REMEMBERING NORA EPHRON | RAVE KING | CELEBS ON TWITTER
THE HUFFINGTON POST MAGAZINE
SPECIAL ISSUE
Battle Scarred War Vets Wrestle With Trauma and Anxiety as They Adjust to Life Back Home
JULY 1-8, 2012
Contents HUFFINGTON 07.01-08.12
DOUBLE ISSUE
Enter IN MEMORIAM: Nora Ephron (1941-2012) POINTERS: Arizona Outrage, Fox News Gaffe, LeBron’s Surprise & More MOVING IMAGE DATA: Something We Can’t Agree On Q&A: Lizz Winstead
THE WAR WITHIN
FROM TOP: CHRISTOPHER CHURCHILL; JOHN D. MCHUGH; LUCIAN READ; AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MARTIN
BY DAVID WOOD
STILL FIGHTING
BY JOHN D. McHUGH
Voices TREY ELLIS: Whither the Slogans KAREN S. ROMMELFANGER: Take Two Placebo Pills and Call Me in the Morning RICK SCHWARTZ: Hollywood’s New Natural Selection QUOTED
Exit MUSIC: The Rave King TV: A Newsroom Without Real Women
HOME OF THE BRAVE BY SHAWN EFRAN
GREATEST PERSON OF THE WEEK: Teens On A Civil Rights Journey APPROVAL: Get Your Daze On — On Your Days Off TFU: Moose Poop, Joe the Plumber & More
SQUELCHING SECRETS BY DAN FROOMKIN
FROM THE EDITOR: Farewell, Nora ON THE COVER:
Staff Sgt. Natasha Young photographed for Huffington by Christopher Churchill
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
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Farewell, Nora ORA EPHRON is gone — and I can’t believe it. I had just gotten home from dinner Monday night when her son Max called me. “Mom is not going to wake up,” he told me. What made the news so difficult to take in was that whenever I was around Nora through the years the air crackled with energy and ideas and one-liners — and a sense of celebration. She excelled in so many different forms — magazines, novels, essays, movies, plays and yes, blogs. She wrote close to 100 posts for HuffPost over the years, each containing
AP PHOTO/ LOUIS LANZANO
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countless examples of her priceless wit and insight — touching on everything from politics to pop culture to food (one of her specialties) to the summer joys of Shakespeare in the Park. She was an integral part of the HuffPost family — an investor, supporter, contributing editor and godmother of our Divorce section and Breakover series. So I would like to dedicate this double issue of Huffington to Nora. Professionally, her legacy will be that of an excep-
Nora and Arianna in 2010
CHRISTOPHER CHURCHILL
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
tionally gifted and versatile artist who could do it all, and do it all incredibly well. Personally, she’ll be cherished as a wife and mother, and a devoted, giving, treasured — and irreplaceable — friend. The centerpiece of this week’s issue is David Wood’s “The War Within.” David’s story contains many striking sentences, but this one stood out to me: “While the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned the trauma of war 25 centuries ago in his account of the battle of Marathon, it wasn’t until 1980 that American psychiatry formally recognized and named the condition, describing PTSD as an injury caused by an outside stimulus rather than by an internal human weakness.” Bringing such depth and context to the effort of understanding the true costs of war goes some way toward demonstrating why David, HuffPost’s senior military correspondent, won a Pulitzer Prize in April for national reporting. His series “Beyond the Battlefield” was a ten-part multimedia plunge into the struggles and sacrifices of severely wounded veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. David, who has logged more than four decades as a reporter
in combat zones across the globe, brought extraordinary experience and empathy to his project, speaking not only to wounded veterans but to the vast constellation of people whose lives they touch, from family, friends and fellow soldiers to the surgeons, rehabilitation therapists and prosthetics engineers who ease the transition from war to civilian life.
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A new feature from David Wood gives a deep look at the struggles veterans face back at home.
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
“The War Within” comes at a crucial time: with major combat operations in Iraq ended and scaling back in Afghanistan — not to mention the approaching spectacle of a presidential election — the ongoing struggles of America’s soldiers are something less than a national priority. Today’s wounded veterans re-enter a civilian society that is, as David puts it, “largely disconnected itself from military service and now, according to polls, tired of war.” That is why we are lucky to have David on the story. In this issue, he once again puts the spotlight on veterans, including Natasha Young, who found purpose and stability in the Marines after a troubled childhood, and served two tours in Iraq. There, she witnessed horrors that led to thoughts of suicide: roadside bomb blasts that killed and maimed her fellow Marines, and later, a job that required her to gather the belongings of fallen soldiers. And she is hardly alone. About 14 percent of post-9/11 veterans suffer from PTSD, serving out what one combat medic calls a “lifetime sentence.” More than anything else, the power of David’s writing lies in his ability to empathize as he delves into an important, if little-discussed, part of our country’s histo-
14%
of post-9/11 veterans suffer from PTSD, serving out what one combat medic calls a “lifetime sentence.”
ry. (His background as a Quaker and a conscientious objector is a quiet undercurrent in his work.) The British historian Simon Schama, also glancing back to the ancients, has noted that “the Greek word historia meant, and was used from the very beginning by Herodotus as, ‘inquiry.’” “The War Within” is the latest installment of David’s own inquiry into the costs of America’s wars, told in the voices of those who will continue to fight them for decades to come. I am so grateful that Huffington is showcasing his work, especially as we celebrate, and reflect on, the Fourth of July.
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Nora Ephron (1941-2012)
PHOTOGRAPH BY HILARY MCHONE
IN MEMORIAM
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FROM TOP: WARNER BROS/COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION (2); COLUMBIA PICTURES/COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION
Enter Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life — well, valuable, but small — and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void. —You’ve Got Mail ORA EPHRON was funny. She was, of course, funny on the spot, which some people can be some of the time, but Nora could be purposively funny, which is much harder and rarer. She had to gin up her resources to pull that off and she was funny on multiple canvasses. She was a delicious, witty, whimsical writer; a shrewd, canny observer of politics, women and men, New York, food, children, Hollywood and her own neck. She wrote and directed films, churned out books, was an essayist central to The New Yorker’s identity and was a land-
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IN MEMORIAM
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Ephron directed and wrote the screenplay for You’ve Got Mail (above and left, 1998) and When Harry Met Sally (below, 1989). She once asked, “Do you live every day as if it’s your last, or do you save your money on the chance you’ll live twenty more years?”
FROM TOP: ARTY POMERANTZ; LYNN GOLDSMITH/CORBIS; STEPHEN LOVEKIN/GETTY IMAGES; COLUMBIA PICTURES/EVERETT COLLECTION
Enter mark conversationalist, just about the best person you could wind up talking to at a cocktail party. She was a generous listener and utterly authentic. The first time I met Nora, about 12 years ago, we were seated next to one another at a dinner in a Manhattan townhouse and she made me, and everyone else at the table, laugh. She stayed on it, too, keeping us laughing through each and every course, as if it were a tutorial. Nora had the self-confidence to not only acknowledge her own insecurities but to jest about them and own them, and, when she wanted to, she could wield humor like a stiletto. She once wrote this: “Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.” And this: “When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.” And this: “In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind. ” So, now, whoosh, the candle has gone out. Nora was a magician and she’ll be missed. —Timothy L. O’Brien
From top: Ephron covering Robert F. Kennedy’s 1964 Senate campaign for the New York Post; with filmmaker Sydney Pollack; with husband Nick Pileggi in 2009; directing Julie & Julia (2009).
POINTERS
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AP PHOTO/ROSS D. FRANKLIN
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SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS “PAPERS PLEASE”
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On Monday the Supreme Court struck down key elements of Arizona’s immigration law SB 1070 but upheld the controversial “papers please” provision that allows police to demand immigration papers from anyone stopped, detained or arrested in the state. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said, “I know they will not be using that kind of tactic on people with the last name Roberts, Romney, or Brewer, but if your name is something like Gutierrez or Chung or Obama, watch out.”
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GALAPAGOS NATIONAL PARK/DAPD (LONESOME GEORGE); AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE (CHENEY)
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POINTERS
SCHOOL POLICY LEAVES KIDS BURNED
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A Washington state mom is furious that her daughters were badly sunburned after their school prevented them from applying sunscreen during a five-hour field day. Jesse Michener says that Violet, 11, and Zoe, 9, experienced “hurts-to-look-at burns” because the school has a policy against allowing children to apply sunscreen without a doctor’s note. When she posted photos of the girls’ red faces on her blog, parents across the country shared her outrage over similar school policies. “They will heal this week, but long term effects are yet to be seen,” Michener told The Huffington Post.
LONESOME GEORGE DIES AT 100
A giant tortoise named Lonesome George, a symbol of Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands and the last surviving tortoise from the island La Pinta, was found dead at the Galapagos National Park. George was estimated to be 100 years old, but he never managed to procreate. His name resulted from a series of unsuccessful attempts to get him to mate with female tortoises of a different Galapagos subspecies.
MARY CHENEY GETS MARRIED
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe, were married in Washington, D.C. “Very happy to announce that as of this morning, Heather and I are legally married (at least in DC). 20 years to the day after our first date,” Cheney, who has two children with Poe, wrote on her Facebook page. Dick Cheney publicly endorsed gay marriage in 2009, but while in office he said he believed the issue should be left to the states.
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AP PHOTO/CENTRE COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY (SANDUSKY); AP PHOTO/DARRON CUMMINGS (DANIELS); ADAGION STUDIO (JAMES)
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POINTERS
FOX NEWS MAKES EMBARRASSING MISTAKE
Fox News had an oops moment while covering the verdict in the Jerry Sandusky trial. As the network reported on the convicted pedophile, stock footage of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels appeared. “We had a technical problem and we were showing Gov. Mitch Daniels in the video when we were talking about Jerry Sandusky, so we apologize for that,” anchor Uma Pemmaraju said.
LEBRON JAMES SURPRISES WEDDING PARTY
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THAT’S VIRAL THOUSANDS SUPPORT BULLIED BUS MONITOR
A Florida couple’s wedding day became extra memorable when LeBron James jumped into a photo with them. The NBA star was meeting a Sports Illustrated reporter at the Ritz Carlton Coconut Grove just before Shaun and Jamie Kolnick were set to tie the knot there, and the wedding party spotted him in the hotel’s courtyard and roped him into a photo session. “He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, no problem,’” the bride said.
