fires Sally Yates. Also on that date, Deutsche Bank, which has loaned Donald Trump several hundred million dollars, pays a $425 billion fine to the United States government for money laundering with Russia.

On February 8, Michael Flynn tells the Washington Post that he did not discuss sanctions against Russia with Ambassador Kislyak.

On February 10, in remarks with reporters, Trump states that he did not know of any contacts between Flynn and Kislyak.

On February 13, the Washington Post breaks the story about Sally Yates informing the White House about Flynn’s lies to the FBI about Kislyak and sanctions. Flynn resigns later that day.

On February 14, the New York Times reports that “phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

On February 15, Trump tells reporters that Flynn was treated “very, very unfairly by the media” and calls him “a wonderful man.”

On February 16, Trump again defends Michael Flynn at a press conference at the White House and states, “Russia is fake news,” and continues his tsunami of lies about Russia by denying there were any contacts between Russians and his campaign.

On March 1, Jeff Sessions  continues to obfuscate about his own contacts with Russians when he states that he “never met with any Russian officials to discuss any issues of the campaign,” a fine-toothed parsing of his earlier denials.

On March 2, Sessions recuses himself from the Russia investigation.

On March 4, Trump tweets from Mar-a-Lago that “Obama tapped my phones.”

On March 20, Trump tweets “Democrats made up and pushed the Russia story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign.”

Later on March 20, appearing before the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Director James Comey reveals that the FBI is investigating Russian interference with the election, including “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” He says the investigation has been ongoing since July of 2016.

On March 22, in the Oval Office, Trump meets with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo and urges them to get Comey to “back off” the Russia investigation. He also asks them to publicly deny there is any evidence of collusion between his campaign and the Russians.

On March 27, the New York Times reports that Kushner met at Trump Tower with Kislyak and VEB Bank Director and Putin crony Sergey Gorkov.

On April 5, Trump tells the New York Times that “the Russia story is a total hoax.”

On April 11, Trump calls Comey and asks him to put out the news that he, Trump, isn’t being investigated and asks him to “lift the Russia cloud.”

On April 29, Trump tells CBS News’ John Dickerson “the concept of Russia with respect to us [the Trump campaign] is a total phony story.”

On May 2, Trump tweets “The phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?”

On May 3, Comey tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that “The intelligence community with high confidence concluded it was Russia,” referring to the hacking of the DNC emails.

On May 6 and 7, Trump meets at his Bedminster New Jersey with Jared Kushner and others about firing Comey. They come up with a letter that is rejected out of hand by the White House Counsel. On May 8, Trump, Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and Vice President Pence meet in the White House about Comey. Sessions and Rosenstein come up with a justification for firing him.

On May 9, Trump fires Comey.

On May 10, at a meeting in the Oval Office, Trump tells Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Comey is “a nut job.” “I faced great pressure because of Russia,” Trump tells the two Russians. “That’s taken off.”

On May 11, during a White House interview, Trump tells NBC News anchor Lester Holt: “Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when I decided to do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.”

On May 17, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein names Robert Mueller Special Counsel to investigate contacts and collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and transition.

May 18, Trump tweets, “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history! With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!”

The “witch hunt” Trump is so exercised about has in recent months resulted in the indictments of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates for tax fraud and money laundering, and in the guilty pleas by former Trump aide George Papadopoulos and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — both for lying about their contacts with Russians.

All of those contacts they had on the Trump campaign were with Russians. Trump and Flynn and Papadopoulos and Manafort and Sessions and Spicer and Hicks and the rest of them, all the lies they told were about only one country, Russia.

But don’t worry. Donald Trump assures us there was “absolutely no collusion” with Russians, and besides, if there was any Russian collusion, it wasn’t illegal.

So don’t you go bothering congressional Republicans with any of this stuff about Russians stealing emails and seeking to influence our elections. There’s nothing to see here folks. Look over there! Tax cuts!

How AOL Instant Messenger saved one girl’s life

A photo of the author as a girl. (Credit: Courtesy of the Author)

AOL officially shut down AIM last Friday, which may leave some nostalgic for the now deleted “buddy lists,” embarrassing screen names and chat rooms that obsessed over such cultural phenomena as “Starlight Express” and “Cats.”

AIM launched in 1997, and for a generation of kids, it provided a world hidden from parents, where they could craft conversations with classmates or total strangers, sharing their deepest desires and secrets with the help of an avatar.

Leigh Stein, author of “Land of Enchantment,” was one of these kids.

“I can remember being nine and being at someone’s house, and she had a computer in her bedroom and she had AOL,” said Stein. “And I was like ‘What is that?’ I can remember it so vividly — what the layout of the room was and looking at the screen — because it was so exciting! So I was on AOL by the time I was 13, and that’s where I met David, in a message board for Andrew Lloyd Webber fans.”

David’s username was “ITWBaker,” which stood for “Into The Woods Baker.”

Leigh’s username was “DramaGoil.”

“Our conversations were about ‘Starlight Express,’ ‘Cats’ — ‘Starlight Express’ was his favorite,” she said. “I could never get into ‘Starlight Express’ as much as he got into it.”

At first, they were in chat rooms together, and then they exchanged private emails and eventually phone numbers.

“My Dad was really worried because David’s voice had changed,” she said. “So he had a baritone voice. I remember this being a huge issue. I guess he didn’t sound like a child on the phone to my father.”

David didn’t sound like a 13-year-old, and at times Leigh didn’t feel like a 13-year-old, carefree and light. She started noticing a darkness in her thoughts. And she shared with David what she couldn’t share with anyone she knew in her “real” life.

The two friends would never meet in person, but David ultimately saved Leigh’s life. Read her 2016 Salon essay about that experience.

After they lost touch with one another, Leigh, at 22, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico with her boyfriend. When the relationship eventually turned abusive, she struggled in isolation, miles from her home and friends on the east coast.

Then one day, at the restaurant where she worked, Leigh met a family who coincidentally knew her old friend David. “To hear David’s name, and remember this person that had really tried to help me at a pivotal moment in my life, it was like a little bit of grace,” she said. “I thought that I had a person who I lived with, who I loved, who saw me for who I was, but in fact it was this boy on the internet who I’d never met, who truly saw me, who truly wanted to help me.”

To hear Leigh and David’s story and what happens when they reconnect after 20 years, listen to “Memory Motel,” Episode 12, “A Little Bit of Grace.”

