DEATH OVER DINNER | ROBERT REDFORD | DISTRACTED WALKERS
THE HUFFINGTON POST MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER 29, 2013
DRIVER ON BOARD THE MOST DANGEROUS PART OF A DRIVERLESS CAR IS YOU. BY BIANCA BOSKER
09.29.13 #68 CONTENTS
Enter POINTERS: Shutdown Showdown... A Church ‘Obsessed’ JASON LINKINS: Looking Forward in Angst DATA: Where in the World Is Weed OK? Q&A: Lars Ulrich HEADLINES MOVING IMAGE
A HAZARD TO OURSELVES Can we be trusted with self-driving cars? FROM TOP: BIANCA BOSKER; COURTESY OF MICHAEL HEBB; NICHOLE SOBECKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
BY BIANCA BOSKER
Voices ROBERT REDFORD: President Obama, Reject Keystone XL DR. ROCK POSITANO: ‘Distracted Walking’ Is No Laughing Matter QUOTED
A NEW KIND OF DINNER PARTY “This might be the most unusual dinner invitation I have ever sent.” BY JAWEED KALEEM
Exit TV: Fall Comedies: We Deserve Better THE THIRD METRIC: The Lasting Scars of Socioeconomic Stress EAT THIS: Want Good Mayo? Make It Yourself.
TRAGEDY IN KENYA “As a nation, our head is bloodied but unbowed.” PHOTO ESSAY
TFU FROM THE EDITOR: Caution: Driver Onboard
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
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Caution: Driver Onboard N THIS WEEK’S issue, Bianca Bosker investigates a fascinating new technology — selfdriving cars — and the risks they may pose. She finds that engineers have dealt with the technological questions, producing efficient cars that can run capably on their own. The biggest danger, it turns out, is not the cars, but ourselves. “There are going to be times where the driver has to take over,”
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as Clifford Nass, a Stanford University professor and director of the automobile-focused Revs Program, puts it. “And that turns out to be by far the most dangerous and totally understudied issue.” This “hand-off” from car to human hinges on the driver being mentally aware and focused enough to take over when the car signals that human attention is needed. As Bianca writes, the driver’s “reaction speed might be slower than if she’d been driving all along, she might be distracted by the email she was writing or she might
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
choose not to take over at all, leaving a confused car in command.” What’s more, Nass has found that as we have become more attached to our gadgets, we increasingly expect machines to be in tune with our moods and feelings. Which raises a potentially frightening question: We can trust the cars, but can we trust our own instincts? In our Voices section, Dr. Rock Positano underscores another instance in which we present hazards to ourselves — distracted walking. While the subject is often treated humorously over social media, Dr. Positano — the director of the Nonsurgical Foot and Ankle Service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York — says we should be giving it the same serious attention we give to the use of cell phones in cars. Case in point: Researchers at the University of Washington monitored Seattle’s intersections, and discovered that pedestrians who texted were four times less likely to look before crossing streets, stay in crosswalks, or obey traffic signals. Elsewhere in the issue, Jaweed Kaleem highlights “Death Over Dinner,” a dinner party trend popping up around the world. The
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concept: to bring friends and strangers together through discussions about life and death. As Michael Hebb, the Seattlebased artist who founded “Death For Dinner,” puts it, “This is what
We can trust the cars, but can we trust our own instincts?” the table does well. It’s a good place to have difficult conversations.” Participants like Laura Sweet, who hosted a dinner party on her apartment building’s roof, are finding that frank conversations about death can be refreshing and enlightening. As she put it, “people hesitated to leave and said they could talk about this for days. I don’t use the word magical much, but this evening was.” Finally, we continue our focus on The Third Metric by examining the lasting scars that socioeconomic stress can inflict on the most vulnerable among us.
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POINTERS
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NEARING THE CLIFF Congress is locked in a budget battle over a continuing resolution to fund the federal government. If
no agreement is reached by Sept. 30, a government shutdown is triggered. Spurred on by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the tea party, House Republicans have passed a bill that would link defunding the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature achievement, with keeping the government running. The Senate, where Democrats are in control, isn’t expected to pass the House version, and Obama’s said he’ll veto any bill that guts health care reform. House Republicans may also use an Oct. 17 deadline for raising the government’s debt limit to seek health care rollbacks and other concessions, according to remarks by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday that Republicans bent on defunding Obamacare or shutting down the government are “fanatics” with a Thelma and Louise-like mission to drive the nation over a cliff.
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SIEGE IN NAIROBI
Masked gunmen stormed Kenya’s upscale Westgate shopping mall last Saturday in a major assault that left more than 70 people dead, according to officials in the country. Al Shabab, an al Qaeda-linked militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack. According to CNN, witnesses said gunmen went from store to store in the mall, shooting people and taking hostages. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announced Tuesday that troops had finally defeated the attackers after a four-day standoff. In a televised address while the siege was ongoing, Kenyatta said the Kenyans “have overcome terrorist attacks before. We will defeat them again.”
3 BLACKBERRY POWERS DOWN
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BlackBerry, formerly Research in Motion (RIM), reached a preliminary deal on Monday to go private for $9 a share. Fairfax Financial Holdings, which already owns 10 percent of the ailing smartphone maker, led a group that valued the company at $4.7 billion with its offer. The news came on the heels of an announcement that BlackBerry would lay off around 40 percent of its workforce, or 4,500 people. BlackBerry has until Nov. 4 to solicit other offers before it moves forward with Fairfax. The once-mighty corporation has continued to slide downward as Apple and Google have risen to prominence in the smartphone market.
A CHURCH ‘OBSESSED’
In an interview published on Sept. 19, Pope Francis criticized the Catholic church for becoming “obsessed” with divisive issues like homosexuality, contraception and abortion. “We have to find a new balance,” he said in the interview, which was conducted in Italian over three meetings with Rev. Antonio Spadaro. While the interview didn’t change church policy, Francis expressed a vision of a church that is a “home for all.” “His big vision is to see the church in the middle of the persons who need to be healed,” Spadaro said of Francis. Other topics covered in the tell-all? The pope’s favorite movie (La Strada by Fellini) and when he prays (sometimes while waiting at the dentist).
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‘ THE STAKES ARE VERY HIGH’
The UN General Assembly opening session in New York City on Tuesday marked the beginning of the yearly meeting of leaders from nearly 200 member states. Major topics for the year include Syria, the future of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and Iran’s seeming thaw towards the U.S. over its nuclear program. “The stakes are very high,” P.J. Crowley, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state, told NBC News.
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BREAKING 6 BAD’S BREAKOUT
AMC series Breaking Bad scored big at Sunday’s 65th Primetime Emmy Awards, winning the award for outstanding drama. The show received 13 Emmy nominations that night. “I did not see this coming,” Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan said during his acceptance speech. The show had been nominated for the top award three times, but had never won it.
THAT’S VIRAL HOW TO GET FLAT ABS, HAVE AMAZING SEX AND RULE THE WORLD IN 8 EASY STEPS
A selection of the week’s most talked-about stories. HEADLINES TO VIEW FULL STORIES
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‘I DIDN’T LOVE MY WIFE WHEN WE GOT MARRIED’
CLOWN TERRORIZES TOWN BY STANDING AROUND
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TED CRUZ VS. THE UNIVERSE OST OF LAST WEEK was been spent watching House Republicans decide precisely what to do about defunding Obamacare, and how much energy they’ll
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pointlessly expend in the goingnowhere act this time around. And now we find that GOP leaders on the Hill going to war in a more parochial fashion. Their target: Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The Cruz-directed snipes have been coming as fast and as furious as is possible, given that they’ve
Sen. Ted Cruz is getting heat from his party for alleging that his fellow Republicans aren’t doing enough to defund Obamacare.
