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Noam Chomsky’s right about Hillary Clinton – but he’s wrong that Bernie can’t win

Noam Chomsky is famously cynical about America’s political process. The renowned linguist has argued for years that our campaign finance system and supine media make it virtually impossible for democracy to work. As you’d expect, Chomsky is not a Democrat or a Republican, the two parties being equally subject to the same corrosive forces. He is, however, more aligned with liberal Democrats than conservative Republicans, and so it’s no surprise to learn he’s voting for a Democrat in 2016. In an interview with Al Jazeera this week, Chomsky weighed in on a number of topics, including the presidential election. Given Chomsky’s history, you’d guess his preferred candidate in 2016 is Bernie Sanders. If there’s a recurring theme in Chomsky’s political thought, it’s that the prevailing power structure favors corporate interests and pollutes democratic institutions. Dismantling this structure is the point of Sanders’ presidential campaign. Chomsky acknowledges this in his Al Jazeera interview, but his support of Sanders is rather muted: “I agree with him [Sanders] in a lot of things, not in other things. I frankly think that in our system of mainly bought elections, he doesn’t have much of a chance.” Chomsky continued: “If he [Sanders] were elected, I think he would – of the current candidates – be the one who would have, from my point of view, the best policies.” Chomsky concedes that Sanders is the better candidate, but he doesn’t believe Sanders can win. Although the full interview won’t air until next week, Chomsky’s reasoning is familiar: entrenched interests drive the process, and to the extent that that’s true, Sanders is a long shot. (Even the most ardent Clinton voters will acknowledge that she is the preferred Democratic candidate among the corporate class.) Sanders supporters will object to Chomsky’s point here, a point Hillary Clinton and popular pundits never tire of making. Chomsky’s pessimism might be uninspiring, but it’s not necessarily misplaced. I’m more sanguine about Bernie’s prospects: He’s surging in the polls, shattering records for individual donations, and slowly puncturing the fatalistic narrative surrounding Hillary’s campaign. But until or unless Sanders proves he can win beyond Iowa and New Hampshire, his long-term viability remains an open question. Interestingly, Chomsky was asked if he would support Clinton as the Democratic nominee, despite his lingering doubts. His answer was straightforward: “Oh absolutely … My vote would be against the Republican candidate. There are enormous differences [between the two parties]. Every Republican candidate is either a climate change denier or a skeptic who says we can’t do it. What they are saying is, ‘Let’s destroy the world.’ Is that worth voting against? Yeah.” While hardly novel, Chomsky’s defense of Clinton is reasonable. It's true that Clinton is not a progressive candidate – her record proves it. And yes, Sanders is the only authentic populist in this campaign. But if progressives are forced to choose between Hillary Clinton and any of the Republican candidates, they’d do well to choose Clinton. She is competent and preferable to every Republican alternative. And she is on the right side of a number of issues liberals ought to care about, like climate change and women's rights. Chomsky is too quick to dismiss Sanders' chances in 2016, but he's absolutely right about Clinton.Noam Chomsky is famously cynical about America’s political process. The renowned linguist has argued for years that our campaign finance system and supine media make it virtually impossible for democracy to work. As you’d expect, Chomsky is not a Democrat or a Republican, the two parties being equally subject to the same corrosive forces. He is, however, more aligned with liberal Democrats than conservative Republicans, and so it’s no surprise to learn he’s voting for a Democrat in 2016. In an interview with Al Jazeera this week, Chomsky weighed in on a number of topics, including the presidential election. Given Chomsky’s history, you’d guess his preferred candidate in 2016 is Bernie Sanders. If there’s a recurring theme in Chomsky’s political thought, it’s that the prevailing power structure favors corporate interests and pollutes democratic institutions. Dismantling this structure is the point of Sanders’ presidential campaign. Chomsky acknowledges this in his Al Jazeera interview, but his support of Sanders is rather muted: “I agree with him [Sanders] in a lot of things, not in other things. I frankly think that in our system of mainly bought elections, he doesn’t have much of a chance.” Chomsky continued: “If he [Sanders] were elected, I think he would – of the current candidates – be the one who would have, from my point of view, the best policies.” Chomsky concedes that Sanders is the better candidate, but he doesn’t believe Sanders can win. Although the full interview won’t air until next week, Chomsky’s reasoning is familiar: entrenched interests drive the process, and to the extent that that’s