Trump the flamethrower

(Credit: AP/Shutterstock/Salon)

“I’ve just heard that my family home near Carpenteria is literally in flames at this moment,” a friend told me recently. She was particularly worried, she said, because “my mom has MS. She and my dad got the call to evacuate after midnight last night. They were able to grab a few photos, my sister’s childhood teddy bear, and the dog. That’s it. That’s all that’s left.”

My friend’s parents are among the thousands of victims of the 240,000-acre Thomas fire, one of California’s spate of late-season wildfires. Stoked by 80-mile-an-hour Santa Ana winds, plenty of dry fuel, and 8% humidity, such fires are devouring huge swaths of southern California from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. Months of dry weather and unseasonably warm temperatures have turned the southern part of the state into a tinderbox.

Once again the country watches in horror as firefighters struggle to contain blazes of historic voracity — as we watched only a couple of months ago when at least 250 wildfires spread across the counties north of San Francisco. Even after long-awaited rains brought by an El Niño winter earlier in 2017, years of drought have left my state ready to explode in flames on an increasingly warming planet. All it takes is a spark.

Sort of like the whole world in the age of Donald Trump.

Torching Jerusalem

The crazy comes so fast and furious these days, it’s easy to forget some of the smaller brushfires — like the one President Trump lit at the end of November when he retweeted three false and “inflammatory” videos about Muslims that he found on the Twitter feed of the leader of a British ultra-nationalist group.

The president’s next move in the international arena — his “recognition” of Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel — hasn’t yet slipped from memory, in part because of the outrage it evoked around the world. As Moustafa Bayoumi, acclaimed author of How Does It Feel to be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, wrote in the Guardian, “The entire Middle East, from Palestine to Yemen, appears set to burst into flames after this week.” Not surprisingly, his prediction has already begun to come true with demonstrations in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon, where U.S. flags and posters of President Trump were set alight. We’ve also seen the first rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and the predictable reprisal Israeli air attacks.

Trump’s Jerusalem announcement comes as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, pursues his so-called Middle East peace initiative. Kushner’s new BFF is Mohammed bin Salman, the heir apparent to the Saudi throne. We don’t know just what the two of them talked about during a late night tête-à-tête as October ended, but it probably involved Salman’s plans to jail hundreds of prominent Saudis, including 11 fellow princes. They undoubtedly also discussed a new, incendiary Israeli-Palestinian “peace plan” that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are reportedly quietly circulating.

Under this proposal, according to the New York Times,

The Palestinians would get a state of their own but only noncontiguous parts of the West Bank and only limited sovereignty over their own territory. The vast majority of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which most of the world considers illegal, would remain. The Palestinians would not be given East Jerusalem as their capital and there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

If this is the “deal of the century” that President Trump plans to roll out, then it’s no surprise that he’d prepare the way by announcing his plans to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

That move reveals a lot about Trump’s much vaunted deal-making skills when it comes to the international arena.  Here he has made a major concession to Israel without receiving a thing in return, except words of praise from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and from evangelicals in this country). Given that Israel came into possession of the eastern half of Jerusalem through military conquest in 1967, a method of acquiring territory that international law views as illegal, it was quite a concession. The ultimate status of Jersalem is supposed to be a subject for the final stage of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, not a gift to one side before the talks even begin.

Behind this concession, as far as can be seen, lies no strategic intent of any sort, not in the Middle East at least. In fact, President Trump was perfectly clear about just why he was making the announcement: to distinguish himself from his predecessors. (That is, to make himself feel good.) “While previous presidents have made [moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem] a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”

“Some say,” he added, that his predecessors failed because “they lacked courage.” In point of fact, Trump did not exactly “deliver” either. Just like his predecessors, he promptly signed a semi-annual waiver that once again delayed the actual embassy move for six months.

Pyromania?

Rather than serving a larger Middle East strategy, Trump’s Jerusalem announcement served mainly his own ego. It gave him the usual warm bath of adulation from his base and another burst of the pleasure he derives from seeing his name in the headlines.

In his daily behavior, in fact, Trump acts less like a shrewd dealmaker than a child with pyromania, one who relieves anxiety and draws attention by starting fires. How else to explain his tendency every time there’s a lull in the coverage of him, to post something incendiary on Twitter? Each time, just imagine him striking another match, lighting another fuse, and then sitting back to watch the pyrotechnics.

Here is the grim reality of this American moment: whoever has access to the president also has a good shot at pointing this human flamethrower wherever he or she chooses, whether at “Little Rocket Man” in North Korea or Doug Jones in Alabama (although that flame turned out to be, as the British say, a damp squib).

The Middle East has hardly been the only part of the world our president has taken visible pleasure in threatening to send up in flames. Consider the situation on the Korean peninsula, which remains the greatest danger the world faces today. Who could forget the way he stoked the already glowing embers of the Korean crisis in August by threatening to rain “fire and fury like the world has never seen” — an obvious nuclear reference — on North Korea? And ever since it’s only gotten worse.  In recent weeks, for instance, not only Trump but his coterie have continued to ramp up the rhetoric against that country. Earlier this month, for instance, National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster renewed the threat of military action, saying ominously, “There are ways to address this problem short of armed conflict, but it is a race because [North Korean leader Kim Jong-un]’s getting closer and closer [to having a nuclear capacity to hit the United States], and there’s not much time left.”

In September, Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, reinforced this message in an interview with CNN. “If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behavior, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed.”

Indeed, Vipin Narang, a nuclear nonproliferation specialist at MIT, thinks the Trump administration may already have accepted the inevitability of such a war and the near-guarantee that South Korea and Japan will be devastated as well — as long as it comes before North Korea can effectively launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. mainland. “There are a lot of people who argue that there’s still a window to stop North Korea from getting an ICBM with a nuclear warhead to use against the United States,” he commented to the Washington Post. “They’re telling themselves that if they strike now, worst-case scenario: only Japan and South Korea will eat a nuclear weapon.”

You don’t exactly have to be an admirer of Kim Jong-un and his sad outcast regime to imagine why he might be reluctant to relinquish his nuclear arsenal. North Korea remains the designated U.S. enemy in a war that, almost seven decades later, has never officially ended. It’s situated on a peninsula where the most powerful nation in the world holds military exercises twice a year. And Kim has had ample opportunity to observe how Washington has treated other leaders (Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi) who gave up their nuclear programs. Certainly, threats of fire and fury are not going to make him surrender his arsenal, but they may still make Donald Trump feel like a real commander-in-chief.