A selection of the week’s most talked-about stories. TAP HEADLINES TO VIEW FULL STORIES
FATHER KILLS DAUGHTER’S MOLESTER, WON’T FACE CHARGES
RON PAUL COLLECTS SOCIAL SECURITY DESPITE SAYING IT’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL
31 WAYS TO KNOW YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP
CHILI’S SERVER RANTS ABOUT BAD TIP ON FACEBOOK, GETS FIRED
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ROBERTO FARRUGGIO
Recreating the Gods Photographer Manjari Sharma works on an elaborate, costumed set that was constructed and designed to photograph the Hindu God, Lord Shiva. Sharma photographed the new series, Darshan, in the studio of Bharati Vidyapeeth School of Photography in Pune, India. PHOTOGRAPHS BY MANJARI SHARMA
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Known as the God of Dance, Lord Shiva is characterized by the snakes around his neck and the third eye on his forehead. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Lord Ganesha is known as the remover of all obstacles. He is also depicted as having the head of an elephant and the body of a human. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Often called the Monkey God, Lord Hanuman’s reputation as a great warrior and hero inspired countless chapters in mythology. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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One of the most devoted and revered goddesses of Hinduism, Maa Durga is believed to be invincible. She has eight arms and rides a tiger. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Known as the Goddess of Wealth, Maa Laxmi is believed to have emerged from the sea on a lotus while carrying a golden pot full of endless riches. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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DATA
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Something We Can’t Agree On
Public support for a government social safety net is nearing the 25-year lows seen in 1994. Data from the Pew American Values Survey show that just 43 percent of people believe the government should help more needy people, even if it means going further into debt, down from 54 percent five years ago. Republicans and Democrats have always held differing opinions on programs to aid the poor, but the party gap is currently larger than ever. — Johanna Barr
It is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves
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INFOGRAPHIC BY MICHAEL NEWHOUSE
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The government should help more needy people even if it means going deeper in debt
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Graphic is based on data from the American Values Survey, conducted by The Pew Research Center For The People & The Press over the past 25 years. INFOGRAPHIC BY MICHAEL NEWHOUSE
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PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
Lizz Winstead Likes Being a “ Bullshit Caller”
Winstead before a July 2011 show at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Mass. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION PHOTOGRAPHS BY MINDYCREDIT TUCKERTK
Q&A
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Q&A
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NEILSON BARNARD/GETTY IMAGES (COLUCCI, WINSTEAD AND DECARO)
IZZ WINSTEAD’S career has taken several simultaneous paths: stand-up comedian, television and radio producer, social critic, political activist. Her latest role is that of author, having recently penned her first book, Lizz Free Or Die, a series of autobiographical essays about discovering her creative voice. The co-creator and former headwriter of The Daily Show, Winstead is no stranger to using comedy to shift the national conversation. —Carol Hartsell HP: What was your proudest moment working at The Daily Show? LW: It’s not really a moment as much as it was learning that my instincts about talent and material and writing were pretty good. I also think that creating an environment that was fun, engaging and one that got people into a “Best idea wins” rather than, “my idea wins” head, I hope allowed all involved to feel a vested interest in the show. I love working as a team and continue to do so whenever I can.
You say in the intro of your book that you hate the word appropriate. Why? The reason I have such a problem with that word is that is has come to mean something other than oh say, don’t burp at the dinner table, or don’t leave the toilet seat up after you have flushed the last of your victims down it. Now appropriate seems to mean live your life in a way that is comfortable for those in power and make no attempts to dethrone them. Women wanting access to birth control is an affront to those who live by some arcane moral imperative that sex is only
Above: Winstead with Jim Colucci, left, and Frank DeCaro after their wedding. Below: Backstage, Winstead speaks with tour staff and political leaders in Pontiac, Mich.
Enter for procreation; gay folks who want to get married, somehow threaten the marriage of two straight people who live nowhere near them. Instead of saying, “Cool, you know what you need, I hope you find it,” it’s demonized as inappropriate. Why are politicians so ripe for satire? Politicians are always my favorite target because they ask us to choose them to make decisions for us based on a set of promises they make. It’s a unique position of power and when you have been granted with it, you are asking to be scrutinized. If you use that power in a hypocritical or corrupt way, I derive great pleasure in pointing it out. You’re a staunch advocate of Planned Parenthood. Is political activism a necessary outgrowth of being a social critic? I see it as an outgrowth for me. Knowing that I was able to make a choice about how my life was going to go down thanks to the availability of family planning, led me to want to give back and hopefully inspire other women to say to themselves, “I was able to control how and when I wanted children thanks to Planned Parenthood and other women’s health
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clinics. I want to stand with them and say thanks.” I hope people understand that by vocalizing their support for these places and saying, “I am a healthy sexual women and proud of it,” that it makes those who are desperately trying to tamp that down look like the cave dwellers they are. Would you ever consider running for political office? Lord no. I am a reactor and a questioner. I like my role as bullshit caller. Why do you think comedy If you is such an important way can make of interacting with the people laugh, world? I have found they cannot that if you can make deny that they people laugh, they had a bond cannot deny, even if with you.” it is for that moment, that they had a bond with you. It is a crack in the armor. I also feel that if people can laugh, it means that they have not given up hope. If I choose my targets wisely, and sometimes I do not, I can get someone to laugh with me at at least one thing. I like making people feel like they have a pal in the fight, and since I can’t cook for everyone, I try to make them laugh.
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TREY ELLIS
HUFFINGTON 07.01-08.12
AP PHOTO/JEFF ROBERSON
Whither the Slogans THE MALAISE IS palpable, from both sides. Mitt Romney is clearly a consolation prize to every single member of the GOP except twenty or so CEOs, while for many on the other side the almost impossible magic of electing a young, charismatic black man as leader of the free world has inexorably given way to a low-grade depression, both fiscal and psychic. The cure to what ails the electorate is not more policy but policy across an array of urgent middle-class issues all in the service of creating and enforcing an irresistibly infectious and uplifting narrative. Facts don’t excite voters, stories do. If one could teach us to
dream again, we’ll follow them anywhere. That’s why somebody needs to tell us and keep telling us from now to November, “It’s going to get better. I see it! I see the steps that get us back up there in the sky from down here in this cold, sucking mud.” The Obama campaign’s resistance to providing a cohesive, easily digestible message has famously plagued the administration’s first term and plagues it still. Infrastructure investment, aid to states
Trey Ellis is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, and Associate Professor at Columbia University
Voices and health care reform, for example, could easily have been woven together into a tapestry that explained how Obama planned to first save the nation from Bush’s recession and then prepare it for a glorious renaissance through a balance of short-term stimulus (roads and bridges) and long-term debt reduction (Medicare reform). As Drew Westen pointed out early and often, the Obama administration went out of its way to not blame its predecessor for the recession until the midterms when it was too late. Though 68 percent of Americans still blame George Bush, 52 percent blame the current president for our rut. Obama and surrogates should have started shouting, “unpaid wars,” and “unpaid tax cuts to the wealthy” from the day after inauguration and never shut up. The administration’s messaging problems are ironic since they won the presidency with the help of just two words, hope and change. The message this time could be just as simple, just as compelling. As someone whose only job has been working with words, might I humbly suggest one to define Obama’s campaign this time: If they would ask me, I’d tell the
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administration to stamp “Forward” on every piece of campaign literature they print. The American version of Britain’s World War II slogan, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” “Forward” pairs well with the “No Drama Obama” Americans have come to know as a leader. It reminds them that they are moving forward, albeit much too slowly, and that the president is their best hope continuing the momentum. It also deIf they fines the president would ask me, favorably against I’d tell the Romney, who can be administration framed as hopelessly to stamp retrograde. (“I mean, ‘Forward’ on c’mon,” they could every piece say. “We’ve seen the of campaign movie Romney’s starliterature ring in before. It’s they print.” called, Bush III: Back to No Future.”) A simple, hopeful message is so key to the president’s reelection because it needs to forcefully counterbalance the extreme right’s incessantly focused storyline that America is so lost, so hopeless and resistant to change that now it’s every person for him or herself. The shocking success of their cyni-
Voices cism has poisoned even those diametrically opposed to them. Americans of most persuasions used to be able to argue around a shared center, like two evenly matched rugby teams locking horns in a scrum. Today, elements of the extreme right have so infected the GOP that it proudly advocates sabotaging our nation’s economy for its own political gain. From aid to the states to help for the unemployed to the continued economic brinksmanship around our nation’s debt-ceiling, no elected officials in our history have so cavalierly toyed with the fundamentals of our economy. As Ezra Klein wrote earlier this month in an important piece, “The Keynesian Case for Romney,” the current GOP’s unmistakable message today is, “vote for us or the recovery gets it.” Those that feel betrayed by Obama’s polished, emotional delivery last time need to be convinced that this election is a cause and the president is not just their leader but their partner. Furthering that end, we all know that if Democrats don’t hold onto the Senate and retake the House, or at the least cut the House GOP majority enough to scare them
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into stopping their ongoing actions, then an Obama reelection won’t be any different from the bilious paralysis we’re suffering through currently. Without the hope that Obama will have not only the will, but the tools to fundamentally change Washington in his next term, a vote for Romney is not an illogical choice for an independent voter. Yes, that voter will usher in a lot of things they either don’t care I would about or oppose, but urge the as Klein points out, president as things stand today, to think gridlock would almost bigger than certainly be eased. the swing I would urge the states, to president to think dream again bigger than the swing of profound states and electoral change.” math, to dream again of profound change. Free of ever having to campaign again, Obama can spend the next four years, if he has help in a new Congress, on paving a road to a bright American future. That’s a road I think a lot of us would still like to travel down. Mr. President, show us the way.
