Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 975
October 20, 2015
The GOP establishment’s impotent panic: Why they can’t make Donald Trump & Ben Carson go away
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. Mencken As the Republican presidential race drags on, it’s becoming increasingly clear, despite pundits' predictions to the contrary, that Donald Trump and Ben Carson aren’t going away. The latest batch of polls shows, yet again, that the two outsiders have a commanding lead over the rest of the field. The CNN/ORC poll, for instance, has Trump at 27 percent and Carson at 22 percent, with establishment favorites Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush both trailing at 8 percent apiece. The remaining polls are consistent with these numbers; a Monmouth poll released today showed outsider candidates Trump, Carson, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina combining for 62 percent support, while Rubio and Bush combined for just 11 percent -- less than half Trump's total. Republican insiders have secretly hoped for months that Trump and Carson would collapse under the weight of their own incompetence, but that’s not happening. And it’s not going to happen either. Republican voters, to paraphrase Mencken, know what they want and are getting it good and hard. And what they want, it seems, are politically inept blowhards. A report in the Washington Examiner illustrates just how panicked the Republican establishment has become. “This weekend was an inflection point in the Republican presidential race,” writes Byron York, “a moment in which some significant part of the GOP establishment came out of denial and realized Donald Trump might well become their party’s nominee.” On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough related that he no longer hears “anybody saying [Trump] can’t win the nomination.” Trump’s invincibility is now so worrisome that Republicans are preparing for an all-out assault. York writes:
Insiders have watched as Trump defied what many believed were the immutable laws of the political universe. First they thought Trump wouldn’t run. Then they thought voters wouldn’t take a reality-TV star seriously. Then they thought gaffes would kill Trump as they had other candidates. None of that turned out as expected. But there is one belief Trump has not yet tested, and that is the political insiders’ unshakeable faith that negative ads work.I understand the panic here, but I’m not so sure a blitzkrieg of negative ads will work against the Donald. The man says and does one stupid thing after another, and Republicans love him a little more every time. An anonymous Republican insider quoted in York’s piece says there will be “massive resistance” to Trump because “He’s not a conservative.” Ok, but primary voters don’t love Trump because he’s a conservative; they love him because he doesn’t give a shit and because he promises to blow everything up. As York notes, conservative groups can question Trump’s conservative bona fides all they want, “But what if a large number of his voters are not wed to conservative orthodoxy as defined by Washington-based organization?” Another prominent conservative, Pete Wehner, published a similar lament in the New York Times today, writing:
Republican voters are in a fiercely anti-political mood. As a result, the usual ways voters judge a candidate – experience, governing achievements, mastery of issues – have been devalued. People are looking for candidates not only to give voice to their anger but to amplify it. Reason has given way to demagogy…Such rhetorical recklessness damages our political culture as well as conservatism, a philosophy that should be grounded in prudence, moderation and self-restraint…Mr. Carson doesn’t abide by such niceties, and he may be accurately gauging the mood of many Republicans. The Times reports that advisers who once fretted about his inflammatory rhetoric have now decided to let Carson be Carson.Wehner is right that Carson and Trump are resonating with Republican voters across the country, but it’s not because they’re anti-political; it’s because they’re anti-government. Conservatives have been losing the culture wars and the legislative battles for years now, and they just don’t give a damn anymore. They want to explode the system. Trump and Carson are not just outsiders; they’re candidates without a coherent governing philosophy or even a tacit interest in policy. For that reason, they’re free to say whatever they want, no matter how insane, so long as it speaks to the angst of their core supporters. This is obviously what Republican voters want, and if the establishment thinks they can advertise their way out of this problem, they don’t quite understand what’s happened to their party. [image error]“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. Mencken As the Republican presidential race drags on, it’s becoming increasingly clear, despite pundits' predictions to the contrary, that Donald Trump and Ben Carson aren’t going away. The latest batch of polls shows, yet again, that the two outsiders have a commanding lead over the rest of the field. The CNN/ORC poll, for instance, has Trump at 27 percent and Carson at 22 percent, with establishment favorites Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush both trailing at 8 percent apiece. The remaining polls are consistent with these numbers; a Monmouth poll released today showed outsider candidates Trump, Carson, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina combining for 62 percent support, while Rubio and Bush combined for just 11 percent -- less than half Trump's total. Republican insiders have secretly hoped for months that Trump and Carson would collapse under the weight of their own incompetence, but that’s not happening. And it’s not going to happen either. Republican voters, to paraphrase Mencken, know what they want and are getting it good and hard. And what they want, it seems, are politically inept blowhards. A report in the Washington Examiner illustrates just how panicked the Republican establishment has become. “This weekend was an inflection point in the Republican presidential race,” writes Byron York, “a moment in which some significant part of the GOP establishment came out of denial and realized Donald Trump might well become their party’s nominee.” On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough related that he no longer hears “anybody saying [Trump] can’t win the nomination.” Trump’s invincibility is now so worrisome that Republicans are preparing for an all-out assault. York writes:
Insiders have watched as Trump defied what many believed were the immutable laws of the political universe. First they thought Trump wouldn’t run. Then they thought voters wouldn’t take a reality-TV star seriously. Then they thought gaffes would kill Trump as they had other candidates. None of that turned out as expected. But there is one belief Trump has not yet tested, and that is the political insiders’ unshakeable faith that negative ads work.I understand the panic here, but I’m not so sure a blitzkrieg of negative ads will work against the Donald. The man says and does one stupid thing after another, and Republicans love him a little more every time. An anonymous Republican insider quoted in York’s piece says there will be “massive resistance” to Trump because “He’s not a conservative.” Ok, but primary voters don’t love Trump because he’s a conservative; they love him because he doesn’t give a shit and because he promises to blow everything up. As York notes, conservative groups can question Trump’s conservative bona fides all they want, “But what if a large number of his voters are not wed to conservative orthodoxy as defined by Washington-based organization?” Another prominent conservative, Pete Wehner, published a similar lament in the New York Times today, writing:
Republican voters are in a fiercely anti-political mood. As a result, the usual ways voters judge a candidate – experience, governing achievements, mastery of issues – have been devalued. People are looking for candidates not only to give voice to their anger but to amplify it. Reason has given way to demagogy…Such rhetorical recklessness damages our political culture as well as conservatism, a philosophy that should be grounded in prudence, moderation and self-restraint…Mr. Carson doesn’t abide by such niceties, and he may be accurately gauging the mood of many Republicans. The Times reports that advisers who once fretted about his inflammatory rhetoric have now decided to let Carson be Carson.Wehner is right that Carson and Trump are resonating with Republican voters across the country, but it’s not because they’re anti-political; it’s because they’re anti-government. Conservatives have been losing the culture wars and the legislative battles for years now, and they just don’t give a damn anymore. They want to explode the system. Trump and Carson are not just outsiders; they’re candidates without a coherent governing philosophy or even a tacit interest in policy. For that reason, they’re free to say whatever they want, no matter how insane, so long as it speaks to the angst of their core supporters. This is obviously what Republican voters want, and if the establishment thinks they can advertise their way out of this problem, they don’t quite understand what’s happened to their party. [image error]
Chris Matthews applauds Donald Trump for destroying the falsehood that George W. Bush kept us safe: “Democrats never had the stones”
Chris Matthews opened Monday night's edition of "Hardball" remarking on what he called the most striking development of the 2016 campaign thus far: "It took a political newcomer, Donald Trump, to say something we already knew but nobody had said before, that President George W. Bush did not keep us safe in the eight years he was president of the United States." Matthews, noting the ongoing "war of words" between establishment favorite Jeb Bush and the dominating political neophyte over the national security legacy of George W. Bush, applauded Trump for bringing his brashness to this latest fight, something Matthews charged, "the Democrats never had the stones" to do. “I'm not a big fan of Donald Trump on many occasions," Matthews said before arguing that Trump had "awakened us all" to the fact that Jeb is dishonest when he praises his big brother for "keeping us safe." "He didn't keep us safe or the people on those planes, those four planes, safe that day," Matthews charged. "He didn't keep those safe, those men and women forced to choose between jumping from 100-story roof and being killed by the smoke and the fire. And he didn't keep safe the hundreds of firefighters killed that day doing their courageous duty." Matthews then took umbrage with Republicans' gall to hold Hillary Clinton personally responsible for the deaths of four Americans in "in a remote building in war-torn North Africa, miles, 400 miles from the capital of that country," while ignoring "a concerted, highly coordinated attack using our commercial airliners and our training," in order to give George W. Bush a pass. "Again, I want to thank Trump, and Jeb, of course, for finally getting this one out in the open, by throwing out the red meat. By saying, 'he kept us safe," Jeb let us know what we knew already, that actually, W. didn't keep us safe, did he?" Watch Matthews, via Mediaite: 
