You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
From the age of 8 to 13, Orwell attended the boarding school St. Cyprian’s under his real name, Eric Blair. Thirty years later he wrote about his experience in the essay “Such, Such Were the Joys,” which was published after the school’s owner, and the essay’s primary target, passed away. Linda Besner surveys Orwell’s experience and the state of boarding schools in the UK today:
“[I]t is difficult for a child to realise,” Orwell wrote, “that a school is primarily a commercial venture.” The Blair family was not rich, and the Wilkeses accepted bright Eric at St. Cyprian’s on reduced fees with the understanding that he must win scholarships and national prizes, the better to boost the school’s reputation. In his account of what would happen when he did badly on tests or otherwise let his academic performance slip, he would be called into the headmaster’s office, where the Wilkeses (known as “Sambo” and “Flip” at the real St. Cyprian’s; “Sim” and “Bingo” at the lightly disguised “Crossgates” of Orwell’s essay), would sit him down and gently threaten him. “And do you think it’s quite fair to us, the way you’re behaving? After all we’ve done for you? You do know what we’ve done for you, don’t you?…We don’t want to send you away, you know, but we can’t keep a boy here just to eat up our food, term after term.”
The child’s fear and shame—the mask of paternalism strategically pulled askew to remind that the face underneath is not that of a father, but a stranger bound to him by money and power—fuels the cringing obedience and rebellious rage of 1984.
Ann Friedman considers how even financially independent women often sacrifice their own creative potential to support a spouse:
The partner who is more aggressive, assertive, and confident has a natural edge. Often, that partner is male. He’s the one who declares he’s ready to take the leap and try to make his unrealistic creative dreams come true. The woman, who is frequently but not always more self-effacing about her abilities, agrees to play a financially supportive role.
There are real privileges associated with going first. The creative world fetishizes young entrepreneurs and auteurs. As we age, most of us become more risk-averse. And then there’s the question of children. In almost every field, there’s a significant drop-off in women’s advancement after they have children. Men do not suffer the same fate. A2010 survey of U.K. workers in fields like film, design, and media found that 42 percent of the creative workforce is female, compared with 46 percent of the workforce in the wider economy. Older women were even more underrepresented.
For Friedman, “it seems like there’s no ideal”:
You either place a great deal of trust in your partner in the short-term and rely on his income while you invest in your long-term creative goals. Or you become the breadwinner and put your dreams on hold while you fill the joint bank account. But in either scenario, it’s clear that for creatively ambitious women, independence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“Categories of Understanding” by Catherine Barnett:
I’m studying the unspoken.
“What?” my son asks.
“What are you looking at?”
But there is no explaining.
I can only speak the way light
falls, the way the cotton sheet
lays itself over his sleeping or resting
or dissolving body, touching him with
its ephemera, its oblivion.
(From The Game of Boxes by Catherine Barnett © 2012 by Catherine Barnett. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press. Photo by Flickr user quinn.anya)
Mac McClelland reports that families of PTSD patients are starting to show the same symptoms:
Symptoms start at depression and alienation, including the “compassion fatigue” suffered by social workers and trauma counselors. But some spouses and loved ones suffer symptoms that are, as one medical journal puts it, “almost identical to PTSD except that indirect exposure to the traumatic event through close contact with the primary victim of trauma” is the catalyst. Basically your spouse’s behavior becomes the “T” in your own PTSD.
Among spouses:
Secondary traumatic stress has been documented in the spouses of veterans with PTSD from Vietnam. And the spouses of Israeli veterans with PTSD, and Dutch veterans with PTSD. In one study, the incidence of secondary trauma in wives of Croatian war vets with PTSD was 30 percent. In another study there, it was 39 percent.
“Trauma is really not something that happens to an individual,” says Robert Motta, a clinical psychologist and psychology professor at Hofstra University who wrote a few of the many medical-journal articles about secondary trauma in Vietnam vets’ families. “Trauma is a contagious disease; it affects everyone that has close contact with a traumatized person” in some form or another, to varying degrees and for different lengths of time. “Everyone” includes children.
