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Alyssa

The New Yorker’s Tribute to Trayvon Martin

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Apr 2, 2012 at 6:07 pm

There’s no publication in America that does more with its cover and interstitial art than The New Yorker, whether it’s Art Spiegelman’s lovely, heartbroken commemoration of the September 11 attacks, his commentary on the Crown Heights riots in 1993 or Barry Blitt’s wicked satire on the so-called “terrorist fist bump.” So it’s a pleasure to see them do it again this week with a series of illustrations interrogating Geraldo Rivera’s idiotic declaration that wearing a hoodie made Trayvon Martin seem more legitimately suspicious to George Zimmerman.

The magazine’s hoodie-wearing figures include an older man with a cane, a woman in elegant heels, a child, a vigil attendee. In their quiet way, they illustrate how irrelevant the piece of clothing is—a hoodie can be a tool for a playful peekaboo or a shy glance out at the world, a solemn frame, or a simple convenience. And you can look beyond the hoodie, and still fail to see the full humanity of the person underneath it.

NEWS FLASH

At Least Six Dead In Christian University Massacre | In an incident that echoes the tragic Virginia Tech shooting just five years ago, a gunman opened fire at Oikos University, a Christian school in Oakland, California today, killing at least six people and wounding three more. A suspect is currently in custody, and local media reports say that he is a student at the school. Our condolences to the friends and families of the victims of this terrible tragedy.

NEWS FLASH

After Public Outcry, Oklahoma Senate Lets Climate-Denial Bill Die | “Oklahoma’s House Bill 1551, one of two bills attacking the teaching of evolution and of climate change active in the Oklahoma legislature during 2012, is now in effect dead,” the National Center for Science Education reports. “Originally introduced in 2011, HB 1551 was rejected by the House Common Education Committee in that year, but revived and passed by the committee in 2012, and then passed by the House of Representatives on a 56-12 vote on March 15, 2012, and sent to the Senate Education Committee, where it died.” Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education led the successful campaign to block the bill. Home to climate denier-in-chief Sen. Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma is the hardest-hit state in the union by climate disasters.

By Brad Johnson on Apr 2, 2012 at 5:32 pm

Economy

How Long-Term Unemployment Decreases Life Expectancy

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 2, 2012 at 5:30 pm

The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that more than 40 percent of America’s unemployed have been out of work for six months or more. The Associated Press reported recently that the long-term unemployed are facing increased hiring bias, with employers refusing to take on workers who have been out of work for a longer stretch of time.

There are several deleterious effects of long-term unemployment, but the New York Times’ Binyamin Applebaum highlighted a particularly harrowing one — increased mortality rates. According to a study by Columbia’s Till von Wachter and the Chicago Federal Reserve’s Daniel Sullivan, long-term unemployment can knock up to 18 months off of life expectancy:

Mortality rates in the year after displacement are 50%–100% higher than would otherwise have been expected. The effect on mortality hazards declines sharply over time, but even twenty years after displacement, we estimate a 10%–15% increase in annual death hazards. If such increases were sustained indefinitely, they would imply a loss in life expectancy of 1.0–1.5 years for a worker displaced at age forty.

The authors noted that “several economic models of health determination predict that a decline in lifetime resources should raise mortality. Our empirical findings are consistent with a reduction in such resources leading to reduced investments in health or chronic stress, which, in turn, lead to a smaller, but longer term increase in the mortality hazard.”

Applebaum highlights other studies showing other negative effects of long-term unemployment, including loss of lifetime earnings, lower earnings for the children of unemployed workers, and even one study purporting to find that workers gradually lose skills, including their level of literacy. And of course, as the Congressional Budget Office noted, long-term unemployment is “also correlated with deteriorating mental and physical health.”

Health

Georgia State Rep Votes Against Radical Anti-Abortion Measure, Citing Daughter’s Experiences

By Guest Blogger on Apr 2, 2012 at 5:20 pm

Rep. Ron Stephens (R-GA)

From a credit downgrade last year to global warming, the Republican push for ideological purity has already had far-reaching impacts on the country. One emerging problem with the purity test is that it is very easy to fail, for conservative icons and rank-and-file Republicans alike.

Recently, the Georgia House considered a bill which would have prevented women from obtaining an abortion after 20 weeks, down from 26. Rep. Ron Stephens (R), who considers himself pro-life, originally voted against the bill, along with 16 other Republicans. In an interview with the Savannah Morning News, Stephens recalled his daughter Ashlin’s pregnancy just a few years before, when her child was diagnosed with trisomy, a devastating genetic defect, and how this bill would have affected his family’s decision:

“At five months, they told her part of her baby’s brain was outside the skull and the heart was inverted,” he said. “They said it would take only one or two breaths. She would have watched it die.” After huddling with her family, she opted for an abortion. She discussed the option to terminate her pregnancy with her family. But she didn’t have to make the call, since she had a miscarriage shortly thereafter.

