Can America’s Favorite Ex-Con Mayor Win Again?
Buddy Cianci is the poster boy of U.S. political scandals. But that may be ancient history in Providence, where the still-beloved figure may seek one more go of it in City Hall.
As Providence blossomed into a Seattle of the East in the ‘90s, with its brick-building stock getting converted into lofts for the postgrad art-school set, Cianci again reigned as its crown prince, in a whirlwind of parades and ribbon cuttings and school graduations. “I’d attend the opening of an envelope,” he says now. He was out on the town nearly every night, pulling up in his limo, breezing past lines of waiting diners to hold court at the choicest tables, leaving without paying. “The cost of doing business,” one restauranteur told a Cianci biographer
The Near-Death of Grand Central Terminal
How we almost lost a New York landmark:
Many consider the destruction of New York’s original Pennsylvania Station in 1963 to have been the architectural crime of the twentieth century. But few know how close we came to also losing its counterpart, Grand Central Terminal, a hub every bit as irreplaceable. Grand Central’s salvation has generally been told as a tale of aroused civic virtue, which it was. Yet it was, as well, an affirming episode for those of us convinced that our political culture has become an endless clown-car act with the same fools always leaping out.
Trafficked Into Slavery on Thai Trawlers to Catch Food for Prawns
An investigation of the Thai fishing industry, which has been built on enslaving migrant workers:
The price captains pay for these men is a extremely low even by historical standards. According to the anti-trafficking activist Kevin Bales, slaves cost 95% less than they did at the height of the 19th-century slave trade – meaning that they are not regarded as investments for important cash crops such as cotton or sugar, as they were historically, but as disposable commodities.
For the migrants who believed Thailand would bring them opportunity, the reality of being sent out to sea is devastating.
“They told me I was going to work in a pineapple factory,” recalls Kyaw, a broad-shouldered 21-year-old from rural Burma. “But when I saw the boats, I realised I’d been sold … I was so depressed, I wanted to die.”
The Thought Experiment
Brain-controlled prosthetics and computers may help paralyzed people in the future:
Scheuermann, who says that in her dreams she is not disabled, underwent brain surgery in 2012 after seeing a video of another paralyzed patient controlling a robotic arm with his thoughts. She immediately applied to join the study. During the surgery, doctors used an air gun to fire the two tiny beds of silicon needles, called the Utah Electrode Array, into her motor cortex, the slim strip of brain that runs over the top of the head to the jaws and controls voluntary movement. She awoke from the surgery with a pounding headache and “the worst case of buyer’s remorse.” She couldn’t believe she’d had voluntary brain surgery. “I thought, Please, God, don’t let this be for nothing. My greatest fear was that it wouldn’t work,” she says. But within days, she was controlling the robotic arm, and with unexpected success: “I was moving something in my environment for the first time in years. It was gasp-inducing and exciting. The researchers couldn’t wipe the smile off their faces for weeks either.”
Meet Your New Boss
Claudine Ko’s notorious 2004 profile of former American Apparel CEO Dov Charney:
“Masturbation in front of women is underrated,” Dov explains to me later over the phone. “It’s much easier on the woman. She gets to watch, it’s a sensual experience that doesn’t involve a man violating a woman, yet once the man has his release, it’s over and you can talk to the guy.” And, Iris adds on another day, “I think it’s really healthy to have an orgasm four times a day. It’s got to be great for business.” In his apartment that night, when he finishes, he promptly turns back to reading the rest of his e-mail. His in-box holds 21,547 messages. He clicks on one that displays a photo of a twentysomething Asian girl wearing tight jeans, lying in bed. Her message reads, “I’m 5’4″, 106 pounds, bust size 32B-C. Plus, I’m professional, artistic…” Dov says he gets an email like this every 48 hours from women wanting to work for him.
Citizen Bezos
Steve Coll examines Brad Stone’s The Everything Store, and Amazon’s impact on publishing:
Toward the end of his account, Stone asks the essential question: “Will antitrust authorities eventually come to scrutinize Amazon and its market power?” His answer: “Yes, I believe that is likely.” It is “clear that Amazon has helped damage or destroy competitors small and large,” in Stone’s judgment.
In view of Amazon’s recent treatment of The Everything Store, Stone may now end up as a courtroom witness. Yet there are reasons to be wary about who will prevail in such a contest, if it ever takes place. As Stone notes, “Amazon is a masterly navigator of the law.” And crucially, as in so many other fields of economic policy, antitrust law has been reshaped in recent decades by the spread of free-market fundamentalism. Judges and legislators have reinterpreted antitrust law to emphasize above all the promotion of low prices for consumers, which Amazon delivers, rather than the interests of producers—whether these are authors, book publishers, or mom-and-pop grocery stores—that are threatened by giants.
Stepping Out
David Sedaris acquires a Fitbit:
Since getting my Fitbit, I’ve seen all kinds of things I wouldn’t normally have come across. Once, it was a toffee-colored cow with two feet sticking out of her. I was rambling that afternoon, with my friend Maja, and as she ran to inform the farmer I marched in place, envious of the extra steps she was getting in. Given all the time I’ve spent in the country, you’d think I might have seen a calf being born, but this was a first for me. The biggest surprise was how unfazed the expectant mother was. For a while, she lay flat on the grass, panting. Then she got up and began grazing, still with those feet sticking out.
“Really?” I said to her. “You can’t go five minutes without eating?”
Baptism by Fire
A rookie firefighter’s first big test:
While awaiting a fire, Jordan Sullivan had not been idle for 96 days. He had easily done a couple of hundred runs, almost always in the junior position on the truck, the one called the “can man,” who lugged a fire extinguisher. Ladder companies like his tackled the entry work and the search for survivors. Engine companies had the hoses that put out fires.
The vast majority of what a New York firefighter does, though, has nothing to do with fire. Last spring, firefighters in Queens had to retrieve a police officer who got stuck in a tree trying to save a cat. Firefighter Sullivan had not had tree calls, but his tours were a litany of balky elevators, car accidents, chirping carbon monoxide detectors, frozen pipes, blown sprinkler heads, gas leaks, smoking manholes, scaffolding emergencies, the cascade of false alarms that fate tossed his way.
All Together Now
The Spice Girls were the biggest, brashest girlie group ever to have hit the British mainstream. Kathy Acker was an avant-garde American writer and academic. They met up in 1997 to swap notes—on boys, girls, politics.
They are here to rehearse for an appearance on Saturday Night Live. Not only is this their first live TV performance, it’s also the first time they’ll be playing with what Mel C calls a ‘real band’. If the Girls are to have any longevity in the music industry, they will have to break into the American market; and for this they will need the American media. Both the Girls and their record company believe that their appearance here tonight might do the trick. There is a refusal among America’s music critics to take the Spice Girls seriously. The Rolling Stone review of Spice, their first album, refers to them as ‘attractive young things . . . brought together by a manager with a marketing concept’. The main complaint, or explanation for disregard, is that they are a ‘manufactured band’. What can this mean in a society of McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and En Vogue?
Orange is the New Black is Back: A Reading List on the Representation of Prison
Now that we’ve all had a chance to finish watching Orange is the New Black (who am I kidding — we all binge watched it in a day or two, right?), I thought I’d share four pieces that clarify and critique the way prison is represented on the show.
You must be logged in to post a comment.