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DR. KAREN S. ROMMELFANGER
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Take Two Placebo Pills and Call Me in the Morning
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ANE HAS SUFFERED from debilitating headaches for the past year. After a number of referrals, and no medical explanation for her headaches, she meets Dr. Smith, who prescribes her 100mg of Vitamin X. Dr. Smith tells her that, “This has helped others with your condition.” ¶ Finally experiencing relief from her headaches, Jane says, “This is the best I’ve felt in years. Vitamin X is a miracle cure.” When Dr. Smith is asked by his colleague about the prescription for Vitamin X and Jane’s recovery, Dr. Smith says, “I don’t know why it worked. Vitamin X doesn’t cure headaches, but I thought she might get better if I just prescribed her something, and I didn’t think it would hurt for her to have some extra Vitamin X in her diet.” ILLUSTRATION BY SCOTT MENCHIN
Karen S. Rommelfanger is the Assistant Director of the Neuroethics Program at the Emory Center for Ethics
Voices Jane’s “miracle cure” is widely referred to as the “placebo effect.” Placebos are generally inert substances, like sugar pills, thought to relieve patient symptoms through an expectation of getting better. It seems that, in some reported cases, simply the act of taking medicine or believing that medicine might work can impact patient outcomes. Because of this, placebo effects have historically been discounted as effects that aren’t medically “real.” But what if placebos and their effects were not as “inert” as we once thought, that they might really provide therapeutic benefit? This raises a new ethical question: Are we harming patients by withholding treatments like placebo therapy that might actually help them? Some patients and physicians frown upon placebo use primarily because placebo effects are thought to require deception, that an “unreal” treatment will give “real” relief, and therefore their use betrays patient-physician trust through deceit. However, in 2008 two independent studies documented that 50 percent of physicians utilize placebo in practice, contrary to what they document in their medical records. Of note is that 96 percent of those physicians felt that patients
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were truly deriving a very real physiological benefit from placebos. Indeed, while placebos are generally defined as having no inherent effectiveness in physically curing illnesses, a growing body of neuroscientific evidence challenges this assumption. Accumulating data suggest that placebos have measurable effects on the brain as well as objective (physicians can measure improvement in patients) and subjective (patients report feeling better) benefits for patients. Are Some have called we harming placebo effects “the patients by endogenous (or your withholding body’s own) healthtreatments care system.” For like placebo each ailment, placetherapy that bos seem to produce might actually physiological improvehelp them?” ments specific to that particular ailment, whether it be a neurodegenerative movement disorder like Parkinson’s disease, migraines, or depression. Moreover, one study suggests that deception is not necessary for placebos to benefit patients, at least for those suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). To be clear, it’s hardly advisable for placebo therapy to serve as a
Voices substitute for chemotherapy, surgery for a broken arm, or vaccination. While it’s true that placebos may be a valuable adjunct to any therapy — indeed, placebo effects have been found to enhance the effects of some medications — placebos are perhaps most compelling and promising for conditions that currently have no successful standard therapies, such as some psychogenic disorders: “medically unexplained” conditions characterized by debilitating pain, paralysis, blindness, tremors, and seizures, which make up 20-30 percent of primary care patients at an estimated cost of $100 billion per year. Placebos could provide a costeffective solution here, and many of us are already comfortable with and in the habit of using a variety of placebos; local grocery stores and health food stores contain many shelves of non-FDA regulated solutions to a variety of ailments including the common cold. But, if we are to move forward with placebo treatment, we will have to apply a systematic means of implementing it. Because placebo treatment is so intensely context-dependent — seemingly unimportant factors like color, or mode of delivery, or what is stated
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at the time of administration can significantly bear on their efficacy — many potentially influential factors must first be analyzed. Some patients, more than others, may be strongly susceptible to placebos and it will be important to determine which sub-populations would benefit or be harmed by such treatments. Therefore, the first step will require standardizing placebo treatments for specific patients by collecting in-depth data on how and for whom physicians are using Placebos placebos now. are widely It’s a step we used and should take. Placebos prescribed, are widely used and and have prescribed today, and significant have significant benbenefits to efits to those seeking those seeking treatment. We must treatment.” move beyond asking whether we approve of placebo use and instead reinvigorate research on how and under what conditions we should use them. This research will not only have an impact on a host of medically unexplained illnesses, but could also make headway in addressing a wider range of illnesses such as the common cold and pain.
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RICK SCHWARTZ
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Hollywood’s New Natural Selection IT’S HARD ENOUGH to be an actor under any circumstances — the unending rejection, insane competiveness, constant scrutiny. Then, of course, there’s the work itself — which often gets overlooked amid all the public fascination with those who choose this particular career path. The ones with the “dream” careers — Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt — spent years dealing with all kinds of personal and professional crucibles, navigating these landmines on the way to top-ofthe-ladder success. Even at their rarefied level, they still have to constantly deal with perhaps the scariest thing of all: public perception. Most working actors aren’t movie stars, and it’s hard to empathize with celebrities of that magnitude. But for those working their way up, acting classes might
ILLUSTRATION BY WES DUVALL
Rick Schwartz is a film producer.
not be enough training anymore; how to manage your brand could be just as useful a tool. In the old days, one misstep didn’t necessarily ruin your career or your public image; most indiscretions were handled privately and permanently. Nowadays, a foolish quote is married to your name on Google, an unfortunate photo gets millions of hits while a moment
Voices of temporary insanity captured on video runs on TMZ ad infinitum — the website and the TV show. Several top actors simply don’t believe in the publicity machine, or are terrified of it. I’ve worked with actors who are fearless in front of the camera, but the thought of going on Jimmy Fallon unscripted raises the hair on their arms. Some also believe in letting the work speak for itself — the less known about their private lives, the better they can shape-shift with each role. With studios spending millions on salaries and then hundreds of millions on the movie and marketing, however, the days of the intense movie star brooding in private may have gone the way of Atari. There’s probably a good reason why you don’t see acclaimed actors like Joaquin Phoenix or Jason Patric starring in studio tentpoles. Today’s actors have something new that their predecessors didn’t have to negotiate: social media. Twitter, in particular, has created an incredible opportunity for celebrities to interact directly with their fans. It’s instant, it’s global and it’s insanely simple to use. For those who view this particular glass as halffull, you now have a world where
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actors can mostly control their own relationship with the public when they’re “off-screen.” Based on the results so far, it’s clear that there are several different philosophies on what to do when trying to establish a more personal connection to their fans. Most The days seem to use this opof the intense portunity to promote movie star either themselves or brooding in their products — esprivate may sentially, their own have gone the personal brand. This way of Atari.” can also come in a less overt way via personal photos, details about their daily lives, the unrehearsed minutiae that is clearly better coming from them than in the often snide pages of Star magazine. Some use it as a personal selfdefense class. When bad news breaks or a scandal is brewing, off to Twitter they go to tell their side of the story to the people who care most. Not a bad way to get your message across, whether it’s ultimately successful or not. Then there are those who are obviously committed to using their celebrity for charitable good. Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward
Voices Norton are two great examples; with over four million followers between them, people who follow them because they admire their acting or think they’re handsome guys get to learn about some pretty amazing causes. Having someone else “talk” to your fans can also backfire when it’s readily apparent it’s not actually coming from you. Tom Cruise’s Twitter account reminds me of when my Aunt Barbara posted her very detailed bout with menopause on her Facebook wall; yes, Barbara, everyone can read that — not just your sisters. (Strange how it got 247 “Likes.”) In any case, Team Tom, it’s clear that you have simply replaced your red-carpet publicist with an online one — so step away from the computer and let the kids play with this new Internet thing. Perhaps it’s best for some to take a page out of Mr. Cruise’s ex-wife’s book: Nicole Kidman chooses not to tweet at all. Right now, it seems like musicians have figured it out more than actors. Granted, they tour all over the world, meet people in huge arenas, and create music that invokes an intensely personal reaction in people, so they might have a few advantages over their
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thespian brethren. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that, as of this writing, out of the ten people most followed on Twitter, eight are singers. (The other two are named Obama and Kardashian — insert your own joke here.) In fact, Katy Perry just might be the winner of the Best Use of Social Media award. Her content captures her personality beautifully — her tweets are funny, off-center, often We’ll heartfelt and totally never know adorable. It’s one of what Grace the many reasons why Kelly would her legion of fans feels have done such a tight connecwith 140 tion to her — she cares characters.” just as much and loves them right back. So we’ll never know what Grace Kelly would have done with 140 characters or less, or what Marlon Brando might have posted on Facebook. Perhaps James Dean’s Instagram account would have been revelatory or a clue about Steve McQueen’s famous mystique would have lurked in his WhoSay photos. Or maybe, just maybe, the good old days were indeed good enough.
THEO WARGO/WIREIMAGE (LOUIS C.K.); AP PHOTO/JIM R. BOUNDS (HUNTER); SHUTTERSTOCK (CARROT)
Voices
QUOTED
“ There’s no such thing as a cheap laugh. They all cost something, and it’s cost me a lot, being dirty.”
—Louis CK on Today
If our country is to be a good example of how Democratic choice is made, we should stop denying voting rights to some and stop the mega-wealthy from buying elections.
— HuffPost commentor nana-anne
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“ Their father’s not a demon and their mother’s not a saint. And I’m not a home wrecker. We’re real human beings.”
—Rielle Hunter
on 20/20
“ An employee receiving a consistent, dependable wage that allowed them to create a proper budget and provide for themselves or their family does 10-times more for the quality of service they provide than any hypothetical, non-guaranteed ‘tip’ carrot you dangle in front of them.” — HuffPost commentor drunkarate
Voices
QUOTED
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AP PHOTO/EVAN AGOSTINI (SMITH); AP PHOTO/MICHAEL CONROY (PERRY); SHUTTERSTOCK (SUN SCREEN)
“ Under Obama, The Dream Act passed the House, and had a majority of votes in the Senate. This is not a shift, it is a president doing what he can when saddled with a Congress that can’t do anything.” — HuffPost commentor Rhiana
Modern-day slavery wears a different face because you don’t see chains.
— Jada Pinkett Smith
on her efforts to stop human trafficking
“ Over the counter sunscreen needs a doctor’s note if applied in school? I imagine this policy is in place to keep a parent from suing the city’s school board if a child has an allergic reaction.”
— HuffPost commentor stepfordhusband
“ I mean with Watergate, you had a second rate burglary and now you have a president who’s using his executive privilege to keep that information from Congress. If that’s not Nixonian, then I don’t know what is.”
— Texas Governor Rick Perry to Face the Nation on the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation
JOHN D MCHUGH
Features DOUBLE ISSUE
THE WAR WITHIN STILL FIGHTING HOME OF THE BRAVE SQUELCHING SECRETS
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THE WAR WITHIN BATTLING THE RAVAGES OF COMBAT TRAUMA
by David Wood Photographs by Christopher Churchill
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BEFORE HER LIFE FELL APART, BEFORE SUICIDE BEGAN TO SOUND LIKE SWEET RELEASE, NATASHA YOUNG WAS A TOUGH AND SPIRITED AND PROUD MARINE. Straight off the hardscrabble streets of Lawrence, Mass., a ruined mill town ravaged by poverty and drugs, she loved the Marine Corps’ discipline, the hard work, the camaraderie, the honor of service to her country. She went to war twice, the last time five years ago in western Iraq with a close-knit team of Marines who disabled IEDs, roadside bombs. It was nonstop work, dangerous, highly stressful and
exhausting. Six of the Marines were killed in bomb blasts, each death a staggering gut-punch to the others. After they returned home the commander took his own life. Staff Sgt. Young broke down, too, spent physically, emotionally and mentally. Eventually, she was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and, last October, was medically discharged from the Corps. Having been a strong warrior,
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now she simply couldn’t function. “I was ashamed of myself,” she says in a whisper at her home in Haverhill, Mass. Young is one of a generation of 2.4 million Americans who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, many of whom are coming back profoundly changed by what combat veteran and author Karl Marlantes described as the “soul-battering experience” of war. The shock of war, of course, is hardly new. But now the cascade of combat veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is forcing mental health practitioners to a new recognition: the effects of combat trauma extend far beyond the traditional and narrow clinical diagnoses of PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The current crop of veterans is at risk of a “downward spiral” that leads to depression, substance abuse and sometimes suicide, as Eric Shinseki, secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, said in a recent speech. Almost a quarter million Iraq or Afghanistan vets have been diagnosed with mental health injuries from combat service. Many more are not diagnosed, yet go on with their lives while experiencing
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short-term memory loss, headaches, insomnia, anger or numbness — conditions that can range from merely annoying to highly disruptive on the job and within the family. For some of them, hard work can temporarily mask these symptoms. But only temporarily. “You can work through it [with therapy], or become a workaholic,” says Tom Berger, who still suffers nightmares from his time as a medical corpsman with the 3rd Marine Division during bloody Vietnam fighting in the late 1960s. “Left untreated, you reinforce the trauma, so it makes sense to keep that loaded .357 [revolver] next to you on the car seat,” adds Berger, who is a senior advisor on veterans health at the Vietnam Veterans of America. Those who go to war, it turns out, carry the traumatic aftereffects longer and deeper than previously recognized — perhaps for a lifetime. At the Army medical center at Fort Gordon, Ga., Dr. John L. Rigg, director of the Traumatic Brain Injury Program, is treating active-duty soldiers complaining of headaches, mood swings, anger, insomnia, and memory loss
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Young stands next to her military uniform at the Veterans Northeast Outreach Center in Haverhill, Mass.
