Month: August 2014

“One Must Respect These Old Names” Ctd

by Phoebe Maltz Bovy

In what has to be a French-major’s anxiety dream come to life, a reader implies that I omitted a definite article in this story:

I’m writing from Normandy, France. I did a quick search to look for some French articles related to that “Mort aux juifs” town, and it looks like the reporting was quite misleading. First of all, the village name is not “Mort aux Juifs” (Death to the Jews) but “La mort aux Juifs” (The death of the Jews). I found another explanation for the origin of the name, which would come from a Jewish uprising in the 16th century against the local lord, during which they were slaughtered.

The town name, as I indicated in my original post, definitely has that “La” – the “Mort aux juifs” in quotes refers to the graffiti I saw on the RER B. It could be that other accounts this reader found left it out. As for what changes when one puts “the” in front of “death to the Jews,” I’d say not much. If one wished to say “The death of the Jews,” one would need “La mort des juifs.” That said, I’m not an expert on medieval French place names, and there could some idiomatic loophole according to which, in this context, the town name translates to “The death of the Jews.” An “à” can be possessive. It’s not impossible. It is striking that “death to the Jews” would have a “the” at the front of it, and I’m grammatically flummoxed. Readers who can clear this up, or who are interested in providing me with fodder for more French-major anxiety dreams, please advise: dish@andrewsullivan.com.

The reader continues:

The “town” itself is in fact a “hameau”, the smallest possible kind of village in France. In our case, “La mort aux Juifs” is composed of only one farm and two houses. The name appears in the “cadastre” (the old official plans you can consult at the townhouse) and so it appears on Google maps too,  but the postal address is completely different and the habitants refer to the place as “La Mare-aux-Geais” (the pond of the jay), probably a phonetic evolution of the original name – that’s understandable, given how distasteful the original name was!

I think the deputy mayor reaction (“one must respect these old names”) has nothing to do with actual antisemitism in France.

She simply says that the name refers to a historical event, not that she condones it. Instead of trying to change that name, I think the Simon Wiesenthal Center should just do the reverse thing: do some historical research on the antisemitic acts that lead to that massacre and then help fund some sort of street sign at that exact location, with some explanations (“In 1565, hundred of Jews were the victims of… etc). That would help educate people and the deaths of these people would be remembered instead of lost in oblivion.

I suppose it’s better that this name belongs to a very, very small town, and not to, like, Paris, but if this reader’s point is that the name is actually a solemn commemoration of anti-Semitism (akin, perhaps, to the plaques in front of French schools listing children killed in the Holocaust), then why should we dismiss it on account of its size?

I agree with this reader that a sign would do wonders (again, France already does this sort of thing), but unless the definite article in this context means more than I think it does (which is, again, possible), it would seem… not so much that the deputy mayor “condones” the massacring of Jews, but that she’s treating French heritage as more important than Jewish sensitivities. If the deputy mayor wished to convey that the place name commemorated a sad event in Jewish history, she might have spelled that out.

Other readers, meanwhile, point out that murderous place-names aren’t limited to France, or to Jews:

Earlier this year, the Spanish hamlet of Castrillo Matajudíos (Castrillo Kill the Jews) voted to change the name to Castrillo Mota de Judíos (Castrillo Hill of the Jews).

Another adds:

This one cuts in many different directions. Ever been to Matamoros (Spain or Mexico)? “Killer of Moors,” or “Kill the Moors.”

Jumping The Shark Week

by Dish Staff

Brad Plumer shakes his head over “that magical time of year when shark scientists tear their hair out over all the misleading claims about sharks that get splashed on TV”:

Case in point: On Sunday, the Discovery Channel aired a two-hour segment called “Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine” about a 35-foot-long great white shark the size of a sub that supposedly attacked people off the coast of South Africa. And, surprise! None of this was real. As zoologist Michelle Wciesel points out at Southern Fried Science, the “submarine shark” in South Africa was an urban legend started by journalists in the 1970s who were trying to fool a gullible public. But the Discovery Channel didn’t debunk the myth — instead, they offered up computer-generated images and interviewed fake experts with fake names (like “Conrad Manus”) about the fake submarine shark.

As Arielle Duhaime-Ross observes, actual scientists are not amused:

Of course, this isn’t the first time Shark Week has experienced backlash for its negative portrayal of sharks and its tendency to rely on fiction rather than fact, as last year’s Megalodon documentary was widely trashed for suggesting that extinct sharks still roam Earth’s waters. But this year feels different, perhaps because a number of shark scientists have begun to explain why they refuse to work with Discovery – and how Shark Week burned them in the past. …

Samantha Sherman, a marine biologist at James Cook University, says that Shark Week was “the best week of the year” growing up, but it has taken a distinct turn toward pseudoscience. As a result, she says, her colleagues have been less than forthcoming when producers have called them and asked for help. “I have a couple friends that have been approached by Discovery and have turned it down because of where it’s going and the fear-mongering,” she says. “They don’t want to be part of the hate, or have their message misinterpreted so they have just said ‘no.'”