Enter mostly been dispensed by anonymous sources. “He’s a joke, plain and simple,” said one “senior GOP aide.” Another House GOP aide told the National Review Online that “Nancy Pelosi is more wellliked around here.” One of Cruz’s fellow Republicans who has been brave enough to attach his name to his remarks is Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who told reporters that Cruz was a “fraud” who should “no longer have any influence in the Republican Party.” As CNN reported, King continued like so: “We can’t be going off on these false missions that Ted Cruz wants us to go on. The issues are too important. They’re too serious, they require real conservative solutions, not cheap headlinehunting schemes,” he said. But where is all this coming from? It’s actually pretty much high school-level clique-histrionics, actually. And more than anything else, it’s a battle between the House and the Senate over who will be left holding the Defund Obamacare Futility Bomb when it finally goes off. Obviously, just about every GOP legislator, given the opportunity, would defund Obamacare tomor-
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row if there was a possibility they could do so. And, in fact, they’ve tried some 40-odd times. One might question whether doing so is good policy, but none should question the desire of Republican policymakers to gut President Barack Obama’s landmark achievement. The thing is, though, Cruz sort of did. Cruz was one of the GOP leaders who first hatched the plan to threaten taking the government
‘He’s a joke, plain and simple,’ said one ‘senior GOP aide.’ Another House GOP aide told the National Review Online that ‘Nancy Pelosi is more well-liked around here.’” hostage over Obamacare. Birthing that notion immediately gave House Speaker John Boehner (ROhio) — whose preference is to avoid a government shutdown — a huge migraine. But Cruz didn’t stop there. He appeared in ads for the Senate Conservatives Fund, haranguing his fellow senators “to stand up and defund Obamacare now.” As Jackie Kucinich noted, the fact that he did so while simultaneously serving as the vice
Enter chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee “put him at odds with the campaign committee’s practice of supporting incumbent senators.” Boehner had wanted to pass a continuing resolution in the House with an addendum attached that would give everyone in the House a chance to once again vent and complain about Obamacare’s existence. But enough members of his House GOP caucus rose up to scuttle that. They were largely influenced by Cruz, who called Boehner’s idea “political chicanery” that “easily allows Senate Democrats to keep funding Obamacare.” This forced Boehner to modify his plans, and the bitter utterances of anonymous GOP aides at the time basically boiled down to: “Kiss my ass, Ted Cruz, this is your problem, now.” One GOP aide got splenetic with Politico, like so: If figures like Sen. Ted Cruz (RTexas) call the plan chicanery, and other conservatives say the House is weak, GOP leadership wants to see him and others stand up and filibuster the CR [continuing resolution]. In short, the House is sick of get-
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ting blamed for being weak on Obamacare. Asked whether they are trying to put pressure on Senate Republicans to filibuster, Rogers said, “You can say that.”
The basic bottom line here is that Cruz is right about what’s realistically possible, but GOP leaders are nonetheless welland-rightly pissed off at Cruz for ginning up all this mad, stand-and-fight foolery. A senior GOP aide said, “They should be preparing for a two [to] three week filibuster, to prevent the Senate from adjourning.” The aide added that there are enough Senate Republicans to prevent a funding bill from reaching President Barack Obama’s desk. But after the House modified their plans to suit the insurgency that Cruz had helped foment, Cruz suddenly shifted from rabble-rouser to surrender-monkey. In a statement that left many Republicans gobsmacked, Cruz said, “Harry
Enter Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution, and right now he likely has the votes to do so.” So after all the “come die on this hill with me” ads, and the broadsides against Boehner’s plan — mocking it as a surrender to Harry Reid — Cruz just ... surrenders to Harry Reid. And with that, it seems like GOP leadership in Washington voted unanimously to raise the hackle-ceiling sky high. Of course, beneath all of the backbiting, there is reality — and the reality is that Cruz is correct. As Byron York explains here, Cruz and his like-minded Senate allies are constrained by certain Senate rules and actually do not have the option to filibuster. Not even one of those old-timey, talk-until-youpiss-yourself filibusters. And as Niels Lesniewski of Roll Call explains, the simple fact of the matter is that there are procedural options available to Reid to do precisely what Cruz is saying will happen. The Senate will have the votes to strip the Obamacare part of the law and pass a clean continuing resolution, at which point it bounces back to the House. (From there, in theory, the House can keep sending it back to
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the Senate, but the conditions in the Senate aren’t likely to change anytime soon.) So, the basic bottom line here is that Cruz is right about what’s realistically possible, but GOP leaders are nonetheless well-andrightly pissed off at Cruz for ginning up all this mad, stand-andfight foolery that denied Boehner
More than anything else, it’s a battle between the House and the Senate over who will be left holding the Defund Obamacare Futility Bomb when it finally goes off. his preferred “vent-and-pass” plan for the continuing resolution. Now, we’ve got this fight between House and the Senate — neither of whom want to be left holding the bag when this effort to defund Obamacare fails. Of course, all of this pain could have been avoided if everyone could come to terms with the simple reality that President Barack Obama is never, ever, ever going to sign a bill that defunds or delays or in any way imperils Obamacare. But that is clearly asking too much.
Q&A
FROM TOP: AP PHOTO/LAURENT EMMANUEL; MICHAEL KOVAC/ GETTY IMAGES FOR METALLICA THROUGH THE NEVER
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Lars Ulrich on the Napster Battle That Still Haunts Him Today “The Napster people were really smart in that they made the whole fight about money... and we were like hang on, it’s not about money. It’s about control. Whose choice should it be?”
Above: Lars Ulrich of Metallica promotes the film Metallica: Through the Never at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Bottom: Ulrich performs during San Diego Comic-Con in 2013.
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DATA
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SPOTLIGHT ON PORTUGAL
SOURCES: RELEASE: DRUGS, THE LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS; MATADOR NETWORK; CATO INSTITUTE. MAP BY JAN DIEHM
TAP FOR INFO
Legal Legal for medical use only Decriminalized (medical use may also be allowed)
Where in the World Is Weed OK?
Uruguay is the first country in the world to announce plans to nationalize the pot business. A bill to legalize and regulate the production, sale and consumption of weed was passed by Uruguay’s Chamber of Deputies in July and is set to make its way through the Senate. But there are plenty of other places where you can smoke freely. Marijuana is not classified as a drug in North Korea, where smoking is a popular way for soldiers and manual laborers to wind down after a long day. Possessing small amounts for personal use has been decriminalized in many European and South American countries, and the policies have been shown to have little impact on drug use. After Portugal eliminated criminal penalties for drug users in 2001, shifting resources from law enforcement to drug prevention and rehabilitation programs, a number of metrics (see infographic for details) pointed to the experiment’s success. Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level in the U.S., and the Obama administration has already spent about $300 million targeting medical marijuana. — Katy Hall
THIS MAP REFLECTS NATIONAL POLICIES ONLY. REGIONS OF COUNTRIES THAT HAVE DECRIMINALIZED MARIJUANA ARE NOT SHOWN.
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA (OBACAMA RATE REVEAL); AP PHOTO/CHARLES DHARAPAK (THE CRUZ SHOW); AP PHOTO/JONATHAN KALAN (NAIROBI HORROR); AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE (HOUSE HURTLES TOWARD SHUTDOWN)
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The Week That Was TAP IMAGE TO ENLARGE, TAP EACH DATE FOR FULL ARTICLE ON THE HUFFINGTON POST
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Wallops Island, Virginia 09.18.2013 An infrared camera captures the Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. The rocket is carrying the Cygnus cargo spacecraft, which will deliver 1,300 lbs. of food, clothing and other cargo to the Expedition 37 crew aboard the space station. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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New Delhi, India 09.19.2013 A devotee holds an icon of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha before submerging it in the Yamuna River at the conclusion of Ganesh Chaturthi. During the weeklong celebration, devotees offer prayers in temporary temples to invoke Lord Ganesha’s blessings, culminating in the immersion of the festival icons in bodies of water. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Singapore, Singapore 09.20.2013 Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Mercedes GP practices for the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix race at Marina Bay Street Circuit. Hamilton finished 5th in the race on Sept. 22. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 09.21.2013 A Malaysian soldier sweats during the 80th Army Day parade. The Malaysian army celebrated its 80th anniversary with a military parade and display of special gear in the historic Independence Square. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Adelaide, Australia 09.22.2013
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The Findon Skid Kids cycling club perform a fire jump. This successful jump follows a failed attempt six months ago that left three teens hospitalized.
