Capt. Mark J. Colombo, executive officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), passes through the side boys as he departs TR. ((U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Wyatt Anthony)
Fair Winds and Following Seas Capt. Mark J. Colombo By Theodore Roosevelt Media Department
8pm in New York F R O M T H E PA G E S O F
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014
Some E-Cigarettes Deliver a Puff Of Carcinogens Electronic cigarettes appear to be safer than ordinary cigarettes for one simple — and obvious — reason: People don’t light up and smoke them. With the e-cigarettes, there is no burning tobacco to produce new chemicals, including 60 carcinogens. But new research suggests that, even without a match, some popular e-cigarettes get so hot that they, too, can produce some of the carcinogens in cigarettes and at similar levels. A study to be published this month in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research found that the high-power e-cigarettes known as tank systems produce formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, along with the nicotine-laced vapor that their users inhale. The toxin is formed when liquid nicotine and other e-cigarette ingredients are subjected to high temperatures, according to the study. A second study that is being prepared for submission to the same journal points to similar findings. The long-term effects of inhaling nicotine vapor are unclear, but there is no evidence to date that it causes cancer or heart disease as cigarette smoking does. Indeed, many researchers agree that e-cigarettes will turn out to be much safer than conventional cigarettes, an idea that e-cigarette companies have made much of in their advertising. Still, the research suggests how potential health risks are emerging as the multibillion-dollar e-cigarette business evolves, and how regulators are struggling to keep pace. While the Food and Drug Administration last month proposed new rules that would extend its authority to e-cigarettes, the F.D.A. has focused largely on what goes into these products — currently, an unregulated brew of chemicals and flavorings — rather than on what comes out of them, as wispy plumes of flavored vapor. “Looking at ingredients is one thing, and very important,” said Maciej L. Goniewicz, who led the first study, which is scheduled to be published May 15. “But to have a comprehensive picture, you have to look at the vapor.” MATT RICHTEL
© 2014 The New York Times
FROM THE PAGES OF
Fight Against Sex Crimes Roils Colleges Emma Sulkowicz said she knew it would be awful to go before a disciplinary panel and describe being raped by a fellow student, but nothing prepared her for what came next. She said one of the two women on the panel, a university official, asked her, repeatedly, how the painful sex act she described was physically possible. Already anxious and queasy, Sulkowicz, a junior at Columbia University, said she felt her body freeze up and her heart race as she tried to answer questions that seemed to her to reveal not just skepticism about her story, but also disturbing ignorance in someone who had supposedly been trained for this role. Worse still, for Sulkowicz, was the outcome: The panel dismissed her accusation — the same result from sexual assault complaints against the same man that year by two other students. “I didn’t even cry at first,” Sulkowicz said softly. “I don’t know. Has anything ever happened to you that was just so bad that you felt like you became a shell of a human being?” Asked to respond, Michael K.
Dunn, Columbia’s deputy Title IX coordinator, said he believed Columbia had a good process for handling sexual assault cases, but that the magazine article featuring Sulkowicz’s case led to soul-searching by the administration. Sulkowicz was one of the women, identified by Emma pseudonyms Sulkowicz — she had not yet decided to go fully public — who became the talk of Columbia this past winter, when an article in a student magazine, The Blue and White, described in detail their accounts of being sexually assaulted, and their frustrated searches for aid and justice from the university. Heated discussions broke out on web pages and across campus, and students demanded changes and staged protests. The university promised to overhaul its policies. And, most recently, 23 students filed a complaint with
the federal government, saying Columbia’s handling of sexual misconduct violated federal law. Stories like this are playing out at colleges nationwide, as more victims go public, more of them file federal complaints, a new network of activists makes use of the law and the media, and the Obama administration steps up pressure. A White House task force recommended practices for measuring the problem, educating students and treating accuser and accused. Today dozens of universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Florida State and Ohio State, are under federal investigation for their handling of sexual assault. “It just hasn’t been on most university administrators’ agendas; they don’t know how to approach it, and they just haven’t taken the time to be informed,” said Bonnie S. Fisher, a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Criminal Justice. “It’s just another issue on their desks that they’re hoping doesn’t cause a loss of students or bad media attention.” RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and KATE TAYLOR
G.O.P. Hopeful Finds Tribal Tie Cuts Both Ways BARTLESVILLE, Okla. — T. W. Shannon will be Oklahoma’s first black senator if he wins the Republican nomination and is elected in November, but the campaign stirring here about his racial loyalties is not aimed at the African-American branch of his family tree. Shannon, whose first name is Tahrohon, is a member of the Chickasaw Nation, the most influential tribe in a state where Native Americans are not merely the inheritors of a poignant history but also the largest nongovernment employer outside of Walmart. Most of those jobs are connected to Oklahoma’s 110-and-counting casinos. Yet the gambling revenue that has showered millions on some of the state’s Native Americans has also bred resentment over their expanding footprint. Beyond Oklahoma, Shannon, 36, a former State House speaker, has the potential to become a sensation in a party desperate to
shed its oldand-white image. Shannon, whose father is Chickasaw and mother is black, has received tens of thousands of T. W. dollars from C h i c k a s a w s Shannon and other tribes. And, as he has emerged as a formidable candidate to win the seat held by retiring Sen. Tom Coburn, Shannon also has prompted a revival of old grudges. “Btw, the Indians aren’t Oklahomans,” Robert Dan Robbins, a rancher and supporter of Shannon’s chief primary opponent, Rep. James Lankford, wrote on his Facebook page. “They are a member of their own nation and are suing the state of Oklahoma over water rights and other things.” Oklahoma before statehood
was made up of Indian territories, and members of its tribes are culturally integrated and do not live on reservations. Still, tensions that stem from the tribes’ unique status are evident. “When someone says that Indians aren’t real Oklahomans I guess they forgot that Oklahoma is Choctaw for ‘red people,’ ” said Rep. Tom Cole, a fellow Chickasaw. Shannon is more cautious when discussing his background. “I’m an American first, and that’s the most important thing,” he said. Yet the statement his election would make is very much on the minds of Oklahoma Republicans. “We need people that can relate to the average American, and the average American is not the average American from 1955,” said State Sen. David Holt, a Republican. “You’ve got to project a face from your party that reflects America, and America is changing.” JONATHAN MARTIN
INTERNATIONAL
‘Honor Killings’ Of Afghan Women Supersede Laws KABUL, Afghanistan — An 18-year-old runaway named Amina agreed two weeks ago to leave the women’s shelter in which she had taken refuge in northern Afghanistan and go home. What happened next is a cautionary tale for two young people from Bamian Province who eloped and are still in hiding, even as some activists are trying to persuade them to turn themselves in. She had run away to avoid marrying a man her family had forcibly betrothed her to, and agreed to return only after her family had signed guarantees that she would not be harmed. Her father and brother repeated their vows on video camera at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Baghlan Province. She never reached home. Hours after she got into her family’s car, a gang of gunmen dragged her out of the vehicle and shot her to death, her brother and uncle later claimed. Whoever was responsible, Amina became yet another victim of an “honor killing” to absolve some sort of family shame. Rubina Hamdard, a lawyer at a coalition of women’s advocacy groups, the Afghan Women’s Network, estimates 150 cases of honor killing occur every year in Afghanistan. Fewer than half of them are reported, however, and very few end in convictions. It was just such a possible fate that prompted Zakia, 18, and Mohammad Ali, 21, to flee after they eloped in March, fearing that Zakia’s family would kill them both because she had refused her father’s choice of a husband. Neither Amina nor Zakia and Mohammad Ali did anything against the law — or, specifically, against two of the legal systems in effect in Afghanistan: the civil law enacted in the past decade with Western assistance, or the classic Islamic code of Shariah that is also enshrined in law. Both protect the rights of women not to be forced into marriage. But in Afghanistan, an unwritten, unofficial third legal system has remained pervasive: customary law, the tribal codes that have persisted despite efforts at reform. “In Afghanistan, judges stick to customary law, forget Shariah law, let alone civil law,” said Shala Fareed, a professor of law at Kabul University. ROD NORDLAND
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014
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Behind the Masks, Many Faces of Rebellion SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — The rebel leader spread a topographic map in front of a closed grocery store here as a Ukrainian military helicopter flew past a nearby hill. Ukrainian troops had just seized positions along a river, about a mile and a half away. The commander thought they might advance. He issued orders with the authority of a man who had seen many battles. “Go down to the bridge and set up the snipers,” the leader, who gave only a first name, Yuri, said to a former Ukrainian paratrooper. Yuri commands the 12th Company, part of the self-proclaimed People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a previously unknown and often masked rebel force that since early April has seized government buildings in eastern Ukraine and, until Saturday, held prisoner a team of European military observers it accused of being NATO spies. His is one of the faces behind the shadowy paramilitary takeover. But even with his mask off, much about his aims, motivations and connections remains murky, illustrating why this expanding conflict is still so complex. Yuri, who appears to be in his mid-50s, is a military veteran. He survived the Soviet collapse to own a small construction business in Druzhkovka, 15 miles south of here. But his rebel stature has a particular root: He is also a former Soviet special forces commander who served in Afghanistan, a background that could make him both authentically local and a capable Kremlin proxy. In this war, clouded by competing claims on both sides, one
