Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 335

“Tim & Eric” in the age of Trump: Trashing neoliberalism never felt so good

Eric Wareheim in "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" (Credit: Adult Swim)

Part of the fun of “rebooting” movies and TV shows for a new generation is the chance to see what a beloved series might look like under different cultural and political conditions. “Star Trek” is a prime example of this: the show has always had an optimistic, progressive bent to it, particularly in its depiction of a post-scarcity future. And yet, what people think a “progressive” future would look like has changed radically since the original series, filmed at the peak of the Cold War. You might say the same of “The X-Files,” “Star Wars,” “Twin Peaks” or even a show like “The Daily Show,” which has a completely different resonance under Trump than it did under Clinton, Bush or Obama.

When Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the duo behind the “alt-comedy” show “Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!,” announced that they were doing a “10th anniversary” tour, I was intrigued as to how the show might feel different in the Trump era. The absurdist sketch show ran on Adult Swim for five seasons, from 2007 to 2010, and was a unique blend of anti-humor, absurdism, parodies of local access television and riffs on business culture. The content veered from faux-infomercials to profiles of cringe-inducing sketch characters to fart jokes. In a New York Times interview, the duo called the show “the nightmare version of television.” Which was apt, I think.

The show was never explicitly capital-P political — meaning, there were few allusions to Bush or Obama, the eras during which it was produced, or current events. Yet the co-stars themselves are self-professed, outspoken progressives. Tim Heidecker, who has since started his own show, “Decker” — a stilted parody of special agent serial dramas like “24” — was a prominent Obama supporter in 2008 and now is a regular on the podcast “Chapo Trap House,” a socialist talk show akin to Howard Stern for the political left.

Heidecker’s political affinities are unsurprising in light of the more subtle political themes that run through “Tim and Eric Awesome Show.” The show’s sketches often feel like avant-garde satires of low-budget infomercials (and I mean LOW budget). One of my favorite “Tim and Eric” sketches is a faux-advertisement for a fictitious kid’s toy, the “I-Jammer.” The sketch is a pitch-perfect simulacrum of a children’s toy ad: rambunctious sound effects and quick cuts, with a narrator who affects a faint AAVE accent — a subtle jab at commercial exploitation of black culture. The running joke is that the toy’s purpose and function is completely obscure: the narrator asserts that it has two “dance tones,” and that you can “e-bump” and “jizzle jam,” but what the toy is is never explained; the cubical toy’s properties grow increasingly absurd, and at one point, it is revealed to have a faucet that shoots out an oatmeal-like substance that the excitable child actors smear on their faces and possibly become physiologically dependent on.

The brilliance of the “I-Jammer” sketch lies in how Tim and Eric take the signs and signifiers of late-capitalist consumption and stretch them until they are unidentifiable. It’s an outrageous satire of consumerist excess. Their show is the best satire of free market fundamentalist culture — or neoliberalism, if you will — on television in this decade. And throughout all five seasons, consumer culture remains one of the duo’s favorite targets.

Masculinity was the other. Tim and Eric have always had a penchant for hiring outsiders rather than “real” actors — amateur actors and everyday people were a staple of the show’s look. Often it looks like the actors have no idea what they’re doing; it’s unclear if this is by design or not. No one on their show looks like a celebrity, or someone who had a professional do their makeup — least of all the two co-stars. Strange faces are accentuated, non-normative bodies and looks. The two have an obsession with “dads”; many sketches revolve around fatherhood or feature stereotypically “masculine” settings — a bar, or a sports venue, for instance. But by the end of the sketch, the symbols of masculine identity are always subverted, revealed as ridiculous and pathetic. Even though the cast is largely male, its persistent skewering of the masculine might qualify it as feminist.

Last Wednesday, I headed down to San Francisco’s Warfield Theater to see the Tim and Eric 10th Anniversary live show. Ten years after the television show’s debut, Tim and Eric were hitting the road for a live show that blended projection, a live DJ, props and audience participation. How would Tim and Eric look under Trump? Surprisingly, and also unsurprisingly, the answer was: not that different.

In a typical sketch that arrived in the middle of the live show, Tim and Eric invited audience members on the stage to teach them the secrets of their new business school, and possibly grant them a diploma if they get the questions right — turning them into “business boys,” in their parlance. Yet in typical Tim and Eric style, the purpose and function of the business school is obscure, as is what the school teaches. The multiple choice questions given to the audience members were meaningless jargon.

In the Business Boys sketch, Heidecker played a comically sexist instructor who insisted the female contestant on stage couldn’t be a “business boy” by virtue of her gender. When she won the business boy contest and was awarded the diploma, Tim’s character was incensed. Just like real business school, Tim & Eric’s was characterized by casual sexism and obscure jargon just the same.

The main targets of Tim and Eric’s barbs — masculinity and consumerism — haven’t changed much in the past decade. Indeed, if anything, America’s problem with toxic masculinity has become even more pervasive under Trump and could use a good Tim & Eric — style deflating. As the duo prepares to release a season 6 “special,” it couldn’t come at a better moment.

As Baltimore’s murder rate soars, the city needs more than ceasefires

(Credit: Getty/carlballou)

Baltimore’s woes continue as the city’s murder rate soars. Baltimore’s 2017 per capita homicide rate is putting the city on track to become America’s murder capital.

In response to the year’s killings, Baltimore citizens declared a ceasefire last Friday. Residents from all over the city marched, grilled food, and put on music in a love-filled effort to stop the violence. I didn’t participate in any of the festivities because I just had a major leg surgery and I’m confined to a wheelchair. If I could walk I would’ve gone out and supported all of the local and grassroots activists in the city, as they do amazing work and I believe that all change comes from the bottom up. I mean no disrespect to current or past leadership, but look at the current results.

Over the years, I’ve watched mayor after mayor in Baltimore city jump at opportunities to connect with the most ineffective people. Fake reverends, pseudo-community leaders and pseudo-activists who have mastered the art of hobnobbing, networking, grant paperwork and everything except making a difference. The more popular you are the more resources you get, as everybody sits around scratching their heads, wondering why we top 300 hundred murders every year.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, our current leadership is definitely insane. As of press time, we have already reached our 213th homicide this year, according to the Baltimore Sun’s data. Two people were shot and killed during the ceasefire; as tragic as those two deaths are, I still wouldn’t call the ceasefire a failure.