Home Fires Burning

It’s not only in the international arena that Trump’s been burning things up. He’s failed — for now — to destroy the Affordable Care Act (though not for lack of striking matches), but the GOP has successfully aimed the Trump flamethrower at any vestiges of progressive taxation at the federal level. And now that the House and Senate are close to reconciling their versions of tax legislation, the Republicans have made it clear just why they’re so delighted to pass a bill that will increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion dollars. It gives them a “reason” to put to flames what still remains of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society of the 1960s.

House Speaker Paul Ryan gave a vivid sense of where that presidential flamethrower could be aimed soon when he told radio host Ross Kaminsky, “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.” The goal? Cutting appropriations for Medicare and Medicaid, programs shepherded through Congress in the mid-1960s by Lyndon Johnson. These achievements helped realize his vision of the United States as a Great Society, one that provides for the basic needs of all its citizens.

Meanwhile, when it comes to setting the American social environment on fire, President Trump has already announced his post-tax-bill target du jour: welfare “reform.”

Welfare reform? Not a subject he even mentioned on the campaign trail in 2016, but different people are aiming that flamethrower now. The Hillreportsthe scene as Trump talked to a group of lawmakers in the Capitol basement:

Ticking through a number of upcoming legislative priorities, Trump briefly mentioned welfare reform, sources in the room said.

‘We need to do that. I want to do that,’ Trump told rank-and-file lawmakers in a conference room in the basement of the Capitol. The welfare line got a big applause, with one lawmaker describing it as an ‘off-the-charts’ reception.

We know that getting “big applause” guarantees that a Trump line will also get repeated.

At a time when “entitlement” has become a dirty word, we’d do well to remember that not so long ago it wasn’t crazy to think that the government existed to help people do collectively what they couldn’t do as individuals. As a friend said to me recently, taxes are a more organized way of crowd-funding human needs.

Who even remembers that ancient time when candidate Trump, not yet an arsonist on the home front, promised to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? President Trump is a different matter.

It seems likely, however, that at least for now the Republicans won’t push him on Social Security because, as Paul Ryan told the Washington Post’s “Wonkblog,” the Republicans don’t have enough votes to overcome a Senate filibuster and the program is too popular back home for a super-majority of Republicans to go after it.

Why can they pass a tax “reform” bill with only a simple majority, but not Social Security cuts? The tax bill is being rushed through Congress using the “reconciliation” process by which differences in the Senate and House versions are smoothed over to produce a single bill.  This only requires a simple majority to pass in each house. The Senate’s “Byrd Rule,” adopted in 1974, prohibits the use of the reconciliation process to make changes to Social Security. Thank you, former West Virginia senator Robert Byrd!

In addition to the programs that made up Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” he also signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is already hard at work setting fire to the latter, as the president continues to demand evidence for his absurd claim that he won the popular vote in the 2016 election. He must be having an effect. At least half of all Republicans now seem to believethat he indeed did win that vote.

And before we leave the subject, just a couple of final notes on literal fires in the Trump era. His Department of Transportation has been quietly at work making those more likely, too. In a move supported by fans of train fires everywhere, that department has quietly reversed an Obama-era rule requiring that trains carrying crude oil deploy, as Reuters reports, “an advanced braking system designed to prevent fiery derailments… The requirement to install so-called electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes was included in a package of safety reforms unveiled by the Obama administration in 2015 in response to a series of deadly derailments that grew out of the U.S. shale boom.”

Government data shows there have been 17 such derailments of trains carrying crude oil or ethanol in the U.S. since 2006.

Then there’s the fire that has probably destroyed my friend’s house in southern California even as I wrote this. Donald Trump can hardly be blamed for that one. The climate in this part of the world has already grown hotter and drier.  We can certainly blame him, however, for turning up the heat on planet Earth by announcing plans to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, overseeing the slashing of tax incentives for alternative energy (amid a bonanza of favors for the fossil fuel industry), and working to assert an oil, gas, and coal version of American “energy dominance” globally.  From the world’s leading economic power, there may be no larger “match” on the planet.

A Flame of Hope

What hope is there of quenching the Trumpian fires?

There is the fact that much of the world is standing up to him. At this month’s climate accord follow-up meeting in Paris, billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson announced “a dozen international projects emerging from the summit that will inject money into efforts to curb climate change.” The head of the World Bank insisted that the institution would stop funding fossil fuel programs within the next two years. Former American officials spoke up, too, as U.S. News & World Reportobserved:

One by one, officials including former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, billionaire [and former New York City mayor] Michael Bloomberg, and former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry insisted the world will shift to cleaner fuels and reduce emissions regardless of whether the Trump administration pitches in.

I take comfort, too, in the extraordinary achievements of international civil society. Consider, for example, the work of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), this year’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. This summer, as a result of a campaign it led, two-thirds of the world’s nations — 122 of them — signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which outlaws the use, production, and possession of nuclear arms. That treaty — and the Nobel that rewarded its organizers — didn’t get a lot of coverage in the United States, perhaps because, predictably, we didn’t sign it.

In fact, none of the existing nuclear powers signed it, but the treaty remains significant nonetheless. We should not underestimate the moral power of international agreements like this one. Few of us remember the 1928 Kellogg-Briand pact, which outlawed recourse to war for the resolution of international disputes. Nevertheless, that treaty formed the basis for the conviction of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg for their crimes against peace. By implication, the Kellogg-Briand treaty also legalized a whole set of non-military actions nations can now take, including the use of economic sanctions against countries that violate international norms or laws.

ICAN leaders Beatrice Fihn and Setsuko Thurlow (herself a Hiroshima survivor) believe that, over time, the treaty will change how the world thinks about nuclear weapons, transforming them from a necessary evil to an unthinkable one, and so will ultimately lead to their elimination. As Fihn toldthe BBC’s Stephen Sackur, “If you’re uncomfortable with nuclear weapons under Donald Trump, you’re probably uncomfortable with nuclear weapons” in general. In other words, the idea of Trump’s tiny fingers on the nuclear trigger is enough to start a person wondering whether anybody’s fingers should be on that trigger.