The Lena Dunham Industrial Complex is expanding: Learn how to live your “best life” from her new feminist podcast
In addition to "Girls," various film projects, her forthcoming HBO show and her buzzy "Lenny Letter" newsletter, Lena Dunham is getting into the podcast game. Coinciding with the paperback release of her book “Not That Kind of Girl,” Dunham and BuzzFeed are teaming up for a podcast titled "Women of the Hour," featuring “news and wisdom you can use from women living their best life." The audio-program will feature Dunham and a slew of her famous, feminist friends — including Emma Stone, June Squibb, Emily Ratajkowski, Amy Sedaris and Zadie Smith -- chatting about sex, friendship, love, work, bodies and more. “I decided to explore the themes of my book further, talking to an array of women I love and admire in order to bring you an audio collage/feminist variety hour in the form of this pod-cast: Women of the Hour,” wrote Dunham on Twitter Tuesday. “Please subscribe if you like bad-asses, deep questions, giggling, sexual healing, Gaia life force, style, summer-camp, cute kids, the Internet and feminine power,” she added. Check out a preview below: [image error]In addition to "Girls," various film projects, her forthcoming HBO show and her buzzy "Lenny Letter" newsletter, Lena Dunham is getting into the podcast game. Coinciding with the paperback release of her book “Not That Kind of Girl,” Dunham and BuzzFeed are teaming up for a podcast titled "Women of the Hour," featuring “news and wisdom you can use from women living their best life." The audio-program will feature Dunham and a slew of her famous, feminist friends — including Emma Stone, June Squibb, Emily Ratajkowski, Amy Sedaris and Zadie Smith -- chatting about sex, friendship, love, work, bodies and more. “I decided to explore the themes of my book further, talking to an array of women I love and admire in order to bring you an audio collage/feminist variety hour in the form of this pod-cast: Women of the Hour,” wrote Dunham on Twitter Tuesday. “Please subscribe if you like bad-asses, deep questions, giggling, sexual healing, Gaia life force, style, summer-camp, cute kids, the Internet and feminine power,” she added. Check out a preview below: [image error]
October 19, 2015
Let us now blame George Bush: Trump and Jeb force a long overdue debate about 9/11
If the Republican presidential primary race were a Thanksgiving dinner, Donald Trump would be the crazy old uncle who drinks too much and says outrageous things that embarrass everyone at the table. Sometimes those things are embarrassing because they’re brazenly bigoted, or absurdly boastful, or otherwise generally unconnected to reality. But occasionally he says something embarrassing precisely because it’s true. Trump’s repeated tweaking of Jeb Bush for Bush’s preposterous claim that his brother “kept us safe” during his presidency falls into the latter category. Trump’s mockery is of course more than justified. On its face, Jeb’s claim would be analogous to Exxon boasting about its record of keeping the Alaskan coastline mostly free from oil spills, or the governor of Texas taking pride in executing mostly guilty defendants. Jeb’s defense of his brother on this score is patently absurd, but this should not obscure the fact that, in making the claim, Jeb is merely repeating many years of GOP dogma. That George W. Bush kept the nation safe from terrorism, is, bizarrely enough, something that Republicans argued constantly when he was in office. The argument was (and continues to be) that W. shouldn’t be held responsible for by far the worst terrorist attack in American history, even though his administration was warned about it in advance, because he only had nine months to do something about it, and Al Qaeda was already around at the time he took office, and also Al Gore is fat. But in all seriousness, the genuinely freakish doublethink Republicans indulge in on this subject requires further explanation. Two factors help explain why it’s possible and indeed commonplace for people to give Jeb’s younger brother a kind of historical mulligan in regard to terrorism, to the point where it’s necessary for Crazy Uncle Donald to remind everyone that the whole 9/11 thing happened well into W’s presidency. First, consider the power of what sociologists call “framing.” The cultural frame that the Republican party has so successfully managed to build up since the days of Ronald Reagan is one in which Democrats are weak—kneed appeasers and semi-pacifists, while the GOP is the party of strong, war-like Daddy figures, who know how to deal with foreign threats with unsentimental ruthlessness. You would think it would be impossible to assimilate the 9/11 terrorist attacks to this frame, but you would be wrong. Such is the power of this pre-ordained narrative that, when America suffered a catastrophic terrorist attack under a Republican president, this inconvenient fact was, for enormous numbers of people, magically whisked down a kind of collective memory hole. The power of this frame to distort perception is evident if we consider a counter-factual in which something like the 9/11 attacks happened during the term of any Democratic president. Imagine if 3,000 Americans had been murdered by foreign terrorists nine months into the Obama administration. It’s almost inconceivable that it would occur to anyone to claim subsequently that Obama had “kept us safe,” because such a claim wouldn’t be supported by the powerful distortions of a cultural frame that turned the combat-dodging ne’er do well son of George H.W. Bush into some sort of heroic warrior. Second, not ascribing any blame to W. for 9/11 was and is another way of treating the events of that terrible day as a kind of inexplicable cataclysm, that was visited upon the nation by irrational and cowardly evildoers, whose motivations were either impossible to understand, or wholly irrelevant, or both. To try to ascribe any responsibility to the Bush administration for letting 9/11 happen could lead to uncomfortable questions of, among other things, whether and to what extent American foreign policy had played a role in creating the conditions that allowed those attacks to happen. It’s understandable that, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, almost no one wanted to consider such questions. Fourteen years later, we no longer have any excuse not to do so – and that applies especially to GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush.If the Republican presidential primary race were a Thanksgiving dinner, Donald Trump would be the crazy old uncle who drinks too much and says outrageous things that embarrass everyone at the table. Sometimes those things are embarrassing because they’re brazenly bigoted, or absurdly boastful, or otherwise generally unconnected to reality. But occasionally he says something embarrassing precisely because it’s true. Trump’s repeated tweaking of Jeb Bush for Bush’s preposterous claim that his brother “kept us safe” during his presidency falls into the latter category. Trump’s mockery is of course more than justified. On its face, Jeb’s claim would be analogous to Exxon boasting about its record of keeping the Alaskan coastline mostly free from oil spills, or the governor of Texas taking pride in executing mostly guilty defendants. Jeb’s defense of his brother on this score is patently absurd, but this should not obscure the fact that, in making the claim, Jeb is merely repeating many years of GOP dogma. That George W. Bush kept the nation safe from terrorism, is, bizarrely enough, something that Republicans argued constantly when he was in office. The argument was (and continues to be) that W. shouldn’t be held responsible for by far the worst terrorist attack in American history, even though his administration was warned about it in advance, because he only had nine months to do something about it, and Al Qaeda was already around at the time he took office, and also Al Gore is fat. But in all seriousness, the genuinely freakish doublethink Republicans indulge in on this subject requires further explanation. Two factors help explain why it’s possible and indeed commonplace for people to give Jeb’s younger brother a kind of historical mulligan in regard to terrorism, to the point where it’s necessary for Crazy Uncle Donald to remind everyone that the whole 9/11 thing happened well into W’s presidency. First, consider the power of what sociologists call “framing.” The cultural frame that the Republican party has so successfully managed to build up since the days of Ronald Reagan is one in which Democrats are weak—kneed appeasers and semi-pacifists, while the GOP is the party of strong, war-like Daddy figures, who know how to deal with foreign threats with unsentimental ruthlessness. You would think it would be impossible to assimilate the 9/11 terrorist attacks to this frame, but you would be wrong. Such is the power of this pre-ordained narrative that, when America suffered a catastrophic terrorist attack under a Republican president, this inconvenient fact was, for enormous numbers of people, magically whisked down a kind of collective memory hole. The power of this frame to distort perception is evident if we consider a counter-factual in which something like the 9/11 attacks happened during the term of any Democratic president. Imagine if 3,000 Americans had been murdered by foreign terrorists nine months into the Obama administration. It’s almost inconceivable that it would occur to anyone to claim subsequently that Obama had “kept us safe,” because such a claim wouldn’t be supported by the powerful distortions of a cultural frame that turned the combat-dodging ne’er do well son of George H.W. Bush into some sort of heroic warrior. Second, not ascribing any blame to W. for 9/11 was and is another way of treating the events of that terrible day as a kind of inexplicable cataclysm, that was visited upon the nation by irrational and cowardly evildoers, whose motivations were either impossible to understand, or wholly irrelevant, or both. To try to ascribe any responsibility to the Bush administration for letting 9/11 happen could lead to uncomfortable questions of, among other things, whether and to what extent American foreign policy had played a role in creating the conditions that allowed those attacks to happen. It’s understandable that, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, almost no one wanted to consider such questions. Fourteen years later, we no longer have any excuse not to do so – and that applies especially to GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush.