But random ceasefires aren’t a complete solution. Here are some of the other things we have to consider:

Why are people killing each other?

Murder is an absolute; there’s no coming back from that. What can we do effectively address that pain? How can we change that culture? Locking kids up and not getting them the help they need is only allowing a culture of violence to thrive.

Where are the guns coming from?

I grew up in Baltimore, and it is easier to get a gun than a job in this town. They are everywhere, and that’s especially strange because I don’t know of any gun shops located in Baltimore city. I know we have some in Baltimore County, but I’m sure they aren’t selling to the guys committing the murders.

Follow the money

We know that money plays a role in this madness. If we put more time and energy into teaching skills and creating jobs, then we will save more lives. I truly believe that crime isn’t anyone’s first option. People want good jobs that pay livable wages.

There are many people in Baltimore doing this work. Many were involved in the ceasefire, and I hope their work doesn’t go unnoticed. Until then, please pray for Baltimore.

The 7-second rule: How not to be singled out on the street by a predator

It can take a seasoned criminal less than seven seconds to size you up. To decide whether you would be easy to rob, assault, kidnap, or whatever else is on his mind. Count to seven now: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

In the time from when you started counting to when you finished, a predator would have given you the once-over and decided whether he was moving forward to attack or whether he would be looking at the person walking behind you as his potential target. Yup, that’s how quick it is.

His two biggest fears are getting hurt and getting caught. This knowledge empowers you in case you are picked. Fight back and cause a scene. The predator wants to commit the perfect crime and, in those few seconds, he assesses whether he runs an increased risk of getting hurt or caught by choosing you.

In 1981, sociologists Betty Grayson and Morris I. Stein conducted a now-famous study that cast new light on how assailants picked would-be targets. The researchers set up a video camera on a busy New York sidewalk and taped people walking by for three days, between 10 a.m. and noon. None of the pedestrians knew that they were being videotaped.

The tape was later shown to inmates in a large East Coast prison who were incarcerated for violent offenses (such as armed robbery, rape, and murder) against people unknown to them. The inmates were instructed to rate the pedestrians on a scale of one to ten, from “a very easy rip-off” to “would avoid it, too big a situation. Too heavy.” This is the basis for the Seven-Second Rule.

Two striking facts stood out. First, there was a consensus about who would be easy to overpower and control. Every inmate chose exactly the same person. Second, and unexpectedly, the choices were not solely based on gender, race, or age, as you would expect. Older, petite females were not automatically singled out. What came as a surprise was that there were other criteria that influenced the decisions. The inmates read the pedestrians’ nonverbal signals and used those to make their choices.

When questioned about why they picked certain people, many of the participants couldn’t articulate what had triggered their preferences. It was a subconscious decision, based upon the traits a predator knows indicate a soft target. As the researchers probed further, they figured out that the inmates’ selections were based on a mixture of nonverbal cues. Basic movements made by the pedestrians, such as the length of their stride, how they moved their feet, the way they shifted their body weight, and whether their arms swung while walking, came into play and were interpreted for signs of vulnerability.

While it may seem surprising that something as basic as walking conveys information about your mental and physical state, it is worth noting that experienced medical professionals can also tell a lot about your overall health and well-being through your stride, gait, pace, and posture. The extensive study of body language in fields such as psychology, neurobiology, sociology, communications, and anthropology, in addition to the interest shown by law enforcement, the FBI, and the CIA, attests to the power of these gestures. In this case, however, it was the criminals who were using the knowledge to select would-be targets.

The speed and consensus of their assessments is instructive. You are evaluated in the blink of an eye for any sign that potentially marks you as uncertain or hesitant. While women and the elderly are frequently targeted for assault because of the perception that they are vulnerable, anyone who lives off an air of being weak can be pegged as easy to compromise.

On the flip side, since we know what movements and actions signal unease and uncertainty, you can take steps to protect yourself by changing your behavior, including modifying your walking patterns to project yourself as someone who would be difficult to subdue and who would likely cause a scene: in other words, a hard target. Even if you don’t feel particularly strong or purposeful, you can teach yourself to walk in a way that makes you appear as if you are. With practice, you can get better at projecting the external image until finally you may even internalize it.

New York Times issues correction on climate change draft report that Trump administration “suppressed”

(Credit: joreks via iStock)

A recent story from the New York Times claimed that President Donald Trump’s administration suppressed a vital draft report on climate change, and that the report was “leaked” to the publication by a scientist. Yet the report had actually been available online since January.

The Times wrote that the draft report had “not been made public” but ensured its readers that “a copy of it was obtained” by the publication. It’s not clear how the publication made the major mistake, or how it was realized, but climate scientist Bob Kopp pointed out on Twitter that it had been available on the Internet Archive since January.

According to The Hill, it was also available on the National Academies of Sciences Public Access Records Office website.

It's not clear what the news is in this story; posted draft is public review draft from Dec, and WH review hasn't yet missed Aug 18 deadline https://t.co/0sZxCCvoMn

— Bob Kopp (@bobkopp) August 8, 2017

The Times subsequently issued a correction, positioned at the bottom of the article, and it said:

An article on Tuesday about a sweeping federal climate change report referred incorrectly to the availability of the report. While it was not widely publicized, the report was uploaded by the nonprofit Internet Archive in January; it was not first made public by The New York Times.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders harshly criticized the newspaper for its claims. “It’s very disappointing, yet entirely predictable to learn The New York Times would write off a draft report without first verifying its contents with the White House or any of the federal agencies directly involved with climate and environmental policy,” Sanders said in a statement, according to The Hill. “As others have pointed out — and The New York Times should have noticed — drafts of this report have been published and made widely available online months ago during the public comment period.”

“The White House will withhold comment on any draft report before its scheduled release date,” she added.”

As Trump has continuously attacked the media since his campaign days, newspapers’ task of being error-free has become more vital — particularly given how eager Trump’s cohort is to attack any media outlet perceived as making even a minor mistake. “Any intimation that the Trump administration is blocking or somehow suppressing a dire climate-change study is explosive stuff, in large part because it would align with actual transparency problems,” Erik Wemple wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday.