The world’s reaction in Paris and ICAN’s passionate, rational belief in the moral power of international law are like a cool drink of water on a very hot day.

Study reveals racial inequality in Mexico, disproving its “race-blind” rhetoric

(Credit: AP)

For centuries, the United States has been engaged in a thorny, stop-and-go conversation about race and inequality in American society. And from Black Lives Matter demonstrations to NFL players protesting police violence, public discussions on racism continue in full force today.

That’s not the case in Mexico. Mexicans have divergent ancestry, including Spanish, African, indigenous and German. And while skin color in Mexico ranges from white to black, most people — 53 percent — identify as mestizo, or mixed race.

In Mexico, inequality, though rampant, has long been viewed as a problem related to ethnicity or socioeconomic status, not race.

Our new report suggests that assumption is wrong. Published in November, “Is Mexico a Post-Racial Country?” reveals that in Mexico darker skin is strongly associated with decreased wealth and less schooling. Indeed, race is the single most important determinant of a Mexican citizen’s economic and educational attainment, our results show.

Unequal in every way

The study, published last month by the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University, or LAPOP, drew on data from the university’s Americas Barometer, a poll of 34 nations across North, Central and South America, as well the Caribbean.

To capture information on race, which is often not reflected in Latin American census data, the pollsters themselves categorized respondents’ face skin tone on a standardized 11-point scale that ranges from darkest to lightest.

We were fascinated to see that the Mexico data clearly showed people with white skin completing more years of schooling than those with browner skin — 10 years versus 6.5. That’s a stunning 45 percent gap in educational achievement between the darkest- and lightest-skinned Mexicans.

Darker-skinned Mexicans surveyed had also completed fewer years of schooling than the survey’s average nationwide finding of nine years.

Wealth, we found, similarly correlates to skin color. The average Mexican household income in the LAPOP study was about US$193 a month. Citizens with lighter skin reported bringing in more than that — on average, $220 a month. Darker-skinned citizens, on the other hand, earned just $137 — 41.5 percent less than their white compatriots.

Overall, populations identified as having the lightest skin fall into the highest wealth brackets in Mexico, while those with the darkest skin are concentrated at the bottom. These dynamics, other studies have found, seem to persist across generations.

Similar disparities emerged when we examined other measures of economic well-being, such as material possessions — like refrigerators and telephones — and basic amenities.

For example, only 2.5 percent of white Mexicans surveyed by Vanderbilt’s pollsters don’t have running water, while upwards of 11 percent of dark-skinned citizens said they lack this basic necessity. Likewise, just 7.5 percent of white Mexicans reported lacking an in-home bathroom, versus 20 percent of dark-skinned Mexicans.

Not a post-racial nation

Our findings complicate the results of numerous prior studies showing that Mexicans do not perceive skin color as a meaningful source of prejudice in their lives.

According to a 2010 national survey on discrimination, Mexicans believe that age, gender and social class have a greater impact on their daily lives than race.

This perception likely relates to the country’s tradition of celebrating its raza mestiza, or multiracial heritage. Just last September, President Enrique Peña Nieto declared el mestizaje — racial mixing — as “the future of humanity.”

The data paints a much less rosy picture. Race, it turns out, has a greater impact on a Mexican’s human development and capital accumulation than any other demographic variable. Our results show that Mexico’s “skin-color gap” is two times the achievement gap documented between northern and southern Mexicans, which is an inequality more often cited in Mexico.

It is also five times greater than the urban-rural divide reported in the poll. We even found that skin color has a significantly greater impact on wealth and education than does ethnicity — that is, indigenous versus white or mixed-race Mexican.

Not an isolated case

Our results add to a growing body of academic research highlighting a reality the government doesn’t want to admit: Racism exists in Mexico.

Racial and ethnic biases have so far been documented in Mexico’s allocation of public resources, politics and, notably, the labor market.

A recent report from the National Institute of Statistics, for example, finds that white people comprise 27 percent of all white-collar workers and just 5 percent of the agricultural sector.

Occasionally, some high-profile incident will bring Mexico’s racism to light. For example, there was outcry in 2013 when Aeromexico, Mexico’s most important airline, issued a commercial casting call saying that “nadie moreno” — no dark-skinned people — need to audition.

More often, though, racism is ignored or explained away. Many Mexicans, for example, argue that dark-skinned Mexicans tend to belong to ethnic, cultural and linguistic minorities and live in historically disadvantaged areas, like the rural south and the heavily indigenous high mountains.

Since this is the case, they reason, data that appears to show race-based inequality in Mexico is actually capturing class, ethnic and regional inequalities.

Although the premise of this argument holds true, the conclusion is incorrect. Our study accounted for gender, age, region of residence and ethnic origin — and still skin color emerged as a powerful determinant of wealth and education levels.

Worst in show

A second critique of racism in Mexico is that yes, it exists, but it is not as bad as in other places in the region, like Brazil or the United States.

Our study runs contrary to that argument. Among nations surveyed in the Americas Barometer, Mexico ranks fourth in terms of the negative impact of skin-tone on an individual’s wealth, behind Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador.

On the relationship between race and lower levels of education, Mexico moves up one spot to trail only Ecuador and Trinidad and Tobago. Indeed, the sole place in the Americas where people of color seem to fare worse overall than in Mexico is Ecuador, where Americas Barometer data shows that having dark skin reduces educational achievement by one year more than it does in Mexico.

This is in stark contrast to countries like Chile and Costa Rica, where race appears to have only a minor impact on wealth and education.

Our analysis unambiguously disprove the notion that Mexico is somehow so mixed race — so mestizo — as to be race-blind. Quite to the contrary: Racism is a severe social challenge that people in society and government would do well to take more seriously.

Going forward, our research will focus on examining the origins of this problem, from employer discrimination to access to health care. That should help lawmakers design policies to reduce inequalities based on skin color.

Daniel Zizumbo-Colunga, Assistant Professor of Drug Policy, Centro de Investigación y Docencia (CIDE) and Research Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University

Industrial polluters are silencing activists with new weapon

(Credit: Getty/Robyn Beck)

In this insane post-truth world of ours, it’s become increasingly hard to separate fact from fiction. As a result, we’ve got presidents who comfortably refute scientific thought, and legitimate media sources categorized as “fake news.” The problem boils down to profit, and the old clichéd formula “money equals power.” Need another example? Look no further than the current legal war being waged against environmental activists.