HOW TO EXPLAIN WHY A COMBAT VETERAN FEELS ANXIOUS IN CROWDS, STARTLES AT THE POP OF A BALLOON, WRENCHES AWAKE WITH NIGHT TERRORS? as many as five years after they experienced concussive blasts in combat. They’re still functioning, but they’re struggling. “They’re not getting better,” says Rigg. “In fact, they may be getting worse.” With treatment, says Rigg, some can learn to manage. “No one gets out unscathed,” says Col. Katherine Platoni, a senior Army combat trauma psychologist with two battlefield tours in Iraq and Afghanistan who has seen and felt the deepening effects of combat trauma. Large-scale U.S. military action is finished in Iraq and scheduled to wind down in Afghanistan. In those places, as President Obama has noted, “the tide of war is receding.” But at home, the tide of war is not receding for millions of veterans returning to a long, difficult and often dangerous transition back into civilian life, struggling
to reconcile their searing combat experiences with a civilian society that largely disconnected itself from military service and now, according to polls, tired of war. Like others leaving the ranks, Natasha Young’s struggles with her psychological and emotional storms were compounded by the sudden decompression from the intensity of combat service. No one back home in the civilian world understood what she had gone through, or what she was going through. “Out here,” she says, “you realize how different you are from people who haven’t served.”
STRUGGLING WITH PTSD Other veterans are encountering the same void that envelops Young. How to explain to a civilian the fierce pride a warrior feels in
COURTESY OF NATASHA YOUNG
Young, wearing a bomb suit, with Marine Corps General James Mattis and others in Iraq, 2007.
having mustered the stamina, the professional skill and the courage to complete a second or third combat tour, in a war that seems to have no point and no end, where the enemy is frustratingly elusive but the blood and death are real and immediate? How to explain why a combat veteran feels anxious in crowds, startles at the pop of a toy balloon, wrenches awake with night terrors? How to express the rage and
sorrow of survivor’s guilt — that a medical corpsman couldn’t save a wounded buddy, that a squad leader didn’t bring all his guys home safe? How to share the agony of a Marine platoon leader who is severely injured and medevaced after an IED blast kills two of his men and abruptly removes him from the men he had vowed to protect? Outside the Marine Corps, severed from others with the same experiences, Young unravelled.
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THE WAR WITHIN
She was 31, a single mom, and sick. Her Harley gathered dust in the garage. She stopped writing poetry. “I couldn’t cope,” she says. “I felt so scared. “I think my son kept me from clicking off ‘safe’ more times than I’d care to admit,” she confides, referring to the temptation to turn off her weapon’s safety mechanism and end her life. Such combat trauma wounds are largely invisible — but the numbers are arresting. Roughly 2,413,000 young Americans have served in the Iraq or Afghanistan war, so far. More than 600,000 of them may be struggling with PTSD and major depression. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has formally diagnosed 207,161 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans with PTSD. But experts believe many more are affected because of shortcomings and defects in screening and diagnosis. A recent study by the RAND Corp., a Pentagon-funded think tank, suggested how many undiagnosed veterans there might be. It estimated that some 14 percent — or about 337,820 — of post9/11 veterans suffer from the headaches, sleeplessness, irritability, depression, rage and other
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symptoms of PTSD, whether or not they are formally diagnosed. An additional 14 percent suffer from major depression. The VA’s National Center for PTSD confirmed the numbers as accurate. In addition, some 40,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury they received in combat. The condition involves a bruising of the brain caused by concussion or other head injury, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. Many more veterans may be suffering without diagnosis or treatment, experts say. (Overall, the Defense Department has diagnosed 233,000 individual cases of TBI since 2000, the vast majority caused by training injuries or vehicle accidents, not combat.) Head wounds were considered fatal until the 20th century and the arrival of better and faster medical care. As with PTSD, the diagnosis and treatment of TBI have improved significantly during the past decade. Still, in a chilling reminder of war’s long-term effects, the VA reported that last year it treated 476,515 veterans for PTSD — most of them veterans of the
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Young flips through an album of photos from her life — both before and during her time in Afghanistan.
Vietnam war almost 50 years ago. Tragically, the Vietnam generation of vets didn’t have access to the kinds of services now available through the VA. While the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned the trauma of war 25 centuries ago in his account of the battle of Marathon, it wasn’t until 1980 that American psychiatry formally recognized and named the condition, describing PTSD as an injury caused by an outside stimulus rather than by an in-
ternal human weakness. More effective forms of treatment followed slowly. Today, with rising veterans’ demands for mental health services, the VA is making a determined and costly effort to reach those who live in remote areas or who may be unaware of VA services. It has launched 70 mobile outreach vans to cruise the streets of cities and towns across the country. It’s also expanding its secure teleconferencing facilities and expects this
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“WE HAVE UNDERESTIMATED THE HUMAN COSTS OF WAR, NOT JUST FOR THE VICTIMS BUT THE WARRIORS AS WELL.” year to provide 200,000 mental health consultations with veterans who lack easy access to its outpatient clinics or outreach vans. Since 2009, the VA’s mental health budget has increased 39 percent to almost $6 billion this year, and its mental health staff has grown by 41 percent. Diagnosed or not, all veterans are eligible for mental health services. But the VA cannot require them to come in, as VA officials are quick to point out. The pernicious effects of combat trauma are not confined to mental health issues, though. New research findings indicate that veterans who have PTSD are more vulnerable in their later years to diabetes, cardiovascular disease. One study of VA patients found that those with PTSD were twice as likely to develop dementia as veterans without PTSD. “It’s a lifetime sentence,” said Rick Weidman, a combat medic
with the Americal Division in Vietnam who still struggles with post-traumatic stress. Some cut that lifetime short. More than 2,500 active-duty military personnel have committed suicide since 2001, according to Defense Department reports. So far this year, active-duty troops have taken their own lives at a rate of almost one per day. Many more make the attempt. In its most recent analysis, the Pentagon reported that in 2010, 863 active-duty service men and women had attempted suicide; most, 60 percent, were under the age of 25. National Guard soldiers and reservists have an equally high suicide rate. Last year, 118 Army soldiers killed themselves while not on active duty, a number almost certainly under-reported. Among veterans — those who have left military service entirely — the lure of suicide appears even stronger. The national vet-
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Young’s custom motorcycle is parked among the awards and memorabilia from her time in the Marines.
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erans suicide crisis line (800273-8255), operated by the VA, gets an average of 17,000 calls a day. The VA believes the suicide rate for all U.S. veterans is more than 500 per month. Most of those who committed suicide had struggled alone and never got help. The VA’s Shinseki said recently that perhaps two out of three veterans who commit suicide were not enrolled in the VA’s healthcare system. Nor had they ever been diagnosed. “The majority,” the Pentagon reported, “did not have a known history of a behavioral health disorder” or treatment. “We have underestimated the human costs of war, not just for the victims but for the warriors as well,” said Dr. David Spiegel, a neuropsychiatrist and director of Stanford University’s Center on Stress and Health. “War is an unnatural experience. It doesn’t surprise me that a substantial number of people are impaired.”
“I BELIEVE IN YOU” The striking fact about today’s epidemic of war trauma is that it affects a self-selected population of Americans who have already
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demonstrated courage, grit and resolve by volunteering to serve in wartime. Take Natasha Young. She grew up in a bleak neighborhood with a wandering, crack-addict father and a single mom on welfare who struggled with drugs. Natasha was a good student but got into her fair share of trouble. When she was 17, she met a Marine Corps recruiter and her life changed. “He represented everything I wanted for my life,” she says. “He said we expect you to work hard, show up on time, be a good human being, service to others, pay your bills, don’t drink and drive, don’t do drugs — all the things I would want for my child.” What had been a dead-end future for her suddenly opened up with a steady paycheck, honorable work, perhaps even college. “It was the first time in my young adult life someone said, ‘I think you can do this, I believe in you,’” she recalls. “For the first time in my life, someone said to me ‘I see more in you than you ever saw in yourself.’ That really resonated with me because I wanted to make somebody proud, I wanted to be better than
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In Young’s home, a photo from before she enlisted hangs next to a photo from her time in the Marines.
the opportunities I had at the time. I wanted to be great … I knew I was capable of it.” She excelled in boot camp, won promotion after promotion. She was deployed to Okinawa when a call came from home: her mother was unable to care for her six year-old son and was giving Natasha custody. Natasha was 19 years old. She scraped together money for a plane ticket and flew home on emergency leave to complete the paperwork. Just before she was sched-
uled to fly back to Okinawa, her father was beaten to death in a bar fight. Natasha was next of kin. The Marines extended her emergency leave so she could arrange the funeral. The Marine Corps League and the American Legion chipped in to replace her non-refundable plane ticket back to Okinawa. Family and friends looked after her brother until her overseas tour was over. By the time she was assigned to the 2nd Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Company, at Camp
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“WE PARTICIPATED IN SO MUCH HORROR... THE MORAL PAIN GOES BEYOND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY.”
LeJeune, N.C., the Marines had become her real family. In the year before she flew to Iraq, she got to know the EOD guys, their wives, their children. Facing the terrible risks of unstable explosives, they trained exhaustively and partied hard and grew emotionally close and tight — no secrets. They arrived in western Iraq in 2007 to find a bloody terror of fighting, with an escalation of booby-trapped IEDs detonated by cell phones and garage-door openers. The blasts were erupting beneath soldiers and Marines causing horrific injuries and death. That year, 764 Americans were killed in Iraq, mostly by IEDs. Frantic calls to the bomb disposal teams, spread out over al-Anbar Province, came in every hour of every day of every week. Natasha was on the road making sure each team had the gear and supplies it needed. In a single day, April 27,
the team lost two Marines, Sgt. Bill Callahan, 28, who left a wife and a three-week-old son, and Sgt. Peter Woodall, 25, who was married with a 3-year-old son. Amidst the carnage, Natasha went numb. It was her job to gather the dead Marines’ personal effects, make sure letters got written home to the families and that nothing got sent home with blood on it “because of the biohazard.” What was that like for her? Tears welled in her eyes as she felt again the shock and grief that she had stuffed deep inside five years ago. “At the time … I just … functioned,” she says. “I’d make a pot of coffee because I knew we’d be up for two or three days.” Such enormous stress is the heart of war trauma — including PTSD and TBI — that causes physiological or neuro-chemical changes in the functioning of the
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The Veterans Northeast Outreach Center in Haverhill, Mass., offers food, shelter, counseling and other services to veterans in New England.