The Times’ Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller weighed in, too: “we were just not aware that somebody involved in the report had put a draft on this nonprofit Internet site.”

“It was not a well-known site to us and the point is that the people who shared the draft with us were not aware of it either,” she continued. “That doesn’t change the larger point that scientists were worried that the government wouldn’t approve the report or release it through normal channels.”

How to make democracy work in the digital age

(Credit: Shutterstock/Salon)

There are many complaints about how democracy works these days — or maybe rather why it doesn’t work. For example, we see a polarization of society in recent times.

Modern mass media and social media tend to create “filter bubbles” which reinforce one’s own opinion, while reducing the ability to handle different points of view. The public debate has to contend with increasingly personalized, attack-style, oversimplified, manipulative and deceptive messages or misinformation.

What makes this all the more deplorable and problematic is that societal and political complexity has increased dramatically, pretty much independent of where one lives.

Dealing with the compounded complexity and unpredictable outcomes is even difficult for experts. That leads some to suggest that — since neither voters nor experts can handle this complexity — the solution lies in relying on expert systems using big data and artificial intelligence.

Rise of the machines

So, should we leave it Google’s “omniscient algorithm” or IBM’s cognitive computer, called Watson, to decide about what is to be done?

Depending on the details of such digital operating systems for society, this experiment may very well end in fascism 2.0 (= a big brother and brave new world society), communism 2.0 (= distributing rights and resources based on a “benevolent dictator” approach), or feudalism 2.0 (= based on a few monopolies and a new kind of caste system).

Besides, we have already seen in the past that purely data-driven variants of governance models have failed. They will not suddenly become more acceptable. So far, we don’t even know how to measure human dignity — the most important “good” of modern democratic societies — by numbers. How then could we judge societal progress?

Therefore, the crucial question is how to use the digital opportunities of today and upgrade democracy, “the worst form of government, except for all the others,” as Churchill joked.

Democracy 2.0 — how to harness collective intelligence by digital means

The long-term consequences of centralized top-down control could be devastating. It would lead to an unprecedented loss of socio-economic diversity and resilience, a decline in the rate of innovation and serious slowdown of socio-economic progress, a rise in political instability and perhaps even war or revolution.

Centralized top-down optimization may be a proper paradigm for companies or supply chains, but complex societies need pluralism and combinatorial innovation to thrive.

The success principles of the past — globalization, optimization and administration — have more or less hit their limit. To reach the next level of society, an economy dominated by networks must build on the principles of co-creation, co-evolution and collective intelligence.

To achieve sustainable and legitimate results that leverage the benefits of complexity and diversity, it is crucial to move from a government paradigm based on power to a paradigm based on empowerment and coordination.

Massive Open Online Deliberation Platforms (MOODS)

Combining smart technologies with smart citizens is the recipe to create smarter societies. This can be reached by creating Massive Open Online Deliberation Platforms (MOODs). They allow all interest groups to put their arguments on a particular subject on a virtual table, where they can be structured into different points of view.

In a second step, it is important to work out innovative solutions that integrate several perspectives and, thereby, benefit several interest groups well — not just the interests of the incumbent or the 51% majority.

This is the essence of “digital democracy.” It is based on “collective intelligence” — on bringing the knowledge and ideas of many minds (and artificially intelligent systems) together. It is the combination of ideas and interaction of humans that have shown to deliver the best results when challenges are complex.

An updated democratic process should be able to reach equally distributed opportunities and satisfaction, as much as this can be done. While this cannot always be achieved in each single decision, we could certainly get much better in satisfying diverse interest groups than today.

Instead of trying to revive governance principles of the past, which have failed to embrace the complexity and diversity of modern societies, we should engage in digitally upgrading democracy.

After all, being the result of many wars and revolutions — democracy is a highly advanced governance system that has taken on board the wisdom of some of the smartest and most respected people in human history.

Rather than accepting data-driven technocracy to control and abate societal diversity and complexity, we propose a way to leverage complexity for our benefit, through a decentralized, participatory platform.

Overcome the dictatorship of the majority

With the means of MOODs, one can find solutions that consider various views on certain aspects of a topic. Today, one of the main problems is that people can only cast a “yes” or a “no” votes, i.e. to either agree on a proposed solution or disagree.

The topic is often extremely complex and has many facets. So, letting people decide about “yes” or “no” is simply not enough. We suggest that citizens should be able to continuously engage in a specific type of online deliberation processes, where they can feed in their ideas and voice their preferences on different aspects of a topic.

A refined, more inclusive process has several advantages. It enables people to learn about the different aspects of a complex political topic. At the same time, they can contribute to the solution from the beginning, which is believed to lead to a higher satisfaction.

This should also diminish the chances that protest movements and extreme solutions will find good breeding grounds.

Even if the results of the deliberation process would not be binding for policymakers, the MOODs would give them ample guidance when drafting new laws.

It would also be possible to take regional, ethnic and religious differences into account, which could lead to culturally fitting law-making and easily show whether it makes more sense for a specific law to be adopted on a federal or on a regional level.

There could still be a majority vote at the end of a deliberation process. But at this point, the solution would already include a substantial amount of the ideas and wishes of the citizens and it is likely that we would not see extremely polarized situations anymore.

Regardless of whether a proposed new law engendered a 50:50 polarization of society, deliberation processes after the vote could substantially lower the dissatisfaction of the minority, especially again, when mixed with a high level of regional autonomy in the way the vote/law is being implemented.

Counterbalance misinformation

For citizens it is increasingly hard to judge which information can be trusted and why. Governments, companies and rich individuals today can buy armies of bloggers and social media experts to run profiles and chat bots, which then flood social media channels.

Most of today’s largest social media platforms have currently no means to moderate these discussions. We thus need to create new platforms allowing for an informed, balanced, conscientious, substantive and comprehensive deliberation processes.

To define Digital Democracy merely as democratic processes in a media-dominated and digitalized world falls short of what a reasonably advanced idea of Digital Democracy encompasses.

It certainly takes a substantial amount of work to build the required deliberation platforms and to upgrade democratic processes to be fit for the digital age. The task we must accomplish has technical, legal and motivational aspects.

Especially the question of how to engage enough people in the deliberation process will be crucial. One has to secure easy access to the platform and experiment with incentives and gamification to reach sufficiently broad participation.

