White House Press Secretary conveyed the U.S.' disappointment in China during a conversation with reporters yesterday. (Evan Vucci/AP)
In the understatement of the day, the United States is unhappy with the recent developments of the Edward Snowden situation. Just three days ago, Washington was in negotiations with Hong Kong to file a warrant for Snowden's arrest, a process which the U.S. hoped would lead to Snowden's eventual repatriation. Now, Snowden is sitting in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, presumably awaiting transit to his eventual destination. Though the U.S. doesn't know where Snowden will end up, it's widely assumed that he'll settle in a country -- like Ecuador -- which will not willingly extradite him back to his homeland.
In the meantime, Washington has begun to lash out at those responsible for this debacle -- namely the Chinese. As Beijing's involvement in Snowden's case becomes more clear, the U.S. government has accused China of damaging trust between the two countries, particularly after the successful conclusion to a recent summit between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama in California. Beijing, for its part, is tickled with how these events transpired. The Global Times, a state-owned newspaper known for its nationalistic stance, said that Washington was finally getting its comeuppance.
Before the U.S.-China blame game kicks into high gear, it's worth considering how the Snowden affair looks from China, a country which has seen a fair number of its citizens seek political refuge in the United States. When the security firm Mandiant reported in February that China systematically hacked into American corporate and military secrets from an unmarked building in Shanghai, Beijing countered with accusations that the U.S. is just as guilty of cyber espionage. Now, thanks to Snowden's NSA revelations, we know that this accusation is true.
Along these lines, the developments in Snowden's case bring up an interesting thought experiment: What if Edward Snowden were Chinese? Comparisons between the U.S. and China are always fraught with problems, given the differences in the two countries' political and legal systems. But is there much doubt that the U.S. media would have portrayed a Chinese Snowden as anything other than as a brave dissident? Moreover, the U.S. government would consider him a powerful intelligence asset and an enduring symbol of freedom, and the idea that Washington would willingly allow for his extradition back to China would be unthinkable. The United States has long considered itself (with much justification) as a haven for political exiles -- it just isn't used to having an exile of its own. It's easy to understand why the Global Times -- in words that surely represent Beijing's official sentiment -- think Washington's pursuit of Snowden represents a double standard.
The question of fairness aside, wouldn't it have just been simpler for China to step aside from the extradition process and let Snowden return to the United States? Not exactly. A long, drawn-out negotiation over Snowden's extradition would have the potential of turning into a messy squabble between China and the U.S., one that could potentially be more damaging than Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden go. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, China expert Cheng Li cited the case of Fang Lizhi, a dissident whose one-year detention in Beijing's U.S. Embassy, following his involvement in 1989's Tiananmen Square protests, led to sustained tension between China and the U.S. The experience with Fang no doubt played a part in China's decision last year to let Chen Guangcheng move to the United States after only a brief stay in the embassy.
With his flight to Moscow, Edward Snowden has suddenly become someone else's problem, and the U.S.-China relationship will likely go back, in practical terms, to where it was before. But the basic calculus between the two countries has changed: American accusations of Chinese wrongdoing will no longer have the same weight they once did. If Edward Snowden has one legacy, this is it.
Orr: “Sometimes a thing happens. Splits your life. There’s a before and after. I got like five of them at this point.”
This was Frank offering a pep talk to the son of his murdered former henchman Stan in tonight’s episode. (More on this in a moment.) But it’s also a line that captures this season of True Detective so perfectly that it almost seems like a form of subliminal self-critique.
Remember when Ray got shot in episode two and appeared to be dead but came back with a renewed sense of purpose and stopped drinking. No? That’s okay. Neither does the show: It was essentially forgotten after the subsequent episode. Remember when half a dozen (or more) Vinci cops were killed in a bloody shootout along with dozen(s?) of civilians? No? Fine: True Detective’s left that behind, too. Unless I missed it, there was not a single mention of this nationally historic bloodbath tonight.
Educators seldom have enough time to do their business. What’s that doing to the state of learning?
It’s common knowledge that teachers today are stressed, that they feel underappreciated and disrespected, and disillusioned. It’s no wonder they’re ditching the classroom at such high rates—to the point where states from Indiana to Arizona to Kansas are dealing with teacher shortages. Meanwhile, the number of American students who go into teaching is steadily dropping.
A recent survey conducted jointly by the American Federation of Teachers and Badass Teachers Association asked educators about the quality of their worklife, and it got some pretty harrowing feedback. Just 15 percent of the 30,000 respondents, for example, strongly agreed that they’re enthusiastic about the profession. Compare that to the roughly 90 percent percent who strongly agreed that they were enthusiastic about it when they started their career, and it’s clear that something has changed about schools that’s pushing them away. Roughly three in four respondents said they “often” feel stressed by their jobs.
How a radical epilepsy treatment in the early 20th century paved the way for modern-day understandings of perception, consciousness, and the self
In 1939, a group of 10 people between the ages of 10 and 43, all with epilepsy, traveled to the University of Rochester Medical Center, where they would become the first people to undergo a radical new surgery.