SERGEY PONOMAREV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Ukrainian Offensive Ukrainian forces fought to reclaim the pro-Russian stronghold of Slovyansk on Saturday, even as the rebels freed seven European military observers. The Kremlin cited the deaths of 46 people in Odessa as proof Ukraine could not protect its citizens. persistent mystery has been the identity and affiliations of the militiamen, who have pressed the confrontation between Russia and the West into its latest bitter phase. Moscow says they are Ukrainians and not part of the Russian armed forces, as the so-called green men in Crimea turned out to be. Western officials and the Ukrainian government insist that Russians have led, organized and equipped the fighters. A deeper look at the 12th Company — during more than a week of visiting its checkpoints, interviewing its fighters and observing them in action against a Ukrainian military advance here — shows that in its case neither portrayal captures the full story. The rebels of the 12th Company appear to be Ukrainians but, like many in the region, have deep ties
to and affinity for Russia. They are veterans of the Soviet, Ukrainian or Russian Armies, and some have families on the other side of the border. Theirs is a tangled mix of identities and loyalties. Yuri chuckled at the claims by officials in Kiev and the West that his forces had been guided by Russia. “We have no Muscovites here,” he said. “I have experience enough.” The 119 fighters he said he leads, who appear to range in age from their 20s to their 50s, all speak of prior service in Soviet or Ukrainian infantry, airborne, special forces or air defense units. Several fighters shook their heads at the idea that they had been paid by Russia, by oligarchs or by anybody else. “This is not a job,” said one fighter, Dmitry. “It is a service.” C. J. CHIVERS and NOAH SNEIDER
In Brief No Hope of Survivors
20 Are Held in India
Vatican Weighs Abuse
A day after landslides buried much of a village in northeastern Afghanistan, there appeared to be little hope that any survivors would be found, Afghan officials said Saturday. Local officials fear that more than 2,000 people are dead, entombed in a blanket of earth nearly 30 feet deep. Officials are expected to designate the site, in the remote village of Abi Barak in Badakhshan Province, a mass grave. President Hamid Karzai declared Sunday a national day of mourning and ordered all flags flown at half-staff. (NYT)
The police said Saturday that they had arrested 20 people suspected of being associated with attacks that left at least 29 Muslims dead in western villages in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, where tensions between members of the Bodo tribal group and non-Bodo residents, including Muslims, have been simmering. The army has imposed a curfew in the parts of western Assam where the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, an armed insurgent group, has been agitating for a separate state. (NYT)
The Vatican commission advising Pope Francis on sexual abuse policy will develop “clear and effective protocols” to protect children from pedophile priests, including procedures to hold church authorities accountable if they neglect to act on cases of abuse, Vatican officials said Saturday. The panel will look at adopting policies developed from the “best practices” for the protection of minors, including ways of better educating the clergy about child abuse and its devastating consequences. (NYT)
NATIONAL
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014
‘Find My iPhone’ Takes You to a Thief’s Door WEST COVINA, Calif. — After a boozy Saturday night, Sarah Maguire awoke the next morning to find that her iPhone was gone. Her roommate’s phone was gone, too. Using the Find My iPhone app on her computer, she found that someone had taken the phones to a home in this Los Angeles exurb, 30 miles east of her West Hollywood apartment. So Maguire, a 26-year-old yoga instructor, did what a growing number of phone theft victims have done: She went to confront the thieves — and, to her surprise, got the phones back. “When I told my mom what I did, she thought I was crazy,” Maguire said. With smartphone theft rampant, apps like Find My iPhone offer a new option for those desperate to recover their devices, allowing victims to act when the police will not. But the emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting
themselves in danger for the sake of an easily replaced item. “This is a new phenomenon — it’s not simply running after the person to grab the phone,” said George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney and a former police chief. “It opens up the opportunity for people to take the law Sarah into their own Maguire hands, and they can get themselves into really deep water if they go to a location where they shouldn’t go.” Smartphones have become irresistibly delectable morsels for thieves. More than three million were stolen last year, according to a survey by Consumer Reports. While iPhones may be the most popular with thieves, apps that can track stolen phones using
GPS are now available for most smartphones. Although pursuing a thief can occasionally end in triumph, it can also lead to violence, particularly because some people arm themselves while hunting for their stolen phones. Cmdr. Andrew Smith, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, called the trend “a big concern.” “It’s just a phone — it’s not worth losing your life over,” he said. Police chiefs have advocated another solution: a mandatory “kill switch” that would render stolen phones inoperable and therefore unattractive to thieves. After years of pressure, phone makers, including Apple, have begun offering this feature. But a bill that would require a kill switch on all smartphones sold in California has stalled in the State Legislature amid opposition from the telecommunications industry. IAN LOVETT
For Florida Grapefruit, It Is One Blow After Another VERO BEACH, Fla. — In the nearly 100 years that Rusty Banack’s family has been growing Florida’s world-famous grapefruit, the industry has lurched from years of bumper crops to the devastation of tree-toppling hurricanes. But nothing compares to the current steep decline of the business, despite the state’s standing as the world’s biggest grapefruit producer. Florida produced nearly 41 million boxes of grapefruit a decade ago; this year it is expected to produce 16 million. Some growers have shut down, but the long-timers who remain, like Banack, have dug in, plunging millions of dollars into the land in an
all-out bid to save one of the state’s emblematic citrus crops. The past decade has been particularly treacherous as the saltkissed soil of the Indian River Citrus District, known for its succulent grapefruit, has absorbed one wallop after another. First there was the relentless spread of canker, which badly damages grapefruit, and back-toback powerful hurricanes. Next were studies highlighting the problematic effects of grapefruit on certain medicines and the maw of urban development, which gobbled up countless groves. Now, grapefruit trees are facing another formidable foe: citrus
greening, a bacterial disease with no cure that is devastating trees across the state. “I was surprised by how fast the disease moved through the industry,” Banack said. While growers have been able to slow greening through fertilizer use and temperature regulation, they are paying three times more in production costs than they did in 1998. Greening, which began in Florida in 2005, has spread to California and Texas. Scientists are seeking ways to conquer the voracious insect: In February, Congress authorized $125 million over five years for research. LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Study Reveals Sizable Increase in Diabetes Among Children For years, doctors have warned of a rising epidemic of diabetes among children. Yet there has been surprisingly little firm data on the extent of this disease among younger Americans. Now a nationally representative study has confirmed that from 2001 to 2009 the incidence of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes drastically increased among children and adolescents across racial groups. The prevalence of Type 1 diabe-
tes increased 21 percent among children up to age 19, the study found. The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes among those ages 10 to 19 rose 30 percent in the period. Those are “big numbers,” said Dr. Robin S. Goland, a co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who has been in practice for about 25 years. “In my career, Type 1 diabetes was a rare disease in children,
and Type 2 disease didn’t exist. And I’m not that old.” The analysis, published Saturday in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, includes data from more than three million children younger than 20 in five states — California, Colorado, Ohio, South Carolina and Washington — as well as from selected American Indian reservations. CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS
3
In Brief Rice Cancels Speech Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had been invited to give the commencement address at Rutgers University in New Jersey this month, said on Saturday that she would no longer give the speech. Her announcement came after weeks of protests by some students and faculty members over the university’s decision to invite her. Protesters had argued that Rice should not have been selected because of her involvement in the Iraq war during the Bush administration. Students staged a sit-in last week outside the office of the university’s president, Robert L. Barchi, to protest the speech, set for May 18. On Saturday, Rice released a statement saying she did not want to detract from the commencement festivities. (NYT)