However, these are no obstacles that could not be overcome. The potential benefits of a suitably refined (direct) democratic process clearly outweigh the costs of turning history back and neglecting us, The People.

Digital democracy — as we envision it — has the ultimate benefit that it supports society’s historical achievements: self-determination and freedom, the division of power and fairness, social inclusion and participation as well as diversity and resilience.

Reviving the war on drugs will further harm police-community relations

(Credit: AP)

The United States has been waging a war on drugs for nearly 50 years.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this long campaign to thwart the production, distribution, sale and use of illegal drugs. This sustained investment has resulted in millions of drug offenders being processed through the American criminal justice system. It has also influenced crime control strategies used by American police.

Under President Barack Obama, there was a period of reform and moderating of tactics. But President Donald Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is announcing plans to return to “law and order” approaches, such as aggressive intervention by law enforcement and use of mandatory minimum sentences by prosecutors.

I recently co-authored a book with University of Louisville criminal justice professor Richard Tewksbury on the role of confidential informants. In my view, a return to a “law and order” approach would undo recent gains in reducing crime rates as well as prison populations and would further strain tense police-community relations.

Drugs are different

Unlike violent or property crimes — which usually yield cooperative victims and witnesses — police and prosecutors are at a disdvantage when fighting drugs. Drug users don’t see themselves as crime victims or their dealers as criminals. Police thus have limited options for identifying offenders. Alternatives include the use of undercover operations or conducting aggressive crackdown operations to disrupt the market in real time. But sneaking up on or infiltrating secretive and multilayered drug organizations is not easy to do, and usually produces only low-level offenders. Poor police-community relations don’t help. Heightened enforcement and punishments have made matters worse by increasing the secrecy and sophistication of the illegal drug market and forcing police to develop criminal intelligence on offenders.

So how do police gather criminal intelligence on drug crimes?

The most honorable way is to rely on law-abiding sources who see the criminal activity and feel compelled to report it to the police in order to stop the problem.

The second option is for police to turn to a paid informant who is familiar with the drug operations to set up a buy or inform on the criminal activities of others in exchange for money.

A third option is to apprehend known drug offenders and coerce them into divulging information on higher-ups in exchange for a lighter sentence. We call these folks “indentured informants” because they “owe” the police information. If they don’t follow through on their end of the deal, they face the weight of criminal prosecution, often through heavy mandatory minimum sentences.

As police-community relations have eroded over time, police have slowly but surely increased their reliance on criminal informants – especially to develop cases on higher-level criminals.

Consequences of coercive tactics

Mandatory minimum sentences serve as a strong motivator to snitch. It has become the “go-to move” for authorities.

Not surprisingly, drug dealers fight back against this coercive method of getting evidence with a “stop snitchin’” campaign. Retaliatory violence often erupts, and it becomes harder for police to get evidence from both criminal and civic-minded informants who fear reprisals from drug dealers. Anger grows against police who are perceived as not following through on promises to protect witnesses or clean up neighborhoods.

There exists yet another wrinkle in the equation. Reliance on harsh drug sentences and confidential informants has become part and parcel to how other types of criminal cases are solved. Witnesses or persons privy to information in homicide or robbery cases are routinely prodded into cooperating only after they find themselves facing a stiff penalty due to their involvement in an unrelated drug case. Here again, this produces short-term gains but long-term complications for criminal justice authorities as states move to decriminalize or legalize drugs. What happens when prosecutors working violent or property crime cases can no longer rely on the threat of mandatory minimum sentences to compel individuals to provide information?

By exploiting intelligence sources and putting them at risk, the war on drugs has pitted the police against residents in drug-ridden communities. This runs contrary to the ideals of community policing, in which trust and legitimacy are essential to members of the community and law enforcement collaborating to prevent and combat crime.

The past decade has witnessed significant reforms within the criminal justice system, particularly as it relates to drug enforcement. Authorities have sought to integrate a public health approach into the long-standing criminal justice model and adopt a more patient and long-term view on the drug problem. In the end, the reliance on informants and mandatory minimum sentences creates numerous unanticipated negative consequences which will continue to grow if we revert back to them.



Dean A. Dabney, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice & Criminology, Georgia State University

This October, Trump will try to start a war with Iran

(Credit: AP/Alex Brandon)

Something extraordinary has happened in Washington. President Donald Trump has made it clear, in no uncertain terms and with no effort to disguise his duplicity, that he will claim that Tehran is cheating on the nuclear deal by October—the facts be damned. In short, the fix is in. Trump will refuse to accept that Iran is in compliance and thereby set the stage for a military confrontation. His advisors have even been kind enough to explain how they will go about this. Rarely has a sinister plan to destroy an arms control agreement and pave the way for war been so openly telegraphed.

The unmasking of Trump’s plans to sabotage the nuclear deal began two weeks ago when he reluctantly had to certify that Iran indeed was in compliance. Both the US intelligence as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed Tehran’s fair play. But Trump threw a tantrum in the Oval Office and berated his national security team for not having found a way to claim Iran was cheating. According to Foreign Policy, the adults in the room—Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster—eventually calmed Trump down but only on the condition that they double down on finding a way for the president to blow up the deal by October.

Prior to the revelation of Trump’s Iran certification meltdown, most analysts and diplomats believed that Trump’s rhetoric on Iran was just that—empty talk. His bark was worse than his bite, as demonstrated when he certified Iran’s compliance back in April and when he renewed sanctions waivers in May. The distance between his rhetoric and actual policy was tangible. Rhetorically, Trump officials described Iran as the root of all problems in the Middle East and as the greatest state sponsor of terror. Trump even suggested he might quit the deal.

In action, however, President Trump continued to waive sanctions and admitted that Iran was adhering to the deal. As a result, many concluded that Trump would continue to fulfill the obligations of the deal while sticking to his harsh rhetoric in order to appease domestic opponents of the nuclear deal—as well as Trump’s allies in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

But now, assessments are changing. The tangible danger of Trump’s malice on the Iran deal—as well as the danger of the advice of the “adults in the room”—became further clarified this week as tidbits of the reality TV star’s plans began to leak.