true, Sanders is a long shot. (Even the most ardent Clinton voters will acknowledge that she is the preferred Democratic candidate among the corporate class.) Sanders supporters will object to Chomsky’s point here, a point Hillary Clinton and popular pundits never tire of making. Chomsky’s pessimism might be uninspiring, but it’s not necessarily misplaced. I’m more sanguine about Bernie’s prospects: He’s surging in the polls, shattering records for individual donations, and slowly puncturing the fatalistic narrative surrounding Hillary’s campaign. But until or unless Sanders proves he can win beyond Iowa and New Hampshire, his long-term viability remains an open question. Interestingly, Chomsky was asked if he would support Clinton as the Democratic nominee, despite his lingering doubts. His answer was straightforward: “Oh absolutely … My vote would be against the Republican candidate. There are enormous differences [between the two parties]. Every Republican candidate is either a climate change denier or a skeptic who says we can’t do it. What they are saying is, ‘Let’s destroy the world.’ Is that worth voting against? Yeah.” While hardly novel, Chomsky’s defense of Clinton is reasonable. It's true that Clinton is not a progressive candidate – her record proves it. And yes, Sanders is the only authentic populist in this campaign. But if progressives are forced to choose between Hillary Clinton and any of the Republican candidates, they’d do well to choose Clinton. She is competent and preferable to every Republican alternative. And she is on the right side of a number of issues liberals ought to care about, like climate change and women's rights. Chomsky is too quick to dismiss Sanders' chances in 2016, but he's absolutely right about Clinton.Noam Chomsky is famously cynical about America’s political process. The renowned linguist has argued for years that our campaign finance system and supine media make it virtually impossible for democracy to work. As you’d expect, Chomsky is not a Democrat or a Republican, the two parties being equally subject to the same corrosive forces. He is, however, more aligned with liberal Democrats than conservative Republicans, and so it’s no surprise to learn he’s voting for a Democrat in 2016. In an interview with Al Jazeera this week, Chomsky weighed in on a number of topics, including the presidential election. Given Chomsky’s history, you’d guess his preferred candidate in 2016 is Bernie Sanders. If there’s a recurring theme in Chomsky’s political thought, it’s that the prevailing power structure favors corporate interests and pollutes democratic institutions. Dismantling this structure is the point of Sanders’ presidential campaign. Chomsky acknowledges this in his Al Jazeera interview, but his support of Sanders is rather muted: “I agree with him [Sanders] in a lot of things, not in other things. I frankly think that in our system of mainly bought elections, he doesn’t have much of a chance.” Chomsky continued: “If he [Sanders] were elected, I think he would – of the current candidates – be the one who would have, from my point of view, the best policies.” Chomsky concedes that Sanders is the better candidate, but he doesn’t believe Sanders can win. Although the full interview won’t air until next week, Chomsky’s reasoning is familiar: entrenched interests drive the process, and to the extent that that’s true, Sanders is a long shot. (Even the most ardent Clinton voters will acknowledge that she is the preferred Democratic candidate among the corporate class.) Sanders supporters will object to Chomsky’s point here, a point Hillary Clinton and popular pundits never tire of making. Chomsky’s pessimism might be uninspiring, but it’s not necessarily misplaced. I’m more sanguine about Bernie’s prospects: He’s surging in the polls, shattering records for individual donations, and slowly puncturing the fatalistic narrative surrounding Hillary’s campaign. But until or unless Sanders proves he can win beyond Iowa and New Hampshire, his long-term viability remains an open question. Interestingly, Chomsky was asked if he would support Clinton as the Democratic nominee, despite his lingering doubts. His answer was straightforward: “Oh absolutely … My vote would be against the Republican candidate. There are enormous differences [between the two parties]. Every Republican candidate is either a climate change denier or a skeptic who says we can’t do it. What they are saying is, ‘Let’s destroy the world.’ Is that worth voting against? Yeah.” While hardly novel, Chomsky’s defense of Clinton is reasonable. It's true that Clinton is not a progressive candidate – her record proves it. And yes, Sanders is the only authentic populist in this campaign. But if progressives are forced to choose between Hillary Clinton and any of the Republican candidates, they’d do well to choose Clinton. She is competent and preferable to every Republican alternative. And she is on the right side of a number of issues liberals ought to care about, like climate change and women's rights. Chomsky is too quick to dismiss Sanders' chances in 2016, but he's absolutely right about Clinton.