Subway Service Back Partial service was temporarily restored to subway lines running along Queens Boulevard on Saturday afternoon, a day after 19 people were injured in the worst derailment in the New York City subway system in over two decades. Ten people remained hospitalized at New York Hospital Queens on Saturday, including four with possible life-threatening injuries, a Fire Department spokesman said. Local service was restored to the E and F lines about 1 p.m. on Saturday after crews removed four of the cars involved in the derailment. Officials have given little indication of what might have caused the Manhattan-bound F train to go off the tracks on Friday. (NYT)
Princes in Tennessee Fans gathered on Saturday near the Memphis Country Club, hoping to spot British Princes William and Harry as they attended the wedding of a friend in Tennessee. Multiple media outlets reported that the royal brothers on Friday went for a tour of Graceland, the one-time home of Elvis Presley. They are in the city for Lizzy Wilson and Guy Pelly’s wedding. She is the granddaughter of the late Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson and London club owner Guy Pelly. Paparazzi lined a stone wall trying to get a glimpse of the princes. (AP)
BUSINESS
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014
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The Great Unwatched: Online Video Ads Lost in Unruly Maze Some of the biggest names in Internet media have been gathering in New York City at the third annual Digital Content NewFronts, a pitch-a-thon where companies like Yahoo, AOL and Crackle — and, yes, The New York Times — trumpet their digital platforms to brands eager to reach consumers via online video ads. According to the standard spiel, ads in this medium are enticing because they can be aimed at specific audiences. They can roll in front of content that people want to see. They exist in the digital space where coveted demographic groups are spending more time. It’s an enticing portrait, but one that glosses over a key question: Is anybody watching? By many estimates, more than half of online video ads are not seen, because they are buried low on web pages or run in tiny, easily ignored video players on those pages, or run with other ads. Vindico, an ad management platform company, deemed 57 percent of two billion video ads surveyed over two months to be “unviewable.” “The advertiser sees a report on an Excel spreadsheet that says, ‘Yeah, these ads ran,’ ” says Matt Timothy, Vindico’s president. “But more than half of them ran without being seen by a human being.” Marketers spent $2.8 billion for video ads last year. That figure is a small part of all digital ad spending, and it is dwarfed by the $74.5 billion spent in 2013 on television ads. But unlike television, online video sales are growing at a double-digit pace. Spending will exceed $8 billion by 2016, eMarketer projects. But getting what you’ve paid for is harder
PETER AND MARIA HOEY than it appears. Consider what happened at Blue Chip Marketing, an ad agency in Northbrook, Ill. In mid-December, Blue Chip was in the middle of a campaign — for a client that does not want to be identified — selling what the agency would describe only as “a mom-related product.” Sarah VanHeirseele, an agency vice president, and her team wanted the ads to be preroll, the kind that run before a piece of video content — like a sitcom on NBC.com. She wanted most of the videos to be large, 6 inches by 5 inches on a standard desktop computer. All were to be user-initiated; none were to run on auto-play. Is that what Blue Chip got? Oddly enough, it wasn’t sure. So Blue Chip hired a video verification company called BrandAds. “We looked at this data and my jaw dropped,” VanHeirseele remembers. “And
then I felt a little sick to my stomach.” Many of the ads were running in tiny players. Some were auto-playing. But disappointment turned to rage when VanHeirseele read the list of the domain names, which included pornographic websites. VanHeirseele said the media company gave her some pushback when she called. “Until we were able to supply them with detailed reports, their story didn’t change,” she said, declining to name the company. Given the nearly $3 billion a year now spent on online video ads, and the 57 percent of them that are deemed unviewable, it’s safe to assume American brands are spending more than $1 billion a year on marketing few if any people see. The chasm between the value of such ads to brands (negligible) and their value to publishers and ad networks (considerable) is the reason many say this medium is at an inflection point. More brands are demanding a full accounting. Kellogg’s, the cereal and snack giant, hired a video verification company a year and a half ago. At various times, nearly a third of the ads Kellogg’s wanted to run in the United States were running in a foreign country, said Aaron Fetters, director of Kellogg’s Insights and Analytics Solutions Center. “We sort of made the case to our marketing heads that measurement will more than pay for itself,” Fetters said. “And it’s been like turning on a light in a dark closet. Now the lights are on and we can see what we need to clean up.” DAVID SEGAL
Peer-to-Peer Finance Has New Swarm of Lenders: Big Investors It was that rare thing, scarcely seen in the financial world since the debut of the A.T.M. or microfinancing: an innovation set up to help regular people. When peerto-peer, or P2P, lending began in the middle of the last decade, it offered an easy way for people to lend money to each other over the Internet. On sites like Prosper Marketplace and Lending Club, prospective borrowers could list their requests, often alongside their personal stories, and people with spare cash could decide whether to finance them. By cutting banks out of the process, borrowers typically got a lower interest rate than they would have paid on a credit card or a loan without collateral. And individual lenders earned higher returns than they would have received by parking their money in a savings account or a certificate of deposit. That blend of altruism and yield
attracted many individual investors, particularly in the wake of the financial crisis. Now, as the industry matures, a new class of investors is storming the P2P gates, and they include the very institutions that P2P had set out to bypass. Today, big financial firms dominate lending on the two platforms. At Prosper, more than 80 percent of the loans issued in March went to those firms. More than a dozen investment funds have been formed with the sole purpose of investing in peerto-peer loans. The influx of institutional money has supercharged the sector, allowing Prosper and Lending Club and a host of newcomers to extend more loans to more borrowers. Lending Club figures that it has saved borrowers $250 million in interest charges. The two platforms say they have made $5 billion in loans to date and have been doubling their growth every year.
But investor demand is now outstripping the loan supply, spurring fierce competition among investors to snatch the best loans first. And the original P2P investors — the dentists, dabblers and stay-at-home moms who helped establish the market — are finding themselves outgunned by the cash-rich, algorithm-wielding arrivistes. P2P insiders say the new institutional investors benefit the industry. “It will drive competition, drive down rates and allow us to serve customers better,” said Alex Tonelli, a founder and managing director at Funding Circle, a San Francisco-based P2P market for small-business loans. Still, the Wall Street makeover — some would say takeover — of peer-to-peer lending raises a host of concerns, as the new players begin securitizing loans and clamoring for more. Insiders predict that a day will come soon when the loans are
regularly sliced, diced and securitized, hedged, traded on secondary markets and tracked by exchange-traded funds. At the very least, the big players’ entry runs counter to the original notion of peer-to-peer lending as a populist alternative to the high-stakes world of Wall Street. The term “peer to peer” has become something of a misnomer. Some of the latest lending platforms are ditching individual investors to focus on big lenders. Acknowledging the growing role of institutions, Ron Suber, the president of Prosper, said the industry as a whole is better described as “online consumer finance.” Jeremiah Owyang, the founder of Crowd Companies, an organization that helps corporations navigate the so-called sharing economy to which P2P belongs, was more blunt. “It won’t be P2P for long,” he said. AMY CORTESE
ARTS
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014
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Where Mean Girls Rule: In the Corridors of Power There is not a woman in Washington who doesn’t traffic in at least five of the seven deadly sins. Greed, lust, envy, wrath and pride are the currencies of power in the nation’s capital, and some of its most dangerous brokers are women on television. On “House of Cards,” the icily conniving Claire Underwood, played by Robin Wright, helped her husband, and herself, take over the White House. And television offers so many others, including Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington), the home-wrecking political fixer on “Scandal,” as well as pretty much every other prominent female on that amped-up ABC melodrama. Then, of course, there is Selina Meyer, the vice president played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus on “Veep,” who has all seven Capitol vices, including sloth and a bit of gluttony. It is not hard to understand why so many series are based in the nation’s capital. Political terrain is familiar: Washington, like show business, is everybody’s business. It is convenient to set tales of conspiracy and global evildoing in Senate cloakrooms and East Wing ballrooms. But most of all, everybody hates politicians, so much so that contempt for Washington trumps even the most ingrained taboos about the portrayal of women on network television. Nobody expects a virtuous heroine in Congress or the White House. On most network dramas, it is almost unthinkable to portray lead female characters as selfish, craven or incompetent, especially when they are serving the public good as detectives, firefighters and doctors. Heroines on series like “NCIS: Los Angeles” or “The Blacklist” are strikingly the same: strong, beautiful, dedicated and boring. There are a few old-school villainesses on prime time, notably Madeleine Stowe as Victoria, a ruthless socialite on the soapy ABC drama “Revenge.” But that show is more of an arch throwback to “Dynasty” and “Knots Landing” than it is a reflection of contemporary mores. Even premium television, with its penchant for the dark side, gives most of its heroines flaws that are transgressive but also forgivable. Edie Falco is a nurse with an addiction on “Nurse
KERI RUSSELL, DEVIOUS K.G.B. SPY ON “THE AMERICANS.”
KERRY WASHINGTON, HOME WRECKER ON “SCANDAL.”
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS, BELTWAY EGOTIST ON “VEEP.”