How to Wreck a Deal

Recognizing that refusing to certify Iran would isolate the United States, Trump’s advisors gave him another plan. Use the spot-inspections mechanism of the nuclear deal, they suggested, to demand access to a whole set of military sites in Iran. Once Iran balks—which it will since the mechanism is only supposed to be used if tangible evidence exists that those sites are being used for illicit nuclear activities—Trump can claim that Iran is in violation, blowing up the nuclear deal while shifting the blame to Tehran.

Thus, the advice of the adults in the room—those who we are supposed to restrain Trump—was not to keep the highly successful nuclear deal that has taken both an Iranian bomb and war with Iran off the table. Rather, they recommended killing it in a manner that would conceal Trump’s malice and shift the cost to Iran.

According to The New York Times, the groundwork for this strategy has already been laid. Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker (R-TN) calls this strategy “radical enforcement” of the deal. “If they don’t let us in,” Corker told The Washington Post, “boom.” Then he added: “You want the breakup of this deal to be about Iran. You don’t want it to be about the U.S., because we want our allies with us.”

This is a charade, a rerun of the machinations that resulted in the Iraq war. It doesn’t matter what Iran does or doesn’t do. If it were up to Trump, he’d never have accepted that Iran was in compliance in the first place. He admitted as much to the Wall Street Journal. “If it was up to me, I would have had them [the Iranians] non-compliant 180 days ago.”

Sounding supremely confident of the “radical implementation” strategy, Trump added that “I think they’ll be noncompliant [in October].” In so doing, he further confirmed doubts that the process is about determining whether Iran is in compliance or not. The administration is committed to finding a way to claim Iran has violated the accord, regardless of the facts—just as George W. Bush did with Iraq.

Potential for Backfire

But Trump’s confidence may be misplaced on two levels. First, abusing the inspection mechanisms of the deal may prove harder than Trump has been led to believe. The inspections are the cornerstone of the deal, and Iran’s ability to cheat on the deal is essentially non-existent as long as the integrity and efficiency of the inspections remain in tact. But if Trump begins to abuse the mechanism to fabricate a conflict, he will end up undermining the inspections regime and actually enhance the ability of those in Iran who would like to pursue a covert nuclear program. Precisely because of the commitment of Europe and others to non-proliferation, they are likely to resist Trump’s efforts to tinker with the inspections.

Second, by revealing his hand, Trump has displayed his duplicity for all to see. That includes the American public, whose anti-war sentiments remain strong and are a key reason they supported the nuclear deal in the first place.

The American public knows the Iraq playbook quite well. Trump’s own supporters remain enraged by the disastrous war with Iraq. They know how they got played. It’s difficult to imagine why they would allow themselves to get played again by a president who has left little doubt about his intent to deceive.

Why crowds aren’t always wise: Lessons from mini-flash crashes on Wall Street

(Credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Blink. About 300 milliseconds just passed, the same time required for a lightning bolt to travel 100,000 feet, a satellite to fly two miles or a stock price to swing from US$10 to $0.0001 and back.

Wait, what?

Indeed, that actually happened to the shares of the software company Qualys a few years ago. Similar mini-flash crashes involving substantial, instantaneous price moves take place about 12 times a day.

Remember the flash crash back in 2010, when hundreds of stocks temporarily went bonkers and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dove 1,000 points in a few minutes? Mini-flash crashes are the same thing yet on a smaller scale, with perhaps only one company’s shares going haywire for a fraction of a second.

But they’re just as consequential, both for the individual stock and in the aggregate. Such bizarre events seem to contradict our basic beliefs about the fairness of values, the sophistication of modern markets and the oft-cited wisdom of the crowd. What’s going on?

To find out, we developed a mathematical model to explore how all of these ideas fit together. We initially presumed that as long as there were lots of sharp investors with broad-ranging market views, mini-flash crashes would be fairly uncommon.

Surprisingly, we observed a “too many cooks spoil the broth”-type effect instead. Even the wisest crowd, if it’s large enough, can rapidly devolve into a mad herd and bring on these wild events.

Mini-flash crashes in a nutshell

Over 20,000 mini-flash crashes have been recorded since 2006, the year they really took off. Some were bigger than others, but many were pretty severe.

They’re momentary, but if you get caught in one, you might incur substantial trading losses, reputational damage, fines and legal woes.

More broadly, they may erode investors’ trust in markets, violate Nobel Prize-winning theories and even escalate into full-blown flash crashes like the big one from 2010. In fact, that infamous flash crash began as a disruption in a single instrument, the E-Mini S&P 500 futures contract.

Sounds pretty serious, huh?

Regulators agree and have installed measures in hopes of managing them. One rule wipes out trades that are obviously wrong (probably no one means to sell stock for hundredths of a penny). Another rule acts like a circuit breaker in your home, temporarily freezing markets when prices overheat.

Traders pitch in as well. For example, have you ever heard of a fat finger error? Maybe you wanted to sell one share at $100 but accidentally unloaded 100 shares at $1 because of a mistaken keystroke or two. Bang, the stock plunges 99 percent instantly. Financial firms maintain internal checks such as operational risk controls to avoid such havoc.

Yet, despite all this, mini-flash crashes keep happening, and some worry the problem is getting worse.

An army of simulated investors

To understand why the mini-flash crash problem just won’t go away, we designed a model that takes all we know about investing and subjected it to mathematical analysis and computer simulations so we could observe whether a group of traders armed with various strategies could steer clear of mini-flash crashes.

For instance, in developing our model, we wanted to ensure that our “investors” devised their strategies as if they were actually human. In addition to classic questions like “Where are prices going?,” today’s traders ponder much more sophisticated issues before buying or selling. They might ask, “How confident am I in this answer? How often should I check back to make sure it’s still right? Am I worried about betting the bank? Could my trades themselves impact the future and change whether I’m ultimately right?”

We plugged these considerations into mathematical formulas. Each of our investors was assigned specific parameters (like the models Wall Street traders use), which served as guides for how and when they would trade given various market conditions.

In other words, we tried to make our simulated investors as complicated as real ones, with a healthy mix of characteristics.

Here’s what we found.