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Published on January 26, 2016 16:20

“It’s well beyond the Oscars”: Variety takes a stand on Hollywood’s diversity problem — that will only change “when the bottom line is affected”

The movement for diversity in the Oscars just received a push from deep inside Hollywood: the new Variety cover with the phrase “Shame on Us” spread across an image of an Oscar statue. Inside, the expansive, well-reported story begins this way:

In 2015, America’s age-old struggle over civil rights centered on police violence. Gunshots too often killed unarmed black citizens — and the African-American population exploded with indignation, no longer willing to abide the status quo. This year, the nation’s battle over identity and inclusion has found a new focus: Hollywood. The tipping point arrived with the Jan. 14 unveiling of Oscar nominees, a list as white as the Social Register, circa 1950. The announcement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences — revealing that every one of the 20 acting nominees was white, incredibly, for the second consecutive year — has filled the Twitterverse and cable talk shows with outrage, plunging the Academy into crisis. The lack of diversity has dominated the conversation, from the executive suites at Disney to the hallways of CAA.

The story interviews studio heads and activists, and traces the issue back to an imbalance in the 1970s and a protest led by Jesse Jackson in 1996. Salon spoke to Variety reporter James Rainey about the story and the larger problem of race in Hollywood. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. The debate over this has been whether the problem is with the academy in particular or with Hollywood in general. Which is it? I think the problem is with all of us – not just the industry and Hollywood, but there is a long way to go for a lot of minority groups, underrepresented groups, to have their place in the American economy. And in this case, in Hollywood. So it’s well beyond the Oscars. You can get into certain categories, certain performances, and see that work that should have been recognized with nominations. But I think the more important debate, as Spike Lee said at the outset, is with who’s making the decisions in Hollywood, and whether they are trying to make TV and films that look like America. I think it’s pretty clear for a lot of groups that they aren’t accomplishing that. Does the problem seem to be with all films? With prestige films? How does it differ by genre? I guess it’s with the prestige films and the big studio films. There are independents that have a wider array of ethnicities and races represented. But it’s everywhere in Hollywood. It’s at the talent agencies, in the studio hierarchies, it’s true here – as I pointed out in the story – here at Variety. We’re a mostly white newsroom here. It’s throughout the industry. If you don’t keep after this goal, inertia is a powerful thing, and it will win the day if you don’t make a conscious effort to change things. Your piece started by referencing the violence against unarmed black men that led to the BlackLivesMatter movement. Do you see a connection between this and the outrage over the Oscars? I think maybe so because there was clearly, with all those shootings and all those protests, most pronounced in Ferguson, Missouri, people reached that breaking point: People were not going to do it anymore. It was just too much. And this being the second year in a row with the Oscar acting nominees being all white there was a kind of... “Really? In each of the last two years there have been 20 nominees, and then 20 more, so a total of 40 nominations, and not a single actor who’s not white who deserves nomination for recognition?” It’s pretty easy to see the indignation over that. As we say in the story, African-Americans have done better in the Oscars, in terms of nominations and victories than any other ethnic group. They’ve done better than Asian-Americans, they’ve done better than Latinos. And there are whole other categories of people … I can think of a few films in which disability was at the center of the film, like “My Left Foot,” but [the disabled] is a group that you don’t routinely see… It’s interesting that while there’s been an outpouring on this from a lot of quarters, you haven’t seen – that I know of – a prominent director, actor, cinematographer from the Latino community speak out. They’re a substantially bigger proportion of the population, growing faster than other groups. Kind of interesting that as a group they’ve been less outspoken. I think the same is true of Asian-Americans. Spike Lee gets the ball rolling. As our story points out, it’s a discussion that’s ripe to be had. But it goes way beyond African-Americans. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has said the academy can lead on the issue – is it able to do that? They’ve proposed some new rules, for instance, about membership. I think maybe they can. Even Spike Lee and some of the people who’ve been the most outspoken have been careful to credit Isaacs with meaningful steps in that direction. It’s fairly dramatic what they did – this move to say that academy members who haven’t worked in 10 years will go into non-voting status. I know some people pretty well, including a family member, who’ve been in the academy and maybe have had a gap like that, and think they’ve put in decades of hard work to be in the academy. There’s going to be some blowback on that. At the same time, what do you want your organization to be? Do you want an organization of elders – mostly white elders – or do you want a more contemporary organization of people who are active at the moment? By that change in the bylaws, it will over time become more of the latter. That may serve the academy well, not just in terms of ethnically and racially. But it may bring in more diverse kinds of films. For instance, this year it might have gotten “Star Wars” a best-picture nomination if you’d had a younger voting group. It’s going to take time, because it’s not like those people will be culled immediately. It’ll be interesting to see the impact of that over time. There are more chances of changes in the academy than changes in the upper echelon of the studios or of the talent agencies – the two other big institutions that I think are more in need of more, as Spike Lee would say, “flava.” More color in the top ranks. There’s a new profile of Samantha Bee in New York magazine in which she talks about a blind process of staffing her writing room. Have you heard of any talk about people in Hollywood doing that to fill in the behind-the-scenes positions? I think ultimately, what has to be shown to this industry, just like any other, is that this isn’t just a case of affirmative action – it’s a business decision. You can look at the shows and films that have performed really well – a show like “Empire” that’s leading in the ratings – it’s going to take some lessons like that. On the other hand, I’ve spoken to people in Hollywood who – every time a show like “Empire” succeeds – say, “Oh, that’s a one-off, that’s an anomaly, we can’t do that all the time.” You’re starting to see that more in TV than you are in film – people who see that there is a market there and that people will come and look at films with people of different stripes and colors. That’s what ultimately is going to move this in that direction. The profit motivation is always going to be the greatest. We’re still in a capitalist society, and the dollar is going to push everything. If there’s going to be change, that’s where it’s going to come from. The protests and outspokenness are important and can start the push. But ultimately it’s when the bottom line is affected that you’re going to see real change.The movement for diversity in the Oscars just received a push from deep inside Hollywood: the new Variety cover with the phrase “Shame on Us” spread across an image of an Oscar statue. Inside, the expansive, well-reported story begins this way:

In 2015, America’s age-old struggle over civil rights centered on police violence. Gunshots too often killed unarmed black citizens — and the African-American population exploded with indignation, no longer willing to abide the status quo. This year, the nation’s battle over identity and inclusion has found a new focus: Hollywood. The tipping point arrived with the Jan. 14 unveiling of Oscar nominees, a list as white as the Social Register, circa 1950. The announcement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences — revealing that every one of the 20 acting nominees was white, incredibly, for the second consecutive year — has filled the Twitterverse and cable talk shows with outrage, plunging the Academy into crisis. The lack of diversity has dominated the conversation, from the executive suites at Disney to the hallways of CAA.