So a thief walks into a comedy club: Trevor Noah, Louis C.K. and the war over plagiarized punch-lines
Since the announcement in March that up-and-coming South African comedian Trevor Noah would succeed Jon Stewart as host of the "Daily Show," Noah has come under his fair share of scrutiny for things like years-old tweets and drooping ratings. Last week, the Hollywood Reporter upped the ante with a report implying that Noah may be a joke thief. Noah’s 20-minute stand-up set at a political convention last weekend in L.A. included a bit quite similar to a joke from Dave Chappelle’s 1998 HBO special. Both jokes centered on differences in racism across cultures, and used the phrase “racism connoisseur” — a degree of similarity that raised speculation about whether Noah has sticky comedic fingers. As THR and other outlets pointed out, Noah has faced other accusations of joke-theft in the past. But Noah is only the latest in a long line of comedians to face heat for stealing gags. Just as stand-up comedy has evolved as an art form since its 19th century beginnings, so too have the ethics and repercussions of poaching other peoples’ material. While these discussions typically unfolded within the comedy community in the past, social media makes it easier than ever for joke theft charges to go viral, but the impact that will have on would-be thieves remains to be seen. Historians peg the birth of stand-up comedy to the late-19th century vaudeville era, when a variety of acts including burlesque dancers, musicians, jugglers and sketch comedy duos toured theaters across the country. Vaudeville shows specifically catered to the sensibilities of the multiethnic working class, which meant the sets had to be fast-paced, fun and easy to understand. These criteria gave rise to slapstick based on simple tropes, as well as to the idea that performers could “borrow” and “build off of” other acts. This permissive attitude about joke theft was probably at least partially fatalist — it’s awfully tough to prove a joke’s origin when acts are constantly touring from town-to-town. But the nature of the shows likely encouraged this behavior as well, since comics who recycled familiar bits had a better chance of satisfying both censorious theaters and audiences who spoke limited English. The “pie in the face” gag began as a vaudeville go-to, as did “The Aristocrats,” the classic dirty joke comics still put their own spins on today. As more and more comedic vaudevillians began to performing material “in one” — that is, standing alone on a stage — the free-wheeling rules of the past no longer fit. Then the rapid rise of moving pictures thoroughly disrupted the vaudeville industry: theatre after theatre closed, since they couldn't compete with bargain prices at the cinema. Comics were competing more and more for dwindling live-performance slots, as well as to be cast in film, and having highly original material was an obvious way to set oneself apart from the pack. By the time vaudeville finally flatlined in the early 1930s, comedians' bits were being filmed to be shown in pre-movie reels, making it slightly harder for aspiring copycats to simply smuggle ideas over to the next town. The open source ethos of the early vaudeville days have led some to argue that joke theft is no big deal — and as cases like “The Aristocrats” illustrate, can even spark creative oneupmanship. But nearly all comedians reject this argument. Patton Oswalt even once reminded Time Magazine that even vaudeville legend W.C. Fields famously “beat the living s**t” out of anyone who copied his act. Besides — the vaudeville rules regulated an art form that was economically and creatively very different than modern stand-up. In a cut-throat industry where up-and-comers compete ferociously for five-minute TV spots, the stakes of a lifted joke are far higher than two similar slapstick acts getting paid in two different cities where no one has televisions. If the advent of film helped to stigmatize joke theft, it certainly didn't stop it. The debuts of the first comedy album in 1958 and the first comedy club in 1963 both entrenched the idea that a stand-ups success would be determined not only by how good their material was, but how much of it they had. A vaudevillian could happily cash-in with the same 10 minute set in 50 different cities — but a stand-up would need a solid hour to headline a club or record an album. The quantity of material a given comic had was now directly tied to their livelihoods. This meant that a minute of stand-up was essentially commodified as comedic currency, to be safeguarded by those who have it, and snatched by those who don’t. This can still be the case today. In one 2013 viral essay, Oswalt, perhaps the comedy world’s most outspoken voice against joke theft, described watching a young comedian passing off massive chunks of a buddy’s set as his own to score more lucrative feature gigs. When confronted, the thief insisted that he needed to steal, since he couldn't possibly clear 30 minutes using only his own material. Whatever pay boost he got as a feature instead of an opener was money made off the sweat of funnier brows. Frustration with that same entitled calculus sparked comedians’ high-profile clash with the “Fat Jew,” who earlier in 2015 made headlines for successfully monetizing an Instagram feed comprised solely of pilfered jokes. Many outlets characterized the controversy as being over proper attribution, but it was really over the fact that he was benefiting from a brand he didn't do anything to create. For most comedians, Fat Jew’s penance wouldn't just be attribution, it would be writing his own damn jokes. Aside from economics, most comedians are moved by convictions of creative ownership over their own work. Stand-up has grown into a far more bonafide art form than its silly slapstick predecessor, further affirming the immorality of thievery. But even if stand-ups have long agreed that stealing jokes is wrong, they are still faced with an obvious problem. What exactly are they supposed to do about it? While other fields may be governed by strict rules regarding plagiarism and can enforce copyright laws through the courts, stand-up comedians have little formal recourse when someone helps themselves to their big closer. The problems with copyright as related to stand-up comedy were succinctly explained by Slate: “Copyright law defends the expression of an idea, but not the idea itself. So even if somebody stole your joke about bad airline food, there’s little you can do if that person tells the same joke with slightly differently wording—no one owns the idea of mocking bad airline food. And even when a comedian does have a legal basis to accuse somebody of copyright infringement, it can be expensive to do anything about it.” (Indeed, it’s hard to imagine an open mic comic who makes ends meet waiting tables retaining a copyright lawyer to protect his Tinder joke.) Industry professionals aren't very interested in defending the sanctity of comedy either, so the business of policing joke theft falls largely to comedians themselves. In 2007, researchers at University of Virginia Law School produced a report on strategies the comedy community implements to reduce theft and hold offenders accountable. While they found no examples of comic-on-comic copyright suits, they nonetheless concluded that stand-ups had managed to hone a well-functioning system to preserve their art. Punishments for joke thieves can range from badmouthing and tarnished reputations, to coordinated “blackballing,” to the rare-but-possible physical altercations in the style of W.C. Fields. Examples of just how comedians’ interactions with thieves play out stretch back for decades, many of which were recounted by Larry Getlen in a 2007 feature for Radar Magazine. In the 1980s, comics at the Hollywood Improv reportedly devised a blinking light system to warn performers when known joke thieves showed up. (Among the most notorious was Robin Williams, who was even said to pay off comics who complained about stolen bits.) At the L.A. Comedy Store in 2007, comedian Joe Rogan went so far as to interrupt Carlos Mencia onstage over his habit of rampant joke theft. Rogan also posted a video of the confrontation online, harkening an era in which discussions over joke theft frequently happen publicly online. It’s quite possible this degree of transparency applies pressure to industry gatekeepers, who kept hiring Carlos “Menstealia” for years until the public began to turn on him. Of course, video can have a “gotcha” effect on stand-up beyond cases of premeditated, filmed ambushes of notorious thieves. Some people believe video may finally be having the effect hypothetically imagined back when film began edging out vaudeville. They contend that the fact that bits can be uploaded and watched online may convince potential thieves not to bother, or act as an insurance policy for comedians wishing to ward off vultures. If all else fails, side-by-side evidence can allow a wider audience to weigh in — like with the Hollywood Reporter story comparing Noah to Chapelle. But objective truth isn't always so easy to come by. Joke theft has never been as straight-forward a crime as, say, jewelry theft, because accusations of “joke theft” can point to several different things. Certainly, there are deplorable instances of outright, consciously purloined material. But there are also many innocent cases of what comedians call “parallel thought,” when people simply happen to come up with the same gag independently. (Last week’s announcement that Playboy would cease publishing nudes, for example, sparked endless “now you can really read it for the articles!” quips on social media.) And then there’s an ambiguous “other” category that includes things like “unconscious plagiarism,” when comics subconsciously internalize someone else’s joke, or material born out of conversations between comics where the actual owner might be ambiguous. Art Markman, a psychology professor at University of Texas, confirmed in an email that this phenomenon exists when it comes to generating creative ideas. Leveraging public opinion against joke theft can be effective in cases like Mencia’s, when it’s time to dole out comedy justice to those who really deserve it. But when it comes to the considerable grey area beyond the realm of copy-and-paste, the best judgment certainly lies with the people who have been negotiating these issues all along: the comedians themselves. Joke theft is a severe charge that impugns a person’s character and talent. Accusations have almost certainly branded some comics undeservedly — damage easier than ever to do in the age of social media. It’s impossible to say what happened in Noah’s case, but parallel thought or unconscious plagiarism seems likely. Perhaps the most interesting rumination on joke theft in the digital era unfolded in a 2011 episode of "Louie" that featured Dane Cook, whom Louis CK had been accusing of joke theft since 2005. In the episode, the two men hash out a barely fictionalized version of the issue in a way that feels honest and cathartic. When Louis asks Dane to help score concert tickets for his daughter, Dane agrees on the condition that Louis publicly admit Dane never stole his bits. When Louis protests that Dane did steal, Dane retorts: “Dude! Why would I steal three jokes from you when I have hours of material. Why? Why! Why would I do that? Risk my reputation! […] The one thing that, like, really just, gets to me, is the whole thing about people saying that I stole the joke about the itchy asshole. Because I get an itchy asshole. A lot. So for you to think you're the only person who got an itchy asshole in America? I mean, that's bullshit.” In doing so, CK added nuance to a narrative that had all but condemned Cook. Whatever happened between the two comedians, the episode made it clear just how much their art and community means to them, and how difficult a firm resolution can be.