When the bill initially came to a vote in the House, there was no opportunity to amend it to provide exceptions for such situations. Stephens said he was so upset he felt sick and walked off the floor during the roll call.

“For something this cruel to happen to my daughter, or anyone’s daughter,” he said, “is just plain inhumane. I consider myself pro-life, but this provision was a distortion of pro-life values.”

In response, the Peach Tea Party blasted those Republicans, claiming they “displayed a willingness to depart from the conservative principles that form the bedrock of the Georgia Republican Party platform.” A blog on the group’s website referred to those Republicans as “RINOs,” or Republicans in Name Only. This was despite the fact that, when the bill was amended to exempt “medically futile” pregnancies like his daughter’s, Stephens voted for the bill, which passed.

For his part, Stephens said he isn’t worried about a primary challenge, telling the Morning News, “It might even help me with fundraising.”

-Zachary Bernstein

Update

The Savannah Morning News piece cited in this article was corrected yesterday afternoon to reflect that Rep. Stephens’ daughter did not have an abortion.

NEWS FLASH

POLL: 60 Percent Oppose North Carolina’s Discriminatory Amendment One | A new poll from Elon University finds that 60 percent of North Carolina voters oppose Amendment One, a proposed constitutional revision that would ban same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships. The seemingly conflicting polling from recent weeks reflects a general lack of understanding about the full impact of the measure. This poll found that 66 percent support at least civil unions or partnerships for same-sex couples, so when asked if they would ban all legal recognition of their relationships, it makes sense that such a strong majority opposes the amendment. There are 37 days until the May 8 vote to continue educating North Carolinians about just how far-reaching Amendment One truly is.

NEWS FLASH

5-4 Supreme Court Gives Thumbs Up To Strip Searches By Jailers | Dividing on familiar ideological lines, the Supreme Court held 5-4 today that recently arrested suspects may be strip searched before they are placed in the general population of a local jail. The practical impact of this decision, however will likely be determined by whether lower court judges do an adequate job of policing an important line that Justice Alito draws in his concurring opinion:

[T]he Court does not hold that it is always reasonable to conduct a full strip search of an arrestee whose detention has not been reviewed by a judicial officer and who could be held in available facilities apart from the general population. Most of those arrested for minor offenses are not dangerous, and most are released from custody prior to or at the time of their initial appearance before a magistrate. In some cases, the charges are dropped. In others, arrestees are released either on their own recognizance or on minimal bail. In the end, few are sentenced to incarceration. For these persons, admission to the general jail population, with the concomitant humiliation of a strip search, may not be reasonable, particularly if an alternative procedure is feasible.

Climate Progress

Romney On Cap And Trade In 2003: ‘I Am Making Good On My Pledge’ To Clean Up Carbon Pollution ‘Harming Our Climate’

By Stephen Lacey on Apr 2, 2012 at 4:54 pm

A new document has surfaced showing Mitt Romney’s strong support for regulating carbon dioxide in 2003, when he called cap and trade “an effective approach” to combating climate change.

The comments were made in a letter from Romney to New York Gov. George Pataki about a regional cooperative system for regulating greenhouse gases. In the letter, Romney agreed with Pataki on the need to “reduce the power plant pollution that is harming our climate.”

But today, in trying to align himself with conservative political backlash against climate science, Romney says “we don’t know” whether humans are warming the planet, and that doing something about the problem “is not the right course for us.”

Here’s the full letter from Romney to Pataki:

Thank you for your invitation to embark on a cooperative northeast process to reduce the power plant pollution that is harming our climate. I concur that climate change is beginning to effect on our natural resources and that now is the time to take action toward climate protection. Furthermore, I share your interest in ensuring that the economic and security contributions made by our electricity generating system are not negated by the impact of emissions from that system on the health of our citizens.

As you may know, the commonwealth is making major strides to reduce the environmental impact of our power plants. Specifically, I am making good on my pledge to clean up the six oldest and dirtiest power plants in the state and bring them up to new plant standards for NOx, SOx, mercury and CO2. We are the first state to enact a cap on CO2, implementing regulations that, by 2008, will reduce these emissions by 10%, removing 6,750 tons of Co2 per day. Furthermore, Massachusetts, along with the other New England states and Canadian provinces, has a target of reducing greenhouse gases and improving the efficiency of the grid substantially over the next 20 years.

I believe that our joint work to create a flexible market-based regional cap and trade system could serve as an effective approach to meeting these goals. I am ready to have my staff work with yours to explore how we might design such a system — one that would keep the cost of compliance as low as possible, diversify our fuels, encourage energy efficiency and renewables, and keep our energy dollars in the region. Thank you for your initiative in proposing this project.

Mitt Romney is getting a lot of media attention for his contradictory stances on energy policy. Every week, there’s a new document or quote surfacing from the past that counters all of his current campaign mantras.

This adds to the very long list of dramatic changes to Romney’s energy policy. During his last bid for the presidency in 2007, Romney advocated aggressive fuel efficiency standards, electric vehicles, and public-private partnerships to develop clean energy.