The story interviews studio heads and activists, and traces the issue back to an imbalance in the 1970s and a protest led by Jesse Jackson in 1996. Salon spoke to Variety reporter James Rainey about the story and the larger problem of race in Hollywood. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. The debate over this has been whether the problem is with the academy in particular or with Hollywood in general. Which is it? I think the problem is with all of us – not just the industry and Hollywood, but there is a long way to go for a lot of minority groups, underrepresented groups, to have their place in the American economy. And in this case, in Hollywood. So it’s well beyond the Oscars. You can get into certain categories, certain performances, and see that work that should have been recognized with nominations. But I think the more important debate, as Spike Lee said at the outset, is with who’s making the decisions in Hollywood, and whether they are trying to make TV and films that look like America. I think it’s pretty clear for a lot of groups that they aren’t accomplishing that. Does the problem seem to be with all films? With prestige films? How does it differ by genre? I guess it’s with the prestige films and the big studio films. There are independents that have a wider array of ethnicities and races represented. But it’s everywhere in Hollywood. It’s at the talent agencies, in the studio hierarchies, it’s true here – as I pointed out in the story – here at Variety. We’re a mostly white newsroom here. It’s throughout the industry. If you don’t keep after this goal, inertia is a powerful thing, and it will win the day if you don’t make a conscious effort to change things. Your piece started by referencing the violence against unarmed black men that led to the BlackLivesMatter movement. Do you see a connection between this and the outrage over the Oscars? I think maybe so because there was clearly, with all those shootings and all those protests, most pronounced in Ferguson, Missouri, people reached that breaking point: People were not going to do it anymore. It was just too much. And this being the second year in a row with the Oscar acting nominees being all white there was a kind of... “Really? In each of the last two years there have been 20 nominees, and then 20 more, so a total of 40 nominations, and not a single actor who’s not white who deserves nomination for recognition?” It’s pretty easy to see the indignation over that. As we say in the story, African-Americans have done better in the Oscars, in terms of nominations and victories than any other ethnic group. They’ve done better than Asian-Americans, they’ve done better than Latinos. And there are whole other categories of people … I can think of a few films in which disability was at the center of the film, like “My Left Foot,” but [the disabled] is a group that you don’t routinely see… It’s interesting that while there’s been an outpouring on this from a lot of quarters, you haven’t seen – that I know of – a prominent director, actor, cinematographer from the Latino community speak out. They’re a substantially bigger proportion of the population, growing faster than other groups. Kind of interesting that as a group they’ve been less outspoken. I think the same is true of Asian-Americans. Spike Lee gets the ball rolling. As our story points out, it’s a discussion that’s ripe to be had. But it goes way beyond African-Americans. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has said the academy can lead on the issue – is it able to do that? They’ve proposed some new rules, for instance, about membership. I think maybe they can. Even Spike Lee and some of the people who’ve been the most outspoken have been careful to credit Isaacs with meaningful steps in that direction. It’s fairly dramatic what they did – this move to say that academy members who haven’t worked in 10 years will go into non-voting status. I know some people pretty well, including a family member, who’ve been in the academy and maybe have had a gap like that, and think they’ve put in decades of hard work to be in the academy. There’s going to be some blowback on that. At the same time, what do you want your organization to be? Do you want an organization of elders – mostly white elders – or do you want a more contemporary organization of people who are active at the moment? By that change in the bylaws, it will over time become more of the latter. That may serve the academy well, not just in terms of ethnically and racially. But it may bring in more diverse kinds of films. For instance, this year it might have gotten “Star Wars” a best-picture nomination if you’d had a younger voting group. It’s going to take time, because it’s not like those people will be culled immediately. It’ll be interesting to see the impact of that over time. There are more chances of changes in the academy than changes in the upper echelon of the studios or of the talent agencies – the two other big institutions that I think are more in need of more, as Spike Lee would say, “flava.” More color in the top ranks. There’s a new profile of Samantha Bee in New York magazine in which she talks about a blind process of staffing her writing room. Have you heard of any talk about people in Hollywood doing that to fill in the behind-the-scenes positions? I think ultimately, what has to be shown to this industry, just like any other, is that this isn’t just a case of affirmative action – it’s a business decision. You can look at the shows and films that have performed really well – a show like “Empire” that’s leading in the ratings – it’s going to take some lessons like that. On the other hand, I’ve spoken to people in Hollywood who – every time a show like “Empire” succeeds – say, “Oh, that’s a one-off, that’s an anomaly, we can’t do that all the time.” You’re starting to see that more in TV than you are in film – people who see that there is a market there and that people will come and look at films with people of different stripes and colors. That’s what ultimately is going to move this in that direction. The profit motivation is always going to be the greatest. We’re still in a capitalist society, and the dollar is going to push everything. If there’s going to be change, that’s where it’s going to come from. The protests and outspokenness are important and can start the push. But ultimately it’s when the bottom line is affected that you’re going to see real change.