We were promised hoverboards: Of course “Back to the Future II” got 2015 mostly wrong — here’s why
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Wednesday is October 21, 2015 – the date visited by Marty McFly in the time-traveling DeLorean 26 years ago in “Back to the Future: Part II” – and we do not have hoverboards. I repeat, hoverboards do not exist — these toys don't count. In fact, not much of the technology that appears most ubiquitously in the 1989 classic seem to have materialized. Our cars don’t run on garbage — indeed, as a hilarious Funny or Die skit observed, our refusal to break free from carbon fuels has destroyed our planet in the twenty-six years since the film’s release — and our highways are still confined to terra firma. That’s just the tip of the iceberg: We don’t have self-lacing sneakers or self-drying jackets, there are no robots to pump our gas, our weather forecasts are still unreliable, doorknobs haven’t been phased out by thumb scanners, and miniature pizzas still remain fun-sized after you stick them in an oven. Instead of merely observing where “Back to the Future: Part II” was wrong — or, for that matter, noting the occasional odd area where it may have actually been prophetic (could the Chicago Cubs win the World Series?) — perhaps it would be more useful to analyze why it was wrong in certain areas. What does that tell us about how we viewed the near-future back in the late ‘80s and how does that compare to other famous sci-fi stories that also made their own prognostications? More importantly, how can we apply those lessons to the predictions we might make today? When it comes to technological innovation, the practical beats the glamorous Because science fiction writers are meant to depict future worlds that audiences will find entertaining, they tend to predict technological advancements that are wondrous to behold. The problem, of course, is that ideas which look good on a page or screen often don’t make sense in real life. Jet packs, for example, were a staple of comic books, TV shows, and movies in the mid-twentieth century, but when they were invented in 1961 it became apparent that they were too fuel-inefficient for average consumers and too high-risk for the military (a soldier in a jet pack makes for an easy target). Similarly, although space age predictions about regular trips to the stars (see “Star Trek"), moon bases ("Project Moon Base"), and martial colonies ("Total Recall") seemed plausible when our budget regularly included generous allocations to NASA, the end of the Cold War wound up removing a major incentive behind American investment in space exploration — our competition with the Soviet Union. Incidentally, this rule explains why the flying cars of “Back to the Future: Part II” aren’t a reality. They might look cool, but they’re also expensive, sensitive (they’d be hard to drive in bad weather), and dangerous (even the slightest malfunction would cause you to fall out of the sky). Medicine has improved, but the basic rules of human biology are unchangeable Though it often isn’t remembered, “Back to the Future: Part II” did take a stab at biotech prediction. In one scene, Doc Brown tells Marty that he went to a rejuvenation clinic that repaired his hair, transfused his blood, and replaced his spleen and colon to add “thirty to forty years” to his life. This is consistent with a long history of sci-fi writers making absurdly optimistic predictions about how technology will improve our lives — certainly we are farther along now than we were in 1989, but nowhere near that level. The same can be said for “Brazil,” which correctly predicted our obsession with plastic surgery but grossly overestimated how long a human lifespan could be extended, or “Blade Runner,” which assumed we would have genetic clones (or replicants) that could perform slave labor or serve as organ farms. This isn’t to say that we haven’t made remarkable advances in medicine since the 1980s, but scholars tend to agree that science fiction and fantasy writers often engage in wish fulfillment (usually assuming we will be immortal or at least live for significantly beyond the usual 75-to-100 year life expectancy) instead of making reliable predictions. When technological progress merges with politics, the results tend to be more rather than less democratic The future depicted in “Back to the Future: Part II” may be utopian from a technological standpoint, but it is distinctly dystopian when it comes to the social order. Doc Brown makes an offhand reference to how Marty McFly’s son is arrested, tried, and convicted in the same day (because lawyers have been banned, har har), while Biff’s grandson is able to publicly bully Marty Jr. with apparent impunity. Fortunately, as economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have pointed out, countries with democratic institutions tend to thrive technologically when compared to their despotic counterparts. Since it can be assumed that a nation which rushes suspected criminals into prison is far from democratic, the world of “Back to the Future: Part II” can be safely lumped in with the unrealistic high-tech dystopias seen in films like “Blade Runner,” “Fahrenheit 451” or “Logan’s Run.” As for the bullying… Well, Funny or Die’s skit addressed this best when it joked that while there are still bullies, our tendency to shame those who publicly abuse their victims has caused much of the worst bullying to occur anonymously online. The notion that a Griff could brazenly assault a weakling in the light of day without alerting the police and causing a social media scandal seems practically quaint. None of these observations are meant to detract from “Back to the Future: Part II.” I rewatched the film twice for this article and can attest that, as a moviegoing experience, it remains as smart, funny, and engaging as ever. That said, if future science fiction scribes want to write about the future in a way that will prove prophetic, they may be well-advised to learn from exactly how that film went wrong.Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Wednesday is October 21, 2015 – the date visited by Marty McFly in the time-traveling DeLorean 26 years ago in “Back to the Future: Part II” – and we do not have hoverboards. I repeat, hoverboards do not exist — these toys don't count. In fact, not much of the technology that appears most ubiquitously in the 1989 classic seem to have materialized. Our cars don’t run on garbage — indeed, as a hilarious Funny or Die skit observed, our refusal to break free from carbon fuels has destroyed our planet in the twenty-six years since the film’s release — and our highways are still confined to terra firma. That’s just the tip of the iceberg: We don’t have self-lacing sneakers or self-drying jackets, there are no robots to pump our gas, our weather forecasts are still unreliable, doorknobs haven’t been phased out by thumb scanners, and miniature pizzas still remain fun-sized after you stick them in an oven. Instead of merely observing where “Back to the Future: Part II” was wrong — or, for that matter, noting the occasional odd area where it may have actually been prophetic (could the Chicago Cubs win the World Series?) — perhaps it would be more useful to analyze why it was wrong in certain areas. What does that tell us about how we viewed the near-future back in the late ‘80s and how does that compare to other famous sci-fi stories that also made their own prognostications? More importantly, how can we apply those lessons to the predictions we might make today? When it comes to technological innovation, the practical beats the glamorous Because science fiction writers are meant to depict future worlds that audiences will find entertaining, they tend to predict technological advancements that are wondrous to behold. The problem, of course, is that ideas which look good on a page or screen often don’t make sense in real life. Jet packs, for example, were a staple of comic books, TV shows, and movies in the mid-twentieth century, but when they were invented in 1961 it became apparent that they were too fuel-inefficient for average consumers and too high-risk for the military (a soldier in a jet pack makes for an easy target). Similarly, although space age predictions about regular trips to the stars (see “Star Trek"), moon bases ("Project Moon Base"), and martial colonies ("Total Recall") seemed plausible when our budget regularly included generous allocations to NASA, the end of the Cold War wound up removing a major incentive behind American investment in space exploration — our competition with the Soviet Union. Incidentally, this rule explains why the flying cars of “Back to the Future: Part II” aren’t a reality. They might look cool, but they’re also expensive, sensitive (they’d be hard to drive in bad weather), and dangerous (even the slightest malfunction would cause you to fall out of the sky). Medicine has improved, but the basic rules of human biology are unchangeable Though it often isn’t remembered, “Back to the Future: Part II” did take a stab at biotech prediction. In one scene, Doc Brown tells Marty that he went to a rejuvenation clinic that repaired his hair, transfused his blood, and replaced his spleen and colon to add “thirty to forty years” to his life. This is consistent with a long history of sci-fi writers making absurdly optimistic predictions about how technology will improve our lives — certainly we are farther along now than we were in 1989, but nowhere near that level. The same can be said for “Brazil,” which correctly predicted our obsession with plastic surgery but grossly overestimated how long a human lifespan could be extended, or “Blade Runner,” which assumed we would have genetic clones (or replicants) that could perform slave labor or serve as organ farms. This isn’t to say that we haven’t made remarkable advances in medicine since the 1980s, but scholars tend to agree that science fiction and fantasy writers often engage in wish fulfillment (usually assuming we will be immortal or at least live for significantly beyond the usual 75-to-100 year life expectancy) instead of making reliable predictions. When technological progress merges with politics, the results tend to be more rather than less democratic The future depicted in “Back to the Future: Part II” may be utopian from a technological standpoint, but it is distinctly dystopian when it comes to the social order. Doc Brown makes an offhand reference to how Marty McFly’s son is arrested, tried, and convicted in the same day (because lawyers have been banned, har har), while Biff’s grandson is able to publicly bully Marty Jr. with apparent impunity. Fortunately, as economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have pointed out, countries with democratic institutions tend to thrive technologically when compared to their despotic counterparts. Since it can be assumed that a nation which rushes suspected criminals into prison is far from democratic, the world of “Back to the Future: Part II” can be safely lumped in with the unrealistic high-tech dystopias seen in films like “Blade Runner,” “Fahrenheit 451” or “Logan’s Run.” As for the bullying… Well, Funny or Die’s skit addressed this best when it joked that while there are still bullies, our tendency to shame those who publicly abuse their victims has caused much of the worst bullying to occur anonymously online. The notion that a Griff could brazenly assault a weakling in the light of day without alerting the police and causing a social media scandal seems practically quaint. None of these observations are meant to detract from “Back to the Future: Part II.” I rewatched the film twice for this article and can attest that, as a moviegoing experience, it remains as smart, funny, and engaging as ever. That said, if future science fiction scribes want to write about the future in a way that will prove prophetic, they may be well-advised to learn from exactly how that film went wrong.