On his blog The Letting Go, Michael Popp recounts the initial moments in which he was curtly informed of his leukemia, “as if [I] was being asked if [I] wanted a receipt.”
The doctor scribbles down two numbers. Its 4:30 they tell me. You need to get to a sperm bank immediately. The chemotherapy will make you infertile and if you have any desire to have children, you need to call these numbers and bank. I had known, for nearly 4 minutes that I had cancer. It hadn’t even begin to phase me and now I would be infertile. I picked up the paper, still unsure of everything that was going on and began to beg a woman with a thick accent on the other line for an immediate appointment.
On his way to deposit the sperm, he called his girlfriend:
The phone rang and she answered. I explained, rather plainly, I had cancer.
My chances of survival were good and that everything would be okay. As I told her, it became real. My voice began to break up as I made it block by block towards the bank. I was having trouble holding it together as I said the words to her, trying to reassure her there wasn’t anything to worry about. I was losing it, I told her I’d call her back, I couldn’t bear showing her how upset I was, I needed her to believe what I had said, knowing that I myself was completely unsure of what to expect. I had only known I had cancer for 15 minutes. I knew nothing.
(Photo by Tom Hart)
It’s rather common:
NK NEWS receives regular reports from visitors returning from North Korea, who tell us of marijuana plants growing freely along the roadsides, from the northern port town of Chongjin, right down to the streets of Pyongyang, where it is smoked freely and its sweet scent often catches your nostrils unannounced. Our sources are people we know who work inside North Korea and make regular trips in and out of the country.
There is no taboo around pot smoking in the country—many residents know the drug exists and have smoked it. In North Korea, the drug goes by the name of ip tambae, or “leaf tobacco.” It is reported to be especially popular amongst young soldiers in the North Korean military.
Jeremy Schaap interviewed Manti Te’o about his role in the recently uncovered hoax:
Te’o claims he was totally unaware of the hoax until shortly before the Deadspin story broke:
“When (people) hear the facts, they’ll know,” [Te’o] said. “They’ll know that there is no way that I could be part of this.” In the interview, Te’o also said that:
• He lied to his father about having met Kekua, prompting his father to tell reporters that the two had met. Several media stories indicated that he and Kekua had met. Te’o insisted they never did.
• He tried to speak with Kekua via Skype and FaceTime on several occasions, but the person at the other end of the line was in what he called a “black box” and wasn’t seen. …
Te’o said he “catered” his stories so people would think he “met her before she passed away.” “I knew that — I even knew that it was crazy that I was with somebody that I didn’t meet,” he said. “And that alone people find out that this girl who died I was so invested in, and I didn’t meet her as well.”
Despite this, he seems to hold no ill will toward Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man behind it all:
“I hope he learns,” Te’o said. “I hope he understands what he’s done. I don’t wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough.”
Reader speculation on the bizarre story here. Another:
I saw on Facebook where you were asking what readers thought about the story. My answer grew to be too long so I decided to email it instead:
I like college football, but I do not follow it as closely as I once did and I tend to focus on my almae matres (Tennessee and Georgia) and their conference (The SEC). I don’t live in the south any longer where the sport truly is religion. As such my interest has waned. It likely won’t surprise the other casual college football fans (especially casual SEC fans) among your readers to hear me say I never cared about Te’o’s girlfriend before the Deadspin story. Why? Because I didn’t know a thing about her. I did, however, know who Manti Te’o was. I know I can’t be alone – knowing of Te’o and not knowing a thing about Lennay.
Despite not caring one iota before, I find myself strangely interested in Te’o’s “girlfriend” now. I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with Malcolm Gladwell for once. It’s the freaking story. As Klosterman said in a Grantland piece, “It’s the goofiest ‘non-sports’ sports story since Tonya Harding.” How many of us cared about or knew who Tonya Harding or Nancy Kerrigan were back then? Before that goofy-ass story? Not many of us. But for one silly winter many of us were so oddly transfixed to that story that we knew Jeff Gillooly was.
This Te’o thing is just so dumbfounding on so many levels. I’ll tell you why I’m interested now where I wasn’t before.