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Published on January 26, 2016 16:00

Fight Trump fatigue with “Lazer Team,” a delicious ’80s-style alien-invasion spoof

So for the first couple of minutes I thought “Lazer Team” was just so annoying and stupid I couldn’t stand it. Then I found my own safe space of annoying-ness and stupidity, right in the heart of this faux-‘80s alien-invasion movie made by — well, let’s get this out of the way; it was made by film-school comedy hipsters from Austin — and it was all OK from there. (At this stage of my life, my safe space only involved imaginary bong hits. But if you live in Colorado or Washington or any of the numerous other jurisdictions where marijuana prohibition is inconsistently enforced, I guess you’re entitled to make your own decisions.) If you need a break from the overarching idiocy of our political climate, the idiocy of “Lazer Team” is right on time. If the wonders of “Lazer Team,” starting with that Z and that incredibly lame title, are terrible wonders, and wonders I didn’t know were wonders until now, well, so be it. This movie has a theme song of exquisite ear-worm awfulness, or actually two of them, although the aggro-sugary pop-metal version, with all sorts of unnecessary instrumentation and a Steve Vai-style guitar solo, is the truly memorable one. It has a roster of sub-Joseph Campbell moronic dude archetypes, teaming up to fight evil: The Small-Town Cop, the Horny Teen, the Dumbass Mullethead and the Big Black Guy. It features an oversexed blond teenage girl who is possessed by an insectoid life form and tells her boyfriend (the aforementioned Horny Teen) that she wishes to know his precise location so she can meet with him and mate with him. He is, of course, totally psyched, and does not notice anything strange about this. Anyway: girls! All those characters are profoundly retrograde and offensive: four lovable but underachieving guys who are, at best, in the fourth IQ quintile (one of them being the token person of color), plus a misogynistic stereotype of young female sexuality? Well, yeah. As with all such things, it’s a question of whether you can make it work. For my money, director and co-writer Matt Hullum (a co-founder of the Austin production company Rooster Teeth, best known for the cult TV franchise “Red vs. Blue”) walks a fine and difficult line here with aplomb. “Lazer Team” is a pastiche based on a beloved pattern; it understands its own limitations but seeks to maximize its potential. All the characters are presented with immense affection and offered the chance to grow and develop, by which I mean to be gifted with inexplicable superpowers, to be repeatedly struck in the groin area by projectiles and to be mocked by others for their moments of vulnerability. It will not aid in comprehension if I provide much of a synopsis for “Lazer Team,” which was written by Hullum along with Burnie Burns, another Rooster Teeth founder (he plays Hagan, the sad-sack Small-Town Cop), and editors Chris Demarais and Josh Flanagan. That’s a lot of writers for a script whose highlight moments include “That’s what you get for messin’ with Lazer Team, bitch!” Not to mention a plot that seems to have been borrowed intact from some straight-to-video Roger Corman film, or perhaps a Taiwanese-Italian co-production built around the star power of David Hasselhoff. But OK, sure. These four losers in the middle of Texas who don’t much like each other accidentally come into possession of the Power Suit, which has been supplied to Earth by some supposedly friendly aliens to help us fight off an invasion from some other aliens, a lot less supposedly friendly. Alien Race No. 2 is sending their lizard-like champion down for a gladiatorial battle with the anointed Champion of Earth, an Aryan Superman type (Alan Ritchson) whom the U.S. military has bred in secret and raised from infancy. If this is starting to sound like that episode of “Star Trek: TOS” where Jim Kirk throws down with the rubbery reptilian killer known as the Gorn (“I will be swift and merciful!”), well, what’s your problem? Because that episode is awesome. “Lazer Team” is a little bit that episode—which is called “Arena,” or so the Internet tells me—and a little bit “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “John Dies at the End” and “Cabin in the Woods,” and overall a lot funnier than most attempted spoofs made with more money. (I never got around to writing about “American Ultra,” because it was so depressing. If Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg could each surrender half their wealth—and granted, half of Jesse’s wealth is like 0.5 percent of K-Stew’s—to scrub that movie from our memories, I certainly hope they would.) This movie, built largely around the premise that any excuse to hear a grown man scream in terror like an 8-year-old girl is a good one, was largely crowd-funded via the Indiegogo platform. And for once I have to stuff all the sarcasm back in the can and say, wow, isn’t the Internet great? I so love it. Extra kudos go to Colton Dunn, for making Herman, the onetime African-American football star turned town drunk, into a compelling and hilarious icon of self-destructive behavior, and to Gavin Free as the mullet-head maroon Woody, who gets the helmet of the Power Suit, which turns him into a genius with an English accent. (“Woody is a stupid person,” explains a lab-coated scientist. “That’s how stupid people think smart people sound.”) I’m not sure we needed the laborious male-bonding back-story about the football game Hagan and Herman lost 20 years earlier, and even in a movie made by reasonably cool people, the social media gags and celebrity cameos (Neil deGrasse Tyson! Seriously!) feel a little forced. But seriously, never mind. I think you already know by now whether you feel solidarity with the spirit of “Lazer Team,” or whether you are simply no fun at all.