A shocking HBO rape turns the tables on a notorious approach to female nudity, assault
“The Leftovers” is not an easy show. From its inception, it’s been a tough nut to crack—a story with a science-fiction premise that refuses to engage with the unexplained, because it is focused, instead, on endless sorrow. Showrunner Damon Lindelof told Alan Sepinwall in this excellent, lengthy interview that he was “really depressed” while writing season one, and it shows — “The Leftovers” is more about emotional devastation than anything else. So if anything, it’s surprising that it’s taken them this long to portray rape. In a lot of television — which has months and years to tell characters’ stories, unlike most films — sexual assault is either a catalyst of or signifier of emotional devastation. I would hazard that it is used more in this way than other awful traumas, such as the death of a loved one or physical wound, partly because the evidence of the assault is minimal, at best, to the outside world, and partly because closure, even in the most ideal world, is very hard to find. Not coincidentally, there is another trauma that shares those two characteristics, and it is loved ones who go missing. “The Leftovers” is a world built around a mysterious disappearance that snatched away about two percent of the planet’s population in one fell swoop. Even those people that did not lose anyone in particular are shaken to the core by the undermined foundations of their universe. This has led our main characters to do some very strange things out of immeasurable grief, fear, anger, and frustration: One woman stabbed herself in the neck with a shard of glass; another pays prostitutes to shoot her, while she’s wearing a bulletproof vest. In last night’s episode, “Off Ramp,” it leads one character to rape another, in the back of a truck. Not coincidentally, again, these are two characters that have evidenced some of the most trauma, and have not moved any closer to healing, acceptance, or moving on. The rapist is Meg (Liv Tyler), who has become a leader of the Guilty Remnant, a rather dour cult that militantly forces people to remember the losses of the “departure”; the victim is Tommy Garvey (Chris Zylka), who has spent the last five or six years desperately searching for meaning all across the country, and failing to find it. His latest act has been to infiltrate the Guilty Remnant and spring out disillusioned members. When he’s inevitably caught, the cult members tie him up and drive him out to a deserted bit of highway—the titular off-ramp, perhaps—where they meet Meg, waiting in her car. Like everyone in the Guilty Remnant, Meg is wearing all white—but on her, out on the highway, where full sun is beating down on them, the white clothes look less like mourning attire and more like the lacy trappings of a hippie angel. Tyler, who plays Meg, did once literally play an elven queen; the look suits her. And because she is wearing a full-length sundress, there is a bit of a bridal quality to it, too. She sends the other attendants away, and without speaking to them or to Tommy, strips him of his pants and straddles him. He’s still bound at the wrists, and keeps trying to protest. She maintains eye contact, because she knows exactly what she’s doing. Meg then proceeds to douse him in gasoline and wave a lit lighter very close to his body, before snapping it shut to offer him a weird, sad reprieve. Partly because we struggle to have a productive dialogue about rape in general—but specifically because we struggle to believe that a woman can rape a man—the most notable aspect of the scene is that Tommy’s genitalia is visible both when Meg strips him and after, when she and her cronies threaten to immolate him. “The Leftovers” has made headlines about depicting a penis before—though last season, it was just through a pair of sweatpants. Justin Theroux, the lead of the show, is obviously a very handsome man, but the real draw here is a gaze that caters erotically to viewers who find men attractive, instead of viewers who find women attractive. (It’s a more complicated category than just “women,” but Lili Loofbourow’s words on the topic is, as always, instructive.) Some of that could lay at the feet of two of television’s most talented directors, who both happen to be female: Mimi Leder and Lesli Linka Glatter, who are both producers on the show (and Leder was just bumped to executive producer for this season). Whatever male gaze is inherently in the camera is being at least a little disrupted. But I think the roots of this are deeper. There are times where the use of rape to tell a character’s story strikes profoundly, and there are times where it comes off as a lazy plot device. With “The Leftovers,” because the show is saturated with a state of mind what Lindelof terms “emotional apocalypse,” sexual assault takes on different meaning. Or rather, it takes on, no meaning—“The Leftovers”’ characters confront meaninglessness in its endless loops and eddies. The pain and humiliation of rape is just another facet of the same dark landscape. The opening scene of this season features a cavewoman, for lack of a better term, struggling to keep herself and her baby survive. She is wholly unconnected to the plot of “The Leftovers” thus far—you’d be forgiven for worrying that you’d pushed play on the wrong title and somehow ended up in a nameless Terrence Malick film. And over the course of her 10-minute screen life, many bad things happen to her; crucially, she also has to do a lot of rather gruesome things. She steals eggs from a nest and beats a rattlesnake to death; when the bite from the rattlesnake festers, she dies out on a rock by the river, with her infant squirming next to her. She is naked, save for a loincloth, for the entire segment, and yet it is steadfastly unerotic; her body is a burden as much as it is a tool for life, one that is highly capable and also highly fragile. Later on in the pilot, a character dreams or has a vision of three girls running naked through the woods by the river, in the present day. All three girls, by the end of the episode, will have disappeared for different reasons. Their bodies are emphasized for their mutability, or even their disposability. Indeed: It’s quite rare for “The Leftovers” to offer up a sex scene, or to otherwise show humans enjoying being physical sacks of flesh. Instead the show is interested in the weaknesses of the body—including a range of disability, from Erika Murphy (Regina King, new this season)’s deafness to Mary Jamison (Janel Moloney)’s wheelchair-bound catatonia. The show is not offering up nudity with a mind to eroticize it, or to simply eroticize it; “The Leftovers” is horrified by bodies, and struggles to understand their role in the world. So Tommy is shamed and humiliated, through the exposure of what would otherwise be his sexual power; so too is the way television typically depicts rape subtly indicted. I was extremely frustrated with season one of “The Leftovers” at various points; it’s a show that demands a lot from the viewer, without clear rewards. Season two isn’t a more upbeat show, but it’s one that is moving out of the stasis of depression towards a more dynamic engagement with why it’s so sad all the time. Tommy, who can’t communicate his rape to his mother—who once mentored Meg—ends the episode by committing to a lie he might half-believe, a lie that might save other people’s lives. It’s a sad form of closure, but it’s difficult to deny Tommy whatever closure he can get.“The Leftovers” is not an easy show. From its inception, it’s been a tough nut to crack—a story with a science-fiction premise that refuses to engage with the unexplained, because it is focused, instead, on endless sorrow. Showrunner Damon Lindelof told Alan Sepinwall in this excellent, lengthy interview that he was “really depressed” while writing season one, and it shows — “The Leftovers” is more about emotional devastation than anything else. So if anything, it’s surprising that it’s taken them this long to portray rape. In a lot of television — which has months and years to tell characters’ stories, unlike most films — sexual assault is either a catalyst of or signifier of emotional devastation. I would hazard that it is used more in this way than other awful traumas, such as the death of a loved one or physical wound, partly because the evidence of the assault is minimal, at best, to the outside world, and partly because closure, even in the most ideal world, is very hard to find. Not coincidentally, there is another trauma that shares those two characteristics, and it is loved ones who go missing. “The Leftovers” is a world built around a mysterious disappearance that snatched away about two percent of the planet’s population in one fell swoop. Even those people that did not lose anyone in particular are shaken to the core by the undermined foundations of their universe. This has led our main characters to do some very strange things out of immeasurable grief, fear, anger, and frustration: One woman stabbed herself in the neck with a shard of glass; another pays prostitutes to shoot her, while she’s wearing a bulletproof vest. In last night’s episode, “Off Ramp,” it leads one character to rape another, in the back of a truck. Not coincidentally, again, these are two characters that have evidenced some of the most trauma, and have not moved any closer to healing, acceptance, or moving on. The rapist is Meg (Liv Tyler), who has become a leader of the Guilty Remnant, a rather dour cult that militantly forces people to remember the losses of the “departure”; the victim is Tommy Garvey (Chris Zylka), who has spent the last five or six years desperately searching for meaning all across the country, and failing to find it. His latest act has been to infiltrate the Guilty Remnant and spring out disillusioned members. When he’s inevitably caught, the cult members tie him up and drive him out to a deserted bit of highway—the titular off-ramp, perhaps—where they meet Meg, waiting in her car. Like everyone in the Guilty Remnant, Meg is wearing all white—but on her, out on the highway, where