1.) The sports media truly failed here. Major media outlets were covering this “human interest” story about Manti Te’o, but no one tried to find this poor girl’s family? Seriously…they are going to write about some girl’s tragic death but not seek out a comment from family or friends? Just like me, they didn’t know who Lennay Kekua. Nor did they care. This was hero worship, plain and simple. Sports writers wanted to bask in the glow of golden boy Manti Te’o. And it revealed something that many readers at Deadspin have thought for a long time…ESPN, Sports Illustrated and others are lapdogs to sport superstars and power brokers.
2.) Te’o clearly lied at some point, but we don’t know when. He may even be in on the hoax. Perhaps he was attempting to galvanize support for a Heisman campaign. Perhaps it was some elaborate attempt to cover up his sexuality gone awry. Or perhaps he just lied because he was humiliated at being Catfished and thought the story would die along with the dead fake girlfriend.
3.) His Mormon faith might matter a lot here. Was he so naive and unlike any other star athlete on a college campus that worships their Touchdown Jesuses? Finding a real life woman to date – even if it were a hands free kind of dating – should not have been difficult for the guy. Yes, Notre Dame is full of devout Catholics that may not be interested in a Mormon. Too, he may have been so devout to only be interested in Mormons. But come on… He never met the girl over a 2 year period??? If this is the true story, his faith is as much the culprit as the hoax perpetrator(s). But I don’t believe this to be the case. I’m again probably not alone here. Where his faith might play a bigger role is if he did this to cover up his sexuality. Which brings me to…
4.) His sexuality. If it turns out he is gay as some are beginning to speculate, what does this say about the pressure put on this guy? He is a Mormon at Notre Dame most likely on his way to the NFL. Not exactly the most welcoming organizations for gay individuals. Organizations where it most definitely “needs to get better”. Here is someone that may be able to bridge some of those gaps. Of course…this is all just speculation.
5.) Notre Dame football has skirted several scandals recently. This goofy-ass scandal/hoax/tragedy is much ado about Manti Te’o’s personal life (and I hate that have this macabre interest in what should be private), but it also may be bringing more attention to these past events. Two actual people died and another was allegedly raped. These stories weren’t blowing up twitter and facebook. My hope is that as this story lingers, people keep asking questions about these other stories. That the right people with enough clout will get around to asking why Notre Dame immediately began to investigate on behalf of Te’o but attempted to sweep these other stories under the rug. I mean, the answer is clear…in all cases they were protecting that which is most sacred at Notre Dame – Notre Dame football. That’s my hope at least. This thing could also suck up all the air in the Fighting Irish universe. But that would bring us full circle. Media failure.
(Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Friday on the Dish, Andrew cut to the heart of Lance Armstrong’s maliciousness, which was not the athlete’s doping but his vicious campaign against those brave enough to speak the truth. He reflected on David Remnick’s latest dispatch from Israel and discussed with readers his reaction to Jon Stewart’s interview with Zero Dark Thirty’s lead-actress Jessica Chastain. Elsewhere, Andrew gaped at the latest conspiracy theory from the far right and picked apart Piers Morgan’s rather suspect claim to represent journalism before pre-empting the talk show host’s next insult in today’s Angry Bird Watch.
In political coverage, we assembled reax to the news of a freshly raised debt ceiling, debated the importance of Obama’s inaugural speech, and shook our head as the GOP picked a strange location for their upcoming meeting on minorities. Gopnik expressed optimism regarding America’s gun problems, Mike Riggsenriched Rolling Stone’s list of famous prohibitionists, Phil Plait refuted a persistent trope of global warming skeptics, and a reader clarified the government’s role in informing the makers of Zero Dark Thirty. We heard from other readers who didn’t sympathize with Aaron Swartz’s means to free up information, while the young man’s trial led us to scrutinize the rationale behind plea bargaining as Balko showed how overbearing laws enable overbearing prosecutors.
On the foreign beat, we rounded up reactions to French intervention in Mali, as Marc Lynch repeated his view that a similar operation by the US in Syria would be a quagmire, which Waldman demonstrated by tallying up the costs of 136 months in Afghanistan.