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Published on January 26, 2016 15:59

The truth about “smart drugs”: They probably won’t make you smart unless you already are

In the 2011 movie Limitless, our loser-turned-hero Bradley Cooper takes a pill, writes a novel in a few days, becomes an investment tycoon, and performs other tricks of mental derring-do. And of course at the end of the movie (spoiler alert!), he gets the girl. If only such a pill really existed. Well, it may. Sort of. Welcome to the world of nootropics, or smart drugs. Nootropics (derived from Greek words that mean to bend the mind) are categories of drugs, supplements and other additives and stimulants that enhance memory, cognitive function and even intelligence. For thousands of years, humankind has sought ways to improve the mind, and many believe that modern science is on the cusp of achieving that goal, albeit with many caveats. The brain, as you might expect, is a complicated and metabolically ravenous organ. There’s a lot going on up there, and when all processes are clicking as they should, the body and mind are generally alert and optimally functioning. When the brain metabolism is off, though, both mind and body suffer. That’s where smart drugs come in. The goal behind them is to tweak the brain metabolism and keep the neurons firing in a focused way. For instance, there is a neurotransmitter in the brain called acetylcholine, which is the main agent in memory formation. Nootropic proponents theorize that if we enhance the acetycholine, we can enhance memory function. The abilities to reason, to plan, to focus and to avoid acting on impulse are some of the higher functions of the brain that nootropics target. It’s a mistake to think of smart drugs as steroids for the brain. The drugs don’t create more brain matter, like steroids create muscle. Instead, their goal is to focus the brain and make it work more efficiently. As Amy Arnsten, a professor of neurobiology at Yale medical School put it to the BBC, “You’re not taking Homer Simpson and making him into Einstein.” In other words, smart drugs don’t make you smart unless you already are smart. Steven Rose, emeritus professor of life sciences at the Open University observed, “What most of these are actually doing is enabling the person who’s taking them to focus.” Most prescription smart drugs, like the stimulant modafinil, a popular smart drug among students, were developed for specific medical disorders (in the case of modafinil, narcolepsy, ADHD, and other similar cognitive conditions) and are used off-label for cognitive enhancement. Modafinil users reported increased wakefulness, focus, motivation and concentration. While these drugs have been shown to balance the function of a cognitively impaired brain, until recently, there was no scientific proof that they improved cognitive function in a healthy brain. In fact, the limited studies showed just the opposite, impaired functioning. However, a recent study conducted by Harvard Medical School and the University of Oxford seemed to indicate that modafinil did indeed improve cognitive skills that involved complex tasks (but not memory function or other cognitive skills). Psycho-stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin, two other widely used "smart drugs," were developed for individuals with diagnosed attention deficit disorder, and have been used instead by students for enhanced focus. There have been no significant studies proving their effectiveness for this use, although there is much anecdotal hype. Side effects from both drugs can be significant, including sleeplessness, nausea, dependency, and even heart problems. Not all nootropics are prescription drugs, and a number of nutritional supplements are purported to have cognition-enhancing abilities. Entrepreneurs are taking notice. Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof Nutrition, has been a prominent promoter of nootropics as a way to “hack” human biology. He claims to have spent 15 years and over a quarter of a million dollars using himself as a guinea pig for his nutritional beliefs. His goal has been to find the right combination, or “stack,” of nutritional supplements to help his body, and more importantly, his brain, reach its full potential. He boasts to have increased his IQ by 20 points, and told CNN, "It feels almost seamless, like I just got upgraded....That's a gift." Maybe the most popular non-prescription nootropic is piracetam. Developed in Belgium in the 1960s, the supplement has a relatively long history, and as such, is considered safe, non-toxic and non-addictive. Piracetam is thought to improve the function of acetylcholine in the brain, the neurotransmitter involved in memory formation. Its popularity can be attributed to its apparent safety and relative low cost, as well as its purported mild but noticeable cognitive enhancement. Its side effects, if experienced at all, are minimal, including possible mild headache and stomach upset. Adrafinil is another popular non-prescription smart drug. When taken, the liver converts adrafinil into modafinil. Because it has to be taken in larger doses, and can cause an elevation in liver enzymes, adrafinil cannot be taken on a continual basis. Users have reported a sharper, more alert mind and increased motivation. Recently, creatine has been eyed as a potent smart drug. A popular supplement for body builders (often mistaken as a steroid, which it is not), creatine is a naturally occurring product in the body formed from two amino acids, glycine and arginine. Normally used to help athletes build muscle, some small-scale studies have shown creatine may be helpful in improving memory, cognitive processing, and even enhancing IQ. Theanine (or L-theanine) is another amino acid that has shown nootropic potential. Studies have indicated that theanine affects the level of neurotransmitters, is helpful to young boys with ADHD, and in combination with caffeine, has improved focus and alertness (presumably more than caffeine alone). The amino acid is prevalent in green tea, and has been recognized by the FDA as safe. Choline is a precursor molecule to the memory neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Users of choline as a nootropic report improved memory and focus. Not all forms of choline are actually able to penetrate through the blood-brain barrier, however. Alpha-GPC and citicholine are two forms of the nutrient that are more bio-available. Noopept is a chemical that was originally discovered by Russian researchers. Up to 1000 times more powerful than piracetam, Noopept can be taken in very small doses. Users reported Noopept increased their focus and memory, cognition, as well as their logical thinking. It is important to note that most of the positive effects that have been reported by nootropic enthusiasts has been anecdotal. That is, strict scientific protocols have not firmly established their effectiveness. In 2014, the National Institutes for Health noted, “It is clear from the current lack of research in the field that much work needs to be done in order to determine the safety of cognitive enhancers, particularly among adolescents, the population most likely to take advantage of these drugs should they become available. " Many of the positive effects may be nothing more than placebos. Additionally, much of the scientific studies have been done on animals like rats, and making the leap from rat to human is a large leap indeed. As more and more smart drugs crop up, more side effects have been noted. And there are, for the most part, no studies to establish that the drugs are safe over long periods of time. Always do your research, and consult your doctor before deciding to add any of these medicines or supplements to your daily regimen. Larry Schwartz is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer with a focus on health, science and American history.