Our investors initially operated a calm and stable market, free of crashes. The supposed wisdom of the crowd prevailed, as long as certain conditions held true:

All investors were confident in their opinions about future markets.
All investors fully reworked their models often. That is, models (like the ones described above) can become corrupted over time and need to be readjusted. A failure of investors to readjust their models likely contributed to the dot-com bubble or the housing bubble, when we watched prices go up and up and figured that the good times would last forever. If only we’d taken a step back to check ourselves, right?
All investors were hesitant to take big risks.
There weren’t too many investors. It’s not that we found a specific number here; rather we discovered that the crowd sometimes got so large that the extra stability provided by their varied opinions got outweighed by their tendency to stampede towards a mini-flash crash at the slightest tremor.

But in a fast-moving market, these conditions didn’t always persevere. Even though investors were continually revising their views, they weren’t doing so fast enough to avoid being caught up in a herd mentality and selling off a stock along with everyone else in response to a lone investor’s opinion.

Say some investor got spooked and started selling. This drove prices down a little, which may have worried a few others. They started selling too, causing prices to drop even further. Pretty soon, the whole market was unloading, and prices hit rock bottom.

If our investors weren’t sure about their views, this all happened much faster. They’d change their beliefs on a dime. We saw the same thing when they weren’t afraid of taking risks or didn’t step back enough to reassess their strategies.

What was most surprising for us, as previous believers in the strength of wise crowds, was that increased population size alone could be destabilizing. In fact, the number of investors active in our simulations was one of the greatest determinants of whether a mini-flash crash would ensue.

History repeats

Our research suggests it may be impossible to completely stop mini-flash crashes, as recent high-profile plunges in the prices of gold and silver demonstrate. Many market observers claim that such instantaneous tumbles are the “new normal.”

Perhaps it’s not so startling. After all, back in 1841, Scottish journalist Charles Mackay had already brought the recurring nature of bubbles and crashes to the public’s attention in “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” To some extent, it’s no wonder that they should be frequent and rapid these days, given the speed of today’s markets.

That tulip trading persisted late into the night at Dutch taverns (after many rounds) has been cited as a potential cause of “Tulipmania,” an event in the 1600s where a single bulb is rumored to have cost as much as 50 live pigs. While we’re a long way from such things, the line between a wise crowd offering stability and a mad one creating chaos is clearly as thin as ever.

Alexander Munk, Ph.D. Candidate in Mathetmatics, University of Michigan and Erhan Bayraktar, Professor of Mathematics, University of Michigan

17 apps and websites kids are heading to after Facebook

(Credit: Getty Images)

Gone are the days of Facebook as a one-stop shop for all social-networking needs. While it may seem more complicated to post photos on Instagram, share casual moments on Snapchat, text on WhatsApp, and check your Twitter feed throughout the day, tweens and teens love the variety.

You don’t need to know the ins and outs of all the apps, sites, and terms that are “hot” right now (and frankly, if you did, they wouldn’t be trendy anymore). But knowing the basics — what they are, why they’re popular, and what problems can crop up when they’re not used responsibly — can make the difference between a positive and a negative experience for your kid.

Below, we’ve laid out some of the most popular types of apps and websites for teens: texting, microblogging, live-streaming, self-destructing/secret, and chatting/meeting/dating. The more you know about each, the better you’ll be able to communicate with your teen about safe choices.

The bottom line for most of these tools? If teens are using them respectfully, appropriately, and with a little parental guidance, they’re mostly fine. So take inventory of your kids’ apps and review the best practices.

Texting apps

GroupMe is an app that doesn’t charge fees or have limits for direct and group messages. Users also can send photos, videos, and calendar links.

What parents need to know

It’s for older teens. The embedded GIFs and emojis have some adult themes, such as drinking and sex.
Teens are always connected. Without fees or limits, teens can share and text to their heart’s content, which may mean they rarely put the phone down.

Kik Messenger is an app that lets kids text for free. It’s fast and has no message limits, character limits, or fees if you only use the basic features. Because it’s an app, the texts won’t show up on your kid’s phone’s messaging service, and you’re not charged for them (beyond standard data rates).

What parents need to know

Stranger danger is an issue. Kik allows communication with strangers who share their Kik usernames to find people to chat with. The app allegedly has been used in high-profile crimes, including the murder of a 13-year-old girl and a child-pornography case. There’s also a Kik community blog where users can submit photos of themselves and screenshots of messages (sometimes displaying users’ full names) to contests.
It’s loaded with ads and in-app-purchases. Kik specializes in “promoted chats” — basically, conversations between brands and users. It also offers specially designed apps (accessible only through the main app), many of which offer products for sale.

WhatsApp lets users send text messages, audio messages, videos, and photos to one or many people with no message limits or fees.

What parents need to know

It’s for users 16 and over. Lots of younger teens seem to be using the app, but this age minimum has been set by WhatsApp.
It can be pushy. After you sign up, it automatically connects you to all the people in your address book who also are using WhatsApp. It also encourages you to add friends who haven’t signed up yet.

Photo and video-sharing apps and sites

Instagram lets users snap, edit, and share photos and 15-second videos, either publicly or within a private network of followers. It unites the most popular features of social media sites: sharing, seeing, and commenting on photos. It also lets you apply fun filters and effects to your photos, making them look high-quality and artistic.

What parents need to know

Teens are on the lookout for “likes.” Similar to the way they use Facebook, teens may measure the “success” of their photos — even their self-worth — by the number of likes or comments they receive. Posting a photo or video can be problematic if teens are posting to validate their popularity.
Public photos are the default. Photos and videos shared on Instagram are public unless privacy settings are adjusted. Hashtags and location information can make photos even more visible to communities beyond a teen’s followers if his or her account is public.
Kids can send private messages. Instagram Direct is like texting with photos or videos and you can do it with up to 15 mutual friends. These pictures don’t show up on their public feeds. Although there’s nothing wrong with group chats, kids may be more likely to share inappropriate stuff with their inner circles.

Musical.ly – Your Video Social Network is a performance- and video-sharing social network that mostly features teens lip-synching to famous songs but also includes some original songwriting and singing. Musers, as devoted users are called, can build up a following among friends or share posts publicly.

What parents need to know

Songs and videos contain lots of iffy content. Because the platform features popular music and a mix of teen and adult users, swearing and sexual content are commonplace.
Gaining followers and fans feels important. Teens want a public profile to get exposure and approval, and many are highly motivated to get more followers and likes for their videos.