In miscellanea, we met gold medalist Nicole Cooke, a cyclist whose accomplishments served a noble cause rather than an ego trip, collected some reader thoughts on the curious case of Manti Te’o, as Mona Gable wrestled with the likelihood of inheriting a family illness. Helen Rittelmeyer saw flashes of Dostoyevsky in Arrested Development, readers fact-checked an old story about the origin of the piggy bank, and we zeroed in on the human body’s smelly allele.
After the Dish earned a hat tip from Roger McNamee, we wondered if Heaven is here online, before John Tooby gave us a stellar reason to lose sleep tonight. We also tracked further developments in online-education, observed the self-correcting tendency of science, as Nilofer Merchant thought up ways to avoid the health risks of prolonged sitting. An Indonesian businessman trudged through flood water in the Face of the Day, we sang the blues of a hound dog during the MHB, watched the clouds rush over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and spent a moment with a brave reader in Chicago during today’s VFYW.
– B.J.
The rest of the week after the jump:
Thursday on the Dish, Andrew tried to make sense of the Daily Show’s recent segment on Zero Dark Thirty, expressed his disgust with the double standards of the DOJ, and called out the MSM for not quizzing McChrystal on his alleged involvement in torture. Andrew kept pushing Dreher on the normalization of pot and stood by Goldblog as he faced slander from left and right. He also answered more reader emails about Jodie Foster’s speech, assured heterosexual readers that they understand more about gay love than they know, and nodded in approval at a sexy gallery of beards.
In political coverage, we gathered a stack of reader emails about the NRA’s latest ad and rounded up reax on Obama’s ideas for sensible gun reform. We then charted the recent rightward drift of the GOP, traced the decline of cap-and-trade, and looked ahead at the future of the abortion debate. Douthat issued a word of wisdom to both Democrats and Republicans comfortable with the ongoing brinkmanship, offered a two-part reality check on both Obama’s favorables and party alignment since the election, assessed the current gains and losses for labor in a world of runaway technology, and cringed at a WSJ cartoon feeling sorry for wealthy people paying a little bit more in taxes.
We also surveyed a horrifying week’s worth of grinding violence in Syria, poked a hole in the logic behind persecuting Bradley Manning, and Jonnie Freedland expertly analyzed the disconnect between American and European understanding of anti-Semitism.
In assorted coverage, we wondered how the media botched the Manti Te’o story and tried to size up Te’o’s own role in the mess. James Wolcott suited up with digital trackers during exercise, Alex Klein chronicled Scientology’s latest shameful scheme, and readers voiced strong thoughts regarding Jon Brodkin’s piece on the future of broadband. We aired the dispute over Amazon’s trickle-down partnerships, discovered a non-boozy use for the breathalyzer, and spotted heavy fracking activity from space. Later we fleshed out a reader’s story about his war hero father, got lost in a purple trance during the MHB, and spent a crisp moment in Burlington, Vermont for today’s VFYW. Finally, we continued our direct discussion with readers about the future pay-meter of the new Dish, which you can still become a part of here.
Wednesday on the Dish, Andrew pursued the larger implications of “native ads” after The Atlantic’s apology for its Scientology spot. He digested Kathryn Bigelow’s remarks on Zero Dark Thirty’s veracity, and asked her whether she appreciates all the praise from torture-mongers like Hannity. Disgusted by Egyptian President Morsi’s unearthed remarks on Isrealis, Andrew lamented the effect of the Hagel smears on calling out real anti-Semitism. He also took on more readers for his criticism of Jodie Foster, and introduced us to his friend Norma Holt.
In political coverage, we assessed both the past and future of Obama’s debt-ceiling strategy and wondered whether the return of pork might satisfy Congress’s appetite for progress. Frum and Tomasky counted the ways the NRA blew their latest anti-Obama ad, but not without some pushback from readers. Meanwhile, Jamelle Bouie wasn’t ready to count the South out of politics, Drum took his lead-crime argument all the way to the question of race and Yglesias pondered the economic effects of a super-sleep drug.