The standoff over the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline made national headlines earlier this year. In large part, this was thanks to grassroots organizations working together with larger environmental advocacy groups. Because of these efforts, millions of people were made aware of the potential hazards of this project, which helped bring construction of the pipeline to a temporary standstill. In other words, these actions had an impact. The protests proved so effective in fact, oil companies have started to pursue their own strategy for countering this sort of activism: litigation.

This past August, Energy Transfer Partners, the company responsible for the Dakota pipeline, filed a suit against Greenpeace, Banktrack and Earth First!. Under the auspices of RICO—a federal conspiracy law geared toward clamping down on racketeering—the suit alleges that these groups were involved in an illegal “enterprise” aimed at furthering their interests at the expense of the company. Adding further insult to injury, the suit also claims that Greenpeace and the others violated the terms of the Patriot Act by supporting acts of eco-terrorism and drug trafficking.

Michael Gerrard, a faculty director of climate change law at Columbia University, recently told InsideClimate News reporter Nicholas Kusnetz that “the Energy Transfer Partners lawsuit against Greenpeace is perhaps the most aggressive SLAPP-type suit” he had ever seen. Referring here to a legal acronym for lawsuits that attempt to silence political advocacy (“strategic lawsuit against public participation”), Gerrard added that the “the paper practically bursts into flames in your hands.”

What is even more concerning about Gerrard’s assessment is that this isn’t the first RICO suit recently filed against Greenpeace. Last May it happened courtesy of Resolute Forest Products, a Canadian logging and paper company. Issued against Greenpeace and another group named Stand, the lawsuit alleged that these organizations—which have opposed Resolute’s logging activities in Canada’s boreal forest for years—were conspiring to extort the company’s customers and defraud its donors.

“Maximizing donations, not saving the environment, is Greenpeace’s true objective,” read the official complaint issued by the same legal team who represent the current litigator-in-chief, Donald Trump. The complaint goes on to note that the environmental awareness campaigns aimed at groups such as Resolute are based on “sensational misinformation untethered to facts or science” with the sole intention of inducing emotion and prompting donations to the NGO. Using this reasoning, the suit claims that the group’s campaign emails and tweets constitute wire fraud.

As for “sensational misinformation,” in 2012 Greenpeace Canada released a report claiming that the logging company was operating in a protected section of the boreal forest. This claim turned out to be false and Greenpeace issued an apology and retracted its material on the matter.

Does this instance actually constitute a damning claim of racketeering? As Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law explained to Kusnetz, that may not even matter. “As an NGO, that is a deeply chilling argument,” said Muffett, whose organization together with eight other groups filed a counter civil action in support of dismissing Resolute’s case.

For Muffett, the fact that RICO has been used more than once against Greenpeace means a dangerous precedent has been set. “This was precisely what we were concerned we would see,” she added, referring to the Dakota lawsuit that lumps dozens more organizations in with Greenpeace. By referring to anyone involved in the protests as co-conspirators, Muffett explained, this suit could serve as a major deterrent for similar actions in the future. “Those groups will be looking at this and trying to decide on how to respond and what it means for their campaigns going forward,” she said, “not only on Dakota Access but other campaigns as well. And that is, in all likelihood, a core strategy of a case like this.”

Beyond Greenpeace, a number of other lawsuits have been filed in the past year against vocal critics. Both the New York Times and John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight,” for instance, got slammed with libel claims by Murray Energy Corp. after reporting on the Ohio-based coal company’s business practices. Another lawsuit was filed in August by Pennsylvania’s Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. against a resident who accused the company of polluting residential water wells.

Joshua Galperin, head of Yale law school’s environmental protection clinic, explained to Kusnetz the highly political nature of this disturbing trend. “They can change the tenor of the debate,” Galperin said, referring specifically to the lawsuits against Greenpeace that equate activism with racketeering. Pointing to the stance of the current administration, Galperin added, “now wouldn’t be a bad time to try these aggressive tactics, unfortunately.”

Another damaging aspect of these lawsuits is the effect they could potentially have on the protest strategies used by groups such as Greenpeace. Central to the success of Greenpeace has been their “high-profile antics” writes Kusnetz, who lists as examples the time the group “sent protesters dressed as chickens to McDonald’s franchises in London to protest logging in the Amazon, deftly mimicked a Dove soap public service announcement in Canada to link its parent company, Unilever, to deforestation in Indonesia, and dropped banners across the front of Procter & Gamble’s corporate headquarters for its sourcing of palm oil.”

The Energy Transfer Partners lawsuit explicitly refers to these tactics as the “Greenpeace Model.” By creating a legal grounding for how this model equates to a form of racketeering, these suits could greatly undermine the efficacy of this strategy in the future.

“I don’t think it’s really about the money,” Tom Wetterer, Greenpeace’s general counsel, told Kusnetz. “I think they have to realize that their claims are not strong, that it’s the process that they’re really focused on, regardless of the end. It’s really a means to drag us through the legal process.”

What does it means to “grow” — scientifically speaking?

(Credit: Getty/jaredkay)

It seems intuitive: things are born, and then they grow. It’s a marker of passing from infancy to maturity, through all the steps in between. But dig a tad deeper, and it turns out that the way growth works is complex and interesting: there is a multitude of mechanisms that regulate the whens, hows, and to-what-extents of growth.

And while there’s still a lot to learn, we are making strides in our understanding by looking in the unlikeliest of places – insects.

Questions about growth regulation come in two flavors: the absolute size or the relative size of a structure. I find myself more interested in how size differences emerge – the relative size question – and I am not the first.

As early as the 17th century, Galileo correctly observed that humans do not grow to their adult size through uniform expansion. Rather, we achieve our final size and form through relative or differential growth: during postnatal development, some parts, like our limbs, grow faster than others, like our heads.

About 200 years later, D’Arcy Thompson and Julian Huxley joined and advanced the discussion. Thompson remarked on the seeming inevitability of relative growth, a phenomenon so complex that uniformity would be an “unlikely and an unusual circumstance.” But, he added, “rates vary, proportions change, and the whole configuration alters accordingly.”

In 1936, Huxley coined the term “allometry” in a published study of giant fiddler crab claws, a term which has since been used to describe the mathematical relationship between the sizes of deer antlers and their bodies, and the sizes of our hearts or brains and our own bodies. Researches have since followed up on this work, but the mechanisms driving these differential growth patterns have remained mostly unclear.