full sun is beating down on them, the white clothes look less like mourning attire and more like the lacy trappings of a hippie angel. Tyler, who plays Meg, did once literally play an elven queen; the look suits her. And because she is wearing a full-length sundress, there is a bit of a bridal quality to it, too. She sends the other attendants away, and without speaking to them or to Tommy, strips him of his pants and straddles him. He’s still bound at the wrists, and keeps trying to protest. She maintains eye contact, because she knows exactly what she’s doing. Meg then proceeds to douse him in gasoline and wave a lit lighter very close to his body, before snapping it shut to offer him a weird, sad reprieve. Partly because we struggle to have a productive dialogue about rape in general—but specifically because we struggle to believe that a woman can rape a man—the most notable aspect of the scene is that Tommy’s genitalia is visible both when Meg strips him and after, when she and her cronies threaten to immolate him. “The Leftovers” has made headlines about depicting a penis before—though last season, it was just through a pair of sweatpants. Justin Theroux, the lead of the show, is obviously a very handsome man, but the real draw here is a gaze that caters erotically to viewers who find men attractive, instead of viewers who find women attractive. (It’s a more complicated category than just “women,” but Lili Loofbourow’s words on the topic is, as always, instructive.) Some of that could lay at the feet of two of television’s most talented directors, who both happen to be female: Mimi Leder and Lesli Linka Glatter, who are both producers on the show (and Leder was just bumped to executive producer for this season). Whatever male gaze is inherently in the camera is being at least a little disrupted. But I think the roots of this are deeper. There are times where the use of rape to tell a character’s story strikes profoundly, and there are times where it comes off as a lazy plot device. With “The Leftovers,” because the show is saturated with a state of mind what Lindelof terms “emotional apocalypse,” sexual assault takes on different meaning. Or rather, it takes on, no meaning—“The Leftovers”’ characters confront meaninglessness in its endless loops and eddies. The pain and humiliation of rape is just another facet of the same dark landscape. The opening scene of this season features a cavewoman, for lack of a better term, struggling to keep herself and her baby survive. She is wholly unconnected to the plot of “The Leftovers” thus far—you’d be forgiven for worrying that you’d pushed play on the wrong title and somehow ended up in a nameless Terrence Malick film. And over the course of her 10-minute screen life, many bad things happen to her; crucially, she also has to do a lot of rather gruesome things. She steals eggs from a nest and beats a rattlesnake to death; when the bite from the rattlesnake festers, she dies out on a rock by the river, with her infant squirming next to her. She is naked, save for a loincloth, for the entire segment, and yet it is steadfastly unerotic; her body is a burden as much as it is a tool for life, one that is highly capable and also highly fragile. Later on in the pilot, a character dreams or has a vision of three girls running naked through the woods by the river, in the present day. All three girls, by the end of the episode, will have disappeared for different reasons. Their bodies are emphasized for their mutability, or even their disposability. Indeed: It’s quite rare for “The Leftovers” to offer up a sex scene, or to otherwise show humans enjoying being physical sacks of flesh. Instead the show is interested in the weaknesses of the body—including a range of disability, from Erika Murphy (Regina King, new this season)’s deafness to Mary Jamison (Janel Moloney)’s wheelchair-bound catatonia. The show is not offering up nudity with a mind to eroticize it, or to simply eroticize it; “The Leftovers” is horrified by bodies, and struggles to understand their role in the world. So Tommy is shamed and humiliated, through the exposure of what would otherwise be his sexual power; so too is the way television typically depicts rape subtly indicted. I was extremely frustrated with season one of “The Leftovers” at various points; it’s a show that demands a lot from the viewer, without clear rewards. Season two isn’t a more upbeat show, but it’s one that is moving out of the stasis of depression towards a more dynamic engagement with why it’s so sad all the time. Tommy, who can’t communicate his rape to his mother—who once mentored Meg—ends the episode by committing to a lie he might half-believe, a lie that might save other people’s lives. It’s a sad form of closure, but it’s difficult to deny Tommy whatever closure he can get.
Forget the war on drugs: Alcohol ruins more lives than all other drugs combined
While our current political conversations often involve concerned discussions about marijuana’s imagined dangers or potential benefits (recall that the most recent Republican and Democratic debates both dedicated time to the question of pot legalization), our most problematic relationship actually seems to be with alcohol. America, it seems, has a drinking problem—and studies indicate it is only getting worse. There are real reasons, in addition to the pressing issue of mass incarceration and the failure of the drug war, for us to start thinking seriously about the cost of our increasing reliance on alcohol when we consider the ravages of drug use. Particularly since the toll of alcohol, though often left out of that conversation, actually outpaces those of every other legal and illicit drug combined.
Drinking is on the rise in the U.S. Precipitously. A study released this year from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation finds that heavy drinking among Americans rose 17.2 percent between 2005 and 2012. Not only are Americans drinking more, but in an increasing number of cases, they’re consuming those drinks in rapid succession. The same study found that binge drinking increased 8.9 percent nationally during the same time frame. In 2012, 8.2 percent of Americans were heavy drinkers, meaning they had one drink per day on average over the course of a month. An additional 18.3 percent of Americans that year fit the description of binge drinkers, defined by the CDC as men who have five or more drinks and women who have four or more drinks in a single drinking session. It's women, by the way, who have largely driven these increases. In the years between 2005 and 2012, binge drinking increased just 4.9 percent among men, but jumped 17.5 percent among women. The reason for such a significant rise is likely due to changing social mores, according to Tom Greenfield, scientific director at the Alcohol Research Group, who spoke with Kaiser Health News. Men still drink more than women do, but women have narrowed the gap in recent years. Binge drinking, always a favorite sport on college campuses, has also become more prevalent. A 2013 study from the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital found that women in college binge-drink more often than male students. "It's not that the percentage of young people is increasing alcohol use," George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol, told NBC News. "It's that bingeing is more intense." Even with so many Americans drinking more, the actual proportion of Americans drinking is the same as it’s long been. Per the HME study, “56 percent of people in the U.S. consumed...alcohol in 2005 [through] 2012.” Ali Mokdad, the lead researcher on the HME study, told USA Today, “The percentage of people who drink is not changing much, but among drinkers, we are seeing more heavy drinking and more binge drinking. We're going in the wrong direction." In big picture terms, the wealthiest and most educated people are most likely to drink. A Gallup poll released earlier this year confirmed that more affluent Americans drank more often than their poorer peers. “Whereas eight in 10 adults in these socio-economic status groups say they drink, only about half of lower-income Americans and those with a high school diploma or less say they drink.” (There was a racial component as well: 69 percent of non-Hispanic whites say they drink alcohol, compared with just 52 percent of nonwhites.) The reasons for the class discrepancy are likely varied; Gallup theorizes that greater means leads to more frequent involvement in activities that involve drinking, such as going on vacation, dining out and socializing with coworkers. It also seems likely that the culture of overwork in professional environments contributes to heavier drinking. As office hours grow longer and the average workweek increases, so too does the need to blow off steam. Not to mention that drinking is ingrained in many office social cultures. As Tom Greenfield points out, “The influx of young, wealthy professionals in San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco—many in hard-working, hard-partying tech jobs—may have helped spur the Bay Area’s significant increase in binge-drinking rates.” Big jumps in drinking rates in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara county saw a 28 percent increase in drinking between 2002 and 2012, the largest increase in California) further support this idea. In a 2009 New York Times piece, Arthur C. Brooks suggests that goal-driven, ambitious people drink because success often feels hollow. Brooks writes that scaling the ranks “may initially relieve stress as people rise into the middle class, [but] it seems to introduce a whole new set of stressful problems for those who keep climbing.” Brooks rhetorically poses, and then answers, the question of coping mechanisms:“Here’s one that many people try: Drink a lot. Research from 2010 found that people with high incomes reported consuming more alcohol than people of more modest means. Specifically, 81 percent of respondents making over $75,000 per year drink alcohol, versus 66 percent of those making $30,000 to $49,000 and 46 percent earning under $20,000.”