ROBIN WRIGHT, ICY SCHEMER ON “HOUSE OF CARDS.”
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CRAIG BLANKENHORN/FX; LACEY TERRELL/HBO; NATHANIEL BELL FOR NETFLIX; DANNY FELD/ABC
Jackie” (Showtime) and on “Orange Is the New Black” (Netflix), Taylor Schilling plays a woman serving time on drug charges. Both women are likable, even when their actions are not. The exception is Washington, where there is nothing sexist or old school about painting women as venal, self-serving and manipulative. “Scandal” is a nighttime soap in a contemporary setting, and while the plot lines — conspiracy, assassinations, blackmail — have grown ever more absurd, what does not get old is the bad behavior of its lead women. Olivia is ostensibly the heroine, and she is sleeping with the president as well as his old friend and top-secret intelligence enforcer. Mellie (Bellamy Young), the angel-faced first lady, lies, schemes and recently in the Oval Office slapped her husband in the face. Neither of them are any match for Vice President Sally Langston (Kate Burton), a born-
again Christian who murdered her husband and wants to destroy the president. The show’s creator, Shonda Rhimes, who invented more nuanced characters on her first hit series, “Grey’s Anatomy,” can get away with all these grotesque caricatures of women because they work in Washington — viewers expect no less. It’s not just elected officials who are pilloried; female government servants of all kinds are suspect. On “The Americans,” on FX, there is good reason: The series follows K.G.B. agents who pose as married suburbanites in the Reagan era. There, too, heroines do terrible things. Elizabeth (Keri Russell) allowed an informant to strangle her protégée, a Nicaraguan revolutionary, because the girl’s ardor could jeopardize the mission Moscow assigned them. Fictional dramas are so drawn to Washington villainesses in part because it is still dangerous in real life to attack female politicians. Emily’s List, the political action committee that backs female candidates who support abortion rights, has turned sexist remarks into a useful fund-raising tool. Even Hillary Clinton, who is so often pilloried, manages to recast some attacks. Her supporters put a misogynist spin on Barack Obama’s put-down in a 2008 debate when he called Clinton “likable enough.” Most television documentaries about real-life politicians are guarded, if not flattering. That may be because so few women have had the chance to wield and abuse their power. Showtime recently presented a biography, “Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way,” directed by its subject’s daughter, Donna Zaccaro, that was so positive that it was almost a disservice. “All About Ann: Governor Richards of the Lone Star State,” on HBO, a similarly glowing portrait, was a lot less forthcoming about the former Texas governor’s rockier passages than she was. That kind of restraint makes it all the more tempting to create fictional versions who are as corrupt and conniving in public office as their male counterparts. There is gender equality of a kind in Washington. On television, it is still the one place where it is safe to say that women are as bad as the men. ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Classical’s Future Is Being Tested Out in Upstate New York Upstate New York remains unusually rich in orchestras. Buffalo, Rochester and Albany all have impressive ensembles. It is no surprise that each has appeared at the Spring for Music festival at Carnegie Hall, which features orchestras chosen for their creativity. It will also be no surprise that all three groups face a simple yet daunting challenge: summoning the revenues, in ticket sales and donations, to meet their expenses. But in visits to these three cities and their orchestras in April, brighter skies were visible, too. Rochester’s ensemble benefits from a close association with the Eastman School of Music. The Buffalo Philharmonic has a beefy sound, a popular music director in JoAnn Falletta and a relationship with the record label
Naxos that has encouraged the orchestra to explore Romantic and post-Romantic rarities. Of the three, Albany’s has most successfully distinguished itself from the old American orchestra. The ensemble’s economic model will not be to all tastes: The musicians are paid for each concert, rehearsal and other “service.” Words like multidimensional, varied, flexible and collaboration kept coming up in interviews. The orchestra of the future will likely be smaller and play less. Subscriptions, while not disappearing entirely, will increasingly become a thing of the past. Intriguing programming and the excitement of an orchestra’s music-making will have to carry the day, putting more emphasis on intriguing one-off events and themed
festival-style series. Seeking to connect with a large local Polish community, for example, Buffalo has programmed celebrations of composers from Chopin to Lutoslawski. Deborah Borda, the executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has long insisted that orchestras of the future will need to more closely align their artistic activities with a social mission. Matthew VanBesien, the executive director of the New York Philharmonic, spoke to this point in an interview in his office at Avery Fisher Hall. “Look at the zoo community,” he said. “It used to be just animals in cages and now they’re much more about conservation and the environment. They become this larger resource.” ZACHARY WOOLFE
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014 6
BOOKS
Resilience Is Tested by a Range of Disasters “ ‘Life on the planet Earth. … Wars and strife and surprises and love and children and art. … This is our parade and I’m marching in it.’ She squeezed my hand and we went back to writing on our postcards and eating croissants and being here, glad to be alive in the only world there is, alive and eating and still breathing and not afraid really of anything that might happen next. We were Americans, for God’s sake, we weren’t in the habit of being afraid.” This is Ellen Gilchrist in “Acts of God,” her 20-somethingth book. It’s a body of work that speaks for itself, not only for its robust and steadfast focus — she returns to the same people and the same themes — but because it’s upfront about its concerns. Gilchrist is writing about life on Earth. You know, wars and strife and surprises and love and children and art, all presented with such transparency that even describing it feels like muddying the waters. Her style can be an acquired taste. If I were you, I’d acquire it. “Acts of God” is a book of stories united by the large disasters that crash through them. Characters sift through shattered homes and aid in rooftop helicopter rescues — but the rain and the ruin aren’t really the point here. In a similar vein, Gilchrist is sometimes described as a Southern writer, but the peculiarities of the region aren’t especially important to her work. Rather, Gilchrist puts characters in a grand old New Orleans building for the same reason she
Acts of God Stories Ellen Gilchrist 246 pages. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. $23.95.
has them rescue a baby after a tornado hits — so they can talk to one another but just as often to themselves, in her bracing, wide-eyed prose. “You can marry her if she wants to,” a 13-year-old boy tells his mother’s sweetheart. “I love a girl. I know how hard it is. As long as you are always good to her and know she is the best. She’s the best. I know that every day.” You’d be within your rights to roll your eyes a little at such forthright stuff. Gilchrist trafficks very little in the basic trappings of what so much great literature rests upon. There’s hardly anything opaque or ambiguous. Even if her characters change their minds immediately, they mean precisely what they say. It is true that sometimes her guilelessness can tip over — a story ending “Amen. Goodbye. Peace” is a lot to ask of a reader — but far more often than not Gilchrist manages to cut through the loud tussle of the world to present truths made even more striking by how conventional they are. Gilchrist reminds me of David Mamet — another writer who sets up dramatic circumstances just for the joy of knocking around good plain sentences. Check out
this shrink in the story “The Dissolution of the Myelin Sheath,” who has listened to the disasters of a grieving, self-involved daughter: “No wonder her mother didn’t like her. I have a hard time liking her myself. I’ve stayed too long at this fair. I don’t like them all anymore. Maybe I don’t like any of them. I could do research. Actually, I could just quit. He got up and closed and locked his door and picked up the phone and told the receptionist to cancel his afternoon appointments. Then he went out the back door and down the stairs and went home and changed into running clothes and went to the park and ran six, seven, eight, nine miles and felt marvelous at the end.” After the petty despair of his average bad day, Gilchrist grants him the epiphany of that impulsive jog. As always happens when I finish a book by Gilchrist, I walked around town, and each selfish thought, every beautiful sight, felt lit by her brash honesty. Eventually, the effect faded, and I read other things that were less plain-spoken. You don’t want everything you consume to be bracing and undecorated. It’s good to read a book, say, that investigates a love story more painstakingly than “I love a girl. I know how hard it is.” But the stories in “Acts of God” are great postcards from the world of Ellen Gilchrist. It’s a world of war and strife and surprises, and it is, yes, marvelous to behold. DANIEL HANDLER
Editor’s Row FORCING THE SPRING: Inside the
Fight for Marriage Equality, by Jo Becker. (Penguin Press, $29.95.) A fly-on-the-wall account of the 2013 Supreme Court case that led to the overturn of California’s ban on samesex marriage.