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Munich, Germany 09.21.2013 The opening ceremony of the 180th Bavarian Oktoberfest launches in the “Hofbraeuzelt” beer tent. Oktoberfest is the world’s largest beer festival, attracting more than six million guests from around the world. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Beijing, China 09.20.2013 Chinese Apple Store employees cheer as a customer exits with a brand new iPhone in hand. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Kerdasa, Egypt 09.19.2013 Egyptian security forces move the lifeless body of Giza Police General Nabil Farrag, who was killed when unidentified militants opened fire in a small town outside of the Giza Pyramids. Security forces laid siege on an Islamist stronghold near the pyramids later that day. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Kiev, Ukraine 09.19.2013
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Decorative costume elements fall from circus artist Anastasiya Zorina as she performs with Eugeny Abakumov during the inaugural show of Ukraine National Circus’ newest program.
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Peshawar, Pakistan 09.22.2013 A Pakistani man comforts his hospitalized son after being injured in a suicide bombing at a historic church in northwestern Pakistan. The attack, which killed scores of people, was one of the worst assaults on the country’s Christian minority in years. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Saint Hilaire du Touvet, France 09.22.2013 Paragliders from a local team perform a “flight of 40” to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Icare Cup paragliding festival in the French Alps. The “Coupe Icare” celebrates free flight of all forms including hang gliding, paragliding and acrobatic sailplaning. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Islamorada, Florida 09.21.2013 Swimmers participate in the inaugural Alligator Reef Lighthouse Swim at Alligator Light, four miles off the coast of Islamorada in the Florida Keys. 154 swimmers swam to raise awareness for the need to preserve six aging lighthouses off the island chain. Tap here for a more extensive look at the week on The Huffington Post. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Voices
ROBERT REDFORD
President Obama, Reject Keystone XL THE KEYSTONE XL and tar sands expansion have no place in a clean energy future I can understand why oil companies love tar sands. There is a lot of money to be made by strip
mining and drilling the dirtiest oil on the planet. The oil industry is lobbying hard for President Obama’s approval to let the Keystone XL pipeline cross our border and move a river of tar sands to the Gulf Coast, where much of it will be shipped overseas. But why
Construction of the Gulf Coast Project. Part of Keystone XL, the 485mile crude oil pipeline will run from Cushing, Okla., to Nederland, Tx.
Voices should the rest of us pay the price so that the oil companies can line their pockets? Developing the Canadian tar sands is destroying our continent’s great northern forest at a terrifying rate. It is producing enough carbon pollution to wreak havoc with our climate for decades to come. And the pipelines that carry this dirty fuel are a direct threat to our nation’s own drinking water supplies. If you ask me, tar sands oil is exactly the type of dirty oil we can no longer afford. It may be great for oil companies, but it is killing our planet. There is no energy security in that. President Obama has promised to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline if it will drive significantly more global warming pollution and more climate chaos. We have clear and compelling evidence that the Keystone XL fails the President’s climate test. We already know that tar sands development causes more carbon pollution than conventional oil. And now a slew of experts from industry insiders to financial analysts all agree that the Keystone XL is the linchpin for Big Oil’s plan to more than triple tar sands
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production over the next 20 years — and the climate disruption that will follow. The government of Canada surely knows this as well. Thus the recent reports that Canada is seeking approval of Keystone XL in exchange for a promise to make new climate commitments. This fanciful trade-off is like embarking on a 20-year eating binge while promising to diet at
Why should the rest of us pay the price so that the oil companies can line their pockets?” the same time. Canada can’t have it both ways. Its skyrocketing global warming emissions are a product of uncontrolled tar sands development. It will never get a handle on the former until it reins in the latter. In this case, the way the Obama administration can help North America solve our climate problem is by rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and calling on the Canadian government to cap tar sands production. Instead of embarking on a tar
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sands binge and more climate chaos, the United States and Canada should be partnering on clean energy — ramping up the high-tech energy solutions of today and tomorrow. That’s the saner environmental and economic choice for both of our countries. But we’re not going to get it unless millions of us demand it. Please make your own voice heard at www.demandclean-
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This fanciful trade-off is like embarking on a 20-year eating binge while promising to diet at the same time. Canada can’t have it both ways.” power.org. Watch my new video and send the President a clear message: reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and promote clean energy instead. Robert Redford is an actor, director and environmental activist.
Protesters rally against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline during the 2013 G8 Summit in London.
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DR. ROCK POSITANO
GETTY IMAGES/CAIAIMAGE
‘ Distracted Walking’ Is No Laughing Matter
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EALTH CARE PROVIDERS are seeing an increase in “walking while texting” accidents, with terrible injuries undermining the “viral” explosion of tragi-comic trips, pratfalls, and collisions. “Distracted walking” is a matter of concern to public health professionals, slowly joining “distracted driving” as a matter of urgent national attention. ¶ The evidence is indeed slowly gathering, but a good indication of the severity of the growing problem is the almost constant “doubling” of the incidents from one year to the next: This is a geometric progression that amounts
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Voices to a pandemic which makes the fictional, movie “outbreaks” of designer epidemics and zombie flicks literally pale in comparison. Seattle’s intersections were monitored by the University of Washington, and they got an eyeful: Pedestrians who texted were four times less likely to look before crossing streets, stay in crosswalks, or obey traffic signals. Ohio State University studied local emergency rooms and discerned that more than 1,500 people were treated for cell-phonerelated injuries, a triple increase from previous years. Cell-phone abuse is a close cousin of textingwhile-walking abuse. Cell-phone usage while driving has already been addressed by state legislatures in almost every state. Texting while walking has not received the same attention. But that is changing. ABC News reported back in May 2012 that the reported number of distracted walking accidents doubled each and every year, with 100 percent compounded increases logged in from 2006 to 2007 to 2008. If the ABC stats hold true, a geometric progression of pandemic proportions has reached the point where those scattered
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“incidents” now cover the technologically advanced world from continent to continent. The humor of the incidents, sometimes reported on social media, itself distracts from the seriousness of the problem. Anecdotal “viral” stories such as the “texter” Los Angeles man almost bumping into a prowling black bear, the “Fountain Lady” in Pennsylvania who walked, and
‘Distracted walking’ is a matter of concern to public health professionals, slowly joining ‘distracted driving’ as a matter of urgent national attention.” texted, her way into a mall decorative fountain, “distracted walkers” who took a long walk off a short pier into Lake Michigan, a New York woman who texted herself into a open sewage manhole, and other “LOL” favorites gather some laughs, but how funny they really are depends on your point of view. Safety officials are not amused. They are alarmed. Last year, the Associated Press reported that reports of injured
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Voices distracted walkers treated in selected American emergency rooms “more than quadrupled” in the seven years surveyed, and were “almost certainly underreported.” A spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association told the AP: “We are where we were with cell phone use in cars 10 years or so ago. We knew that it was a problem, but we didn’t have the data.” Blame the universal myth of multi-tasking for the problem: human brain evolution does not allow for texting at the same time as walking, and that’s a fact. You cannot think as a split-screen: You are always limited to one task at a time, one requiring full attention, and one which becomes a hazardous distraction. What appears to you to be multi-tasked activity are really two tasks half-heartedly attended to, with sometimes-fatal results. You can walk but not text, or text but not walk, much as you can drive but not text or text but not drive, and never both at the same time. If you get away with doing both at the same time, it is mere luck, not your superior multi-tasking skills. Luck is fickle. Solutions will be hard to come by. State legislatures refuse to
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We are where we were with cell phone use in cars 10 years or so ago.” seriously consider “distracted walking” statutes outlawing the practice, showing a preliminary reluctance to any control on the practice, much as “distracted driving” laws, now common, drew great controversy when first codified in law. But that changed when the body count leapt from year to year, much as the body count of “distracted walking” barrels upward. It remains to be seen whether distracted walking remains a viral joke or is treated with the somber urgency it truly deserves. Dr. Rock Positano is the director of the Non-surgical Foot and Ankle Service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
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“ Aww, the guy who has been riding five generations of coat tails doesn’t like paying taxes.”