On the foreign beat, we looked at why Malians are supporting French boots on their ground, Michael J. Totten weighed the benefits of monarchy against democracy, and Liam Hoare traced the latest spat over the Falkland Islands. Also, we studied Israel’s increasing drift to the right and remembered a time when American cities looked quite a bit like smoggy Beijing.
In assorted coverage, we reflected on the real crux of the Lance Armstrong scandal, figured out what to make of Coke’s fresh ad campaign, and promised that this video from NASA will keep you glued to the screen. Trevor Butterworth envisioned the death of punditry in the new era of automated content analysis, as Tom Vanderbilt explored the streaks of bigotry in Google search queries. Rebecca Greenfield waxed pessimistic about Amtrak’s WiFi overhaul while Aymar Jean Christian downplayed the potential for web series to innovate TV.
While Shalom Auslander struggled to reconcile his rabbis loving words with his awful deeds, Rebecca J. Rosen glanced at the new biggest object in the universe. We witnessed film critics and skateboarders overcome their blindness, and Freddie searched the English language for the singular “their.” We trekked up to Fairbanks, Alaska for today’s VFYW, watched an old game take on a new rhythm in the MHB, and had to tip our hat to The New York Post’s penchant for black comedy.
Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew recoiled at The Atlantic’s egregious Scientology advertorial, voiced his discomfort at the dark side of “native advertising” in general, and made note of one crucial Hagel endorsement. He agreed with Blake Hounshell about the perils of withdrawing from Afghanistan but urged a stoic departure in the face of danger. Andrew also responded to more reactions over his critique of Jodie Foster’s coming-out, turned up the pressure on Dreher’s agnosticism on pot legalization, and joined George Packer in bemoaning Dixie’s long-term effects on the GOP.
In political overage, Bill McKibben singled out climate change as an exponentially worsening policy problem, while we brought some of the nuances of climate change debate into focus and tried to measure the effects of NYT’s shaking up its environment desk. The US manufacturers’ lobby ended up buying Chinese while Llewellyn Hinkes-Jones shined a light on the seedy business of incarceration. We glanced at the scoreboard of the debt ceiling standoff and made use of a handy death-calculator to look at the Supreme Court’s future.
Later we read a first hand account of the human aspect to the drug war and walkedthrough the average day of an addict in the city. We were also pleased to help circulate the petition to unseat Aaron Swartz’s prosecutor, and we rubbed our eyes in disbelief at a sober, reasoned exchange on gun control. Looking abroad, Evan Osnos coped with some particularly bad air in Beijing, we took Tunisia’s post-authoritarian temperature, and watched U.S. guns spike the homicide rate in Mexico.
In miscellania, Tim De Chant reimagined local newspaper coverage while Martyn Daniels revealed that Ebooks hovers over our shoulders as we read. Alyssa Rosenberg praised FX for shows’ honesty about the modern male and Erika Christakis reviewed proper sneezing etiquette. We enjoyed The Onion’s red carpet realism, confirmed the toxicity of comment sections, and discovered that the metric system may rest on shaky ground. We peeked into a garden in Cardiff by the Sea, California, surveyed the south of France from Mirepoix in announcing this week’s VFYW winner, pulled quite a stunt during the MHB, and welcomed nightfall with a poem by Catherine Barnett.
Monday on the Dish, Andrew denounced the undue viciousness of Aaron Swartz’s prosecutor at DOJ, and wondered whether academic literature could be made a public good. He applauded Matt Stone and Trey Parker breaking free of Hollywood studios and called out Jodie Foster on her narcissistic coming-out speech at the Golden Globes. He chided Dreher and Frum on their arguments to shield the poor from pot, continued to ruminate on the legacy of Richard Nixon and sang the praises of DC bear culture. Elsewhere he urged popular opposition to the GOP’s ongoing economic terrorism, which will likely earn them the scorn of the public.
In political coverage, we questioned whether or not guns are a safeguard against Big Brother and circled back to Drum’s original evidence connecting lead and crime. We juxtaposed two quotes in which a former member of the Knesset sighedat Israel’s swing to the right while an American senator called Israel our hands-down greatest ally. Seth Masket joked about Obama’s vulnerability on intergalactic defense, readers sounded off on Anne Lowrey’s unkind portrait of the nation’s capital, and we revisited the data about movies and violence in light of Tarantino’s recent outburst on the subject.