A FIGHTING CHANCE, by Elizabeth Warren. (Metropolitan/Holt, $28.) The Massachusetts senator describes her life, her academic work and her progressive political views. I PITY THE POOR IMMIGRANT, by Zachary Lazar. (Little, Brown, $25.) Lazar’s brilliant novel of spiritual discovery features Meyer Lansky, an American journalist and an Israeli poet’s murder. THE PRICE OF SILENCE: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, the Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of Our Great Universities, by William D. Cohan. (Scribner, $35.) Superb reporting about a notorious 2006 case raises disturbing questions. THE WRONG ENEMY: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014, by Carlotta Gall. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28.) This highly informed study highlights Pakistan’s key role in the Afghan war. NO GOOD MEN AMONG THE LIVING: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, by Anand Gopal. (Metropolitan/Holt, $27.) A look at how we got Afghanistan wrong. THE BRUNIST DAY OF WRATH, by Robert Coover. (Dzanc Books, $30.) The marriage of religion and politics is indicted in this stylish sequel to Coover’s 1966 novel of a small-town cult. THE CRUSADES OF CESAR CHAVEZ: A Biography, by Miriam Pawel. (Bloomsbury, $35.) The farmworkers leader emerges as visionary but flawed. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books.
Paperback Row ROBERT OPPENHEIMER: A Life Inside The Center, by Ray Monk. (Anchor, $20.) Monk emphasizes
Oppenheimer’s psychological complexity and his contributions to physics as he brings the “father of the atomic bomb” vividly to life — from his tenure as the director of the Los Alamos laboratory to his exile under McCarthyite anti-Communism.
THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, by
Denise Kiernan. (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, $16.) In 1945, the town of Oak Ridge, Tenn., had 75,000 residents and used more electricity than New York City. As Kiernan explains in this engaging history, Oak Ridge was home to the Manhattan Project’s top-secret uranium enrichment facilities, staffed by young women who learned the true nature of their work only after the first bomb fell on Hiroshima. THE RETROSPECTIVE, by A. B. Yehoshua. Translated by Stuart Schoffman. (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $14.95.) Yair Moses, an aging Israeli film director and the protagonist of Yehoshua’s searching novel of art and ethics, has been invited
to the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his work. There he encounters a painting that overshadows the celebration and spurs him to salvage his relationship with a brilliant but difficult screenwriter.
DOES JESUS REALLY LOVE ME?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America,
by Jeff Chu. (Harper Perennial, $15.99.) Troubled that so many churches deny gay, often conflicted believers the solace of a place to worship, Chu roamed the country for a year, visiting religious leaders who are all over the map on homosexuality, and gay people struggling to reconcile their faith. “Chu has written a fascinating, thoughtful and important book,” Dan Savage wrote for The New York Times. RED DOC>, by Anne Carson. (Vintage Contemporaries, $15.95.) Over a career spanning some 30 years and books of poetry, prose, drama and translation, Carson has found new ways to reinvent classical myths. An impulse to mischief is behind the bizarreness of “Red Doc>,” a verse-novel sequel to “Autobiography of Red” that reunites Herakles
and the winged monster Geryon, sending them on a phantasmagoric road trip. DAYS OF DESTRUCTION, DAYS OF REVOLT, by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco. (Nation Books, $16.99.) This timely and disquieting polemic — a combination of literary journalism (Hedges) and graphic art (Sacco) — reports on daily life in four corners of 21st-century American poverty: Pine Ridge, S.D.; Camden, N.J.; Welch, W.Va.; and Immokalee, Fla. The final chapter takes place in New York City, at the center of the Occupy Wall Street movement. GONE GIRL, by Gillian Flynn. (Broadway, $15.) A couple’s marriage goes terribly wrong in Flynn’s novel of psychological suspense. On the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne vanishes from her Missouri home, and her husband, Nick, a magazine writer with the looks of a “rich-boy villain in an ’80s teen movie,” suffers the painful transformation from distressed spouse to suspected murderer. The Times’s reviewer, Marilyn Stasio, praised Flynn’s “quicksilver mind and diabolical rules of Ihsan Taylor play.”
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014 7
CROSSWORD
THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE CROSSWORD PUZZLE JOINED SIDES
1
BY MARY LOU GUIZZO / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ
AC RO S S 1 Like many shotguns 9 Mole 14 Back-to-back games 20 Singer Christina 21 ___ gin fizz 22 “Twelfth Night” lover 23 Oil and gasoline giant 24 Very vexed 25 Leonardo ___, a.k.a. Fibonacci 26 ___-pitch softball 27 What a detective tries to reconstruct 29 “Platoon” setting 30 Sommelier’s prefix 31 Flavor 32 Lozenge brand 34 “Platoon” director 37 Suckling site 38 “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for ___” (1985 best seller) 42 Old Baby Bell based in the Big Apple 43 Assents 45 Stretch out 47 Neuter 50 Literary inits. 52 Jai alai basket 53 Water checker? P I E R A R L E W A S G E A R E B L E W A I R C L A S H I T T R M O N A F L E W A I L S S O L M C O O P U R V U T N E T O A D T U T O S T E N
S N O C A T S H I R T B A L I S R O
N A S H
S C E N T E D
A R I D
J U Y R E R O C E R C H H E C A L A L O N U E S T E W D O T R A D I S T
56 Going out for the afternoon? 60 The Who’s “My Generation,” e.g. 64 Pelvic parts 66 Musician’s practice with four sharps 68 Former Obama social secretary Rogers 69 Over 70 Like some swords … or a hint to this puzzle’s theme 72 Balkan native 75 Old Jewish villages 77 Start of a Beatles refrain 78 Old Highlands dagger 79 Thelma and Louise, e.g. 82 Davis and Midler 84 Cover some ground? 85 Dizzy 86 Bit 88 “___ put it another way …” 90 Persevered 94 Spurs 98 Landmark tech product of 1981 102 Latin “to be” 103 Biblical name of ancient Syria 105 Dispel differences
T E P O P O N A F L Y R E C O N O I N T C T T A T E S A D G S L C R O O O O P L Y M O F E N E R R Q U I B U T T O A T N L I C E T F R O O
I P A S S P A L I N A T I T I K O N
T E S T
S S T C P O H R O E D K M I T O B E N E F E E L F B A S E O M T P P E D A E M E R I R O A M D E T R A E E S C N G T H E S C A S E A N S P I R E T Y S P I L M E L Y S T
A S S I S I
B E A T I T
S Y S T S
R O W A
O R A L
B O Y D
C R U E
K O A N
S W E E
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S I T E E G E
Answer to puzzle for 04/27/14
108 “CSI” setting 110 Coal or pine product 111 Melted chocolate, e.g. 112 Kind of algebra 116 “Is it in you?” sloganeer 118 Write-___ 119 Renter’s dream, maybe 120 Lhasa ___ (dogs) 121 Some sheet fabrics 124 Nothing, in Napoli 125 Tuscany town 126 Sign-up 127 Classic London transport 128 Genetic structure 129 Source of some discrimination D OW N 1 Wind instrument pitched an octave lower than its smaller cousin 2 How ballerinas move 3 “Enter quickly!” 4 Rock’s Ocasek 5 Pipe fitting 6 Renter 7 Heath evergreens 8 Thinks maybe one can 9 Huffington of the Huffington Post 10 Teri of “Tootsie” 11 Subject of some computer settings 12 Closeted 13 Lao-___ 14 Enter quickly 15 Native New Yorkers 16 ___ D.A. 17 Primatologist Fossey 18 Sicilian city 19 Hotel accommodation for more than one 28 Kindle competitor 29 ___ chops
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20
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36 43
54
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64
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81 86 91
102
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116
19
38
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41
73
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63
72 78
82
83 88
95
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84 89
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105 109
112 113 114 115
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87 94
108
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52
77
85
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46
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45 51
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70 75
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58
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50 57
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56 65
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48
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106 107 110
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122 123
5/4/14
31 Battle of the ___ 33 Letter that’s also a name 35 Chillax 36 Art appreciation 38 Forever young 39 Dimmed stars? 40 Aleutian isle 41 Gang up on, as in basketball 44 “How ___” 46 Tar Heels’ state: Abbr. 48 German musical entertainment 49 Auto sponsor of Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life” 51 Hawk 53 Commit a chipeating faux pas 54 King lead-in 55 Boo-boos 57 Shell seen around water 58 Formatting feature on a typewriter 59 Totality
61 Sired 62 Unfazed by 63 Better at picking things up? 65 Jock 67 Job listing inits. 71 Descent 73 Old car make that’s a homophone of a modern car model 74 Relative of a twin 76 Anatomical tissue 79 Reaction of surprise 80 Ticks off 81 Need a lift? 83 Brand of power tools 87 Vet, e.g. 89 Queen’s honour: Abbr. 91 Brightly colored bird 92 Country whose flag says “God is great” 22 times 93 Chess champ Mikhail 95 Part of a jazz combo
96 Precious 97 Mexican shawls 99 ___ Gorilla, 1960s TV cartoon character 100 First of a kind 101 Betrayed 104 Raucous bird 106 Squirrel, e.g. 107 South American land 108 Al ___ 109 Swiss city on the Rhine 112 Attraction in a carbon dioxide molecule 113 Baby’s boo-boo 114 Equivalent of 20 fins 115 Something clickable 117 Collette of “United States of Tara” 120 Blond shade 122 Bamboozle 123 City council rep.