Joanna Rothkopf sighs:

In an interview with the Atlantic’s Ashley Fetters, Shark Week’s former executive producer Brooke Runnette outlined Shark Week’s programming strategy:

To a large extent, she says, the ominous tones and the imminent danger are still what draws viewers to Shark Week. In the past 25 years, Runnette and her team managed to isolate “what works” into a neat, distilled list of elements: “The shark is the star. Just keep showing that. Don’t give too much reason to worry. Make sure we stay outside, because it’s summertime, and everybody wants to see the colors and the light outside. You don’t want to be inside talking to people; if anything, you want to be outside talking to people. Just be in the water, with the shark; or be out on the boat, with the shark.”

It’s a classic story of modern media — when clicks and views mean success, accuracy and quality become unnecessary bonuses. We just need to stop being surprised when it happens.

Peer-Reviewed Produce?

by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

K. Annabelle Smith notices that many small farmers aren’t bothering to get certified “organic” because the paperwork is too much of a hassle:

Data from this year’s census shows there are 18,513 certified organic farms and businesses Credit: Atomicity/Flickrin the United States, a 245 percent increase since 2002. But New Jersey is among 17 states that have seen a decline in organic certifications since 2008. [Jennifer] LaMonica’s CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is one of 40 organic farms the Garden State “lost” in recent years. Though there are a number of reasons for the decline—farm consolidation and limited water resources among them—one major explanation is that formerly certified organic farms are simply dropping their USDA stamp of approval.

(…) It’s not necessarily prohibitive startup costs that are turning farms off of the organic certification process. Depending on the size of a farm, it only costs between $200 and $1,500 to have a USDA inspector survey land for certification. But the required recordkeeping can be unmanageable for a farm of Sea Salt’s size. Farmers with a certification are only inspected by the USDA once a year, but they are required to keep daily records of everything, from how often they irrigate to total hours spent weeding. And the more diverse the crop, the more complicated the paperwork.

The rules also prohibit organic farmers from sharing any equipment with non-organic counterparts. And should a farmer use the label improperly? They can face up to $11,000 in fines per violation. Organic farmers have been long been complaining that the USDA certification process, with its intensive record-keeping requirements and potential risk, puts small farms and food companies at a disadvantage to the organic brands run by food conglomerates.

But how can consumers rest assured their “organic” food really is organic without the aid of USDA certification? Interestingly, a non-governmental certifying board may already be answering that question. It’s called the Certified Naturally Grown program, Smith explains:

It’s based on the USDA’s organic standards, but offers a less bureaucratic method of inspection: peer-to-peer. Each farmer in the program is required to do at least one inspection a year for another CNG farmer. The program, which has been around since October 2002, continues to expand. Farms in 47 states are registered as CNG, and the program received more than 300 new applications last year.

Steven Zwier and Robyn Weber run Asbury Village Farm, a CNG operation in New Jersey. Like LaMonica, they grow a small, diverse crop, but Zwier and his wife have no other hired labor. The USDA organic program was not a good fit for their farm, Zwier explains, because, with a two-person workforce, he needs to put all of his energy into the fields. Like LaMonica, he relies on the farm’s strong community reputation to keep a steady customer base, but wanted the extra level of credibility CNG offers.

“CNG strips down the red-tape bureaucracy of us paying the government our certification fees to keep statistics for them,” he says.

The CNG approach is called a participatory guarantee system (PGS). “While the PGS concept is still new to many in the United States, PGS programs have been in place for decades” elsewhere, the organization says.

Farmers in the Philippines this week launched a such a system, finding their country’s main organic-certification process “too slow” and labyrinthian. “In a second-party certification system like the PGS, we are well-represented in the committee and our opinions and knowledge are recognized,” Jose Ben Travilla, an organic farmer and PGS inspector, told MindaNews.

An American War Zone, Ctd

by Dish Staff

At the first of two press conferences today, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson IDed the officer who killed Michael Brown and added that the teenager was suspected of robbing a convenience store on the day of his death. At the second, Jackson admitted the robbery had nothing to do with the shooting:

Jackson on Friday said the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown was not aware that the unarmed 18-year-old was accused of robbing a convenience store just minutes before the shooting. Jackson said that “the initial contact with Brown was not related to the robbery.” Jackson also clarified that Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Brown, wasn’t even responding to a call about the robbery as initially reported. Wilson instead stopped Brown because he was jaywalking.