— HuffPost commenter thebirdstheword on sixth-generation winemaker Fulvio Bressan’s rant on Italy’s black government minister
“ I gotta go, bye!”
— Nurse Jackie star Merritt Wever’s
acceptance speech for best supporting actress in a comedy series at the Emmys on Sunday
“ It was just as bad and just as wrong.”
— Robert Benmosche, CEO of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, compared the uproar over bonuses to black lynchings in the South, to The Wall Street Journal
“ Any boss that thinks he’s worth 300 times his lowest-paid worker shouldn’t be considered human.”
— HuffPost commenter leftybass on “The Totally Unfair And Bitterly Uneven ‘Recovery,’ In 12 Charts”
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE; JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC/GETTY IMAGES; AARON ONTIVEROZ/THE DENVER POST; FRANCO ORIGLIA/GETTY IMAGES
“ People are always going to want to dance in a sexualized way. They always have, and always will.”
People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second because it’s so hard.
— HuffPost commenter Fiberspar
on “North Dakota Students Were Told They Couldn’t Twerk At Dance, So They Started Their Own Dance”
— Louis CK,
in a widely-shared rant about smartphones and texting while driving on Late Night With Conan O’ Brien
“ Where there is no work, there is no dignity.”
— Pope Francis,
in a speech to one of Italy’s poorest regions, denouncing what he called big business’s idolatry of money, and offering hope to the unemployed
“ This is what the National Guard should be used for, not to fight wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and God forbid, Syria.”
— HuffPost commenter RighteousNotRightWing
on “Colorado Flood: Thousands More Evacuated, Several Unaccounted For; National Guard Moves In”
CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
09.29.13 #68 FEATURES DRIVER ON BOARD
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH A NATION MOURNS
DRIVER ON BOARD WHAT WE CAN’T CONTROL IN A DRIVERLESS CAR
PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
BY BIANCA BOSKER
THE MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT
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in a self-driving car involves no immediate or obvious peril. It is not when, say, the computer must avoid a vehicle swerving into its lane or navigate some other recognizable hazard of the road — a patch of ice, or a clueless pedestrian stepping into traffic. It is when something much more routine takes place: The computer hands over control of the vehicle to a human being. ¶ In that instant, the human must quickly rouse herself from whatever else she might have been doing while the computer handled the car and focus her attention on the road. As scientists now studying this moment have come to realize, the hand-off is laden with risks. “People worry about the wrong thing when it comes to the safety of autonomous cars,” says Clifford Nass, a Stanford University professor and director of the Revs Program, an interdisciplinary research center. “There are going to be times where the driver has to take over. And that turns out to be by far the most dangerous and totally understudied issue.” Thrust back into control while going full-speed on the freeway, the driver might be unable to take stock of all the obstacles on the road, or she might still
be expecting her computer to do something it can’t. Her reaction speed might be slower than if she’d been driving all along, she might be distracted by the email she was writing or she might choose not to take over at all, leaving a confused car in command. There’s also the worry that people’s driving skills will rapidly deteriorate as they come to rely on their robo-chauffeurs. In the effort to engineer selfdriving cars, the best and brightest minds have already mastered many of the technological questions, producing vehicles that can park themselves, navigate highways and handle stop-and-go
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DRIVER ON BOARD
BIANCA BOSKER
Above: A view from behind the wheel of Stanford University’s driving simulator. Right: A researcher navigates the simulator at Stanford’s automotive research lab.
traffic. But one of the biggest impediments remains the very thing that motivated the quest for selfdriving cars in the first place: the limits of human abilities. Psychologists, engineers and cognitive scientists are now probing how humans interact with such cars, cognizant that these realities must shape how the systems operate. “The greatest challenge to having highly automated vehicles is not technological,” observes Richard Wallace, a director at the Center for Automotive Research,
a non-profit research organization. “It’s handling the transition when humans must take back control of the vehicle.” Inside a dark room at Stanford University’s automotive research lab sits a four-week-old, $600,000 driving simulator that will be one of the first used to study how drivers trade duties with their self-driving cars and
“There are going to be times where the driver has to take over. And that turns out to be by far the most dangerous and totally understudied issue.” how the cars should be designed to ensure the trade-off is done safely. Nass, the simulator’s chief champion, boasts that Stanford’s new tool is unique in its ability to shift instantaneously from fullto zero-automation, and Nass plans to track drivers’ concentration, attention, emotional state and performance when they take over for the self-driving car under different conditions. His lab’s findings will help inform the design of future driverless cars — from the layout of their dashboards and infotainment systems, to how they deliver alerts and ask drivers to take control. Do people drive more safely if their cars speak to them, flash messages or, say, vibrate the steering wheel? Should cars give an update on road conditions just before the human driver takes over at the wheel, or are such details distracting? And how does a driverless car clearly outline what it can and can’t do? Nass has a
laundry list of such questions, the answers to which are likely to be monitored closely by automakers: In addition to his position at Stanford, Nass also consults for Google on its driverless cars and for major car companies, such as Nissan, Volkswagen, Volvo, Ford and Toyota (Toyota helped fund the Stanford simulator). These car manufacturers, along with Google, have assured the public that driverless cars will make our commutes safer, more efficient and more productive. They point out that machines don’t drink and drive or doze off at the wheel. Since algorithms react more quickly than humans, cars can be grouped into platoons, eliminating stop-and-go traffic and conserving fuel. Drivers will be able to read, text and work while their intelligent vehicles handle four-way stops. Yet despite these rosy predictions, carmakers won’t immediately deliver robo-taxis. The first generation of self-driving cars are more likely to be capable co-pilots that pass driving duties back
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COURTESY OF CLIFFORD NASS
DRIVER ON BOARD
to a human when complex situations arise, much as planes’ autopilot systems ask pilots for help in emergencies. As one report authored by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently noted, “driverless is really driver-optional.” Nass’ biggest fear is that unless car-human collaboration is better understood, self-driving cars could prove even more dangerous than the existing, imperfect automobile technology. “One of the great ironies is that autonomous cars are much
more dangerous, but not while they’re being autonomous,” Nass says. “They’re dangerous because of the driver taking over from the situation.” Nass has spent more than 25 years studying how people speak to, look at, criticize, make friends with and lie to machines. He’s examined how sad drivers respond to peppy virtual voices; how people react to flattery from their computers; and why a group of German men thought their perfectly-functioning GPS systems were broken (they didn’t trust directions spoken by a female voice, Nass discovered). In the process, Nass has proven over and over again that individu-
Revs Program Director Clifford Nass is a consultant for Google’s new driverless car program.