Answers to this puzzle will appear in next Sunday’s TimesDigest, and in next Sunday’s New York Times.
G ET H OME D ELIVERY OF T HE N EW Y ORK T IMES . C ALL 1-800-NYTIMES
OPINION
SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014
EDITORIALS OF THE TIMES
President Obama and the World Two years after winning an election in which foreign policy was barely mentioned, President Obama is being pummeled at home and abroad for his international leadership. Through a combination of a few significant missteps, circumstances beyond his control, unreasonable expectations and his maddeningly bland demeanor, Obama has opened himself to criticism that he is not articulating a strong, overarching blueprint for the exercise of American power and has not been able to bend authoritarian leaders to his will. What follows is an examination of some of the world’s problems, the areas where Obama has done well, and the areas where he has stumbled. THE TRANSFORMATION TRAP Obama positioned himself as a transformational leader, but in foreign affairs, as in domestic policy, he overestimated the degree to which the mere fact of his election could achieve that transformation. He has run up against the realities of a chaotic and increasingly multipolar world. As a senator running for president in 2008, Obama spoke of a “new strategy for a new world” that focused on nuclear disarmament and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also promised the United States is “ready to lead again.” When he won his premature Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, Obama explained his belief in just wars, including those waged on humanitarian grounds. But the perception — of weakness, dithering, inaction — has indisputably had a negative effect on Obama’s global standing. RED LINES Obama has been right to avoid military involvement in Syria, although the horrors there — over 150,000 killed, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria denying aid to starving people, the rise of jihadi groups — have worsened. But Obama bungled the government’s chemical weapons attack against civilians (vowing there was a “red line” and then not crossing it) and that has left doubts about his willingness to use force in other instances. Obama made the right choice when he went for a diplomatic solution, under which Syria’s chemical arms stockpile is being dismantled. But did he learn that no president should threaten military action and make a public case for it unless he plans to follow through? USE OF FORCE Obama has delivered on his promise to end the U.S.-led war in Iraq and is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, although too slowly. He has committed to pursue diplomacy first and war as a last resort, but he is no pacifist. Obama joined France and Britain in military strikes to aid rebels in ousting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, authorized the killing of Osama bin Laden and — to a degree that is far too excessive — shifted military actions to the shadows by authorizing drone campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Accusations that he is soft on terrorism are without merit. In fact, his policies are too much like his predecessor’s for our comfort. RUSSIA AND UKRAINE When he came to office,
Obama was right to pursue a better relationship with Russia. He has not acted precipitously since Vladimir V. Putin displayed his true colors by invading Crimea and destabilizing eastern Ukraine. Instead, he gave Putin a diplomatic option and then, when he did not take it, imposed sanctions on Russians and Ukrainians connected to the turmoil. Suggestions from the right that Obama should somehow use the military, or at least the threat of it, against Russia over Ukraine are irresponsible. Obama’s efforts to work with Europe on tougher sanctions have the best chance of restraining Russia. IRAN’S NUCLEAR AMBITION One of Obama’s most promising initiatives is working with other major powers on a deal to ensure Iran does not build nuclear weapons. An interim agreement, reached last November, has decreased Iran’s ability to produce a weapon quickly and a final deal is expected by the end of July. Obama deserves credit for taking the risk to engage with Iran, and for persuading Congress to hold off on actions that could threaten the negotiations. Now he has to deal with members of Congress who say they want to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power but do everything they can to stymie any agreement. THE ASIAN PUZZLE With his recent trip to Asia, Obama has breathed new life into his commitment to focus more of America’s time and attention on the world’s most economically dynamic region. The trip produced a military base agreement with the Philippines, improved relations with Malaysia, and, officials say, progress in his talks in Japan on a 12-nation trade deal. That will be crucial to making his Asia rebalance policy a success and show that it involves more than a military hedge against China. One country to which he should pay far more attention is India. ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS Obama showed leadership in empowering Secretary of State John Kerry to undertake a nine-month negotiation on an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal after fumbling with his first peacemaking overture in 2009. The second effort is now in tatters and seems unlikely to be revived soon. But it showed a serious U.S. commitment and was still worth it, especially if it results in a set of American principles that point the way to a peace deal. THE ARAB TURMOIL More than anything else, perhaps, the revolutions in this region have demonstrated the limits of American influence when countries are in turmoil. Egypt is the most important and difficult case. The Obama administration has left itself defending and continuing to finance a repressive military government in Cairo that comes nowhere near to fulfilling the promise of the Arab Spring and that recently ordered more than 1,000 political prisoners put to death. Taken as a whole, stripped as much as possible of ideological blinkers, Obama’s record on foreign policy is not as bad as his critics say. It’s just not good enough.
8
NICHOLAS KRISTOF
‘Bring Back Our Girls’ Dozens of heavily armed terrorists rolled into the sleepy little town one night. They made their way to the girls’ boarding school. The girls, asleep in their dormitory in northern Nigeria, awoke to gunfire on April 15. The attackers stormed the school, set it on fire, and herded several hundred terrified girls into their vehicles — and drove off and vanished. The girls were kidnapped by an extremist Muslim group called Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa language means “Western education is a sin.” These girls, ages 15 to 18 and Christians and Muslims alike, knew the risks of seeking an education, and schools in the area had closed in March for fear of terror attacks. But this school had reopened so that the girls could take their final exams. They were expected to move on to become teachers, doctors and lawyers. Instead, they reportedly are being auctioned off for $12 each to become “wives” of militants. About 50 girls escaped, but the police say 276 are still missing — and the Nigerian government has done next to nothing to recover the girls. “We are now asking for world power countries to intervene,” the desperate father of a missing 18-year-old girl, Ayesha, told me by phone. The parents pursued the kidnappers, carrying bows and arrows to confront militants armed with AK-47s, but finally had to turn back. The father, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said the parents are now praying to God for the United States and United Nations to help get their daughters back. While there has been a major international search for the missing people on Malaysian Flight 370, and nonstop news coverage, there has been no meaningful search for the even greater number of missing schoolgirls. I spoke by telephone with Secretary of State John Kerry, who is visiting Africa, and asked him whether the United States can nudge Nigerian authorities to do more to find the girls. “We’re really pushing them … about the situation with the girls,” Kerry said. He described it as “not just an act of terrorism. It’s a massive human trafficking moment and grotesque.” In hopes of viral pressure on Nigerian authorities to try to recover the girls, campaigns have started on the White House website, on Change. org and on Facebook to demand: “Bring Back Our Girls.” The attack is part of a backlash against girls’ education by extremists. The Pakistani Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai in the head at age 15 because she advocated for girls’ education. Extremists threw acid in the faces of girls walking to school in Afghanistan. And in Nigeria, militants destroyed 50 schools last year. If the girls aren’t rescued, “no parent will allow their female child to go to school,” Hadiza Bala Usman, who has led protests in Nigeria , warned in a telephone interview. The greatest threat to militancy in the long run comes not from drones but from girls with schoolbooks. More than 200 teenage girls have just been enslaved because they had the brains and guts to seek to become teachers or doctors. They deserve a serious global effort to rescue them.
A
ncient mariners developed rituals and practices to please King Neptune, god of the sea. Sailors keep these ceremonies and traditions alive in modern renditions reminiscent of their ancient roots. The shellback ceremony is a ritual held when a ship crosses the equator. The ceremony turns pollywogs into shellbacks, or fit subjects of Neptune. Regulations for ceremonies held today are found in Secretary of the Navy Instruction 1610.2. According to the instruction, ceremonies are meant to celebrate a unit’s achievement and are effective leadership tools for building cohesion and teamwork. Hazing, or anything that is degrading, embarrassing, unprofessional or has a risk of injury, is forbidden. Robert Kaliszewski, a former Hull Technician who served for four years, became a shellback on March 6, 1982 when he was a second class petty officer aboard USS Josephus Daniels (CG 27). “I look at it as a celebration,” Kaliszewski said. “It was a rite of passage.” Mass Communication Specialist
2nd Class Eric Cutright became a shellback in May of 2010. “We went down below the equator just to have the shellback ceremony,” said Cutright. “You didn’t have to participate, but it was fun, so everyone wanted to do it.” Cutright’s experience in 2010 differed from Kaliszewski’s in 1982, but the old traditions can still be seen in today’s version of the ceremony. “Rank is set aside when you go through this,” said Cutright. “You had E-3s yelling at chiefs and petty officers yelling at officers. It builds camaraderie. It’s all in good fun.” Years later Kaliszewski still displays his large shellback certificate on the wall of his work room and carries the card in his wallet. “It was one of my favorite experiences in the Navy,” said Cutright. “It was a unique day because we were out to sea and instead of doing typical Navy work we were all bonding.” Becoming a shellback is a timehonored ceremony that Sailors treasure, and even if it is physically grueling to join the King’s court, Sailors agree that it is worth it.