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A ‘LIFETIME SENTENCE’
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Mark Nystedt
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brain, according to Rigg, the TBI director at Fort Gordon. Many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress — nervousness, insomnia, anxiety in crowds, jumping at a sudden loud noise — are primitive, involuntary instincts necessary to survival in a combat zone. “I don’t use the term ‘posttraumatic stress disorder’ because I don’t consider it a disorder,” Rigg says. “I mean, you’re in a situation where people are trying to kill you!” When the instinctive, unthinking part of the brain, the amygdala, senses danger, it reacts instantly with a flood of stress hormones that raise blood pressure and heart rate, dilate the eyes to sharpen sight, and squirt adrenalin into the bloodstream — the hyper-arousal that prepares the body for “fight or flight.” That’s appropriate in combat. But back home, the brain may misinterpret danger signals: all strangers are not the enemy; trash along the Interstate probably doesn’t contain an IED; an explosion may be harmless fireworks, a bad dream may be just that.
Dan LaCroix
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Wendy Medolo
Frank Knestkowski
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Doesn’t matter: the amygdala still pumps out a flood of stress hormones that make the veteran uncomfortable and jittery, wide awake at night, anxious and prone to flashes of anger. This is a neuro-chemical mechanism, Rigg explains. And it’s involuntary: “People don’t decide — ‘Hey! I want to be stressed today.’ No — it’s the way we are wired.” Traumatic brain injuries usually involve a concussion that bruises the frontal lobes of the brain and can cause confusion, temporary amnesia, and a range of other symptoms similar to PTSD — insomnia, irritability, anxiety or depression, headaches, memory loss — in large part because many TBI patients also have PTSD. “Basically, the brain’s not working right,” says Dr. James Kelly, a neurologist and director of the Defense Department’s National Intrepid Center of Excellence for traumatic brain injury and psychological health. “You can help people compensate and get better in some ways,” Kelly says. But in severe cases, in which sophis-
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George Martinsan
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Maryann Freeman
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ticated computerized tomography (CT) scans or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may detect damage to the frontal lobe or to tissue deep inside the brain, patients don’t recover fully, “typically not back to where they were before, ever, with that kind of injury.” How common are such deep-brain injuries? “We don’t know,” Kelly says. Not every combat soldier receives a CT or MRI scan. “And the problem is if you don’t scan everybody, you don’t have a good way of knowing that.” Recent experience has shown that even CT scans in military emergency rooms in Afghanistan may not detect microscopic damage to brain tissue, he said. Detected or not, both forms of combat trauma can cause sexual dysfunction, adding to emotional distress and marital tensions, veterans say. “The levels of shame and embarrassment are pretty stark for us,” said Ben Tupper, an Army major who came back from Afghanistan with “a raging case” of PTSD — and erectile dysfunction. “I eventu-
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Charles Freeman
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ally mustered up the courage to deal with it,” he said, and wrote about it for the online magazine, Slate.
ANGRY WITH GOD
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Stephen Differ
Current treatment for PTSD and TBI consists in part of teaching patients to manage stress. At Fort Gordon, Rigg puts soldiers with mild traumatic brain injury through an intensive, three-week “functional recovery” program focused on coping strategies that include deep breathing, yoga, massage, meditation and mind-body relaxation exercises using bio-feedback. Deep breathing actually slows the cascade of stress hormones that trigger the “fight or flight” reflex. Massage eases tense muscles that cause headaches. Rigg doesn’t prescribe drugs, which are often used elsewhere to dull the reactions of PTSD patients. “Medication doesn’t fix this stuff,” Rigg says. “It only relieves some of the symptoms.” For patients with TBI, treatment is similar: “Our job is to help people
Ed Doyon
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Harry Nickerson
Mike Page
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find coping strategies, tolerate their limitations,” says Kelly. “The idea of getting better, in the sense of recovering back to who you were, is not commonly a reality for them.” For a lot of veterans, he adds, “simply pointing out how they survived this long, with all the things that have happened to them — they have internal resilience they weren’t even aware of.” In many cases, he says, veterans “go on to really succeed in ways they hadn’t anticipated.” Talking individually or in groups with a trained therapist can help a patient recall traumatic events with less emotion. Advanced techniques, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy, can help patients understand and cope with the sounds, smells, sights or memories that trigger stress reactions. Through exposure to virtual reality programs, troops relive combat, a technique that has been shown to significantly desensitize them to the trauma they experienced and to minimize the hyperarousal caused by the release
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Charles Lewallen
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Charlie Craig
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of stress hormones. But many therapists find such cookie-cutter approaches unworkable, says Platoni, the Army combat trauma psychologist and co-editor of a forthcoming book, War Trauma and Its Wake. Her book explores the broader impact of combat experience, which she believes includes issues of self-identity, alienation, disillusionment with the U.S. government and its leaders, and damage to religious and spiritual beliefs, or “moral injury.” That term is a hot button for many Vietnam vets. “A lot of guys come back angry with God — how could the God we understood and were raised to believe in let this war stuff go on?” says Weidman, who served with the Americal Division. “We witnessed and participated in so much horror, that was in such violence with the value structure in which we were raised. It’s a miracle people come back as together as they are. The whole concept of spiritual or moral pain goes beyond traditional psychotherapy.” What worked for Natasha
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Alex Reinoso
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Jim Davis
Young was talk, work, medication and a dog. She found a sympathetic counselor at the VA outpatient clinic in Lowell, Mass. “They believed in me,” says Young, “and they remind me that I’m human, that it’s okay to have bad days and good days, that there are things I can’t control.” Through a veterans service or-
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ganization, The Mission Continues, she was awarded a 26-week fellowship that pays her to work with veterans at the Northeast Outreach Center which offers food, shelter, counseling and other services to New England veterans. “I like being around other veterans; a lot of them don’t have anybody else, and I get that,” she says. Another non-profit organization, Patriot Rovers, provided her with a service dog, a yellow lab named Josh, who helps remind her to take her medication and guards her own personal space in crowds. She takes medication to help her sleep. As she began to heal, Natasha enrolled in full-time coursework at Northern Essex Community College for an associates degree in counseling and social work; a four-year college is next. “My dream job is to work for the VA, with women suffering from military sexual trauma,” she said. In September, 2011, she married Robert Alicea, a young man she’s known since childhood and who has remained a close friend through all her trials.
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Young stands with her family outside their home in Haverhill, Mass.
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Young hangs a United States Marine Corps flag over the garage door at her home in Haverhill, Mass.
“He’s persistent, I’ll say that for him,” she says. And Natasha’s mom has fought off her addictions and accepted her son back into her legal custody. The trauma still lurks, however, and Young, like so many veterans, keeps on the path with a frenetic work schedule: her full-time classes, her work at the veterans center, and caring for her son, who is now six. “I don’t know how to relax any more,’’ she admits.
Yet Young has no regrets about the trajectory of her life. “Knowing my mistakes … I wouldn’t change anything,” she says. “My deployments, my failures, I wouldn’t change any of it.” When a visitor remarks that her future looks pretty good, she pauses to reflect. “I’m hoping. I have had a couple of bad patches but I’m back on track. Failure is not an option for me.”
STILL FIGHTING
A PORTFOLIO OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM AFGHANISTAN REMINDS US THAT THE WAR, AND THE WARRIORS, GO ON EVEN WHEN WE LOOK AWAY.
REPORTAGE BY GETTY IMAGES
Photographs by John D. McHugh
A soldier from the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division patrols the mountains near Observation Post Mace in northeast Afghanistan.
WHILE U.S. FORCES left Iraq for neighboring Kuwait more than six months ago, 88,000 Americans remain fighting the divisive and bloody war in Afghanistan, where the more things change the more they stay the same. There, the Taliban retains more influence than the ostensible government, peace talks have collapsed and civilian and military casualties continue to mount. Against this grim backdrop, photojournalist John D. McHugh sees the courage, resilience and enduring spirit of our fighting men. Even after being wounded in 2007, McHugh has returned again and again to embed with both U.S. and Afghan troops,
bearing witness to their more mundane routines as well as the dangers they face. This portfolio, shot last November in and around Gowerdesh, near the northeastern province of Kunar, showcases both extremes. Yes, McHugh shows us the stark, perilous side, whether it’s a sniper checking his ammunition or a soldier huddling in a sandbagged bunker. But he also reminds us of the commonality of life even in the most dangerous surroundings, with shots of troops gathered around a fire, chopping wood, making bread, sharing a meal. As we approach July 4, McHugh’s photographs are a fittingly mindful tribute.
Above: Cpt. Michael Bradner talks with a member of the Afghan National Army before getting picked up for an air assault by Chinook helicopters.
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Above: A Kiowa helicopter searches for Taliban fighters mobilizing to attack U.S. soldiers near Observation Post Mace in northeast Afghanistan. Below: U.S. Army sniper Sgt. Stephen McElroy checks his ammunition.
STILL FIGHTING
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A group of Afghan soldiers have a conversation during some down time at Observation Post Mace.
STILL FIGHTING
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Above: A group of Afghan soldiers outside Observation Post Mace. Below: (Left to right) U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Royce Manis, Capt. Michael Brabner and Afghan National Army Col. Hallimshah Qudri enjoy a meal at the post.
An Afghan soldier rolls dough as he prepares to make bread at the post.
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Above: Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division march along a trail near their post in the mountains of northeast Afghanistan. Below: An Afghan soldier looks out from his sandbagged bunker inside Observation Post Mace.
U.S. soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division shoot at known Taliban positions in an attempt to disrupt their enemy’s movement beside a nearby village.
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Above: A gun is loaded and propped up in one of the observation post’s bunkers. Below: Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division scan the area for Taliban fighting positions during an attack on Thanksgiving Day in 2011.
An Afghan soldier chops wood outside the observation post.
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Above: Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division’s Charlie company wash themselves off at Observation Post Mace. Below: A group of soldiers gathers around a fire for warmth during a cold evening in the mountains.
An Afghan boy holds a chicken and watches U.S. soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division patrol through nearby Nishigam village.
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Above: U.S. Army Lt. Col. Dan Wilson addresses young recruits at an Afghan National Police checkpoint. Below: At Checkpoint 2.5 near Saw Village, guns and ammunition are readily available.
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At night, a Chinook helicopter delivers supplies by slingload to Observation Post Mace.
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HOME OF THE BRAVE Executive Producer: Shawn Efran You won’t know their names, or recognize their faces. But you’ll want to hear their stories of courage under fire in this new 12-part video series on veterans, starting July 4, and previewed here.
SQUELCHING SECRETS WHY IS OBAMA’S PROSECUTOR PURSUING JOHN KIRIAKOU? By Dan Froomkin
AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MARTIN
ONE OF Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s last cases as one of the nation’s most prominent U.S. attorneys may turn out to be a misfire. John Kiriakou is a 14-year CIA veteran who, until his indictment, was best known for publicly rejecting the Bush administration’s Orwellian doublespeak about “enhanced interrogation.” In a 2007 ABC News interview, Kiriakou became the first person directly involved in the handling of terror suspects to call waterboarding at the CIA’s hands what it was — torture.
