Friday, October 30th, 2015

1

Assume the Position

You were waiting by your keyboard, fingers held slightly above the keys in ready anticipation, as you, me, and Internet citizens everywhere waited, as we do each day, for the signal that would tell us what to be pissed about. And boom. Here it is. A school police officer was caught on video using excessive force against a student. Yes! That's an easy one. Within three seconds, you've watched the video, absorbed the headlines, juxtaposed them with current memes and hot social issues (it's about race, it's about unequal education, it's about bad cops), stirred your inner outrage, and composed the one hundred and forty character, perfectly formulated message that you must share -- if it's not already too late -- with the social media world. With an orgasmic relief, your fingertips strike the letters and your self-righteous, self-assured position on the incident is, at long last, a matter of public record. What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! (And then again in about five minutes, after you've had time for a postcoital smoke and put the finishing touches on a potentially viral animated GIF.) But wait. What if you're wrong? I know it seems unthinkable, but what if that three-second glance did not provide you with the fully immersive ethnographic experience that say, four or five seconds of thinking about it would have? Consider this: On Friday morning, hundreds of Spring Valley students staged a peaceful walkout in support of the officer and demanded that he be allowed to keep his job. Maybe these students are just too close to the actual experience to really understand its broader meaning. Or maybe the officer really is terrible. Or maybe this is about something else altogether. I have no idea. That's the point. But there's no time to worry about it now. That was yesterday's meme.

2

Old Policy Booted

For now it will include fewer than fifty troops in an advisory role, but President Obama has decided to put boots on the ground and send special forces into Syria.

3

Weekend Reads and Listens

In this week's edition of the What Hurts Podcast, Phil Bronstein (who wrote the exclusive story on the guy who shot Osama bin Laden) and I talk about when it's ok and not ok to share information; from government leaks to salacious rumors. We also identify the lowest rung of the Hollywood hierarchy, and of course, there's news of bacon. You can listen to What Hurts on our web page or subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

+ In The Atlantic, David Ignatius on How ISIS Spread in the Middle East (and how to stop it).

+ "Monitored by the authorities, unable to go near schools or parks, forced to make his home on the outskirts of a tiny town. It's exactly the kind of miserable life a pervert deserves, he would tell you -- if he were one." Michael Hall with a pretty remarkable piece in Texas Monthly: The Outcast.

+ Mashable: Inside Apple's Perfection Machine.

4

White Lines

The NYT's Katharine Q. Seelye with an very interesting take on the evolution of the drug war: "When the nation's long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack epidemic and based in poor, predominantly black urban areas, the public response was defined by zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences. But today's heroin crisis is different." In other words: As Heroin Use by Whites Soars, Parents Urge Gentler Drug War.

5

That’s What She Said

Wired's Jessi Hempel wants to know why Siri, Cortana, and Alexa all have female voices.

+ In related news, machines that dig tunnels are always named after women.

6

Car Balk

GM has the experience. They have the assembly lines. They have the sales channels. They have the know how. And they definitely have the desire. What they don't have is hundreds of millions of dollars spilling out of a search engine to accelerate their goals. From Bloomberg: Can Detroit Beat Google to the Self-Driving Car?

7

Breaking Bread

"Before the advent of industrial agriculture, Americans enjoyed a wide range of regional flours milled from equally diverse wheats, which in turn could be used to make breads that were astonish­ingly flavorful and nutritious." We used to celebrate breaking bread. Now, as NYT Magazine's Ferris Jabr explains: Bread is Broken.

8

I Was Hoping for a Treat

"For the past decade, the manor has hosted a handful of guests each weekend, challenging them to last the eight-hour tour. Marines and cage fighters, cops and bikers, plumbers and clerks, housewives and beauticians – all have tried. None succeeded." The Guardian takes you to a manor where "people pay to be kidnapped, bound, masked, slapped, stomped on and held under water over an eight-hour" visit. Welcome to the extreme haunted house. (Hopefully they also force the victims to give some money to Unicef.)

9

It Is Your Destiny

Can Beyoncé's dad make you a star? Let's take a look in on his one-day bootcamp aimed at helping you make it in the music business. (My personal view: Bootyliciousness can't be taught.)

10

Bottom of the News

Getting the house ready. Buying candy. Dealing with costumes. It's a busy time of year for all of us. But not as busy as life as a professional pumpkin carver.

+ The best pumpkin carving on YouTube.

+ It's always the right season for photos of cats and the metalheads who love them.

+ Here is an entirely real and entirely accurate LA Times headline that shows the kind of competition The Onion faces from real life: Sylvester Stallone is back as Rocky Balboa -- but this time he's in a fight with mortality. Oy Adrian is the new Yo Adrian...