In assorted coverage, we compared the hazards of driving drunk to driving stoned, got a taste of the power of tea in Pakistan, and revealed the one word that will burn Brits’ grits. We remained diligent about flu vaccination, and kept up with the debate over the benefits of bare feet while running. Jane Shilling argued that power of the Internet would make Socrates glow, while Geoffrey Nunberg saw Amazon users’ book annotations as a window into their collective consciousness.
Meanwhile, we rounded up some more insightful reader reax to impending Dish independence, followed a famed photographer duo as they scouted locations via Twitter, all as the great showdown between mutant ducks and tiny horses raged on. An old MHB received an update from a talented music class, while we gazed over the red rooftops of Malacca, Malaysia in the VFYW and watched the doors of a health clinic close on the Face of the Day.
Last weekend on the Dish, Andrew castigated Piers Morgan’s “dumb, disgusting desperation” and defended Washington, DC, from its condescending critics. We also provided our customary coverage of religion, books, and culture, high, low, and in-between.
In matters of faith, doubt, and philosophy, David Bryant elaborated on faith in an unknowable God, Mark Galli meditated on grace and parenting, and Casey Cep remembered the idiosyncratic Christianity of Reynolds Price. John Jeremiah Sullivan considered his secular appreciation of gospel music, Lorin Stein praised the understanding God of Psalm 139, and Justin Erik Haldór Smith ruminated on the unlikely places he finds God. Jim Shepard thought about Flannery O’Connor and epiphanies, Richard Feynman riffed on the beauty of a flower, and Daniel Baird wondered just what justice requires.
In literary and arts coverage, David Mikics uncovered how Emerson and Freud compete for Harold Bloom’s soul, Greg Olear argued that Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby was gay, and Anthony Paletta detailed Oscar Wilde’s trip to America. Rebecca Lemon showed how Shakespeare deployed alcohol in his plays, James Hall traced the difficulties the artist Raphael poses for biographers, Emily Elert highlighted the experiences for which English has no word, and Marcy Campbell plumbed her book club for insight into today’s literary market. Megan Garber found a novel in your outbox, Michael Thomsen was disappointed by drug writing’s inability to capture the psychadelic experience, readers continued our thread on fonts, and Stephen Marche believed the art bubble might be ready to pop. Read Saturday’s poem here and Sunday’s here.
In assorted news and views, a Dish reader honored the activist and polymath Aaron Swartz, Joshua Coen appreciated the public beauty of Central Park, and Dave Bry earned an Yglesias nomination for his thoughts on Chief Keef’s latest album. The White House dashed the hopes of Star Wars fans, Daven Hiskey let down drinkers who think booze can keep them warm, and Devendra Banhart narrated the story of a great and crazy soul singer. Julian Baggini theorized why Nespresso won a taste-test, Gregory Ferenstein offered a cautionary tale about Wikipedia, Jon Brodkin reported on satellite companies providing broadband Internet access, and Derek Workman mused on the vagaries of foosball in a flat world.
We asked the Leveretts anything here and here. MHBs here and here, FOTDs here and here, VFYWs here and here, and the latest windown contest here.
– B.J. & M.S.
Character by character, Helen Rittelmeyer compares the soon-to-be-relaunched Arrested Development to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov:
Michael is Ivan. He is the smartest and most self-aware Bluth, a decidedly mixed blessing considering that it makes him the only one able to grasp just how awful everyone is. Most people think of Michael as the nice brother, but that’s only half right, since on an intellectual level he believes the ethical rules he lives by are idiotic. You shouldn’t put so much work into keeping together a family that isn’t worth it, his brain keeps telling him, just as Ivan keeps telling himself that he shouldn’t love a God who doesn’t deserve it.
But both of them do the right thing in the end. As Ivan’s devil predicted, “You’re going to perform an act of great virtue, and you don’t even believe in virtue—that’s what keeps eating away at you.” This internal contradiction drives Michael to exasperation; if he were Russian, it would have driven him mad.
The Dish 