But in April, Fitzgerald charged Kiriakou with five criminal counts, including three violations of the Espionage Act — a 1917 law intended to punish officials for aiding the enemy — for allegedly disclosing national security information to reporters about CIA agents and their role in those interrogations to reporters. Fitzgerald’s use of the Espionage Act is in keeping with the Department of Justice’s crackdown on leaks to reporters. And the Obama administration has now used the Espionage Act six times to prosecute disclosures to journalists — more than all previous presidential
administrations combined. But the severity of the charges facing Kiriakou — especially in contrast with the lack of prosecutions related to the interrogations themselves — has outraged human rights activists and good-government groups, who said they see the scapegoating of a whistleblower. “They are going after someone who blew the whistle on torture and waterboarding,” said Jesselyn Radack, national security and human rights director at the Government Accountability Project, which represents whistleblowers, “while at the same time, the people who wrote the memos and issued the or-
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ders and carried out the torture are being covered up, and get a pass.” “I think it really takes very little time to understand that what is going on is an attempt to use censorship as a means of influencing public opinion, by silencing your critics and enabling or empowering those who present the party line,” said Scott Horton, a human rights lawyer and Harper’s blogger. The administration’s selectivity when it comes to the prosecution of leak cases has also alarmed Republicans in Congress, some of whom are demanding to know why cases like Kiriakou’s are prosecuted while disclosures of highly classified information that bolsters the Obama administration’s national security record — such as details of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden — go unpunished. As a result, Attorney General Eric Holder in early June appointed two more U.S. attorneys to lead criminal investigation into those leaks as well.
FORESHADOWING?
Fitzgerald, 51, announced in late May that he would step down at the end of June after 10 years on the job. He gave no reason and
said he had no immediate employment plans. Fitzgerald was widely hailed for handling a series of major cases, including successful corruption prosecutions of two consecutive Illinois governors — Republican George Ryan and Democrat Rod Blagojev-
ich — as well as media mogul Conrad Black. The Associated Press described him as “the country’s most-feared federal prosecutor.” His most celebrated achievement was his 2007 conviction of I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, then-vice president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, for perjury and obstruction of justice related to the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA operative. But the Kiriakou case and the Plame investigation have something in common that critics say could tarnish Fitzgerald’s legacy. In both cases, there were much
Karl Rove is scheduled to be interviewed as part of a criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys during the Bush Administration.
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bigger fish to fry, and they’re still flapping away. In the Plame case, Fitzgerald stopped short of indicting Cheney and White House adviser Karl Rove, both of whom had been targets in his investigation — Rove for repeatedly lying about his role in leaking Plame’s identity to thenTime magazine reporter Matt Cooper, and Cheney for telling Libby about Plame, then sending him out to talk to reporters. (See related story on Fitzgerald’s Legacy.) “I think it was a missed opportunity,” said David Gray Adler, incoming director of the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University. “It was really unfortunate that he did not pursue Rove and Cheney, because I think Americans deserved to know the truth of the entire matter.” Adler, who writes about the expansion of executive power, said that in both the Libby and Kiriakou cases, Fitzgerald fell short of his obligation to prosecute abuses of power. “It’s bizarre to me that those who were involved in waterboarding have been granted immunity, and now Kiriakou’s going to be prosecuted for leaking information that exposed illegal actions,” Adler said. And while Fitzgerald’s limited
mandate in this investigation was to expose leaks — not to prosecute torturers — Adler said the charges against Kiriakou were misplaced. “This is overkill,” he said. “And anytime that you go after those people who are whistleblowers, then you’re going to send a message, you’re trying to intimidate people from practicing a good and open government.”
‘THE RELUCTANT SPY’ Trained as an analyst and operations office, Kiriakou in March 2002 coordinated the capture in Pakistan of Abu Zubaydah, at the time thought to be a major al Qaeda figure. He left the CIA in 2004 and first came to the public’s attention in December 2007, when he showed up on ABC News. In addition to calling waterboarding torture, Kiriakou also confirmed what torture opponents had long suspected: that every decision leading to the torture of CIA detainees was documented and approved in cables to and from Washington. “The cable traffic back and forth
In 2005, protesters from MoveOn.org march near the White House, where Karl Rove was attending a fundraising event.
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was extremely specific,” Kiriakou told ABC. “No one wanted to get in trouble by going overboard. So it was extremely deliberate.” The ABC interview, Kiriakou’s supporters said, was the most significant of many ways in which he made enemies within the intelligence community. More ill will resulted when, after leaving the CIA, Kiriakou spent a year as an investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then, in March 2010, he published a book, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, which included scathing depictions of the run up to war, the torture program, and FBI lapses immediately after 9/11. “Even if torture works, it cannot be tolerated — not in one case or a thousand or a million,” he wrote. “If their efficacy becomes the measure of abhorrent acts, all sorts of unspeakable crimes somehow become acceptable ... There are things we should not do, even in the name of national security.” The same month Kiriakou’s book came out, Fitzgerald was put in charge of an already long-running investigation into how military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay obtained names and
“ If their efficacy becomes the measure of abhorrent acts, all sorts of unspeakable crimes somehow become acceptable.” photographs of CIA personnel. The attorneys had submitted the names and pictures in sealed court filings and had given them to detainees, in an effort to help them identify their interrogators. They were never made public. Yet CIA officials were reportedly livid, and demanded that the Department of Justice investigate. Fitzgerald eventually cleared the Gitmo defense attorneys of wrongdoing. But on April 5, 2012, a team of prosecutors working under his direction persuaded a Virginia grand jury to indict Kiriakou on five criminal counts. Kiriakou was accused of disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer to independent investigative reporter Matt Cole, and disclosing the identity and other “national defense” information about non-covert CIA officer Deuce Martinez to Cole and New York Times reporter Scott Shane, both of whom were investigating the torture of detainees under the
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Bush administration. The final count of the indictment charged Kiriakou with lying to the CIA’s publication review board in order to get permission to write in his book about an electronic scanning device — dubbed a “magic box” — that the Times had already described in newspaper articles. Kirakou’s supporters, including many open-government advocates, said he’s being punished for his whistleblowing. The CIA — through Fitzgerald and the Department of Justice — is trying to chill critical speech, they said. “This prosecution came about after a years-long multi-milliondollar investigation that basically produced nothing,” said Radack. “Does it really make sense that it landed on John Kiriakou?” “I just think that this is too much on Kiriakou,” said Plato Cacheris, Kiriakou’s attorney and one of Washington’s top defense lawyers. “He’s apparently being singled out, and he has had no intention to violate the law.” Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald’s spokesman, declined to comment about the case to Huffington. The name of the covert operative that Fitzgerald accused Kiriakou of disclosing has never been made
public. According to a criminal complaint filed in January, the name ended up in the hands of the defense attorneys because Kiriakou revealed it to Cole. Cole turned it over to the terror suspects’ defense attorneys, but never published it, the complaint said. So of the 70 names and 25 photos that the Guantanamo defense attorneys had in their possession,
Kiriakou is alleged to have had at most an indirect role in the discovery of one name. And the other charges against Kiriakou have nothing to do with Fitzgerald’s original investigation. Kathleen McClellan, a lawyer at the Government Accountability Project, has a theory about why Kiriakou is being singled out. “Whoever gave them the other
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou, right, leaves Federal Court with his attorney in January.
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69 names didn’t blow the whistle on torture,” McClellan said.
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
‘THE HEAVY HAMMER’
If convicted of all charges, Kiriakou, 48, faces a maximum of 30 years in prison. “There is a range of options that the government has to deal with unauthorized disclosures — anywhere from an adverse performance review to suspension or revocation of clearance, to termination of employment, to financial penalties,” explained Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy News blog. “A felony prosecution under the Espionage Act is the nuclear response. And in this case it seems particularly extreme considering that the information that was allegedly disclosed did not become public.” The government’s whole decision-making process is “perplexing,” Aftergood said. “This is the heavy hammer in the arsenal,” said Scott Horton, referring to the Espionage Act. “They keep losing these cases and yet they keep reaching for it time and again and you’ve got to wonder: What the hell is up with that?”
Kiriakou is the sixth government official charged with aiding the country’s enemies by talking to reporters since President Barack Obama took office. Some of the other cases are not going well for the government. Federal prosecutors initially filed 10 felony charges against Thomas Drake, a whistleblower who alleg-
edly provided classified information about gross mismanagement by his employer, the National Security Agency, to a Baltimore Sun reporter. The case fell apart last summer, just before trial, leading prosecutors to drop the charges and settle for Drake pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. The judge called the government’s handling of the case “unconscionable.” The Justice Department has
Moveon.org protestors in 2005 call on President George W. Bush to fire his top political advisor.
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also charged former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling with violating the Espionage Act for leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen about a botched attempt to lead the Iranian nuclear program astray. That case may also come undone, the Justice Department has said, unless Risen is forced to testify about his sources — a request that ran afoul of a district court judge and an appellate panel in May. Now, rumors are circulating in Washington’s good-government community that the prosecution recognizes that it has a weak case against Kiriakou, too — if it has a case at all. Sources knowledgeable about the case but not authorized to speak on behalf of either party told Huffington that prosecutors have met several times with Kiriakou’s defense team to discuss “hypothetical” plea deals. These hypotheticals reportedly started with Kiriakou serving 10 years in prison. Days before his April indictment, the hypothetical deals had ratcheted down to no prison time, and a guilty plea only to lying to the FBI. Kiriakou is said to have rejected all the offers, refusing to admit any guilt. Cacheris, Kiriakou’s lawyer,
“ This is the heavy hammer in the arsenal. They keep losing these cases and yet they keep reaching for it time and again and you’ve got to wonder: What the hell is up with that?” would only say that he and prosecutors have discussed matters related to sentencing “generally, but nothing serious, because we’re sort of looking to go to trial.” Asked about plea agreements in particular, Cacheris said, “We’ve had meetings to discuss discovery issues. There’s nothing on any plea agreement pending, at least not now.” Samborn, Fitzgerald’s spokesman, said that “Justice Department rules prohibit discussions about possible pleas or plea negotiations.” Radack said that if prosecutors are indeed talking about no jail time, it “shows how flimsy the case is.” If prosecutors believe Kiriakou to be guilty of multiple espionage charges, “surely they wouldn’t let him walk away,” Radack said. Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman who is
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now a public affairs consultant, said his former colleagues’ actions seemed justified to him. “My take on it is pretty simple: He broke one of the cardinal rules of the intelligence world, which is exposing the name of a covert operative, and because of that is being indicted,” Miller said. “People in the intelligence community take that more seriously than just about anything.” He added: “As for why others did or didn’t get prosecuted, it’s just impossible to say from the outside.” Fitzgerald told reporters at a May 24 press conference that his departure would not affect pending cases. Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said in an email, “The Kiriakou case will continue to be handled by the team of veteran prosecutors who are assigned to it.” Fitzgerald has never appeared in court on the matter himself. “Who might be charged with overseeing the team after Mr. Fitzgerald’s departure on June 30 is still to be determined,” Boyd told Huffington.