Microblogging apps and sites

Tumblr is like a cross between a blog and Twitter: It’s a streaming scrapbook of text, photos, and/or video and audio clips. Users create and follow short blogs, or “tumblogs,” that can be seen by anyone online (if they’re made public). Many teens have tumblogs for personal use: sharing photos, videos, musings, and things they find funny with their friends.

What parents need to know

Porn is easy to find. This online hangout is hip and creative but sometimes raunchy. Pornographic images and videos and depictions of violence, self-harm, drug use, and offensive language are easily searchable.
Privacy can be guarded but only through an awkward workaround. The first profile a member creates is public and viewable by anyone on the internet. Members who desire full privacy have to create a second profile, which they’re able to password-protect.
Posts are often copied and shared. Reblogging on Tumblr is similar to re-tweeting: A post is reblogged from one tumblog to another. Many teens like — and, in fact, want — their posts to be reblogged.

Twitter is a microblogging tool that allows users to post brief, 140-character messages — called “tweets” — and follow other users’ activities. It’s not only for adults; teens like using it to share tidbits and keep up with news and celebrities.

What parents need to know

Public tweets are the norm for teens. Though you can choose to keep your tweets private, most teens report having public accounts. Talk to your kids about what they post and how a post can spread far and fast.
Updates appear immediately. Even though you can remove tweets, your followers can still read what you wrote until it’s gone. This can get kids in trouble if they say something in the heat of the moment.

Live-streaming video apps

Houseparty – Group Video Chat is a way for groups of teens to connect via live video. Two to eight people can be in a chat together at the same time. If someone who’s not a direct friend joins a chat, teens get an alert in case they want to leave the chat. You can also “lock” a chat so no one else can join.

What parents need to know

Users can take screenshots during a chat. Teens like to think that what happens in a chat stays in a chat, but that’s not necessarily the case. It’s easy for someone to take a screenshot while in a chat and share it with whomever they want.
There’s no moderator. Part of the fun of live video is that anything can happen, but that can also be a problem. Unlike static posts that developers may review, live video chats are spontaneous, so it’s impossible to predict what kids will see, especially if they’re in chats with people they don’t know well.

Live.ly — Live Video Streaming poses all the same risks that all live-streaming services do, so poor choices, oversharing, and chatting with strangers can be part of the package.

What parents need to know

It’s associated with Musical.ly. Because of the parent app’s popularity, this streamer is all the rage, and “musers” (devoted Musical.ly listeners) have built-in accounts.
Privacy, safety, and creepiness are concerns. Because teens are often broadcasting from their bedrooms to people they don’t know, sometimes sharing phone numbers, and often performing for approval, there’s the potential for trouble.

Live.me — Live Video Streaming allows kids to watch others and broadcast themselves live, earn currency from fans, and interact live with users without any control over who views their streams.

What parents need to know

Kids can easily see inappropriate content. During our review, we saw broadcasters cursing and using racial slurs, scantily clad broadcasters, young teens answering sexually charged questions, and more.
Predatory comments are a concern. Because anyone can communicate with broadcasters, there is the potential for viewers to request sexual pictures or performances or to contact them through other social means and send private images or messages.

YouNow: Broadcast, Chat, and Watch Live Video is an app that lets kids stream and watch live broadcasts. As they watch, they can comment or buy gold bars to give to other users. Ultimately, the goal is to get lots of viewers, start trending, and grow your fan base.

What parents need to know

Kids might make poor decisions to gain popularity. Because it’s live video, kids can do or say anything and can respond to requests from viewers — in real time. Though there seems to be moderation around iffy content (kids complain about having accounts suspended “for nothing”), there’s plenty of swearing and occasional sharing of personal information with anonymous viewers.
Teens can share personal information, sometimes by accident. Teens often broadcast from their bedrooms, which often have personal information visible, and they sometimes will share a phone number or an email address with viewers, not knowing who’s really watching.
It’s creepy. Teens even broadcast themselves sleeping, which illustrates the urge to share all aspects of life, even intimate moments, publicly — and potentially with strangers.

Self-destructing/secret apps

Snapchat is a messaging app that lets users put a time limit on the pictures and videos they send before they disappear. Most teens use the app to share goofy or embarrassing photos without the risk of them going public. However, there are lots of opportunities to use it in other ways.

What parents need to know

It’s a myth that Snapchats go away forever. Data is data: Whenever an image is sent, it never truly goes away. (For example, the person on the receiving end can take a screenshot of the image before it disappears.) Snapchats can even be recovered. After a major hack in December 2013 and a settlement with the FTC, Snapchat has clarified its privacy policy, but teens should stay wary.
It can make sexting seem OK. The seemingly risk-free messaging might encourage users to share pictures containing sexy images.
There’s a lot of iffy, clicky content. Snapchat’s Discover feature offers a grab-bag of articles, videos, and quizzes from magazine publishers, TV networks, and online sources mostly about pop culture, celebrities, and relationships (a typical headline: “THIS is What Sex Does To Your Brain”).

Whisper is a social “confessional” app that allows users to post whatever’s on their minds, paired with an image. With all the emotions running through teens, anonymous outlets give them the freedom to share their feelings without fear of judgment.

What parents need to know

Whispers are often sexual in nature. Some users use the app to try to hook up with people nearby, while others post “confessions” of desire. Lots of eye-catching, nearly nude pics accompany these shared secrets.
Content can be dark. People normally don’t confess sunshine and rainbows; common Whisper topics include insecurity, depression, substance abuse, and various lies told to employers and teachers.
Although it’s anonymous to start, it may not stay that way. The app encourages users to exchange personal information in the “Meet Up” section.

Chatting, meeting and dating apps

Monkey — Have Fun Chats. If you remember Chatroulette, where users could be randomly matched with strangers for a video chat, this is the modern version. Using Snapchat to connect, users have 10 seconds to live video-chat with strangers.

What parents need to know

Lots of teens are using it. Because of the connection with Snapchat, plenty of teens are always available for a quick chat — which often leads to connecting via Snapchat and continuing the conversation through that platform.
Teens can accept or reject a chat. Before beginning a chat, users receive the stranger’s age, gender, and location and can choose whether to be matched or not.

