The Beck of Revelation
I’m coming to the conclusion that searching for the “real” Glenn Beck makes no sense. The truth is, demagogues don’t have cores. They are mediums, channeling currents of public passion and opinion that they anticipate, amplify, and guide, but do not create; the less resistance they offer, the more successful they are. This nonresistance is what distinguishes Beck from his confreres in the conservative media establishment, who have created more sharply etched characters for themselves. Rush Limbaugh plays the loud, steamrolling uncle you avoid at Thanksgiving. Bill O’Reilly is the angry guy haranguing the bartender. Sean Hannity is the football captain in a letter sweater, asking you to repeat everything, slowly. But with Glenn Beck you never know what you’ll get. He is a perpetual work in progress, a billboard offering YOUR MESSAGE HERE.
The Setup
As we followed The Subject onto I-680 north, I asked the P.I. Moms where they thought he might be taking his Mystery Date: Would he have the nerve to take his side dish to downtown Walnut Creek, close to his fiancé’s house? “We aren’t supposed to assume anything,” said Antoon. “Our job is simply to observe and report those observations.”
Champagne, Diamonds and Shots in the Dark
Early on Jan. 1, 2007, Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was shot to death after a New Year’s Eve party at a Denver nightclub. The police launched a massive investigation that included multiple interviews with two other Broncos who were at the same club that night. But years would pass before the full story came to light.
Can Rob Kalin Scale Etsy?
“Etsy has made it possible for a lot of small businesses to get off the ground,” says Dale Dougherty, co-founder of O’Reilly Media and the publisher of Make magazine, which covers the do-it-yourself economy. “But even the most successful crafters run up against the limits of their own labor. Handmade can be a limited idea.” In other words, the very qualities that make Etsy so attractive to new sellers put the most successful Etsy sellers in an awkward position: They must stay small or abandon Etsy. For founder Rob Kalin and his investors, the questions are even tougher: Can a site dedicated to DIY scale? Or is Etsy, despite Kalin’s ambition and grandiosity, just a small idea?
The Fragile Success of School Reform in the Bronx
Success stories like this in high-poverty neighborhoods are becoming more common in the era of charter schools, but 223 is no charter. There is no clamoring of parents trying to game a spot for their kids in a lottery, no screening of applicants, no visits from educators hoping to learn the secret of the school’s success, no shadow philanthropist supplying Kindles to all of its students. M.S. 223 is just a regular public school. González isn’t even allowed to see the files of incoming students before they arrive. “You know what you have to do to come to school here?” González told me. “Walk through that door.”
Long Live the Industrial City
Beneath the well-chronicled narrative of garment industry decline I began to see another set of truths: that the garment industry is still New York City’s largest manufacturing sector by employment; that the production, service, and supply businesses that remain play a vital, if underappreciated, role in the larger fashion industry of New York; and that even with the emergence of instant communications and far-flung supply chains—not to mention the pressures exerted by landlords looking to convert industrial space into more profitable offices—there are still compelling reasons why this industrial network continues to cluster in midtown Manhattan.
Inside David Foster Wallace’s Private Self-Help Library
All his life Wallace was praised and admired for being exceptional, but in order to accept treatment he had to first accept and then embrace the idea that he was a regular person who could be helped by “ordinary” means. Then he went to rehab and learned a ton of valuable things from “ordinary” people whom he would never have imagined would be in a position to teach him anything. Furthermore, these people obviously had inner lives and problems and ideas that were every bit as complex and vital as those of the most “sophisticated” and “exceptional.”
The Woman Who Smashed the Glass Ceiling
Today, Rachel Beer would be diagnosed as suffering from a nervous breakdown. But in 1903, the three doctors came to a radically different conclusion: the woman had clearly lost her mind. Her plight excited no interest, and within months it was as if she had never existed. Yet not only had Rachel been the very first female editor of a Fleet Street newspaper, but she had simultaneously edited both the Observer and the Sunday Times while also writing regular columns and conducting interviews that set the agenda for national debate. Another 80 years would elapse before another woman was (wrongly) hailed as the first female editor of a national paper.
Net Impact: One Man’s Cyber-Crusade Against Russian Corruption
Alexey Navalny’s latest project is the Web site RosPil. The site would not be possible without Medvedev’s initiative, two years ago, to post online all government requests for tender—the documents whereby government entities announce their need for goods or services to potential bidders. Almost immediately, reports of strange deals started surfacing in the press. One regional governor arranged to buy thirty gold-and-diamond wristwatches; a spokesman explained that they were gifts to honor local teachers, but the deal was abruptly cancelled when the press got wind of it. The Interior Ministry ordered a hand-carved bed made of rare wood, gilded. St. Petersburg authorities ordered two million rubles’ worth of mink for seven hundred patients in a psychiatric institution.
How a Big U.S. Bank Laundered Billions from Mexico’s Murderous Drug Gangs
Martin Woods was set apart by his modus operandi. His speciality, he explains, was his application of a “know your client”, or KYC, policing strategy to identifying dirty money. “KYC is a fundamental approach to anti-money laundering, going after tax evasion or counter-terrorist financing. Who are your clients? Is the documentation right? Good, responsible banking involved always knowing your customer and it still does.” When he looked at Wachovia, the first thing Woods noticed was a deficiency in KYC information.
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