It seems important to recognize that while more affluent people drink on average, the consequences of drinking are often less severe than they are for poorer Americans. Researchers suggest this is partly because, despite drinking similar amounts, poorer people tend to drink to excess more often than wealthier people, who spread their consumption over more time. One study, cited by Psychology Today, found that upper-middle-class drinkers generally had 2-3.5 alcoholic beverages each day. “Conversely, people close to the bottom of the income ladder mostly divide into two extremes. Either they do not drink at all, or they drink to excess.”
"Educated, affluent [people] enjoy a glass of wine every night," Ali Mokdad told USA Today. "They can afford it, and they are cautious about their health." But Diane Hietpas, of the Menominee Tribal Clinic in Keshena, Wisconsin, seemed to offer the most insightful take on the issue. "[P]eople don't understand that this is a symptom of a much larger problem of poverty and trauma," Hietpas told the paper. "Our people are hurting." Following years of recession, war and social upheaval, it seems likely that her statement has applications across socioeconomic groups.The price of drinking is astronomical in every way. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control finds that binge drinking among Americans costs the country nearly $250 billion annually in lost productivity in the workplace, alcohol-related crimes and treatment for the health issues that result from excessive alcohol consumption. While the wages of Americans’ boozing have always been pretty high, the study notes that costs have notably increased in recent years. In 2006, the price of binge drinking for the nation was $223.5 billion, the equivalent of $1.90 per drink. By 2010, the figure rose to $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of those costs, 77 percent, were related to binge drinking.
Of far greater concern should be the ways in which alcohol destroys lives. The CDC estimates that alcohol was linked to 88,000 annual deaths in America between 2006-2010, while the agency found that 38,329 people died of drug overdoses in 2010. According to the Foundation for a Drug-Free World, alcohol is the cause of death for more American teenagers than all other drugs combined, and is “a factor in the three leading causes of death among 15- to 24-year-olds: accidents, homicides and suicides.” The New York Times reports that, on average, six Americans die of alcohol poisoning each day. Three quarters of those who died were 35 to 64 years old. And 30 percent of Americans report that they’ve had enough struggles with alcohol at some point in their lives that it could be considered a problem. Drinking is, in many ways, America’s pastime. But unlike other culturally shared activities, it often carries a hefty cost. None of this is intended to diminish the impact of a number of other social ills that desperately need to be addressed. Yet it does seem clear that misplaced fearmongering about, say, medical marijuana should be less of a legislative item than how we drink and why we drink, and how we can drink less.
Peggy Noonan outdoes herself, sneers that Obama’s presidency means “Anyone can run for president now”
Peggy Noonan cannot believe they are letting the riffraff have a say in how this country is governed. Her latest op-ed, published in the Wall Street Journal, is a series of would-be observations that only hang together on the common thread that is her barely stifled outrage that we will let just anyone vote these days. You'd think this country was a democracy, it's gotten so out of control! After a little preliminary longing for Joe Biden to get into the race to nudge that crass woman Hillary Clinton out of the lead, Noonan really digs into her hell-in-a-handbasket theme. "The 2016 primary is a rush to the left," she frets. "We are now not embarrassed to argue America should be more like Denmark, we are proudly socialist or severely progressive, and by the way Republicans are the enemy." Oh no, not Denmark, a country no doubt full of unembarrassed vulgarians. They probably wear white shoes after Labor Day, you know. Noonan doesn't know, but she can probably guess. If Sanders likes them, they must be an uncouth country full of bike-riding hippies. But what really puffs Noonan full of indignation is this ridiculous business of Democrats acting like Republicans are the opposition. "Asked which enemy she was proudest to have made, Mrs. Clinton mentioned the NRA, the Iranians, some others and 'probably the Republicans.' She was smiling, but if any GOP hopeful declared 'the Democrats' to be on his enemies list he would be roundly condemned as polarizing," Noonan huffs. Well, no one can deny that Noonan is a master class in self-delusion, that's for sure. It takes a lot to get to the idea the Republicans are the polite, cooperative party and that the Democrats are the conflict-stoking partisans. It's not the Democrats who have made attempted government shutdowns in service of partisan temper tantrums a multi-annual event. "If Hillary feels free to speak of the Republicans as enemies it’s because she knows there is a portion of the base that is angry, polarized and ready to respond to an aggressive tone," Noonan whines. Oh dear, they probably don't wipe their feet before they come in the house, do they? This feigned alarm at people responding to passion in politics isn't fooling anyone, of course. This is Concern Trolling 101, an attempt to shame Democrats, especially Clinton and Sanders, from speaking frankly because she knows in her heart that this kind of progressive talk is actually reaching people. Anyone who genuinely cares about politeness in politics wouldn't give a hoot about the Democratic debate, which was a model of how to disagree without getting ugly or personal about it. Noonan does have some words for a Republican---Donald Trump, of course. Not because he's racist or rude to women, naturally. Self-appointed manners scold Noonan can't be bothered to worry about someone calling Mexicans rapists or making period jokes to put women in their place. No, just as with her outrage over Clinton's light joke about Republicans, Noonan is solely focused on tutting at people who she feels say indelicate things about Republican politicians, something Trump most certainly does. But Noonan wants to believe that Trump's vulgar bleating isn't really speaking to Republican voters, who she longs to see as too genteel for such things. "Talking to Trump supporters this week I’m getting a sense of stalling or slight deflation," she writes hopefully. Sure, it's not showing up in poll numbers but she can "hear a certain wavering." Keep clapping, Peggy! Donald Trump, with his baseball caps and ugly combover, does do serious damage to Noonan's long-standing fantasy reducing American politics to mannered Republicans vs. loutish Democrats. Resolving this cognitive dissonance requires finding some way to reclassify Trump as a Democrat, so she can retreat back into her world where all Republicans know which fork to use when and only Democrats say the F-word in mixed company. Getting there requires a leap of logic that is impressive even compared to Noonan's addled history: "There are many reasons we’re at this moment, but the essential political one is this: Mr. Obama lowered the bar." Don't worry, Noonan has a cover story about why it's not racist to sniff about how putting a black man in the White House is just ruining the neighborhood, something about how Obama "was a literal unknown, an obscure former state legislator who hadn’t completed his single term as U.S. senator". Of course, Donald Trump was anything but a "literal unknown." He's been in the public eye for decades now, making headlines back when Obama was still just a college student. So no, they don't have that in common. But that's okay, Peggy. We all know that was just a feint to cover up your real argument, which is bemoaning that "Anyone can run for president now" that Obama has the White House. The text may be something something "state legislator" but the subtext is screamingly clear here. Isn't that what this country is supposed to be, a place where any kid can, if they have moxie and intelligence, grow up to be President? The irony is that Trump himself is on the same page as Noonan, full of outrage that someone like Obama actually made it to the White House. Trump downplays it now, but one of the big reasons he started getting so politically aggressive was that he refuses to believe that Obama is eligible to hold office. Trump has been a long-time advocate of birtherism, a conspiracy theory that allows racists to sneer at the idea of a black president by hiding behind "questions" about Obama's birth certificate. Trump is running not because anyone can run for President, but because he opposes that kind of democratic idealism with every fiber of his being. Maybe Noonan should reconsider her opposition to Trump. It seems that they have a lot more in common than she would like to admit. 
