From the Washington Post (via Longreads) comes the story of William M. Drumheller, a church pastor who was also a convicted murderer. The resulting story, which occurred after his charges were revealed is illustrative of how seriously — and perhaps wrongheadedly — small-town folk take their church (I should know; my parents fall into this category too).
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This Wedding Announcement Troubles Me
Today’s NYTimes has a wedding announcement that prominently features lives that have been destroyed as a result of the happy couple:
So Ms. Riddell was surprised to find herself eagerly looking for Mr. Partilla at school events — and missing him when he wasn’t there. “I didn’t admit to anyone how I felt,” she said. “To even think about it was disruptive and disloyal.” What she didn’t know was that he was experiencing similar emotions. “First I tried to deny it,” Mr. Partilla said. “Then I tried to ignore it.” But it was hard to ignore their easy rapport. They got each other’s jokes and finished each other’s sentences. They shared a similar rhythm in the way they talked and moved. The very things one hopes to find in another person, but not when you’re married to someone else. Ms. Riddell said she remembered crying in the shower, asking: “Why am I being punished? Why did someone throw him in my path when I can’t have him?”
Needless to say, Ridell and Partilla divorced their their spouses and wound up together. These sorts of things happen all the time, but it is unsettling to see it detailed on the NYTimes wedding announcements page (whose existence I’m not a big fan of to begin with). But I guess, if you’re going to write about weddings in the first place in a national publication, you might as well feature them in all their messy, hurtful glory.
Fox News Makes You Dumber
A study [PDF] conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org (managed by the University of Maryland) has shown that greater exposure to Fox News was associated with greater levels of misinformation. Quoting the NYTimes:
“Almost daily” viewers of Fox News, the authors said, were 31 points more likely to mistakenly believe that “most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit;” were 30 points more likely to believe that “most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring;” and were 14 points more likely to believe that “the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts.”
This association held even in instances when the person voted Democrat (i.e. regardless of party affiliation). Fox’s response to the study:
Asked for comment on the study, Fox News seemingly dismissed the findings. In a statement, Michael Clemente, who is the senior vice president of news editorial for the network, said: “The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”
It should go without saying that some silly Princeton Review rankings should have absolutely no bearing on the accuracy of the study or the issues that it raises. That being said, this is the most prominent instance of a large corporation issuing a response that amounts to “Bitch, please” that I can think of.
Your Apps Are Watching You
The WSJ devised a system to track the data the data that an iPhone was transmitting via apps. What they found was…troubling?
Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner’s real name—even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off. These phones don’t keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. An examination of 101 popular smartphone “apps”—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone’s unique device ID to other companies without users’ awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone’s location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.
Meanwhile, Kim Mai-Cutler has a fantastic response to this that raises legitimate concerns about pieces like the WSJ’s:
On the whole, the “What They Know” series is great for mainstream consumer education. But its scare-mongering and sometimes simplistic descriptions of industry practices creates risk that uninformed policymakers will draft poorly targeted legislation. It could end up being unnecessarily destructive to consumer Internet businesses or be so cosmetic that it doesn’t really fix underlying problems.
Why Talking About Julian Assange Has Become Utterly Terrible
At least online, talking about Julian Assange has become an almost unbearable task. Anna North from Jezebel explains why:
Will Studios Lose The War with Netflix?
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has been really taking it to Netflix the past few weeks, insisting that the video distribution company doesn’t have the cojones or muscle to go up against old media companies like, well, Time Warner. Terry Heaton has a blog post insisting that Bewkes is wrongheaded and that people bet against Netflix at their peril:
The lessons for local media are many, beginning with admitting, once again, that consumers are in charge. We also need to learn the lesson that Netflix is teaching us about digital video — that people want it when, how and where they want it. This speaks to one of our favorite topics: on-demand, unbundled distribution. It also speaks volumes about how people will pay for a wonderful service. It may not be as much as we’d like up front, but give it time.
Heaton’s post is heavy on philosophy, light on practical matters. Like, how exactly will Netflix turn a profit if the Starz deal costs $200 million to renew in 2012? I agree with the thrust of Heaton’s argument that disruptors such as Netflix (or Netflix-like technologies) will eventually win the day, and consumers will eventually be able to get what they want, when they want it. But will Netflix (the actual, specific company) be the one to take us to that consumer nirvana? That’s still not clear.