What spurs relative growth?

I decided, in grand research tradition, to go back to basics to learn more about how growing works. After all, by studying simple organisms, scientists before me had succeeded in drawing out sophisticated insights into how it all works.

Fruit flies, for example, have two sets of flight appendages: the usual wings, and a smaller pair of club-like appendages, known as halteres, that are used for balance and steering the fly into your salad vinegar. While wings are comprised of about 50,000 cells, halteres only have about 10,000. This discrepancy in cell number – and hence, in size – can be explained by differences in gene expression between the two structures. This example highlights one potential mechanism for size control: pre-patterning – the idea that the roadmap for the structure’s development is genetically encoded in the cells themselves.

Butterflies have different wing sizes for seemingly different reasons. These wings also develop from specialized patches of cells in the butterfly larva, and they do so once the larva has stopped feeding. Biologists H. Frederik Niihout of Duke and Douglas Emlen, now at the University of Montana, elegantly showed in a 1998 paper that size differences between the two sets of growing wing appendages can be accounted for by competition for resources that the larva acquired before it had stopped feeding.

This was best exemplified when researchers removed the cells that give rise to the hind wings: in such butterflies, the authors noted a compensatory increase in the size of the forewings, presumably due to greater availability of resources.

Fruit fly wonders

I’ve been studying fruit fly egg chambers to understand even more about how different parts of a structure grow at different rates and to different sizes. The egg chamber is a small, multicellular structure that holds a single egg in the female fruit fly, and nearly every aspect of this structure is a marvel.

Well-fed and reared female flies are incredibly prolific at egg production, laying anywhere from 50 to 150 egg chambers a day during most of their adult life. A human woman would have to give birth to a full-term child every three hours if she is to reproduce at an equivalent rate by weight. Egg chambers grow in “assembly lines” that order them temporally from youngest to oldest, and each egg chamber can be extracted, fluorescently tagged, and visualized.

Furthermore, the 16 cells that make up the egg chamber arise from a single founder cell that undergoes four synchronous and incomplete divisions. These divisions leave the cells connected through intercellular bridges, called ring canals, that allow for transport and exchange among cells in the cluster, and allow us to uniquely identify each cell. This is largely because one cell is specified as the egg, while the other 15 are designated nurse cells. True to their name, these nurse the egg by providing it with the RNAs, proteins, and organelles required for its development.

In short, the egg chamber is the stuff of dreams in the world of simple multicellular systems: in addition to its simple and stereotypic structure, we can study most of these processes with single-cell resolution, while witnessing collective behaviors that emerge from the interactions of its multiple cells.

It is also an interesting structure. Although the egg chamber grows by four orders of magnitude in three days, it does so non-uniformly: the 16 cells are not of the same size at any point throughout the egg chamber’s development. But what was the pattern of cell sizes? How did it emerge? My PhD advisor, Princeton chemical and biological engineer Stanislav Shvartsman, was asking these questions when I grew curious, too.

Egg bias

So over a few months in my fifth year as a graduate student, we collected and fluorescently labeled a few dozen egg chambers at various stages of development. Using three-dimensional images, we then identified each cell in each egg chamber and measured its size. This allowed us to quantify the spatial pattern of cell sizes that emerges within the cluster as it grew.

Our data showed that distance to the egg, defined as the number of ring canals separating each cell from it, is the primary factor affecting cell size. Four cells are one edge away, six are two edges away, four are three edges away, and one cell is one edge away. Four groups of nurse cell sizes thus emerge.

We hypothesized that this pattern relied on the unequal portioning of material within the cluster and proposed a mathematical model based on the idea that transport of material is biased toward the egg. This model, despite its simplicity, correctly predicted the experimentally observed pattern of cell sizes and the emergence of four groups of nurse cell sizes.

Perhaps most interestingly, the model revealed the allometric growth of cells, a feature usually associated with much larger systems. That is, we could mathematically relate the sizes of pairs of cells at different distances from the egg to each other through a power law relation – one not unlike that proposed by Huxley to relate the sizes of fiddler crab claws to the sizes of their bodies.

Perhaps the egg chamber can’t tell us why our head and limb proportions are what they are, or why we stop growing. But this basic science brings us one step closer to uncovering mechanisms of differential growth that are at play at various times and locations, separately and in coordination, throughout our development.

With a phenomenon so complex, scientists are constantly on the lookout for simple systems that can be visualized, that can be modeled, and while small, can be put to use to answer big questions. The fruit fly is one such animal, and the egg chamber is clearly one such system.

The 10* best TV episodes of 2017

(Credit: HBO)

Culling a list of superior TV series is a ponderous task in any year, increasingly so in more recent ones. Coming up with a list of best TV episodes is an altogether different challenge. Hundreds of TV series premiered in 2017, which puts the new episode count in the thousands.

Luckily, the year’s superior installments stand out in the memory. The tough part is choosing even 20, let alone 10. I couldn’t do it, which is why this list includes one additional choice. There could have been many more; for example, the “Juneteenth” episode of ABC’s “black-ish” bounced on and off of this list, as did individual episodes of FX’s “Legion,” Netflix’s “The Crown,” “GLOW” and “She’s Gotta Have It.” Additional episodes of “BoJack Horseman” and “The Leftovers” that are equal to the ones called out here could be here, too. And I’m sure there are outstanding episodes of “Twin Peaks: The Return” and “Halt and Catch Fire” that could have made this list if I had watched those shows.

But this is a list of 10 — no, 11 — episodes of TV that stand out from the mass, whether for their narrative execution, the performance of their casts, extraordinary cinematic artistry or all of the above. Feel free to debate, add your own bests or argue with the selections. After all, isn’t that what these lists are for?

11. “Game of Thrones,” “The Spoils of War.” The seventh season of the fantasy blockbuster may be its weakest overall, but this episode went to great lengths to remind us of why we keep watching despite its flaws. First, it manifested a pulse-quickening “what if” duel between two of the series’ best warriors, Arya and Brienne of Tarth.

In the main event, Daenerys Targaryen unleashed her might on the Lannister forces following their raid on Highgarden, backing up her Dothraki horde with the incendiary wrath of her dragon. The resulting confrontation was visually thrilling and horrifying in one swoop, as we finally faced the possibility that the various characters we’ve grown to like may actually kill one another. Underscoring its excellence, the behind-the-scenes examination of the effect and stunt planning that went into making “Spoils” is almost as enthralling as the episode itself.