The patients were there because they all struggled with violent and uncontrollable seizures. The procedure they were about to have was untested on humans, but they were desperate—none of the standard drug therapies for seizures had worked.
Between February and May of 1939, their surgeon William Van Wagenen, Rochester’s chief of neurosurgery, opened up each patient’s skull and cut through the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the left hemisphere to the right and is responsible for the transfer of information between them. It was a dramatic move: By slicing through the bundle of neurons connecting the two hemispheres, Van Wagenen was cutting the left half of the brain away from the right, halting all communication between the two.
A controversial treatment shows promise, especially for victims of trauma.
It’s straight out of a cartoon about hypnosis: A black-cloaked charlatan swings a pendulum in front of a patient, who dutifully watches and ping-pongs his eyes in turn. (This might be chased with the intonation, “You are getting sleeeeeepy...”)
Unlike most stereotypical images of mind alteration—“Psychiatric help, 5 cents” anyone?—this one is real. An obscure type of therapy known as EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is gaining ground as a potential treatment for people who have experienced severe forms of trauma.
Here’s the idea: The person is told to focus on the troubling image or negative thought while simultaneously moving his or her eyes back and forth. To prompt this, the therapist might move his fingers from side to side, or he might use a tapping or waving of a wand. The patient is told to let her mind go blank and notice whatever sensations might come to mind. These steps are repeated throughout the session.
Has the Obama administration’s pursuit of new beginnings blinded it to enduring enmities?
“The president said many times he’s willing to step out of the rut of history.” In this way Ben Rhodes of the White House, who over the years has broken new ground in the grandiosity of presidential apologetics, described the courage of Barack Obama in concluding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with the Islamic Republic of Iran, otherwise known as the Iran deal. Once again Rhodes has, perhaps inadvertently, exposed the president’s premises more clearly than the president likes to do. The rut of history: It is a phrase worth pondering. It expresses a deep scorn for the past, a zeal for newness and rupture, an arrogance about old struggles and old accomplishments, a hastiness with inherited precedents and circumstances, a superstition about the magical powers of the present. It expresses also a generational view of history, which, like the view of history in terms of decades and centuries, is one of the shallowest views of all.
Anti-discrimination statutes are coming into conflict with laws designed to preserve freedom of conscience, especially in the private sector.
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dropped an astounding ruling: By a 3-2 vote, it concluded that “sexual orientation is inherently a ‘sex-based consideration,’ and an allegation of discrimination based on sexual orientation is necessarily an allegation of sex discrimination under Title VII.”
This is a big deal: The Commission’s recommendations shape rulings on federal employees’ workplace-discrimination claims, and its field offices deal with claims made by employees at private organizations, as well. But the ruling is also a reminder of how complicated—and unresolved—the post-Obergefell legal landscape is. The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage at the end of June has set the country up for two new waves of discrimination claims: those made by same-sex couples and LGBT workers, and those made by religious Americans who oppose same-sex marriage. The two may seem distinct or even opposed, but they’re actually intertwined: In certain cases, extending new rights to LBGT workers will necessarily lead to religious-freedom objections, and vice versa.
Companies that overvalue alpha-male behavior need to change—both to retain female talent and for the bottom line.
When it comes to gender equality in the workplace, the research on its economic benefits is clear: Equality can boost profits and enhance reputation. And then there’s also the fact that it’s more fair. But the progress of women in the workplace is so far inadequate: Women are woefully underrepresented in executive positions, the pay gap persists, and the motherhood penalty is very real.
Barbara Annis is the founder of the Gender Intelligence Group, a consultancy that works with executives at major firms (including Deloitte, American Express, BMO Financial Group, and eBay) to create strategies to transform their work cultures into ones that are friendly to both men and women.
I recently spoke with Annis about her work and the challenges to achieving gender parity. The following transcript of our conversation has been edited for clarity.
Some experts say the normal effects of severe adversity may be misdiagnosed as ADHD.
Dr. Nicole Brown’s quest to understand her misbehaving pediatric patients began with a hunch.
Brown was completing her residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, when she realized that many of her low-income patients had been diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
These children lived in households and neighborhoods where violence and relentless stress prevailed. Their parents found them hard to manage and teachers described them as disruptive or inattentive. Brown knew these behaviors as classic symptoms of ADHD, a brain disorder characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and an inability to focus.
When Brown looked closely, though, she saw something else: trauma. Hyper-vigilance and dissociation, for example, could be mistaken for inattention. Impulsivity might be brought on by a stress response in overdrive.
There's an eerie foreshadowing to some of the author's musings from 54 years ago.
Aldous Huxley—author of the classic Brave New World, little-known children's book wordsmith, staple of Carl Sagan's reading list—would have been 118 today. To celebrate his mind and his legacy, here is a rare 1958 conversation with Mike Wallace—the same masterful interviewer who also offered rare glimpses into the minds of Salvador Dalí and Ayn Rand—in which Huxley predicts the "fictional world of horror" depicted in Brave New World is just around the corner for humanity. He explains how overpopulation is among the greatest threats to our freedom, admonishes against the effects of advertising on children, and, more than a century before Occupy Wall Street, outlines how global economic destabilization will incite widespread social unrest.