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Published on January 26, 2016 15:58

“Boys don’t get raped”: “American Crime” is smashing damaging myths about sexual assault

Men get raped. They make up an estimated 14 percent of total victims, although we’re pretty intent to collectively pretend that’s not true. Occasionally, there’ll be a bit of tip-toeing around military sexual assault. Otherwise, the discussion is largely limited to prison rape jokes with few punch lines smarter than “Don’t drop the soap.” Male victims in any other context are made invisible. It’s as if we’ve come to believe rape is so inconceivable outside of jail or the Army that it simply doesn’t happen. So, what about when it does? Enter “American Crime.” The show’s second season explores a community wrapping its head around the sexual assault of a young man at a party for the school’s basketball team. The first two episodes quietly prod at the question of whether a man can be raped. The writers don’t so much ask if it can happen -- of course, it can and does -- as they dangle the incident in front of their characters, forcing them to grapple with it in various stages of societally induced delusion. In the third and most recent episode (the show airs Wednesdays on ABC), that conflict is explicitly driven to the foreground. As law enforcement makes the steps to classify the incident as a rape, we see perspectives shift from questioning tones and raised eyebrows to straight-up denial. "It didn't happen, because boys don't get raped,” says Terri, the mother of a potential suspect. “First of all, boys don't do that to other boys, and even if he could, the boys fight back." In the moment, she’s not just defending her son Kevin, who she’s learned for the first time may have been involved in the attack. Instead, she’s fiercely confident in her circular reasoning: It didn’t happen, because it doesn’t happen. In the same moment, her husband, Michael, flies off in a rage, running into Kevin’s room and physically demanding answers. His otherwise calm and levelheaded disposition bursts under this new information. Terri protects herself by outright rejecting the possibility, while Michael is so terrified by it, he loses all control, as if he actually can’t handle the thought. Meanwhile, the victim, Taylor, tells his therapist he was met with ridicule even when he reported his account to the police. “People lose their minds when something happens to a girl," he says. “They have rights groups supporting them. They have lesbians out hating men. But a guy?” “You really believe people don’t care when a male is violated?” comes the response. “If I put a mattress on my back and carry it around, do you think they're gonna put me on TV?” he spits back. “I just want it to be over.” At the behest of his mother, Taylor is repeating and reliving what happened that night, although as viewers we still don’t have the full story. In a way, the audience is made to experience the unfolding of details along with the other parents and kids in the school. What exactly does rape mean for a young man? Why would other young men do that to him? Why would popular kids/athletes do that to him? With a young woman, there would be no question as to cause. Certainly, “young woman gets raped” wouldn’t be enough of a premise for an entire season of a show. It’s almost too commonplace to be the entirety of anything other than an episode of “Law & Order.” The party setting alone would be enough to reduce the incident to the collateral damage of too much drinking and a sexy outfit. There would be a disgusting mess of victim blaming, which would be wrong and bad, but certainly no question of whether rape was possible to begin with. Taylor’s sexual assault is confounding to each new person who hears of the story. Their eyes harden a little at the news there was a rape; they’re outright confused when they hear it was a boy. “American Crime” quickly becomes a portrait of larger cultural perceptions. The true mystery of the show is not “who raped Taylor,” but how the characters surrounding him manage to convince themselves he could never be raped in the first place. Given the intricacies of the stigma surrounding male victims, it’s not especially hard for them to ignore his story altogether. Consider the story currently unfolding at Ooltewah High in Tennessee. When a freshman basketball player was penetrated with a pool cue last month, officials responded by effectively pretending nothing happened. According to the Washington Post, an assistant coach witnessed the assault and failed to report it to authorities, allowing his team to continue to play. The microcosm of “American Crime” likely informs and is shaped by horrific events like this, yet is no more steeped in patriarchal misconceptions of masculinity than our own disturbing reality. All the stigma and shame that female victims face is paradoxically compounded by the greater respect we grant male bodies. We accept that men get beaten or murdered, but rape -- the total overpowering of one’s worth -- is too much to process. And so, we origami it down to the smallest possible size and file it away as an impossibility, letting male victims languish in silence. Men don’t get raped, because men don’t get raped.