THE WRONG MAN?
The bitterest irony of the case is that if Kiriakou had actually tor-
tured, rather than talked about it, he almost certainly wouldn’t be in trouble. The torturers and their commanders have no fear because Obama has vowed to “look forward instead of looking backward” when it comes to crimes committed during the post-9/11 period in
the name of national security. Indeed, the same month Kiriakou was indicted, former CIA officer Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw the interrogation program, was on a book tour, proudly defending waterboarding and his own decision to destroy videos of interrogations in which it was used. In the Kiriakou case, prosecuting the actual torturers wasn’t in Fitzgerald’s purview. Unlike the Valerie Plame investigation, where
Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald heads to court in 2005.
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he was appointed as a special counsel and could choose his own course, in this leak case, he was very much working under Justice Department supervision, with a remit that focused narrowly on the Guantanamo defense attorneys. But pursuing Kiriakou and throwing the book at him was clearly Fitzgerald’s call — and one
for which he may be called to account in the history books. Maybe Fitzgerald isn’t all he’s cracked up to be, Steven Aftergood said. “There does seem to be a pattern of going for the little guy,” he noted. “Just because he’s ferocious doesn’t mean he’s either wise or brave.”
FITZGERALD’S LEGACY
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LETTING ROVE AND CHENEY GO
Fitzgerald stopped short of charging Rove or Cheney.
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U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s prosecution of former CIA officer John Kiriakou for talking to journalists about the Bush/Cheney torture program has at least one thing in common with his conviction of I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby in 2007. ¶ In both cases, Fitzgerald went for the little fish. But the big fish got away. In the Plame case, Fitzgerald prosecuted Libby, then-vice president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, for perjury and obstruction of justice related to the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA operative. But he stopped short of charging Cheney or top presidential adviser Karl Rove — both of whom had been targets of his investigation. Fitzgerald was appointed as a special prosecutor in late 2003 to investigate the July 2003 leak of Plame’s identity, which came during a White House effort to discredit her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson was trying to expose how the administration had twisted intelligence to make its case for the war in Iraq, launched a few months earlier, and the White House was desperate to prevent that narrative from establishing itself before the 2004 elections. The evidence that came out at
trial clearly established that Cheney was the first person to tell Libby about Plame’s identity and that Cheney wrote talking points that likely prompted Libby and others to raise Plame’s role with reporters. Libby, before falsely claiming he had heard about Plame from NBC News host Tim Russert, told FBI agents he might have discussed Plame’s employment with reporters at Cheney’s direction. In his closing arguments in the Libby case, Fitzgerald famously declared: “There is a cloud over what the vice president did that week. … That cloud remains because the defendant has obstructed justice and lied about what happened.” In a subsequent court filing, Fitzgerald wrote that “there was reason to believe” the leak had been coordinated by Cheney and that the vice president may have had a role in the cover-up. “When the investigation began, Mr. Libby kept the
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vice president apprised of his shifting accounts of how he claimed to have learned about Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment,” Fitzgerald wrote. But Cheney was never charged. “I think the chances of it being a show trial and losing really weighed heavily on him, in terms of the political fallout,” said Michael Genovese, director of Loyola Marymount University’s Institute for Leadership Studies. Rove, who confirmed Plame’s identity to then-Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper, had repeatedly told the president, the White House press secretary, the press and Fitzgerald’s grand jury, that he had no role in the leak. But in his fourth and fifth grand jury appearances, after Rove and his lawyer realized that an email message they had already turned over to Fitzgerald proved he had spoken to Cooper, Rove changed his story. He insisted that he had honestly forgotten, until his memory was jogged by the email. According to James B. Stewart’s 2011 book about celebrated liars, Tangled Webs, the FBI agents on the investigative team were “unanimous that Rove should be charged with false statements, and Fitzgerald seemed to agree.” But, for reasons he has never publicly explained, Fitzgerald ul-
“ There is a cloud over what the vice president did...” timately chose not to indict Rove either for the leak or for obstruction of justice. While much could have been gleaned from key investigative documents requested by a congressional committee, the Bush White House wouldn’t let Fitzgerald release them. The conservative critique of Fitzgerald’s investigation is that he went too far. Once he found out that the first mention of Plame to reporters came not from the White House, but from then-State Department official Richard Armitage — without apparent ill intent — he should have shut things down. But Marcy Wheeler, who was one of the foremost chroniclers of the Libby trial, said Fitzgerald’s investigation didn’t go far enough. “The FBI agents believed that they had the case against Rove nailed down,” Wheeler said. And Fitzgerald “actually had Dick Cheney in his teeth.”
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The Unapologetic King of the Rave BY KIA MAKARECHI
PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
The 2012 Electric Daisy Carnival, held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERIK KABIK/RETNA
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Dance music has its struggles and we’ve been right there at the front line.”
VER THREE NIGHTS in June, some 320,000 revelers endured bottleneck traffic to make a pilgrimage to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The crowds were as diverse as they were massive — ravers in neon tutus and furry boots, glasses-wearing college freshmen, bona fide adults — all headed to an electronic dance music festival which featured over 200 performers across stages that varied in size and genre.
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It’s perfectly possible that you haven’t heard of Electric Daisy Carnival or Insomniac, the company that puts it on, but know this: EDC, as it’s known, is the biggest, most pyrotechnically trigger-happy music festival in North America. Last year, the weekend pumped $136 million into the notoriously depressed Vegas economy. This year, a couple was married at the event as fireworks cracked through the hot desert sky above them. And the world has Pasquale Rotella to thank — or demonize — for it. Rotella, 37, is Insomniac’s CEO, responsible not just for overseeing
Electric Daisy Carnival founder and CEO Pasquale Rotella at the Hard “Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
Exit EDC but also the company’s other mega-popular dance party-cumCoachella experiences (Nocturnal, Electric Forest, Beyond Wonderland, Escape From Wonderland and White Wonderland). He’s been doing it since 1993. “We’ve been at the forefront of a lot of challenges that dance music has faced as a whole,” Rotella told Huffington. “Just like jazz and rock and roll and hip-hop had their struggles, dance music has its challenges. And we’ve been right there at the front line — investing a lot of time and money to try to get things to a point where it’s easier for people who are jumping in.” Along the way, he’s made quite a few friends and become a sometimes enemy of the state — at least in Los Angeles. Rotella, who is currently dating Holly Madison, a former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, regularly books the Armin van Buurens, Steve Angellos, Tiestos and Aviciis of the world for his stages. (Madison recently said she was ready to have a child.) His events are often lauded as the most ambitious and enjoyable dance music events on the continent, but putting on EDC-scale parties does not come without its challenges. Media reports have long associ-
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ated dance music with drug use and other risky behaviors, but Rotella says that’s not a relationship borne out in the facts. It’s true that EDC’s flagship event (there are others, including a stop that draws more than 100,000 people in New York and another in Puerto Rico) moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas after a 15-year-old girl died after taking ecstasy at the 2010 installation of the event, and that a 19-year-old died after attending EDC Dallas in 2011. But Rotella — and nearly everyone in the dance music community — maintains that these tragedies are not indicative of flaws
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Above: A concertgoer blows bubbles below one of EDC’s light displays. Below: A DJ entertains crowd members during his set.
Exit within Insomniac or the scene. “We feel as though we are the safest festivals out there,” Rotella said. “Whenever anything tragic happens, whether it’s at the festival or even hours after the festival and the attendee just came to the show, it’s always suddenly about the genre of the music and about the style of the event.” After this year’s event in Vegas, one man died after being struck by a car and another died when she fell from her hotel room. But neither of these incidents occurred at the festival, as Insomniac reps were quick to point out. It would be easy to dismiss Rotella’s defenses if they didn’t ring with certain truths. After all, when a stage collapsed in advance of a Toronto Radiohead show — killing a 33-year-old drum technician — no one decried alt-rock as a dangerous stain on society. Nor, it bears mentioning, did such protests emerge last year when Bonnaroo reported its ninth death in 10 years. (Bonnaroo’s 2011 attendance? A mere 80,000.) Rotella actually pulled the plug on one of this year’s nights. Saturday, the most popular of EDC’s three nights, was marred by gusting winds that Rotella’s team
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deemed unsafe. “It’s pretty black and white, that was not a call that was made by fire or police — they were actually looking to us and our team,” he said. As a fan of old-school techno, break beat, drum-and-bass and early Moby, Rotella is sometimes reminded that he’s from a different generation than many who attend his events. “I was a little sad when I first started seeing a It’s more bunch of kids standfun to dance ing there with their like no one phones out,” he conis watching fessed before adding than to watch that at least young someone fans don’t know push buttons what the scene used on a stage.” to be like, and thus can’t really be missing out. “I do think they’re being deprived, though,” he said. “It’s more fun to dance like no one is watching than to watch someone push buttons on a stage.” It’s comments like these — about the replaceable nature of DJs — that sometimes get the Insomniac top boss in trouble. Rotella ruffled some feathers at this year’s first annual EDMBiz conference (hosted by Insomniac, naturally) when he said he was less
Exit interested in booking dance music superstars than in creating a new experience. But Steve Goodgold, a top agent at the Windish agency, which represents a large share of dance music’s heavy hitters, from A-Trak and Steve Angello to Joakim and Mr. Oizo, understood what Rotella was getting at. “He said he doesn’t want to be a concert promoter,” Goodgold told Huffington. “He’s building the biggest stages in the world, and he’s booking the biggest artists in the world, and you put those things together and you got kids that sort of just sit and stare at what’s happening because the production and talent is so high.” When offered time to clarify his earlier remarks, Rotella is a little more direct. “A DJ’s job is to play a good set, and there’s a lot of DJs who can do that. We’re going to want big names and all that jazz, but its not what is going to define us, we don’t want to be defined by our lineup. Fans are going to trust that we’ll have a good soundtrack. We’re not a rock show, we’re something different.” He may not be in the business of rock and roll, but Rotella’s relationship with authorities recalls that of early Sunset Strip rock clubs.
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Rotella and Reza Gerami, another (seemingly much dodgier) promoter, have been charged in connection with a massive corruption case. If convicted of diverting $2.2 million to a Los Angeles Coliseum official, Rotella could face up to 13 years and 8 months behind bars. “Obviously everyone has got a bit of concern, because we’d hate to see it go badly,” Goodgold said when asked if Rotella’s legal troubles have affected Windish’s relationship with Insomniac. “But until it does, we got to give him the benefit of the doubt and let the courts take care of it.” Though he seems completely genuine when he says he takes the charges seriously, Rotella has assured his staff and colleagues that it’s “business as usual” for Insomniac. “I worked [in Los Angeles] and did business down there like I did anywhere else,” he said. “I would be more stressed if I had something to hide.”
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Rotella jokes with a DJ during the 2012 Electric Daisy Carnival.