Do people drive more safely if their cars speak to them, flash messages or, say, vibrate the steering wheel? Should cars give an update on road conditions just before the human driver takes over at the wheel, or are such details distracting? als treat gadgets as if they are other humans, expecting machines to be sensitive to our moods and feelings. As Nass sees it, driverless cars should eventually be capable of acting as our “wingmen,” proactive and aware of our faults so they can assist us in the best possible way. We’re witnessing “the transition of the car from being your slave to being your teammate,” he explains. “You can start to think about a radical new way of designing cars that starts from the premise that [the car] and I are a team.” Nass’ new simulator will give him the most detailed view yet into our relationships with our cars. What’s special about this setup, he explains excitedly, is that it allows him to match up exactly what’s happening in the driver’s head with what’s happening, at that instant, inside the car. His test subjects will be equipped
with high-tech gear that tracks their emotional and mental states throughout the courses they drive. They can be outfitted with EEG sensors that measure brain activity, skin conductance sensors that track emotional arousal, and eyetracking glasses that follow their gaze. Nass will use data from these tools, in conjunction with questionnaires and logs of the car’s activity, to see how automation affects drivers’ reaction speeds, focus and their ability to avoid obstacles after driving a car that’s been driving itself. In one of Nass’ first studies, he will try to determine how long it takes drivers to “get their act together” after the autonomous car hands back control. Google’s self-driving Lexus SUV offers one current template for the handoff: When the car knows it needs human help — often when approaching a construction zone or merging onto a freeway — an icon or message will flash on a
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DRIVER ON BOARD
custom-made screen mounted on the car’s dash, and drivers usually have 30 seconds’ notice before they need to take over. But is that just enough time, too much or too little? Nass invited me to be one of his first lab rats in the simulator, and he was curious to see how I handled the obstacles that popped up on the road in the moments after I took over for the car. I buckle my seatbelt in the driver’s seat of the full-sized 2012 Toyota sedan. The car is surrounded by curved screens the size of billboards, onto which six projectors shine interchangeable animated
driving courses. One minute I’m passing trucks, Land Rovers and Audi sedans in what vaguely looks like a Boston neighborhood. The next I’m cruising down a highway lined with office parks and TGI Fridays restaurants. (“I built the world,” boasts one student who works at Nass’ lab.) A subwoofer mimics the growl of an engine, and the whole scene is so lifelike, I’m even starting to feel carsick. The Toyota’s autonomous mode kicks in, and the car takes over. Seconds later, a white BMW swerves in front of me and slams on its brakes. Normally I’d panic, but the car has this one handled. The Toyota immediately taps the brake, slows down, then picks up speed once the other car has driv-
After taking the global lead on electric car sales with the Leaf, Nissan wants to be ahead of the curve on selfdriving vehicle technology with projected offerings as soon as 2020.
Nass has proven over and over again that individuals treat gadgets as if they are other humans, expecting machines to be sensitive to our moods and feelings. en far enough ahead. “We’re interested in your attention level. Do you freak out more when you get cut off, or when the computer gets cut off? When is it scary?” Nass explains. Later, he elaborates that knowing my emotional state would help researchers understand whether I trusted my driverless car to handle emergencies for me. “The point is, if the car gets cut off and you remain totally calm, it means you trusted the car would keep you safe. One of the critical issues with autonomous cars is trust. Because if you don’t trust the car, it won’t work.” Slightly further down the road, the car tells me it’s my turn to drive. I dutifully put my hands back on the wheel and fix my eyes on the road — just in time to see a construction worker emerge from a pile of orange cones and amble across the street. I swerve the car to avoid it, sending the Toyota spinning over the median and into oncoming traffic. Car 1, Human 0.
Though Nass’ research will offer more precise insights into self-driving cars, engineers have already spent decades studying how people work with automated systems in cockpits, trains, nuclear reactors, mines and ships. Of course, each situation has its own nuances. Yet on the whole, research suggests that drivers could have difficulty adjusting to their car’s electronic “wingman.” Pilots’ collaboration with autopilot systems offers a useful point of comparison for anticipating how drivers will adapt to driverless cars, these experts say. They also warn that any problems with automation in aviation are likely to be magnified when transferred to drivers, who aren’t as welltrained as pilots, and to roads, where cars face numerous obstacles and a slim margin of error. Though autopilot systems have yielded enormous improvements in airline safety, some experts caution pilots have become so dependent on help from intelligent software that they are forgetting how to fly. The Federal Aviation Administration
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has become so concerned about the rise of “automation complacency” that it recently ordered airlines to have their pilots reserve time to practice hand-flying planes. If automation can cause skill degradation among an elite group of professionals who train for years, imagine what it may do to drivers, who are tested only once (when they get their driver’s license) and have a much broader range of driving abilities. (Teenagers drive cars. They’d never be allowed in the cockpit of a Boeing 777.) Researchers predict drivers will get rusty, making them
ill-equipped to take over for their cars. Exacerbating the problem: Autonomous vehicles are likely to need assistance with the most challenging driving scenarios — think slippery streets — that outof-practice drivers would likely be poorly prepared to handle. “It’s ironic: We have all these automated planes, but what we need is to go back to flying without automation,” observes Raja Parasuraman, a psychology professor at George Mason University and director of the graduate program in human factors and applied cognition. “I could envision a similar situation in driving.” And as exciting as the technology may seem now, operating driv-
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a State Senate bill allowing driverless cars to operate on public roads for testing purposes. The bill also calls for the DMV to adopt regulations for government licensing, testing and operation of these vehicles by January 2015.
... driverless cars should eventually be capable of acting as our “wingmen,” proactive and aware of our faults so they can assist us in the best possible way. erless cars will ultimately be extremely boring. When required to monitor autonomous systems for long periods of time, human babysitters frequently get distracted and tune out, which can lead to accidents, slowed reaction times and delays in recognizing critical issues. In 2009, two pilots operating a flight to Minneapolis from San Diego entrusted the autopilot with control of the plane, and eventually turned their attention to their laptops. They became so engrossed in their computer screens that they failed to realize they’d overshot the airport by about 110 miles. In the recent MIT report on driverless car technology, Missy Cummings and Jason Ryan of the school’s Humans and Automation Lab write that drivers in autonomous or highly autonomous cars failed to react as quickly in emergency situations. “[A]t precisely the time when the automation needs assistance, the operator could not provide it and may
actually have made the situation worse,” they concluded. In time, technology could even solve that problem, too. Nass, along with engineers at Toyota, Ford and Mercedes-Benz, are already looking ahead to creating cars that monitor both road and driver, and could behave differently depending on the driver’s mood or mental state. The latest Mercedes models claim their “Attention Assist” technology can detect if a driver is getting drowsy, though for the time being, its only recourse is to sound an alert. In short, the self-driving car could one day map its drivers as well as it maps the roads. And when that happens, it won’t only drive you around — it’ll also be your best friend. “In the same way you become attached to friends, you’ll become attached to your car, though not in an unhealthy way,” Nass says. “From a business standpoint, this is the dream of the century.” Bianca Bosker is the executive technology editor of The Huffington Post.
Introducing the Latest in Dinner Party Talk
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH By JAWEED KALEEM
Matt Wiggins toasts his late grandmother at the trial run of “Death Over Dinner” in San Francisco last fall.
At 46, Laura Sweet has thrown plenty of dinner parties. The routine has become familiar: Pick a date, email invites, fire up a few favorite dishes, pour some wine and let the conversations flow.
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But for the former hospice volunteer who lives in Walnut Creek, Calif., the dinner she hosted on her apartment building’s roof in August was bound to stand out. For starters, she had to include this warning to guests: “This might be the most unusual dinner invitation I have ever sent, but bear with me, I think we’re in for a remarkable experience ... This is not meant to be a morbid conversation...” The meal’s theme: death.
Laura Sweet hosted a Death Over Dinner event on her Walnut Creek, Calif., rooftop last month.