DIAMOND
By MCSN Bounome Chanphouang
IN THE
O
utside of Security stood Matthew in his dress whites anticipating whatever punishment was to come. He stood, embarrassed, at parade rest as his peers passed by staring. Logistics Specialist 3rd Class Matthew Kempson went to captain’s mast or non-judicial punishment (NJP), after he woke up in jail following a night of drinking and public intoxication. It wasn’t the first time Kempson had problems with alcohol. “It became a pattern,” said Kempson. “I’d get off work, go get alcohol, go home. That was my routine. It stayed that way for so long that it escalated out of control.” The arrest disappointed the one person Kempson looked up to more than anyone - his grandmother. “She’s my rock,” said Kempson. “Whatever she says goes. I don’t argue. When it came to the one person that’s been there my whole life saying they’re disappointed in me, I broke down.” The command found out about Kempson’s arrest and he immediately underwent NJP. He walked out determined to prove his worth instead of giving up. “Everybody was telling me that I had to change,” he said. “The only person I had to convince was myself.“ Kempson decided to leave his troubles behind him and start anew, which meant replacing bad habits with good habits. “All the friends that still wanted to just drink, I had to cut them loose,” said Kempson. “That was probably one of the hardest parts, because I was friends with them for two years.” Kempson gave everything at work. He earned his surface warfare pin, took on collateral duties and made petty officer third class. Kempson’s chain of command did not let his turn-around go unnoticed. “As he started doing great things within our division, he started to get positive recognition,” said Senior Chief Logistics Specialist Alida Hentz. “We started noticing a big difference in his behavior and attitude. Instead of going down a negative path, he started going down a positive journey.” “I’m actually happy that I got in trouble,” he said. “It showed me that I had a lot to lose. I signed a Page 13 saying that if I get in trouble with alcohol again, the Navy is going to kick me out.” Kempson hopes to share his story to prove that a person’s career isn’t over once they’ve walked out of captain’s mast. “Some people go to mast and don’t care anymore,” said Kempson. “[They think]‘I’m just going to get out anyways’. What are you going to do when you get out? Are you going to have that same attitude at another job? ‘I showed up late and they fired me? Whatever’. You can’t live life like that. If you want something you fight for it.”
ROUGH
SHIP By MC3 John Drew
shape BALANCING
I
mbalances in muscular and skeletal strength can cause injury and other complications in your athletic performance or have an adverse effect on daily chores. The issue of physical imbalance is caused by using the same muscles repetitively without working out the support muscles. Is there something wrong if you can do 20 pull-ups and only a couple dips? Stew Smith answers this question in one of his articles about balancing workouts on Military.com. “In a nutshell, no, I would not worry about it too much, but it is something to consider on how you tackle the next few months of your workout,” said Smith. “Depending on your athletic history your push muscles could be stronger than your pull muscles. I know people who are just the opposite. In fact, a buddy SEAL of mine who was a heavy weight crew captain could do pull-ups all day. In fact, at 230lbs he could still do 30 pullups. However, he could not
Act bench press his bodyweight for 1 rep. So he had the opposite imbalance of the push / pull muscles.” Smith also goes on to say some workouts are just easier than others. On average you should be able to do twice as many dips as pull-ups. It doesn’t necessarily indicate an imbalance if your different exercises aren’t equally progressing. If you are experiencing an extreme muscular imbalance, such as the one stated above, you may want to give your other muscle groups some love. The assist machines help reduce the weight you push and pull when performing dips or pull-ups respectively. Over time, as you get stronger, the ability to do non-assisted pull-ups and dips will be created. When you exercise, think about the muscle groups you are using. You use your chest, triceps, and shoulders for your pushing exercises (dips, push-ups). For pulling exercises, like pull-ups and pull-downs, you primarily use back, biceps, and some smaller rear shoulder
TRYthis
While we’re on the topic of balancing muscle groups, lets talk protein bars for a second. Protein bars are an always popular after workout choice right along with protein shakes. This is most likely because you just finished an hour-long workout and don’t want to take the time to spend another hour eating 20 chicken thighs. The problem with them? They are very expensive. With an average price of $6 for a box of 5 you’ll run out of cash before you see your workouts produce results. This recipe gives you all the benefits of a great protein bar with fewer sugars and is cheap to boot. Enjoy!
Protein Bar Recipe Cook Time: 45 Min Cost Per Bar: $0.52
muscles. These muscles have the ability to be very strong, but are usually not due to lack of exercise or athletic history of use. If you do not practice pull-ups you will likely not be able to do them, especially if you are overweight. Some ideas on working both push and pull muscles is to create a balanced workout that completes sets or circuits. A circuit that includes push – pull – leg – ab exercises works all muscle groups. Here’s a few more you can try:
Ingredients * 2 cups dry oatmeal * 4 scoops whey protein powder * 1/2 cup natural peanut butter * 1/3 cup of water or milk * (Optional) 1/3 cup raisins or almonds.
Directions
One minute of each exercise:
1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
Set 1 – pull-downs, bench press, leg press, abs of choice
2. Press into a 9-by-9 inch pan lined with wax paper.
Rest with 3-4 minutes of cardio
3. Freeze for 40 minutes and cut into bars.
Set 2 – pull-ups, dips, squats, abs of choice
4. Since these bars have a good amount of healthy fat, they are best used
Rest with 3-4 minutes of cardio
when you’re not preparing to exercise or recovering from your session, when fat should be avoided.
Set 3 – Dumbbell bench press, dumbbell rows, wood chopper squats, weighted abs of choice
Set 4 – Lightweight Shoulder Workout
NOT THAT
If you are a beginner, use an assist machine for the pull-ups and dips and light weights for all the other exercises. If you are intermediate level, repeat sets one through four a second time. If you are advanced, try a third round of the exercises above for a balanced workout.
EAT THIS
Rest with 3-4 minutes of cardio
WHILE UNDERWAY.. EAT THIS, NOT THAT! If you are using the recipe above to make a tasty protein bar then good for you, keep it up! If you are still snacking on candy bars, however, try to ease yourself away from them as a day time snack to get through those long stretches of work. Instead reach for a nutritional bar that provides vitamins, fiber, protein and healthy fats to give you a good source of natural energy. Be warned though, many of those ‘nutrition bars’ are worse for you than candy bars. Check that the first three ingredients (at least) don’t contain sugar. Rip it open and snack away.
rough rider OF THE WEEK
ENGINEMAN FIREMAN
CASSANDRA KILLEN DEPARTMENT: RX/RA HOME TOWN: TEXAS WHY KILLEN WAS PICKED: ENFN Killen represents the best qualities in a TR sailor and is deserving of deserving of the Rough Rider of the Week recognition. She consistently performs at a high level in all aspects of her assigned duties. She is a top performer in Reactor Auxiliaries Division and is a qualified Emergency Diesel Generator Rover. FN Killen meticulously works alongside her division maintaining the FWD and AFT Diesel spaces inspection ready at all times.