Brian Beutler confesses, “I find the Ferguson police department’s behavior over the past week even more baffling than I did before”:

For the sake of argument let’s assume (a huge assumption) that the Ferguson police are not trying to build a public case for Wilson’s innocence by assassinating a dead man’s character. Why did it take five days for them to release this information, none of which has anything to do with the circumstances of Brown’s death? … Per Matt Yglesias, if Brown was a suspect in a robbery, why wasn’t his accomplice Dorian Johnson arrested and charged rather than allowed to escape and appear in multiple television news interviews? Was Johnson lying when he claimed that Wilson approached him and Brown not to question or arrest them for robbery but to tell them to “get the fuck onto the sidewalk”?

Aura Bogado argues that the Ferguson police are doing transparency all wrong:

In the images and video released to the media this morning, someone who is purported to be Brown is seen pushing another person assumed to be a store clerk. We’re told that the person identified as Brown stole a box of little cigars. The problem here is that the supposed images of Brown, along with the unverified allegation that he carried out a “strong-arm robbery,” primes the media – and its readers –   to focus on the wrong suspect. Rather than releasing images of Darren Wilson – who’s suspected of something far more serious than theft – this emphasis places blame on the victim. Even if it’s confirmed that Brown took a box of cigars and pushed a store clerk in one place, he was killed in another – and witnesses claim the 18-year-old was essentially executed in cold blood.

Ed Morrissey also raises an eyebrow:

If Brown and Johnson were fleeing from a felony theft, the shooting may have been justified under Missouri law – which may explain why the police handed out the report on the strong-arm robbery. But they still have not released the report on the shooting itself, and it doesn’t explain why it took six days to get around to discussing the robbery.

Meanwhile, German Lopez notes that Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, who’s been credited with calming the situation in Ferguson, was “not notified” that the local police was going to release the news:

The lack of communication between the two police departments raises questions about the coordination of security in Ferguson. Given the volatility in the St. Louis suburb, law enforcement, protesters, and reporters on the ground are concerned the allegations that Brown robbed a convenience store could escalate the situation. Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, who’s leading security operations in Ferguson, acknowledged the mood changed in the area after Friday’s news release. Johnson suggested he would have “a serious conversation” with local police about not giving him the information prior to the release.

Jelani Cobb gets to the heart of the matter in describing the latest developments as “an object lesson about the importance of accountability and transparency”:

The release of the images that possibly show Brown assaulting a man makes these issues more important, not less. The reasons that the officer stopped Brown, the possibility that the 18-year-old struggled or just panicked, might become less inexplicable. That Brown appeared to have been involved in a robbery, even that he was a large man who might, conceivably, have resisted arrest, do not abjure the possibility of excessive force in the confrontation at Canfield Green; there is no death penalty for stealing cigars. Brown was shot thirty-five feet from Wilson, and the question of whether Brown’s back was to Wilson when the officer fired the gun—that is, if he was running away, and therefore not a threat—is just as pressing, as is the question of whether his hands were in the air, as witnesses claim, when the final volley of shots came. One of the pieces of information the police has delayed releasing is just how many bullets hit him. We also need to know why this information has been so hard to come by. The answers have not come quickly or completely—and not very willingly. What people who gathered in Ferguson have sought, even more resolutely than the police officer’s name, is, simply, respect.

Follow all our coverage on Michael Brown and Ferguson here.

(Photo: Demonstrators wrote messages while protesting on August 15, 2014, the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. By Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images)

Faces Of The Day

Indians Celebrate Independance Day

Youth paint their faces with social message and the colours of the Indian tricolour painted on the eve of Independence Day on August 14, 2014 in Mumbai, India. India celebrates its anniversary of independence from Britain on August 15 with great pomp and the Indian tricolour is hoisted atop prominent buildings and homes. By Vijayanand Gupta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images.

Clinton’s Slide In The Polls

by Dish Staff

Aaron Blake examines it:

A new poll from McClatchy and Marist College documents that decline pretty well. In hypothetical matchups with potential 2016 Republican candidates, Clinton has seen her lead decline from 20-plus points in February to the mid-single digits today. She leads Chris Christie by six points after leading him by 21 points six months ago. She leads Jeb Bush 48-41 after leading him by 20 in February. She leads Rand Paul 48-42 after leading him by the same margin early this year. …

Clinton’s continued lead, at this point, is pretty clearly a function of her superior name ID. While Clinton wins the votes of 97 percent of “strong Democrats” in all three matchups, Christie and Paul take only 91 percent of “strong Republicans.” While Clinton takes 79 percent of “soft Democrats,” Paul only takes 65 percent of “soft Republicans.” That’s largely because these Republicans aren’t as well-known to their base.