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH
On Aug. 24, Sweet, six friends and hundreds of others in more than 300 cities took part in Death Over Dinner, coordinated meals hinged on connecting friends and strangers through conversations about life and death. They took place in churches, assisted living facilities, universities and homes in Florida, California, New York, Washington, India and Australia, among other settings. “It was an informal way for us to all sit and get personal about our feelings on death,” said Sweet, a former tech website editor who recently transitioned into taking classes in end-of-life care and found the event via Twitter. Among the topics discussed that night: memories of how people learned about family deaths as children, grief and guilt over losing loved ones, the pain of cancer and disease, and how each guest herself wants to die — in the home, hospital or elsewhere. Sweet encouraged everyone to bring a favorite mug or glass of a friend who had died and to have champagne and cocktails in them during conversations. It lasted a few hours, long after the dinner table was cleared. “People hesitated to leave and
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said they could ‘talk about this for days.’ I don’t use the word magical much, but this evening was,” she recalled. Death Over Dinner is the creation of Michael Hebb, a Seattlebased artist, activist and former restaurateur who is currently a visiting fellow at the University of
“ People hesitated to leave and said they could ‘talk about this for days.’ I don’t use the word magical much, but this evening was.” Washington’s Department of Communication. A year ago, he and Scott Macklin, the associate director of the university’s Communication Leadership program, taught a small, experimental graduate course: “COM 592: Design Studio // Lets Have Dinner and Talk About Death.” The idea: for students, Hebb and Macklin to create a project bringing views on death to life through food and drink. “This is what the table does well. It’s a good place to have difficult conversations,” said Hebb, who formerly lived in Portland, Ore., and was well-known in foodie circles for his restaurants. These days, he’s out of the food business in any formal sense, but still focuses his work on “chang-
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH
‘ THE ‘ DEATH OVER DINNER’ READING LIST 1. ‘HOW TO LIVE BEFORE YOU DIE,’ BY STEVE JOBS Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged Stanford graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005. 2. JANE LOTTER’S SELF-PENNED OBITUARY Before dying peacefully at home through Washington’s “Death With Dignity Act,” due to her advanced cancer, Jane Lotter wrote her own obituary. Read it here. 3. ‘A DECALOGUE: TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR THE CONCERNED CAREGIVER,’ BY RABBI EARL A. GROLLMAN “Grieving is hard work — work that tears at you in so many ways. Grief taxes every part of you — body, soul and spirit. And when loss comes after a prolonged illness you may feel that you have twice as much work. And in many ways, you do — for you are grieving both during and after the illness.”
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ing culture through the table.” “People talk about death in the doctor’s office, awkward family gatherings, lawyers’ offices, all of these awful places that are not designed for a conversation that requires a great deal of humanity and often humor, reverence,” said Hebb, 37. “But, historically, it’s over food where ideas have come alive.” At the University of Washington, his class designed a “table of truth” — a simple wooden table where it met for its weekly three-
The idea: for students, Hebb and Macklin to create a project bringing views on death to life through food and drink. hour courses — to dine over death. Doctors, palliative caretakers, coffin makers, funeral directors and health-care executives visited the students, sharing their own views on the end of life and how it plays out in the United States. Hebb, whose own interest was spurred by a chance conversation with a pair of doctors while on a Portland-to-Seattle train a few years ago, shared some of the facts that conversation brought to light: 70 percent of Americans want to die at home, but only 20 to 30 percent do; medical bills, including those related to the end of life, are
4. ‘LAST DAY,’ FROM CHARLOTTE’S WEB BY E.B. WHITE “Charlotte,” said Wilbur after awhile, “why are you so quiet?”
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH
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“I like to sit still,” she said. “I’ve always been rather quiet.” “Yes, but you seem specially so today. Do you feel all right?” “A little tired, perhaps. But I feel peaceful. Your success in the ring this morning was, to a small degree, my success. Your future is assured. You will live, secure and safe, Wilbur. Nothing can harm you now. These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, and the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur—this lovely world, these precious days…”
COURTESY OF MICHAEL HEBB
5. ‘A GOOD DEATH.’ A PHOTO PROJECT BY JOSHUA BRIGHT “For more than a year, I visited and photographed a dying man named John R. Hawkins. I had found him through the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care when I went in search of both a photo project and a profound experience,” Bright wrote in The New York Times of his project. 6. ‘CONGRATULATIONS YOU GONNA DIE!,’ BY ALAN WATTS An animated short with interesting thoughts about death in our society. Watch it here.
“ This is what the table does well. It’s a good place to have difficult conversations.” the leading cause of bankruptcy; a Pew Research Center survey in 2009 found that only 29 percent of Americans have a living will. Now Death Over Dinner includes big names, like the health care conference TedMED; spiritual teacher Ram Dass; and Marcus Osborne, the vice president of health and wellness payer relations for Walmart, either participating in or supporting the initiative. Using a robust social media and web campaign, it quickly gained hundreds of participants after it was announced in the spring. “For years, doctors have been talking to doctors about how to talk to patients about dying, which is wonderful, but truth-
Michael Hebb (left) and filmmaker David Llama share a meal on the Day of the Dead, during one of the inaugural death dinners held in conjunction with the University of Washington in 2012.
COURTESY OF LAURA SWEET
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH
fully, the way we need to shift our thinking is through a grassroots movement like this,” said Dianne Gray, president of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation, which teamed with Hebb to promote the dinners. The date, Aug. 24, was deliberate: It was the anniversary of the 2004 death of Kübler-Ross, a SwissAmerican psychiatrist revered as a pioneer in the study of death and for coining the five stages of grief. “We want to give people an in-
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teresting, exciting, maybe slightly sexy or attractive way to have this conversation,” said Hebb, who asked participants to start the meals with a toast and 20-second remembrance about someone in their lives who has died. “We often put forward this myth that we don’t want to talk about death, but I think we just haven’t gotten the right invitations.” Hebb commissioned an interactive website to be created for dinner hosts to use in planning the meals. After a person answers questions about who they will invite and their reasons for host-
Sweet was among the hundreds of people in more than 300 cities that coordinated Death Over Dinner events on Aug. 24, 2013.
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH
COURTESY OF THE ELISABETH KÜBLER-ROSS FOUNDATION
“ Social media is, at least in part, a great democratizing force, so I imagine more and more people will turn to Facebook, Twitter, Death Cafes, to struggle with the meaning of death and how to live with it.” ing, they’ll receive an email with a sample invitation and potential questions to bring up at the meal. Some possibilities: What stands in-between you and a deep clear, limitless compassion for all living beings? Are you afraid of death? Why? Does death feel like an end or a doorway? Hosts also are asked to choose from a selection of dozens of articles, video and audio clips Hebb’s team has curated to share with guests as pre-dinner homework. They include a Steve Jobs speech on how to live before you die and an article in which a palliative nurse shares her recollection of the top five regrets of the dying. No. 1 among men? “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” Gray, who hosted her own din-
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ner at a favorite restaurant during a visit to Naples, Fla., where she used to live, called it an “amazing experience.” “I shared the table with five extraordinary women who have been a part of my life for the past twenty plus years, including 14 years while my son was alive and eight since his passing [from a degenerative brain disease] in 2005,” Gray said. “As a sisterhood, we had never had that talk about things like, ‘What happens if I’m in a coma? Who is in
charge of making my hair look good? Who gets my diaries?’ It was a very specific conversation about our camaraderie and a revelation of secrets.” With the success of dinners such as Sweet’s and Gray’s, several on-going ones are now being planned around the country. The dinners are among a number of
A Death Over Dinner event in Japan.
LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH
JOHN LOGIC
“ For years, doctors have been talking to doctors about how to talk to patients about dying, which is wonderful, but truthfully, the way we need to shift our thinking is through a grassroots movement like this.” U.S.-based projects on the end of life that have launched in recent years. They are popularized on social media, where Sweet and many others found Death Over Dinner. Among those projects are Death Cafes, informal discussions hosted monthly in coffee shops in dozens of American cities, as well as tech startups that focus on funerals and end-oflife planning. There’s also a card game about death discussions, My Gift of Grace, that a Philadelphia design firm is developing. Gary Laderman, a professor of religious studies at Emory University whose specialty includes the history of death traditions and funerals, believes these kinds of efforts are bound to grow. “New forms of communica-
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tion change the way we express our understanding of death and how we grieve. Social media is, at least in part, a great democratizing force, so I imagine more and more people will turn to Facebook, Twitter, Death Cafes, to struggle with the meaning of death and how to live with it,” said Laderman, who authored Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America. “What is certain is that we no longer only and exclusively turn
to the ‘traditional authorities’ in these matters, the religious leader/institution, medical doctor, and the funeral home, but instead work with a wider range of cultural resources to make sense of death and dying, and living with the dead.” Jaweed Kaleem is the national religion reporter for The Huffington Post.
A group gathers at the home of John Logic and Lisa Bessolo in Seattle, Wash., to work through their personal struggles with familial death and illness.
A NATION MOURNS AP PHOTO/ JEROME DELAY
Kenya Recovers From Tragedy in Nairobi
Three days of national mourning began in Kenya on Wednesday for the victims of a terrorist attack at an upscale mall in Nairobi on Sept. 21, leaving more than 70 dead and more than 170 injured. An al Qaeda-linked Somali militant group, Al Shabab, claimed they were responsible for the attack on Twitter, attributing it to Kenya’s military presence in Somalia. “As a nation, our head is bloodied but unbowed,” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a televised address, announcing the days of mourning. “We have ashamed and defeated our attackers.” Ahead, we take you through the turmoil, grief and incredible shows of bravery during the crisis. Kenya Defense Forces leave the the vicinity of Westgate mall on Sept. 23.
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A woman runs for cover as armed police enter Westgate mall in Nairobi. Ten to 15 gunmen from the extremist group Al Shabab entered and opened fire in an attack targeting non-Muslims. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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A woman waits outside MP Shah Hospital for information about a relative who was injured at Westgate mall. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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A survivor of the attacks sits, stunned, in the parking lot of the mall. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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The body of a man lies on the ground as armed policemen attempt to enter the mall to stop the terrorist attack. At the time, the gunmen had taken at least seven hostages. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Kenyan security personnel wait behind a ledge in the parking lot of the mall. After a 50-hour siege, at least 62 people had been killed by Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabab group. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Volunteers from the Asian community run for cover after hearing gunshots. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Smoke rises from Westgate mall as Kenyan military officials engage in a firefight with Somali militants.
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Kenyan Defense Force officers perform a mission to rescue an unknown number of hostages being held by Al Shabab. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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A NATION MOURNS
Local Kenyans and visitors donate blood in Nairobi for the more than 200 wounded shoppers. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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A Red Cross volunteer holds a distressed child outside of the mall. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Zipporah Mureithi, 34, center, is helped by relatives after she identified the body of her father Paul, 56, at the city morgue in Nairobi. Paul was a victim of open fire at Westgate. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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A body is carried out of the mall by medical personnel. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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An armed police officer waits out a bout of gunfire outside the mall on the first day of the siege. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Exit
TV
Fall Comedies: We Deserve Better BY MAUREEN RYAN
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Exit HERE ARE A LOT of bad new comedies arriving this fall, and the thought of writing separate reviews for Dads, We Are Men, Super Fun Night, Welcome to the Family, Sean Saves the World, The Millers and The Goldbergs made me not want to get out of bed in the morning. So I’m going to provide short and sweet reasons why you should avoid them. Standard caveat: Some of these shows could improve. It’s about as likely that a unicorn will fly out of NBC’s headquarters and sprinkle every TV viewer in America with joy-creating pixie dust ... but you never know, I guess these things could happen. And here’s a bit of context for what follows. I appreciate that pilots have to do an intimidating number of things. They have to introduce characters, set up the show’s premise, outline the relationships between the people on screen and — oh yeah — entertain the audience as well. If it’s a comedy, some laughs would be nice. That’s a lot of territory to cover. But there’s one more thing that every pilot has to do, in many subtle and obvious ways:
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Tell us what its priorities are. Is it going to go for belly laughs? Is it more interested in creating a mood or a feeling? Is it content to just hang out with the characters, or is the show more about the plot and the suspense? There are hundreds of different goals a program can pursue, but the pilot has to clue us in on a few of the priorities it cares about most. The priorities established in the pilot
Some of these shows could improve. It’s about as likely that a unicorn will fly out of NBC’s headquarters and sprinkle every TV viewer in America with joy-creating pixie dust.” don’t have to remain static for the life of a program — and they really shouldn’t — but initial episodes need to tell the audience what matters to the creators. For example, the priorities that the first two episodes of Fox’s Dads communicated to me could be summarized in this way: “We are capable of coming up with the odd, reasonably decent joke now and then, but we are quite satis-
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fied with reaching for the easy, stupid, obvious, tired ones. Why? Because we can. Here’s the deal: We’re just not going to try that hard. Our priority is enabling our own laziness.” It’s entirely appropriate to go after Dads for its racist and sexist elements, and many critics have done that extremely well. But those two elements are just symptoms of a much deeper problem with the show: It’s not just willing, but determined to take the easy way out at almost every turn. It’s like a cook preparing every single dish in the deep-fryer, no matter what ingredients are on hand. The second episode of Dads is less overtly racist than the first, but what becomes even more clear is that the premise — which revolves around two dads coming to live with their less-than-enthusiastic sons — results in stories and situations that are plodding and strained. A show about family members who don’t actually like each other could be funny, but this is not that show. Creatively speaking, Dads comes off as if it were a much-resented homework assignment for all involved. Fair enough, Dads: You can
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settle into the rut you created for yourself in the first two episodes, and I won’t give the show any more coverage. We both win. But because critics live to destroy and attack everything that is good, let’s not stop there. These aren’t all the new comedies coming down the pipe, however. I enjoyed Trophy Wife and Brook-
It’s 1995, and a bunch of Caroline in the City writers got too much money to make the kind of semi-crappy sitcom that used to be slotted into those gaps between Friends and Will & Grace or attached to Frasier like an awkward barnacle.” lyn Nine-Nine. I’m mixed on Back in the Game, The Crazy Ones, Mom and The Michael J. Fox Show, but I’ll be tackling them a little later this fall. Until then, onward with the parade of non-awesomeness!
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FALL TV
HUFFINGTON 09.29.13
SUPER FUN NIGHT premieres 9:30 p.m. EST Oct. 2 on ABC
THE PREMISE: Rebel Wilson’s Kimmie tries to manage her work life as a lawyer and quality time with her two BFFs.
THE MILLERS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: RICHARD FOREMAN/©2013 CBS BROADCASTING, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.; GREG ZABILSKI/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES; CLIFF LIPSON/ ©2013 CBS BROADCASTING, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
premieres 8:30 p.m. EST Oct. 3 on CBS. THE PREMISE: Retired parents are annoying. WHAT IT SAID TO ME: As is the case with Dads, this show posits that adults who have to spend time with their parents are basically living in hell. (The memo that apparently went out to comedy pilot writers this year: “Old people are the worst! Also, women, amirite?”) The only thing I can think about when I watch The Millers is that Margo Martindale deserves so much better than this, and I wish she was free of this show’s hackneyed, overly broad “humor” so she could go back to The Americans and be awesome on that show.