FN Killen is also the Jacket Water King for her division, a position usually held by a Second Class Petty Officer. As Jacket Water King she ensures all EDG samples are tested properly and makes any chemical corrections as required. She is always at the forefront of diesel maintenance and consistently seeks additional responsibilities. She recently qualified Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialists. FN Killen’s positive demeanor and professionalism makes her a valuable asset to her division, Reactor Department and the Theodore Roosevelt.
rough rider OF THE WEEK
PERSONNEL SPECIALIST SEAMAN APPRENTICE
RONA ENZON
DEPARTMENT: ADMIN/X-2 HOME TOWN: HAYWARD, CA WHY ENZON WAS PICKED: PSSN Enzon works in Personnel Department as a Separation’s Clerk onboard the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT. She has completed 37 DD214’s and is responsible for the pay and entitlements to all Personnel Separating from Naval Service. She is one of the Commands NFAS Administrators accounting for all the Sailors and family attached to the TR. Although PSSN Enzon has been on board for a very short period of time she plays a crucial role in the T.R.’s homeport shift. She accounts for over 2,900 Sailors updating the Master Crew List that provides critical information including PRD’s, extensions, reenlistments, critical NEC’s and I myriad of important information that will be directly used with this arduous and demanding process. PSSN Enzon’s IT background and outstanding work ethic has been instrumental in Admin Department’s daily functions that directly contribute to the TR’s monthly 96% Timeliness report. PSSN Enzon’s exceptional work ethic and dedication are worthy of recognition as THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S Rough Rider of the Week.
rough rider OF THE WEEK
AVIATION ORDNANCEMAN 3RD CLASS
CHARLES RIPPERGER
DEPARTMENT: Weapons/G-2 HOME TOWN: REDDING, CT WHY RIPPERGER WAS PICKED: AO3 Ripperger is a highly motivated and very knowledgeable Sailor who seeks out new challenges and responsibilities. He completes all tasks assigned ahead of schedule with exceptional results under demanding circumstances. His efforts have been essential in the upkeep and restoration of 42 Weapons Departmental spaces. As a qualified line coach, he effectively trained over 300 USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN 71) Sailors in various small arms weapons. AO3 Ripperger was instrumental in the construction of THEODORE ROOSEVELT’s at Sea Small Arms Range, used to maintain qualification for three departments to include Officers and Enlisted personnel insuring Force Protection requirements are met. Additionally, AO3 Ripperger dedicated 180 man hours of his personal time to complete a critical rehab of the 40 MM Magazine, rebuilding 12 magazine sprinkler valves ensuring the effective operation of the fire suppression system. He recently qualified as an Enlisted Aviation Warfare Specialist. AO3 Ripperger is a model Sailor with an exceptional work ethic and an eagerness to learn. His dedication to the Navy and the ship are worthy of recognition as THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S Rough Rider of the Week.
NAVYNEWS A P R I L
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T O
M AY
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Community Welcomes Service members to South Florida By Mass Communication Specialist Stephane Belcher, Fleet Week Port Everglades Public Affairs
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (NNS) -- Local community leaders officially welcomed participants of Fleet Week Port Everglades 2014 during the ship greeting and all hands on deck party at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida, April 28. During the event, hosted by Broward Navy Days, community members welcomed members of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard to South Florida and thanked them for their service. “I think this town has always been a Navy town. It is a military town. We support the Navy, the Coast
Guard and the Marines,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler told the invited guests. “Throughout history this town has opened up to the military and said ‘thank you.’ You guys protect us. You preserve our quality of life. We can live this way because of what you do.” Following the ship greeting, service members gathered moved to the courtyard, stood in formation and “sounded off” during a “Roll Call” as part of the All Hands On Deck party. “It’s a great honor to be down here for Fleet Week,” Rear Adm. Kevin Kovacich, commander, Carrier Strike Group 12, told the crowd
prior to the Roll Call. “Broward County has really been gracious. [Citizens] have opened their homes, community and hearts to all of us.” Both events were a prelude to additional activities during Fleet Week, such as a Marlins Appreciation Night baseball game. “I’m just happy to be here,” said Ensign Brandi Sanders from USS New York (LPD 21). “The baseball game seems cool, like it would be fun to do. I know there are some community relation events, maybe I can get in on those.” The festivities were the first community events for the
members of the Sea Services in the Fort Lauderdale for Fleet Week Port Everglades, which runs through May 5. During Fleet Week, Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen will participate in friendly interservice competition, including Galley Wars and Damage Control Olympics, volunteer with local community outreach organizations and experience the sights, sounds and hospitality of South Florida.
SuperCLU Deploys to Guam for Tropical Testing By Darrell E. Waller, Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center Public Affairs
PORT HUENEME, Calif. (NNS) -- Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) shipped a Super Energy Efficient Containerized Living Unit (SuperCLU) to Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, April 30. SuperCLU is an advanced portable shelter designed to be configured as needed to support a wide variety of field operations. This unit will be part of the annual Transformative Reductions in Operational Energy Consumption (TROPEC) exercise coordinated by the Navy, Army and Air Force. “The SuperCLU and the advanced technology it utilizes are vital to providing direct support to our
warfighters in all theaters and climate conditions worldwide,” said NAVFAC EXWC Commanding Officer Capt. Mark K. Edelson. “During this deployment, the unit will be field tested under tropical conditions, achieving energy savings to the fleet while providing basic shelter and mobile command facilities to our armed forces.” The unit was originally designed to support energy and sustainability work at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, and modified environmental control units within existing CLUs were a significant part of that effort. SuperCLUs save thousands in energy usage, increase living space and privacy for
individuals, reduce noise and allow more personnel to be comfortably housed in a given unit than current CLU configurations. The deployed unit will be utilized as a control center and tested for long term interior climate control and energy efficiency in hot, humid locations. It will be outfitted with a meter to record interior conditions (temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide) and a second meter to record total energy used. The joint services will test a variety of shelters, lighting and environmental control units for improved energy efficiency during the exercise, which begins in April and runs through August 2014.
NAVFAC EXWC is the Navy’s premier activity for facilities and expeditionary technology solutions, engineering services, equipment logistics and products needed to equip the fleet and meet warfighter requirements. EXWC also delivers specialized engineering and technology solutions that support sustainable facilities and provides logistics and expeditionary systems support for Navy combat force capabilities.
SEE WHAT YOUR SHIPMATES ARE DOING AROUND THE WORLD
PHOTOS
FROM AROUND THE FLEET
DJIBOUTI (April 25, 2014) Landing support Marines assigned to Combat Logistics Battalion 22, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (22nd MEU), await a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter for a helicopter supply transfer during a U.S.-France bilateral exercise. The 22nd MEU is deployed with the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group as a theater reserve and crisis response force throughout the U.S. Central Command and U.S. 5th Fleet areas of responsibility. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Alisa J. Helin (Released)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA (April 26, 2014) Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Bernard Boling signals to Sailors as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) conducts a replenishment-at-sea with the Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lenthall (T-AO-189). Donald Cook, the first of four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to be forwarddeployed to Rota, Spain, is serving on a scheduled patrol in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility as part of the president’s European phased adaptive approach to ballistic missile defense in Europe. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Edward Guttierrez III (Released)
PACIFIC OCEAN (April 28, 2014) Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Handling) 2nd Class Nicholas Mccurry, a landing signal enlisted, lands an Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter assigned to Alpha Company Four, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) during deck landing qualifications aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu (LHA 5). Peleliu is conducting sea trials in preparation for an upcoming deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dustin Knight/ Released)
U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (April 28, 2014) A landing craft air cushion (LCAC) from Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4 approaches the well deck of the multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5). Bataan is the flagship for the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group and, with the embarked 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (22nd MEU), is deployed in support of maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Mark Hays (Released)
Staff
Commanding Officer Capt. Daniel Grieco Executive Officer Cmdr. Jeffrey Craig Public Affairs Officer Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Evans Media Officer Ensign Jack Georges Ensign Courtney Vandament Senior Editor MCC Adrian Melendez Editor MC2 Katie Lash Layout and Design MC3 John Drew Illustrations MC3 Timothy Haake Rough Rider Contributors MCSN Bounome Chanphouang MCSN Jenna Kaliszewski
Theodore Roosevelt Media
Command Ombudsman Sabrina Bishop Linda Watford Michelle V. Thomas cvn71ombudsman@gmail.com The Rough Rider is an authorized publication for the crew of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). Contents herein are not necessarily the views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, Department of Defense, Department of the Navy or the Commanding Officer of TR. All items for publication in The Rough Rider must be submitted to the editor no later than three days prior to publication. Do you have a story you’d like to see in the Rough Rider? Contact the Media Department at 443-7419 or stop by 3-180-0-Q.
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WHAT’S ON underway movie schedule
Times
Ch. 66
Sunday
May 4, 2014
Ch. 67
Ch. 68
0900
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
THIS MEANS WAR
EVIL DEAD
1100
GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
THE BOUNTY
TRANSFORMERS
1330
POMPEII
THE RUNDOWN
WRATH OF THE TITANS
1530
THE BOOK THIEF
SAVING MR. BANKS
BATTLESHIP
1830
BLACK NATIVITY
ENOUGH SAID
THE PURGE
2030
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
THIS MEANS WAR
EVIL DEAD
2230
GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
THE BOUNTY
TRANSFORMERS
0100
POMPEII
THE RUNDOWN
WRATH OF THE TITANS
0300
THE BOOK THIEF
SAVING MR. BANKS
BATTLESHIP
0600
BLACK NATIVITY
ENOUGH SAID
THE PURGE
*Movie schedule is subject to change.