MeetMe: Chat and Meet New People. The name says it all. Although not marketed as a dating app, MeetMe does have a “Match” feature whereby users can “secretly admire” others, and its large user base means fast-paced communication and guaranteed attention.

What parents need to know

It’s an open network. Users can chat with whomever’s online, as well as search locally, opening the door to potential trouble.
Lots of details are required. First and last name, age, and ZIP code are requested at registration, or you can log in using a Facebook account. The app also asks permission to use location services on your teens’ mobile devices, meaning they can find the closest matches wherever they go.

Omegle is a chat site that puts two strangers together in their choice of a text chat or a video chat. Being anonymous can be very attractive to teens, and Omegle provides a no-fuss way to make connections. Its “interest boxes” also let users filter potential chat partners by shared interests.

What parents need to know

Users get paired up with strangers. That’s the whole premise of the app. And there’s no registration required.
This is not an app for kids and teens. Omegle is filled with people searching for sexual chat. Some prefer to do so live. Others offer links to porn sites.
Language is a big issue. Since the chats are anonymous, they’re often much more explicit than those with identifiable users might be.

Yellow — Make new friends is an app that is often called the “Tinder for teens” because users swipe right or left to accept or reject the profiles of other users. If two people swipe right on each other, they can chat and hook up via Snapchat or Instagram.

What parents need to know

It’s easy to lie about your age. Even if you try to enter a birth date that indicates you’re under 13, the app defaults to an acceptable age so you can create an account anyway.
You have to share your location and other personal information. For the app to work, you need to let it “geotag” you. Also, there are no private profiles, so the only option is to allow anyone to find you.
It encourages contact with strangers. As with Tinder, the whole point is to meet people. The difference with Yellow is that the endgame is sometimes just exchanging social media handles to connect there. Even if there’s no offline contact, however, without age verification, teens are connecting with people they don’t know who may be much older.

The bottom line for most of these tools? If teens are using them respectfully, appropriately, and with a little parental guidance, they should be fine. Take inventory of your kids’ apps and review the best practices.

The science of desert water

FILE - This Sept. 3, 2008 file photo shows an endangered desert tortoise sitting in the middle of an eastern Mojave Desert road near Ivanpah, Calif. (Credit: AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

To explain why she authored a bill to protect water in the Mojave Desert, Assemblywoman Laura Friedman goes back to her childhood. Growing up in Plantation, Florida, on the edge of the Everglades, the 50-year-old Glendale Democrat had a “front-row seat” to the destruction of the swamps, sloughs, and mangrove forests that spread across most of South Florida.

“I saw the devastation that was wrought from not caring about that resource,” Friedman says. South Florida’s water is less protected now, and its coastline is more vulnerable to the sea-level rise that accompanies the changing climate. “I watched the economic and environmental toll it took,” Friedman says. “I don’t want to see the same thing happen to my home in California.”

The Mojave is Friedman’s parallel to the Everglades. Both places host species unique to the planet. Both in their undisturbed states are carbon sinks that could help the planet recover from climate havoc. And both, in their day, have been regarded as wastelands. In the 19th Century, white settlers believed the noblest thing they could do with the Everglades was to drain it dry. In the 20th Century, the highest and best use of the Mojave was believed to be testing nuclear bombs.

The nuclear tests have long since ended, but the Mojave has also been diminished by sprawl, along with garbage dumping, mining, and renewable energy development projects that occupy several square miles each. Now it again faces another potential threat: The Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, which would extract 50,000 acre feet of water a year  from an ancient underground aquifer and send it to the Colorado River Aqueduct. An acre foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre to a depth of one foot. U.S. Geological Survey scientists in 2000 determined that the project, which has been designed to serve the needs of 400,000 people in Southern California, would pull out more groundwater every year than natural forces could replenish in 10 years.

But an environmental impact report, conducted by the Los Angeles-based engineering firm CH2M Hill on behalf of the developer, claimed the pumping would have little impact on groundwater supplies. Friedman’s proposed legislation, Assembly Bill 1000, would require that the discrepancy between the two reports be settled before the Cadiz project can move ahead.

Friedman says she did not set out to “target Cadiz” but “to recognize that this was a fragile area with a large aquifer under it.” The newly designated (and now threatened) Mojave Trails National Monument sits atop the aquifer Cadiz would draw from, and new research is being conducted to establish whether the monument’s protected seeps and springs depend on the water below. “We want to make sure that any water project in this area doesn’t hurt the ecosystem around it,” Friedman says. That goes for any water project near national parks, monuments and wilderness areas in the desert, she says. “It’s not a ‘stop-Cadiz-from-doing-anything’ bill. It’s just to make sure we have safeguards.”

Desert environmentalists have embraced Friedman’s bill, saying it provides necessary protection to an undervalued ecosystem that’s always under threat. “It establishes a process where the state can take a fresh look at the science and determine whether it’s accurate or not,” says David Lamfrom, director of the California Desert program for the National Parks Conservation Association.

That science is especially important, he says, now that Cadiz has resurfaced with new support from the Trump administration. In March, the Bureau of Land Management reversed two key 2015 rulings that would have stopped Cadiz from routing its pipeline to the Colorado River Aqueduct over public land. And on July 24th David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist affiliated with the same law firm where Cadiz CEO Scott Slater serves on the executive committee, was confirmed as Deputy Interior Secretary. That firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, currently owns 200,000 shares of stock in Cadiz, and stands to earn 200,000 more once buyers have signed on and construction begins.

The Cadiz project has also been named to the administration’s list of 50 national security infrastructure priorities, where it occupies spot 15. “Which is insane,” Friedman says. “There’s nobody at all in California thinking about the Cadiz water project as any kind of priority when we’ve got major bridges that need work, when we have a train system that’s substandard compared with the rest of the world, when we have airport terminals that are 50, 60 years old. That Cadiz would make it to that list shows you how screwed up our federal priorities are right now.”

AB 1000 is expected to face a floor vote sometime after the August recess. “It’s going to be a rough road,” Lamfrom admits, not least because Slater and his allies have an established track record of successfully wooing politicians. “But we have the advantage of this being a Trump project,” he says. “The legislature has the opportunity to use this as a demonstration of how to fight back.”