WHAT IT SAID TO ME: That absolutely nobody at ABC or on the staff of this show has any idea of how to effectively showcase Rebel Wilson, whose innate awesomeness is almost entirely squandered here. Super Fun Night isn’t just bad, it’s infuriatingly bad, given Wilson’s likability, game energy and overall potential as a TV personality. It’s as if the whole goal of the pilot is to get viewers to dislike every single character and want nothing to do with them ever again. I hope this show can quickly improve on its terrible pilot, but I fear ABC simply doesn’t know what to do with Wilson. At all.
WE ARE MEN
premieres 8:30 p.m. EST Sept. 30 on CBS. THE PREMISE: A bunch of guys live up in an apartment complex after divorces and breakups. WHAT IT SAID TO ME: “Women, amirite?” The existence of this comedy, which pretends to be brash but mainly succeeds in being more offensive, unfunny and predictable than Dads, told me that we have angered the gods. How else to explain the arrival of both Dads and this collection of moronic douchebro humor in the same month? Awful.
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FALL TV
THE GOLDBERGS
premiered 9 p.m. EST Sept. 24 on ABC THE PREMISE: Family life in the ’80s.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: AP PHOTO/ABC, ERIC MCCANDLESS; VIVIAN ZINK/NBC; ADAM TAYLOR/NBC
WHAT IT SAID TO ME: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you, my ears are ringing from the sheer loudness of this show. On paper, the show’s premise bears comparison to that of The Wonder Years. In practice, this show kept telling me that it was going to shout at me a lot, and I am not a fan of migraines. The Goldbergs has a solid adult cast, but the whole thing leans heavily on broad humor and cartoonish moments — and did I mention that it’s loud?
WELCOME TO THE FAMILY
premieres 8:30 p.m. EST Oct. 3 on NBC. THE PREMISE: A teen finds out at graduation that she’s pregnant by her secret boyfriend. WHAT IT SAID TO ME: That everyone involved in this production finds family life annoying and teenagers grating. None of the strained culture-clash stuff between the white family and the Latino family is funny (it’s actually quite musty and stale), and the way the two fathers make the whole crisis about them is tiresome. The bigger problem is, this show clearly has designs on being the next Modern Family and yet it isn’t charming in the slightest. To hook viewers, the pilot needs to make them care about at least one person in this ensemble, and it can’t manage that.
SEAN SAVES THE WORLD
premieres 9 p.m. EST Oct. 3 on NBC. THE PREMISE: A gay single dad raises his precocious teen and works for a weird boss. WHAT IT SAID TO ME: That we have entered the Wayback Machine, and it’s 1995 and a bunch of Caroline in the City writers got too much money to make the kind of semicrappy sitcom that used to be slotted into those gaps between Friends and Will & Grace or attached to Frasier like an awkward barnacle. The rhythms, the “jokes” and the pace are all stiff and overwrought, and priority seems to be giving Sean Hayes a huge number of opportunities to mug for the camera. Hayes is a sharp, talented comedic actor, but this show doesn’t use him well and it’s as false and as brittle as they come.
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EAT THIS
Want Good Mayo? Make It Yourself. BY KRISTEN AIKEN
HUFFINGTON 09.29.13
HUFFINGTON 09.29.13
Exit AYONNAISE. Some of us hate it with a burning passion. Others, the mayonnaise-loving freaks, slather it on just about anything with abandon (yes, even bananas). But whether you love it or hate it, almost everyone can agree on one thing: Homemade mayonnaise is always better than the jarred kind. If, in your mind, mayo is just a mysterious, white, goopy substance that comes out of a jar, let’s get something straight. Mayonnaise is a basic, cold emulsified sauce that originated in French cuisine, and is the base of many other sauces. It’s made by combining egg yolks with mustard, vinegar (or lemon juice), and salt and pepper, and slowly whisking in oil until the sauce thickens and emulsifies. Before you get started, understand that making mayonnaise is simple if you respect one basic concept, which we’ve already mentioned above: Emulsion. An emulsion is the stable distribution of two liquids that don’t normally mix (think oil and vinegar). The only way to get these two ingredients to fall in love with each other is to introduce them slowly while beating them
GETTY IMAGES/DORLING KINDERSLEY
M
The only way to get these two ingredients to fall in love with each other is to introduce them slowly while beating them into submission.” into submission. Patience is key. We’ll be honest: You can make mayonnaise in a blender or a food processor. But that requires extra cleanup, and we just think it’s so much cooler to whip out a whisk and make it old-school style. There’s something to be said for preserving a little tradition every now and then (plus, the whisking action provides a great arm workout). Okay, let’s go make some killer mayonnaise. Note: Italics below indicate when we’re holding your hand through the process.
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EAT THIS
HOMEMADE MAYONNAISE
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1 egg yolk (separate it from the whites), 1 level tablespoon Dijon mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon red wine vinegar, black pepper, 3/4 cup vegetable oil (you may not need all of it, so it’s ok if you’re a little short), water, if needed, to thin out the mayonnaise
1. M ake sure all ingredients are at room temperature. Let them sit out for about 1 hour, but not much longer.
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2. C ombine the egg yolk, mustard, salt, vinegar, and a few shakes of pepper in a stainless steel bowl and whisk for 20 seconds. 3. To stabilize your bowl, twist a hand towel into a cord and form a circle with it on your countertop. Place the bowl in the middle of the towel’s circle. 4. S tart incorporating the oil into the egg mixture, drop by drop, whisking continuously until there is an emulsion. Seriously, when we say drop by drop, we mean DROP BY DROP. You cannot do this too slowly. It won’t take you longer than 2 or 3 minutes, we promise.
Once an emulsion is formed, add the rest of the oil in a thin, steady stream as you continue to whisk rapidly. You’ll know an emulsion is formed when it looks creamy — like mayonnaise. The mayonnaise will start off a yellow color, and it’ll get whiter and whiter as you add more oil. Finish adding oil when you get it to the stage you prefer. 5. I f you add too much oil and make your mayonnaise too thick for your liking, just whisk in a tiny bit of water to thin it out. Otherwise, you’re all done! Your gorgeous homemade mayo will keep up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
A NOTE FOR SCIENCE GEEKS: Wondering which ingredient in mayo is the key emulsifying agent? It’s the egg yolks. In the kitchen, egg yolks are the most common emulsifying agent due to the presence of lecithin, which is also found in soy. Egg yolks have two properties: 1) lipophilic — affinity to fats and 2) hydrophilic — affinity to water. These properties enable them to bind oil and vinegar together in a stable mixture.
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4.1 MILLION WORKING SINGLEMOTHER FAMILIES ARE LIVING IN POVERTY
Rubber Lips Claim to Make You Look Slimmer, but They Definitely Make You Look Ridiculous JAPAN TREND SHOP (RUBBER LIPS); AP PHOTO/PATRICK SEMANSKY (SINGLE-MOTHER FAMILIES); CDC.GOV (MEAT INDUSTRY); YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (JAPAN EVICTS MAN); SASHA MORDOVETS/GETTY IMAGES (PUTIN)
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Japan Evicts Man From His Home to Build Olympic Stadium... for the Second Time
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ANTIBIOTIC USE IN THE MEAT INDUSTRY POSES A ‘SERIOUS HEALTH THREAT,’ APPARENTLY
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Putin Says There’s No Discrimination of Gays in Russia
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TODDLERS CAN DO CROSSFIT — FOR $280 A MONTH
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Public Masturbation Is Now OK in Sweden
STUDIO 504/GETTY IMAGES (EXPIRATION DATES); GETTY IMAGES/VETTA (CROSSFIT); GETTY IMAGES/FLICKR RF (SWEDEN); AP PHOTO/MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ (ASIANA AIRLINE)
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Food Expiration Dates Are All Wrong, New Report Says
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This Parent Letter Got Invisible Man Banned From Schools
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Asiana Airline Evacuation Slides Were Faulty — and the Feds Knew
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