In 2006, Romney said that high gas prices were good for discouraging consumption, explaining that he was “very much in favor of people recognizing that these high gasoline prices are probably here to stay.”

In 2004, Romney introduced a climate protection plan for Massachusetts, laying out a “no-regrets policy” to tackling climate change.

And in 2003, the year the letter to Pataki was written, Romney set up a $15 million fund for renewable energy and criticized coal plants for creating jobs that “kill people.”

With this barrage of information surfacing about the candidate, it’s not likely he can simply Etch-A-Sketch his problems away.

Security

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Says Iran Sanctions Are ‘Much More Effective Than People Think’

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 2, 2012 at 4:46 pm

Back in February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained that the sanctions imposed on Iran by the international community “have not” had any effect. But it appears that the government may be shifting its tone. Today, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, said sanctions on Iran are working.

Referring to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication’s (SWIFT) recent decision to expel 30 Iranian financial institutions — including the Central Bank — from using the key banking industry communication network, Prosor said the sanctions are “important” and “have an effect,” Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch reports:

[H]e also credited international sanctions, particularly a set of financial measures imposed by the United States and the European Union, with exacting a steep enough price that it may force Tehran to change its behavior. Prosor cited a recent decision by the Belgium-based Society of World Wide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or Swift, blocking dozens of Iranian firms from doing business as the latest evidence the sanctions are having an impact.

“I think the international community at this stage has really moved forward and have made at least clear to Tehran that there is a certain price tag for continuing” its pursuit of nuclear weapons, he said. “The decision on SWIFT, the issue of the sanctions by the EU, are important and have an effect on Iran…I do see really a movement on the international stage, especially on the economic side…It’s much more effective than people think and it might change, hopefully it might change behavior patterns if we continue with it.”

The New York Times noted last month that the SWIFT decision “severs a crucial conduit for Iran to electronically repatriate billions of dollars’ worth of earnings from the sale of oil and other exports.”

“It is a very efficient measure,” said a European Union official. “It can seriously cripple the banking sector of Iran.”

On Friday, President Obama announced further economic measures directed at Iran, making the determination that global oil supplies were sufficient enough to allow countries to reduce their imports of Iranian oil thereby clearing the way for the Obama administration to impose harsh penalties on foreign banks that purchase Iranian oil.

“There is evidence that these sanctions are hurting,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a recent interview, “that it’s impacting on their economy, it’s impacting on their ability to govern themselves.”

Lynch also reported that Proser said that he believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Top American officials and the IAEA agree that Iran is continuing to develop its nuclear capabilities and that some of their activity has a military dimension. However, U.S. and Israeli intelligence and the IAEA say Iran has, as Panetta said, “not made the decision to actually produce a nuclear weapon”

Alyssa

Another Demographic Hollywood Treats Like It’s Stupid: Teenagers

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Apr 2, 2012 at 4:37 pm

Alan Sepinwall takes on a little-discussed kind of token casting: putting random, poorly-developed teenaged characters in shows in the hopes they’ll lure teenagers into watching:

Shawn Ryan was going on a Twitter run about all the ways “Smash” had gone awry, and suggested that at least some of the problems had to be coming from network notes. I asked whether we could blame networks for all the obnoxious teenage characters — not just Leo, but Tyler on “V,” Jack Linden on “The Killing” and Josh from “Terra Nova,” to name three recent examples — and he said yes, then tweeted, “Think a lot of writers/networks mistakingly think the mere presence of a teenager is show (however annoying) will lure teens into watching.”

And that’s not a new phenomenon, nor one that’s confined to adult programs. I remember when I was a kid, a lot of the cartoons I watched had kid characters — often, in the case of something like “Superfriends,” adding them to pre-existing source material where they didn’t exist — who were elevated to a position of prominence that never made sense to me at the time. With the benefit of hindsight, I have to agree with Shawn’s theory, and say they were there because an executive or producer assumed kids wouldn’t want to watch a bunch of grown-ups have adventures unless there was someone close to their own age to relate to. And it always seemed like a fundamental misunderstanding of the audience. Though some of the kids were non-terrible, I was tuning in to watch Superman or Batman or the guys from M.A.S.K. do something cool, not Wendy and Marvin, the Wonder Twins or Scott Trakker and his pet robot T-Bob. Or, to use a live-action example from when I was slightly older, think of Wesley Crusher, who was there as young audience bait, and yet is someone whom Wil Wheaton is still apologizing for 25 years later.

It’s particularly weird that television would continue to treat teenage characters as a way to pander, because not as if it’s impossible to tell specific stories about what it’s like to be a teenager, or to find quality metaphors for the pain of adolescence, be they Spider-Man‘s web-slinging, the revelation of wizarding abilities in the Harry Potter franchise, or The Hunger Games‘ vicious battles in the arena. And there seems to be ample proof that grown-ups will watch or read intelligent fiction about teenagers that comes with a larger message. Just saying.

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