TV
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A Newsroom Without Real Women HBO
BY REBECCA SHAPIRO
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ARON SORKIN’S NEW HBO series The Newsroom opens with the lead character, cable news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), elegizing the America that once was. “We reached for the stars; acted like men,” he says. “We aspired to intelligence — didn’t belittle it, it didn’t make us feel inferior,” he says. And with
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Exit a sigh, he continues, “We were able to be all these things, and do all these things, because we were informed, by great men, men who were revered.” In short, McAvoy harkens back to a time without news pundits — and apparently without news women. The opening credits echo this sentiment: video reels of news legends like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite lead into still images from studios and control rooms of the ‘50s and ‘60s, all set to the inspiring music we have come to expect from a Sorkin series. But if Sorkin is portraying a modern-day newsroom, his introduction leaves us wondering: What about the women? Viewers eventually learn more about the female characters who appear onscreen. First comes McAvoy’s assistant, Maggie Jordan (Alison Pill), a kinetic combination of nerves, ambition and loyalty. Unfortunately, the scene that first delves deeply into her character cheaply features Jordan crying at her desk, plagued with boy troubles. Insert cheesy “There’s no crying in cable news” joke here.
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Next comes the female executive producer and McAvoy’s former/ current love interest, Mackenzie MacHale (Emily Mortimer). Sorkin quickly qualifies her leadership role as viewers learn that McAvoy has the ability to fire her at the end of each week if he so chooses. Viewers later meet on-air financial analyst Sloan Sabbith (Olivia
If Sorkin is portraying a modern-day newsroom, his introduction leaves us wondering: What about the women?” Munn), who MacHale hired because she was just as attractive as she was qualified to report financial news on air, along with a female producer named Kendra (Alina Porter), whose character is barely developed. As if to compensate for this, Sorkin offers Leona Lansing, CEO of network parent Atlantis World Media, played by recurring guest star Jane Fonda. While it’s a treat to see Fonda roar onscreen as a Chanel-suit-wearing power player, her first appearance in The News-
GREGG DEGUIRE/WIREIMAGE (DANIELS, FONDA AND SORKIN); HBO (MORTIMER)
Exit room is a letdown. Her fiery conversation with Atlantis Cable News (an AWM subsidiary) president Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston) seems focused more on developing Skinner’s character than her own. Lansing is there so we can hiss at her lust for ratings, not so we can really examine her as a character. Worse yet, the power dynamic on display during their first scene together is out of whack. “I thought you got where you are by being fearless,” Skinner says to Lansing. Would such a statement ever cross a boardroom table if the CEO sitting on the other side of the room were a man? “It’s not important to me that something be real, but it’s very important to me that it feels real,” Sorkin recently told Huffington about The Newsroom. Ultimately, though, Sorkin’s female characters — the foxy financial correspondent, the boy crazy tearprone assistant, the producer in a relationship with the leading man — are little more than caricatures. Even worse, the show’s female CEO screams through her scene, the latest in a long line of threadbare “ruthless female executive” stereotypes. It’s a shame. If Sorkin is trying make a point about
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Above (left to right): Jeff Daniels, Jane Fonda and Aaron Sorkin arrive at The Newsroom’s premiere. Left: Emily Mortimer on set.
the cable news industry (which admittedly remains all too sexist for comfort), his efforts are thin and underexplored at best. More likely, Sorkin is unwittingly making a point about himself — and how he views the role of women in media.
It’s not the kind of stuff you read about in textbooks.”
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GREATEST PERSON OF THE WEEK
Katie Ribant, Jamie Garland & Hannah Davidson
Colorblind Teens On A Civil Rights Journey
BY LORI ROSE & AJ BARBOSA
TWO YEARS AGO when she was a sophomore, Katie Ribant decided to take a new summer class at Webster Groves High School in St. Louis. It was called ‘Civil Rights Journey,’ and was taught by Julie Burchett, a teacher whose class Ribant had taken before and who she says first sparked her interest in the civil rights movement. No one at Webster Groves PHOTOGRAPH BY WHITNEY CURTIS
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GREATEST PERSON OF THE WEEK
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HUFFINGTON 07.01-08.12
I consider these young women part of the civil rights movement today.” had taken the class before — the school offered it as part of a new “experiential learning” program — so Ribant convinced her friends Jamie Garland and Hannah Davidson to take it with her. They were given a camera and a project: plan and shoot a 10-minute film on the civil rights move-
ment during a trip to the South. The goal was to help the students “learn by doing.” In the middle of that trip, their goal developed. What was originally going to be a 10-minute video clip turned into Colorblind, a 30-minute documentary, and what was just meant to earn them an ‘A’ in Burchett’s class earned them a showing at the Jubilee Film Festival in Selma, Alabama
Ribant, Garland and Davidson film outside the landmark 16th Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
Exit and won them the Princeton Prize in Race Relations. Months before the attention and accolades, the group decided that they wanted their film to answer a simple question: Would racism exist if the world were colorblind? The group made the rounds through a number of historical spots and museums, interviewing as many people as they could. Those conversations reshaped both their film and their perspective on civil rights. “After getting the chance to experience it all, we changed our minds and decided that we do need to notice each other’s color and embrace what they have to offer,” Garland says. “We wanted the film to reflect how we changed our mind so the audience could realize it, too.” The documentary is part history lesson and part personal reflection. The teens used historical photos from famous events such as the Montgomery bus boycott and wove in interviews with civil rights activists as well as their own personal reflections from the trip. “Whether it was some famous activist or just an everyday person who lived through the movement, their stories moved us,”
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Ribant says. “The things they saw — it’s not the kind of stuff you read about in textbooks.” A chance meeting with a co-director for the Jubilee Film Festival led the students to submit their film to the festival, and they were eventually invited to present Colorblind in Selma in the spring of 2011. “After we found out, we realized
We decided that we do need to notice each other’s color and embrace what they have to offer. We wanted the film to reflect how we changed our mind, so the audience could realize it too.” we were the only student film that was being featured in the whole festival,” Davidson says. “That was really exciting, but also really scary. Our movie was up there with a bunch of other movies that were made by professionals.” In the fall, as the girls began their senior year, they decided to apply for the Princeton Prize in Race Relations. They won. “We were so excited,” Davidson
Exit says. “We knew that what we had done was pretty cool, but when you have a place like Princeton tell you that you’ve helped people and recognize you for it, that’s pretty awesome.” For Burchett, seeing her students learn and grow and share their findings with others was one of the highlights of her teaching career. “This was learning that was taking place in the real world that can’t happen in the classroom,” Burchett said. “I was really so proud of them.” For the students, making the film wasn’t enough: they wanted to spread the message of acceptance and diversity. The girls shared the film with numerous student groups, churches and community groups in the St. Louis area and are continuing to field requests to present the film and talk about their experiences. Although the three will split up to begin their college careers this fall — Ribant at College of Charleston, Garland at Truman State University and Davidson at the University of Kansas — none of them think they’ll ever lose their passion for civil rights after making Colorblind. “It was an amazing feeling to
GREATEST PERSON OF THE WEEK
do something like this. It reminds you that there are plenty of everyday people who believe in and work toward tolerance and equality, just like we do,” Ribant says. “I consider these young women part of the civil rights movement today,” said their teacher, Julie Burchett, who mentored them along the way. “They are helping spread the word of tolerance and diversity.”
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Stills from Colorblind, which won the Princeton Prize in Race Relations.
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APPROVAL
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BY BIANCA BOSKER
iTUNES TOP PAID TRAVEL APPS
Get Your Daze On... During Your Days Off YOU’VE PLANNED, you’ve paid, and now it’s time to pamper yourself by the pool. Step 1: Delete any apps that will remind you of the office (goodbye, Gmail). Step 2: Download these six apps to become king of the cabana and ensure your vacation is really a relaxing getaway.
TRIPIT:
SUN SCOUT:
MIXOLOGY:
Make sure you actually get where you’re going. TripIt helps organize your travel bookings — and keeps the panic attacks at bay.
Track the position of the sun throughout the day, as well as sunrise and sunset, so you’ll always know exactly where to place your towel.
Ensure you have a balanced booze diet. Why settle for a G&T when you could get illustrated instructions for a GoglMogl or a Glass Jaw?
CHART SOURCE: APPLE; DATA AS OF 6/27/12
PRICE: FREE!
PRICE: $9.99
STAR WALK:
SIMPLY BEING:
Bragging about your vacation on Facebook is uncouth. Use Postagram to send custom postcards (yes, the paper kind) straight from your phone, for just $0.99 each.
Map the night’s sky — and make sure you’ve wished upon a star, not a satellite – with an app that’ll make you feel like your vacation spot’s resident astronomer.
Hypnotize yourself into relaxing and feeling low-key with this app’s soothing sounds and meditation guides. A must-have for any Type-A’s getaway.
PRICE: $2.99
2
KAYAK PRO KAYAK.COM $0.99
3
CRAIGSLIST MOBILE PRO ESCARGOT STUDIOS, LLC $0.99
4
ROADSIDE AMERICA THIS EXIT LLC $2.99
You’re in no hurry — take a detour to oddball attractions with this guide to kitschy landmarks
PRICE: FREE!
POSTAGRAM: PRICE: FREE!
1
iEXIT METROCKET, LLC $0.99
PRICE: $0.99
5
FLIGHTTRACK BEN KAZEZ $4.99
6
METRO PARIS SUBWAY PRESSELITE $0.99
7
BEST ROAD TRIP EVER! PROPAGANDA3, INC. $3.99
8
FLIGHTTRACK PRO BEN KAZEZ $9.99
9
DISNEY WORLD MAGIC VERSAEDGE SOFTWARE, LLC $4.99
10
LIVEATC AIR RADIO LIVEATC.NET $2.99
TFU
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SHUTTERSTOCK (MOOSE, BASEBALL); AP PHOTO/SUSAN WALSH (HALEY); AP PHOTO/AL GOLDIS (JOE THE PLUMBER); SCOTT EELLS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES (IPAD)
Chaperone Tricks Students Into Eating Moose Poop On School Trip
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NIKKI HALEY VETOES HPV VACCINE BILL
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Woman Hit In The Face With Baseball Sues 13-YearOld Catcher
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JOE THE PLUMBER BLAMES GUN CONTROL FOR THE HOLOCAUST
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Georgia Apple Store Refuses To Sell iPad To Customer Because She Spoke Farsi
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SHUTTERSTOCK (MICROWAVE); STEPHEN MARKS/THE IMAGE BANK/GETTY IMAGES (JAIL CELL); GILBERT CARRASQUILLO/FILMMAGIC (JAMESON); AP PHOTO/ROSS D. FRANKLIN (BENNETT)
FACT: Your Kitchen Is Probably Dirtier Than Your Toilet
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Atlanta Jail Offers Free Food To Inmates Who Crack New Locks
Arizona Secretary of State Launches New Birther Theory
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TFU
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Face Recognition Site Lets You Find Your Porn Star Lookalike
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DAD TERRIFIED ON DOLLYWOOD RIDE, DAUGHTER LOVES IT
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