Charlie Kaufman’s Intro to Synecdoche, New York
The Rumpus has published Charlie Kaufman’s introduction to the shooting script of his film, Synecdoche, New York. It’s everything you’d expect a piece of Kaufman writing to be: amusing, neurotic, brilliant, and thought-provoking:
Maybe it’s easier to see people as peripheral. Maybe that’s why we do it. It’s a weird and daunting experience to let other people in their fullness into our minds. It is so much easier to see them as serving a purpose in our own lives. In any event, this somehow seems to lead me to some of the things explored in the screenplay that you, imaginary person, are holding in your hands right now. And the relentlessly experienced life of yours that has brought you to this book at this time will now perhaps interact with the relentlessly experienced life of mine as it is represented by this script. I hope we recognize each other.
Seven MORE Great Longreads of 2010
Alright, so I spoke too soon.
The other week, I posted my favorite longreads of 2010. Since then, however, I’ve been introduced to variety of websites that have had even more awesome long reads (not to mention I’ve also had time to go through my own archive of Instapaper articles). With the year winding up, I’ve been able to blast through a bunch of them and present to you seven more reads that I think are worth your time:
7) The real-life Swedish murder that inspired Stieg Larsson – A gripping tale of a murdered, mutilated body, and an investigation that ripped apart reputations and captivated the Swedish media. A real-life murder mystery.
6) Sledgehammer and Whore – A hilarious story about an unexpected hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold from the twisted mind of a TV writer.
5) Letting Go – Up there on the list of “articles that changed my life and the way I think about things,” this piece by Atul Gawande delves into some systematic problems with the way end-of-life care is discussed in our country from the perspectives of both patients and doctors. See if the following blows your mind:
Like many people, I had believed that hospice care hastens death, because patients forgo hospital treatments and are allowed high-dose narcotics to combat pain. But studies suggest otherwise. In one, researchers followed 4,493 Medicare patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure. They found no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer.
This is a must-read for anyone that thinks end-of-life decisions may one day be relevant to them. Which is basically all of us. Be sure to check out the accompanying Fresh Air interview as well.
4) Tie: Art of the Steal and The Ballad of Colton-Harris Moore – These pieces have a great deal in common: they are both about misunderstood individuals who happen to be geniuses at stealing and eluding the authorities. They’re also thrilling to read, and interesting character studies. I recommend checking them both out before the inevitable film adaptations are announced.
3) Who Killed Ayana Stanley-Jones? – An earnest examination of the tragic circumstances that led to the death of young Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Written by Detroit native Charlie LeDuff, this piece delves into the abject poverty of Detroit with brutal honesty.
2) The Theory of Relatability and Rethinking Justin Long’s Face – An excellent meditation on online film criticism by Michelle Orange. Orange writes about the pursuit of excellent in film and film criticism, and thoughtfully deconstructs what we are to think and feel in an age when our written words can echo all the way across the internet and reach the very ears we are insulting. On the film Going the Distance, and its “relatability,” Orange writes:
Blame Oprah if you want to, but relatability has been fermenting as both a cultural phenomenon and evaluative rubric since the 1970s, when a combination of factors moved the social concept of the self to the front of the culture. The mainstreaming of therapy and therapized language, the platonic “we’re all the same” rhetoric of the civil rights and equality movements, the merging of high and low culture, and rampant individualism conspired to form a kind of cultural currency, a new dialect that had the ear of the country…The most dangerous thing about relatability is the way it is often presented (and accepted) as a reasonable facsimile of or substitute for truth. This, I worry, may handicap our culture so violently that recovery, if it comes at all, will be generations in the reckoning; if in the meantime we lose our appetite for the real thing we are pretty much doomed. The pursuit of truth is a basic human instinct, and guides our engagement with ourselves, with art, and with other human beings; the scourge of relatability—and its sweetheart deal with another basic instinct, adaptation—puts all three relationships at risk.
1) Unauthorized, But Not Untrue – Kitty Kelly explains why “unauthorized” is not a dirty word when it comes to biographies. A breathtaking look back at a prolific career (although a touch on the self-congratulatory side).