10. “Insecure,” “Hella Perspective.” The second season of Issa Rae’s half-hour show sparkles in every respect, but its finale, which plays with three perspectives on the show’s central (and currently broken) romantic relationship, hit a new height for the series. In it, we see a period of time from the perspective of Issa, her ex-boyfriend Lawrence and Issa’s best friend Molly, who is currently evaluating her career and romantic paths. A harmony of warm and realistic affection, regret and the discombobulating effects of change, “Hella Perspective” refuses to end neatly — just like real life.

9. “Dear White People,” “Chapter V.” In expanding his film into a full season of television, series creator Justin Simien grants a complexity and intimacy to his examination of identity politics and ignorance on a college campus. But in this episode, when a campus party devolves into a violent confrontation with punches thrown and a police call, the consequences of assumption and inequity appear on the horrified expression on the face of Reggie (Marque Richardson), whose suddenly finds himself starring down the barrel of a security officer’s firearm. Director Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) carefully draws out that moment to slug home the impact of its terror, an overuse of force that reduces the college student to shuddering hysterics in its aftermath.

8. “BoJack Horseman,” “Ruthie.” Surgical examinations of the main character’s foibles dig more deeply into his pain with each season, yielding incredible artistic departures and consistently allowing “BoJack” to top itself. The latest season eschewed aesthetic adventure in large part, choosing instead to play with the idea of perception and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our families. This concept took BoJack to interesting and redemptive places. This episode, meanwhile, follows his manager and ex-girlfriend Princess Carolyn through a truly terrible day that dashes her dreams over and over again, poking holes in the image she presents to the world as an innovative and indefatigable success. Charmingly, it’s presented through the eyes of an admiring descendant of hers, telling her story in a distant future. It’s only in the end that we discover how insistent Carolyn’s self-deception is, as well as how effective it is as a coping mechanism.



7. “Feud,” “And the Winner Is . . . ” The enmity between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis spiked in the 1963 Oscar race, in which Davis received a nomination for “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” while Crawford did not, leading an envious Crawford to sabotage her co-star’s chances. Jessica Lange’s vamps up Crawford with delectable relish in this episode, particularly in her elaborate wardrobe preparations for the event, in which she finagled herself a role as a presenter. A tracking shot following her before the moment of truth is simply stunning, as is a final shot that reveals how fleeting glamour can be, and how small and lonely she truly is.

6. “The Good Place,” “Michael’s Gambit.” Comedies fueled by game-changing twists are a rarely seen species. The one that culminated in “Michael’s Gambit” explained a number of the nagging questions of the story while turning the entire premise of the series on its head. And if a person couldn’t fully appreciate the series before, watching Ted Danson transform from kind-hearted caretaker into pure evil in the span of a smile may be all it took to win over any doubters.

5. “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Late.” Here’s a series in which any episode could qualify as one of its best. But this one is especially chilling, bouncing between the near past when the civilization we take for granted suddenly plunges into patriarchal totalitarianism, in which the woman we know as Offred finds out her rights have vanished by way of attempting to buy a cup of coffee. In her present, she’s celebrated when she believes she may be pregnant, then abused when it turns out she is not — by another woman, her mistress Serena Joy.

4. “Better Call Saul,” “Chicanery.” Charity may begin at home, but for the McGill brothers, that’s also where resentment is sown and grievances cultivated. And while this has brewed throughout the series, the confrontation between Chuck and Jimmy at a hearing before the bar association represents Jimmy responding to Chuck’s low blow with another more cunning and painful. As Jimmy’s associate and ally explains to the board, this is not merely a story about legal wrongdoing, “but about two brothers whose relationship, after years of strain, finally broke.” This is where we watch the snap.



3. “Better Things,” “Eulogy.” We don’t appreciate our loved ones enough. That’s the clear message of this episode where Sam Fox finally has it with her kids and their disregard for her efforts, and demands that they tell her what they’d say to her after she’s gone. The resulting act is hauntingly and achingly loving, just another example of this show’s ability to be moving and real.

2. “Master of None,” “Thanksgiving.” Bighearted. That’s the best way to describe this quiet, lovely episode for which Lena Waithe and Aziz Ansari won a writing Emmy. Thanksgiving can be the most emotionally rocky of holidays, after all. And this installment serves as a coming-out story for Waithe’s character, as well as an origin story of sorts for the lasting friendship between Waithe’s Denise and Ansari’s Dev, told over the course of a series of holiday dinners. Over the years Denise’s mother traverses denial, mild anger and finally, encouraged by her grandmother and aunt, acceptance of her daughter and who her daughter chooses to love.



1. “The Leftovers,” “The Most Powerful Man in the World (And His Identical Twin Brother).” Grief robs us of logic and leaves us to chase impossibilities. When all else is lost, Kevin Garvey chooses to die in order to set things right, because for him death is a portal into another existence where he is a hitman. And the president. And where everyone and everything he knows is something else altogether. “The Most Powerful Man in the World” is a different take on the series’ view of consciousness and reality, and it essentially offers Kevin and the other lost souls an out. Absurdly comedic, inspiring and shocking throughout, it ends on a note of reconciliation and acceptance. All the while it ensure that the viewer will keep believing in the dream that it built through the episode, one that flits through the entirety of a series that left us right on time and yet, too soon.

Cornel West failed to “ether” Ta-Nehisi Coates in the most pointless feud ever

Ta-Nehisi Coates; Cornel West (Credit: Getty/Anna Webber/AP/Richard Shotwell/Photo montage by Salon)

Terry pulled up on me at the car wash like, “Yooooooooooo!”

“Nas just ended Jay!” he said. “Did you hear ‘Ether?’”

“Impossible,” I replied. “You can’t end Jay-Z. God doesn’t work like that.”

Terry brushed a stack of untitled bootleg CDs off of his passenger seat, and I sat down and witnessed history. I say history, because nobody knew that Nas would deliver one of the most compelling dis tracks ever­­ — most thought the Queens emcee was done after Jay-Z’s “The Takeover.” But they were all wrong. Nas’ comeback was biblical. He was David putting the heaviest rock on the planet inside his sling and slapping Goliath — Jay-Z and the Rockafella empire — in a way that changed hip hop forever.