Peggy Noonan cannot believe they are letting the riffraff have a say in how this country is governed. Her latest op-ed, published in the Wall Street Journal, is a series of would-be observations that only hang together on the common thread that is her barely stifled outrage that we will let just anyone vote these days. You'd think this country was a democracy, it's gotten so out of control! After a little preliminary longing for Joe Biden to get into the race to nudge that crass woman Hillary Clinton out of the lead, Noonan really digs into her hell-in-a-handbasket theme. "The 2016 primary is a rush to the left," she frets. "We are now not embarrassed to argue America should be more like Denmark, we are proudly socialist or severely progressive, and by the way Republicans are the enemy." Oh no, not Denmark, a country no doubt full of unembarrassed vulgarians. They probably wear white shoes after Labor Day, you know. Noonan doesn't know, but she can probably guess. If Sanders likes them, they must be an uncouth country full of bike-riding hippies. But what really puffs Noonan full of indignation is this ridiculous business of Democrats acting like Republicans are the opposition. "Asked which enemy she was proudest to have made, Mrs. Clinton mentioned the NRA, the Iranians, some others and 'probably the Republicans.' She was smiling, but if any GOP hopeful declared 'the Democrats' to be on his enemies list he would be roundly condemned as polarizing," Noonan huffs. Well, no one can deny that Noonan is a master class in self-delusion, that's for sure. It takes a lot to get to the idea the Republicans are the polite, cooperative party and that the Democrats are the conflict-stoking partisans. It's not the Democrats who have made attempted government shutdowns in service of partisan temper tantrums a multi-annual event. "If Hillary feels free to speak of the Republicans as enemies it’s because she knows there is a portion of the base that is angry, polarized and ready to respond to an aggressive tone," Noonan whines. Oh dear, they probably don't wipe their feet before they come in the house, do they? This feigned alarm at people responding to passion in politics isn't fooling anyone, of course. This is Concern Trolling 101, an attempt to shame Democrats, especially Clinton and Sanders, from speaking frankly because she knows in her heart that this kind of progressive talk is actually reaching people. Anyone who genuinely cares about politeness in politics wouldn't give a hoot about the Democratic debate, which was a model of how to disagree without getting ugly or personal about it. Noonan does have some words for a Republican---Donald Trump, of course. Not because he's racist or rude to women, naturally. Self-appointed manners scold Noonan can't be bothered to worry about someone calling Mexicans rapists or making period jokes to put women in their place. No, just as with her outrage over Clinton's light joke about Republicans, Noonan is solely focused on tutting at people who she feels say indelicate things about Republican politicians, something Trump most certainly does. But Noonan wants to believe that Trump's vulgar bleating isn't really speaking to Republican voters, who she longs to see as too genteel for such things. "Talking to Trump supporters this week I’m getting a sense of stalling or slight deflation," she writes hopefully. Sure, it's not showing up in poll numbers but she can "hear a certain wavering." Keep clapping, Peggy! Donald Trump, with his baseball caps and ugly combover, does do serious damage to Noonan's long-standing fantasy reducing American politics to mannered Republicans vs. loutish Democrats. Resolving this cognitive dissonance requires finding some way to reclassify Trump as a Democrat, so she can retreat back into her world where all Republicans know which fork to use when and only Democrats say the F-word in mixed company. Getting there requires a leap of logic that is impressive even compared to Noonan's addled history: "There are many reasons we’re at this moment, but the essential political one is this: Mr. Obama lowered the bar." Don't worry, Noonan has a cover story about why it's not racist to sniff about how putting a black man in the White House is just ruining the neighborhood, something about how Obama "was a literal unknown, an obscure former state legislator who hadn’t completed his single term as U.S. senator". Of course, Donald Trump was anything but a "literal unknown." He's been in the public eye for decades now, making headlines back when Obama was still just a college student. So no, they don't have that in common. But that's okay, Peggy. We all know that was just a feint to cover up your real argument, which is bemoaning that "Anyone can run for president now" that Obama has the White House. The text may be something something "state legislator" but the subtext is screamingly clear here. Isn't that what this country is supposed to be, a place where any kid can, if they have moxie and intelligence, grow up to be President? The irony is that Trump himself is on the same page as Noonan, full of outrage that someone like Obama actually made it to the White House. Trump downplays it now, but one of the big reasons he started getting so politically aggressive was that he refuses to believe that Obama is eligible to hold office. Trump has been a long-time advocate of birtherism, a conspiracy theory that allows racists to sneer at the idea of a black president by hiding behind "questions" about Obama's birth certificate. Trump is running not because anyone can run for President, but because he opposes that kind of democratic idealism with every fiber of his being. Maybe Noonan should reconsider her opposition to Trump. It seems that they have a lot more in common than she would like to admit.
Peggy Noonan cannot believe they are letting the riffraff have a say in how this country is governed. Her latest op-ed, published in the Wall Street Journal, is a series of would-be observations that only hang together on the common thread that is her barely stifled outrage that we will let just anyone vote these days. You'd think this country was a democracy, it's gotten so out of control! After a little preliminary longing for Joe Biden to get into the race to nudge that crass woman Hillary Clinton out of the lead, Noonan really digs into her hell-in-a-handbasket theme. "The 2016 primary is a rush to the left," she frets. "We are now not embarrassed to argue America should be more like Denmark, we are proudly socialist or severely progressive, and by the way Republicans are the enemy." Oh no, not Denmark, a country no doubt full of unembarrassed vulgarians. They probably wear white shoes after Labor Day, you know. Noonan doesn't know, but she can probably guess. If Sanders likes them, they must be an uncouth country full of bike-riding hippies. But what really puffs Noonan full of indignation is this ridiculous business of Democrats acting like Republicans are the opposition. "Asked which enemy she was proudest to have made, Mrs. Clinton mentioned the NRA, the Iranians, some others and 'probably the Republicans.' She was smiling, but if any GOP hopeful declared 'the Democrats' to be on his enemies list he would be roundly condemned as polarizing," Noonan huffs. Well, no one can deny that Noonan is a master class in self-delusion, that's for sure. It takes a lot to get to the idea the Republicans are the polite, cooperative party and that the Democrats are the conflict-stoking partisans. It's not the Democrats who have made attempted government shutdowns in service of partisan temper tantrums a multi-annual event. "If Hillary feels free to speak of the Republicans as enemies it’s because she knows there is a portion of the base that is angry, polarized and ready to respond to an aggressive tone," Noonan whines. Oh dear, they probably don't wipe their feet before they come in the house, do they? This feigned alarm at people responding to passion in politics isn't fooling anyone, of course. This is Concern Trolling 101, an attempt to shame Democrats, especially Clinton and Sanders, from speaking frankly because she knows in her heart that this kind of progressive talk is actually reaching people. Anyone who genuinely cares about politeness in politics wouldn't give a hoot about the Democratic debate, which was a model of how to disagree without getting ugly or personal about it. Noonan does have some words for a Republican---Donald Trump, of course. Not because he's racist or rude to women, naturally. Self-appointed manners scold Noonan can't be bothered to worry about someone calling Mexicans rapists or making period jokes to put women in their place. No, just as with her outrage over Clinton's light joke about Republicans, Noonan is solely focused on tutting at people who she feels say indelicate things about Republican politicians, something Trump most certainly does. But Noonan wants to believe that Trump's vulgar bleating isn't really speaking to Republican voters, who she longs to see as too genteel for such things. "Talking to Trump supporters this week I’m getting a sense of stalling or slight deflation," she writes hopefully. Sure, it's not showing up in poll numbers but she can "hear a certain wavering." Keep clapping, Peggy! Donald Trump, with his baseball caps and ugly combover, does do serious damage to Noonan's long-standing fantasy reducing American politics to mannered Republicans vs. loutish Democrats. Resolving this cognitive dissonance requires finding some way to reclassify Trump as a Democrat, so she can retreat back into her world where all Republicans know which fork to use when and only Democrats say the F-word in mixed company. Getting there requires a leap of logic that is impressive even compared to Noonan's addled history: "There are many reasons we’re at this moment, but the essential political one is this: Mr. Obama lowered the bar." Don't worry, Noonan has a cover story about why it's not racist to sniff about how putting a black man in the White House is just ruining the neighborhood, something about how Obama "was a literal unknown, an obscure former state legislator who hadn’t completed his single term as U.S. senator". Of course, Donald Trump was anything but a "literal unknown." He's been in the public eye for decades now, making headlines back when Obama was still just a college student. So no, they don't have that in common. But that's okay, Peggy. We all know that was just a feint to cover up your real argument, which is bemoaning that "Anyone can run for president now" that Obama has the White House. The text may be something something "state legislator" but the subtext is screamingly clear here. Isn't that what this country is supposed to be, a place where any kid can, if they have moxie and intelligence, grow up to be President? The irony is that Trump himself is on the same page as Noonan, full of outrage that someone like Obama actually made it to the White House. Trump downplays it now, but one of the big reasons he started getting so politically aggressive was that he refuses to believe that Obama is eligible to hold office. Trump has been a long-time advocate of birtherism, a conspiracy theory that allows racists to sneer at the idea of a black president by hiding behind "questions" about Obama's birth certificate. Trump is running not because anyone can run for President, but because he opposes that kind of democratic idealism with every fiber of his being. Maybe Noonan should reconsider her opposition to Trump. It seems that they have a lot more in common than she would like to admit.
Racists threaten to boycott “Star Wars VII” because it promotes “white genocide,” apparently
Today in Stuff That Will Make You Hang Your Head In Despair, a bunch of white supremacists are tweeting under the hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII. Why? Apparently J.J. Abrams' new “Star Wars” installment is a little too multicultural for their liking (black actor John Boyega plays Finn, a stormtrooper, one of the presumed leads). Enjoy your daily dose of hate speech below: https://twitter.com/2partyhoax/status... https://twitter.com/genophilia/status... https://twitter.com/officialCritDis/s... https://twitter.com/genophilia/status... https://twitter.com/teen_load/status/... https://twitter.com/Negromancer_616/s... Thankfully, the hashtag seems to have been mostly co-opted by reasonable people at this point (other reasonable people out there, feel free to chime in!): https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis/s... https://twitter.com/SimonInDJungle/st... https://twitter.com/BrokenGamezHD/sta... https://twitter.com/TheJackman50/stat... https://twitter.com/Bro_Pair/status/6... https://twitter.com/ellotheth/status/...