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Published on January 26, 2016 15:58

“You know I got rhymes like Abe Vigoda!!!”: Beloved “Godfather” actor’s death sparks funny, heartfelt tributes

Abe Vigoda, 94, passed away in his sleep this morning in Woodland Parks, New Jersey. Vigoda was an accomplished character actor whose many roles included, most notably, Sal Tessio in "The Godfather" (before getting whacked) and in a subsequent flashback sequence in "The Godfather: Part II"; Detective Phil Fish on '70s sitcom "Barney Miller" and spin-off "Fish"; as well as regular guest appearances on "Seinfeld" and Conan O'Brien's "Late Night"/"The Tonight Show": Vigoda also made frequent appearances on Letterman's "Late Show" as part of a segment called "Abe Vigoda is Still Alive"--after "People" magazine accidentally referred to the actor as "the late Abe Vigoda" in a 1982 publication--ultimately spawning the website abevigoda.com: Dr. Ruth--herself a regular "Late Show" feature--even brought Vigoda onto her popular television talk show "Sexually Speaking" in 1986: For those of us too young to know Vigoda beyond late-life cameo appearances, here's a perfect example of Abe stealing a scene without saying a word in a 1976 episode of "Barney Miller": As is to be expected when an actor as successful and iconic as Vigoda passes, stars quickly tweeted tributes, many of which were fittingly tongue-in-cheek, including a Questlove shout-out to the Beastie Boys shout-out in "Posse in Effect": https://twitter.com/questlove/status/... https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/statu... https://twitter.com/OpieRadio/status/... https://twitter.com/WorldofIsaac/stat... https://twitter.com/marcbernardin/sta... https://twitter.com/DaneCook/status/6... Abe Vigoda Dies at 94

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Published on January 26, 2016 13:58

Time to freak out: 4 reasons the global economy is completely screwed

A fresh blast of cold air swept across global financial and commodity markets on Wednesday, raising fears that the world economy could be heading toward a recession — one perhaps even bigger than the last one.

Further falls in crude oil prices were the catalyst for the widespread sell-off as investors from New York to London dumped stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 500 points at one point, and US crude fell below $27 a barrel, its lowest level since May 2003.

The alarming combination of plunging stock markets, sinking oil prices, collapsing emerging market currencies and the slowdown in China has left many market participants wishing 2016 was over already.

The renewed panic comes as political and business leaders gather in the Swiss Alps town of Davos for the World Economic Forum, which is likely to be dominated by the turmoil in global markets.

"The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up," William White, the Swiss-based chairman of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's policy review committee and former economic advisor at the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements, told The Telegraph in Davos.

The signs were there before Wednesday's market woes. US billionaire investor George Soros has warned that global markets are facing a 2008-style crisis as China makes the difficult transition from an export-driven economy to one that is more reliant on domestic consumption.

“China has a major adjustment problem,” Soros said. “I would say it amounts to a crisis. When I look at the financial markets there is a serious challenge which reminds me of the crisis we had in 2008,” Soros told an economic forum earlier this year, Bloomberg reported.

So, is it time to start stashing your savings under the mattress?

Here are four reasons why you should be very worried about the state of the global economy.

1. Emerging market debt crisis

Blame the US Federal Reserve for this one.

Since the Fed lowered interest rates to near zero during the financial crisis, the world has been flooded with cheap money. Emerging market companies, banks and governments have responded by taking out dollar-denominated loans. Now that US interest rates are rising again and the dollar is strengthening, those debts are becoming a lot more expensive to pay back.

"Emerging markets were part of the solution after the Lehman crisis. Now they are part of the problem too,” the OECD's White told The Telegraph.

2. Stock markets are plunging

If you were thinking about taking an early retirement and living off the fat of your financial market investments, think again.

Wall Street is having its worst start to a year ever, with the S&P 500 falling more than 8 percent in less than three weeks. The losses have spread like a bad flu to other regions — China and Japan have tumbled into bear markets and London’s FTSE 100 looks set to join them. (The technical definition of a bear market is a fall of 20 percent or more from a recent high). European markets are deep in negative territory, too.

With the International Monetary Fund downgrading its global economic growth forecasts for this year and next, citing the ongoing problems with China and weak commodity prices, now is not the time to be perfecting your golf putt.

3. Super-low oil prices

Global oil prices have plunged in the past 18 months and key benchmarks have begun trading below $30 a barrel, the lowest level in more than a decade, as a global glut and China growth fears weigh on demand. The International Energy Agency warned Tuesday the oil market could “drown in oversupply.” Sounds scary, right? It is.

Many businesses and consumers are cheering the low oil prices because it means gasoline is cheaper, which reduces their costs and gives them more money to spend. But there’s a downside. When oil is too cheap it can fuel deflation. One reason that's bad for an economy is that if consumers believe prices will fall further, they might delay making purchases, pushing down prices even more and creating a dangerous downward spiral. The domino effects can be devastating. Falling oil prices can also be a sign that economic activity is slowing.

4. China is slowing down

The latest data show China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in 25 years in 2015, confirming fears that the world’s growth engine is losing steam. It expanded by 6.9 percent last year, compared with 7.3 percent in 2014.

China’s deceleration has huge economic implications, now and in the long term. While the slowdown is partly a consequence of Beijing's efforts to wean the country off its addiction to export-driven growth, there are fears that Chinese leaders could lose their nerve and further devalue the currency to prop up the country's labor-intensive manufacturing sector. That could lead to a damaging global currency war and undermine confidence in China.