Nas didn’t finish Jay like Terry said, but he rebooted his career with that track, and left us with the term, “I ethered you!” Being ethered means that you were basically destroyed to the point of no return. Over the weekend Cornel West, who many call the most important living black intellectual, tried to ether Ta-Nehisi Coates, who many also call the most important living black intellectual, in The Guardian, claiming, “Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle.”

The disagreement between Coates and me is clear. Any analysis or vision of our world that omits the centrality of Wall Street power, US military policies, and the complex dynamics of class, gender, and sexuality in black America is too narrow and dangerously misleading. So, it is with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ worldview.

Coates rightly highlights the vicious legacy of white supremacy – past and present. He sees it everywhere and ever reminds us of its plundering effects. Unfortunately, he hardly keeps track of our fightback, and never connects this ugly legacy to the predatory capitalist practices, imperial policies (of war, occupation, detention, assassination) or the black elite’s refusal to confront poverty, patriarchy or transphobia.

Coates clapped back on Twitter, defending his work and highlighting the times he addressed the issues on which West accused him of being quiet. Today, the Associated Press reports Coates has deleted his account, writing, “I didn’t get in it for this.”

The public rift between Coates and West dates back to 2015, when Coates dropped his book “Between The World and Me,” which went on to win the National Book Award. The book lifted Coates’ status from popular writer to America’s number one go-to guy on issues dealing with race — Cornel West’s old job. Toni Morrison wrote of Coates in her blurb for the book:

I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me, like Coates’s journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory. This is required reading.

West disagreed with Morrison at the time, on Facebook: “Baldwin was a great writer of profound courage who spoke truth to power. Coates is a clever wordsmith with journalistic talent who avoids any critique of the Black president in power.” This launched the feud.

The internet split — some sided with Coates, others with West — just like we did with the feud between Nas and Jay. New Yorker writer and Columbia University journalism professor Jelani Cobb had the most aggressive response.

I’ll start by saying I’m not a disinterested party. @tanehisicoates is one of my oldest friends. We go all the way back to the days when we were both aspiring writers at Howard and his pops was a mentor-figure to the young activists and thinkers on campus.

— jelani cobb (@jelani9) December 18, 2017

2. And also, given what I do for a living and the necessity of intellectual engagement I should say up front that no one is above critique. It’s an indispensable part of growth. But I was frankly embarrassed by @CornelWest’s threadbare commentary.

— jelani cobb (@jelani9) December 18, 2017

3. It’s one thing to challenge and interrogate. Quite another to cloak petty rivalry as disinterested analysis. Neoliberal? What part of neoliberalism demands reparations @CornelWest — and places that demand squarely within the history of racist American public policy.

— jelani cobb (@jelani9) December 18, 2017

4. In your obsequious stanning for Bernie you must’ve overlooked the part where he dismissed the idea of black reparations. Moreover, those demands were kept alive in the black nationalist grassroots tradition — not the interracial left you so idolize.

— jelani cobb (@jelani9) December 18, 2017

5. Your disregard for capitalism was curiously absent when your boy Tavis (rest in peace) was helping Wells Fargo hustle ghetto loans. Or when he was tied to Walmart — an actual force for wage stagnation in poor communities.

— jelani cobb (@jelani9) December 18, 2017

The back and forth was fun to watch, but Coates didn’t get ethered by West. Actually Cobb kind of ethered West, and in the end, it seems Nas and Jay had a more relevant beef than this. Two intellectual giants threw a lot of bullets but nobody really got hit. Both Coates and West made extremely valid points, as they always do — smart people normally do make good points, but now what? How does this transfer into anything that will help the poor, disenfranchised and incarcerated people who were brought up by both of them? I’ll answer: It won’t.

The Nas and Jay feud was superior for a number of reasons. They were both respected immensely by the people they represented. Fans from all over can quote whole Jay and Nas albums, word for word. Most kids in poverty, and that aforementioned incarcerated population — especially the ones I service in east Baltimore — have never heard of West nor Coates. They don’t read The Atlantic or The Guardian. And hip hop is an art form based on entertainment, while Coates and West are documenting, reporting and dealing with real lives. Now Coates did write the brilliant “Case for Reparations,” a great piece of writing that should influence policy some way, and I don’t think West can boast a comparable feat in recent memory, though I haven’t read his complete body of work. But the most amazing ideas that can actually benefit African-Americans normally get swallowed by systemic racism, and both of these scholars have made careers out of explaining this.

The works of both Coates and West are solely based on the lives of real people who they write about or speak for — brilliantly — but to whom they never really have to be accountable. I don’t know what good works they do personally, or who they donate to,­­ so I’m not passing judgment. However, providing receipts or listing quantifiable goals that have been met would instantly silence this whole beef that shouldn’t even exist in the first place. This leads me to the most important point: There’s no leader of the black race.

I consider myself to be a student of both West and Coates, but they aren’t my leaders. I’ve never met them, would never answer to them, I can’t call them, their work is too complex for the reading level of many of the adults I work with, and they’ve not stepped foot in my community­­ — and I wouldn’t expect them to. There are leaders all over the country doing amazing work; the days of everybody praising one Dr. King type is over. There are so many black voices, and we all speak for ourselves. We all matter.

West has to understand that Coates is a writer­­, not a boots-on-the-ground activist, not a politician, not a professional protester nor an anarchist. He does research, he has big ideas that are obviously worth a lot of money, and he writes. He never claimed to be anything else, and his work is important. We need it. Just like we need West to articulate these complex issues dealing with race to Bill Maher and the Ivy League kids he teaches, who will eventually graduate and inherit the companies that oppress neighborhoods like mine.

Maybe West’s teachings will or have saved some black neighborhood from being gentrified because he gave some reformed-racist rich kid an A. The fact is that wars are fought on all fronts, and we need like minds to be represented everywhere — from the court rooms and on the ground to classrooms and in law enforcement.

There’s no need for West to try to ether Coates. He didn’t create the oppressive systems that hinder people of color; he just makes money talking about them. The only thing Coates may be guilty of is taking liberal money out of West’s pockets, and if that’s the real issue, Dr. West, write about that.

To the people who dream of being the leader of the black race or having a monopoly on the extremely complex black experience: Put your money where you mouth is it, create some jobs, and go and help some real people.