Ed Morrissey raises an eyebrow:

Even if the sample gets balanced out with more Democrats and fewer independents, though, it’s clear that Hillary has faded considerably over the summer. Whatever spin Team Clinton wants to put on her individual statements and retreats, the cumulative effect has been to both raise her profile and reduce her support. It’s a bad way to start a presidential campaign.

Playing The Prostitution Shame Game, Ctd

by Dish Staff

A reader has a “slightly different take on the topic that hasn’t yet been raised”:

I’m a gay man (married to a woman in a celibate relationship; she’s aware of my sexuality). I have seen male prostitutes for most of my adult life (I’m in my 50s) – sometimes once a year, sometimes a few times a year. In three instances, I became personal friends with the men I was seeing and maintained that friendship after any sex ended. I never got the sense from any of them that they felt exploited, and I never viewed them critically or as anything less than me. In fact, I tended to feel that they had more power in the relationship than I did … I was the one who was vulnerable – being “outed” for what I was doing – and they could say yes or no to anything.

What I don’t know is the degree to which a prostitute/John relationship is different between two men (or two women) and a man and a woman. My guess is that there is a fundamental difference between how men and women – mostly – view sex. But that in itself seems a sexist distinction to make.

Another wonders:

What happens if you make prostitution legal, and the women happens to get pregnant? There has been a lot of banter about a women having a right to do what she wants with her body.  If she legally sells it to a man for a price, and a result, gets pregnant, who then has responsibility for the child?  Has the man bought the child or the right to denounce the child and bear no responsibility?  Even more concerning, has he bought the right to demand an abortion?  I am a man and believe a women has a right to do as she pleases with her body, so make prostitution legal, but with equality and legality comes additional issues that should be discussed.  The pill and condoms don’t always work.

Hathos Alert

by Dish Staff

Copyranter gets creative:

WalmartAdThe amount of time I’ve spent on stock photo websites (mostly shitty Getty, of course) over the last 15+ years would be measured in months, not hours. Any ad creative who’s had to work with either cheap-ass clients who wouldn’t pay for a shoot even if you took their fucking kids hostage or dipshit clients who just didn’t see the point knows the mental pain of paging and scrolling for half a day until you find that one image that is slightly less shit-awful than the previous 2,000. And why do we do this? The ad’s not going to help the client’s business, the ad’s not going in our portfolios, shit, it won’t even be worth wiping our asses with—but we search and search and fucking SEARCH until diarrhea seeps out of our eyeballs. It is, truly, one of the most pathetic activities a human being can do.

LCadWell, this is my pathetic revenge. I’ve been collecting these unusable stock photos for about a year and, this past weekend, turned them into bad ads for major brands. Because, fuck you clients, and fuck you stock photo houses and your shitty cheap photos. I did the ads quickly, in Word, so they would look extra special shitty.

Many more examples here.

Bibi Bags Bombs Behind Barack’s Back

by Dish Staff

Say that ten times fast. In a sign of just how badly American-Israeli relations have deteriorated during the Gaza war, Adam Entous’ big scoop in the WSJ yesterday reveals that Israel acquired US munitions directly from the Pentagon, bypassing the White House, and may have subsequently used these munitions to bomb an UNRWA school. Katie Zavadski summarizes:

As The Wall Street Journal reports, U.S. officials had been growing increasingly concerned about the civilian toll of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, particularly in light of the UNRWA school shelling. Imagine their surprise, then, when they found out that Israel had requested mortar shells and other weapons through military-to-military channels ahead of the incident. A diplomat said officials were “blindsided,” though a defense official said that the request had been approved through all the required channels.

Officials subsequently found out that the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency was on the verge of releasing an initial batch of Hellfire missiles to Israel through those same channels. They immediately suspended that shipment. A senior White House official said that more than “check-the-box approval” is required for such releases, this being a time of war and such. Going forward, the Journal reports, such weapons requests will have to get individual approval from the White House and State Department.

But Ed Morrissey doesn’t buy the White House’s claim that it was hoodwinked:

If the standard review process was followed, then why was the White House “caught off guard”?

Isn’t it incumbent on the Obama administration to know how the sale and transfer process works? Israel had conducted a ground war — much to the chagrin of Obama and his “policymakers” — for a few weeks. Why wouldn’t anyone have expected Israel to replenish its supplies? Surely there are a few people who may have at least watched Patton if not studied Clausewitz in this administration. Resupply is a basic function for any army at war.

He advances a theory for why the story is coming out now:

Israel (and probably Egypt too) has marginalized John Kerry after the Secretary of State attempted to legitimize Hamas by attempting to negotiate through Qatar and Turkey. That leaves Barack Obama out in the cold, but still making demands on Israel to be flexible in the final truce settlement. Netanyahu wants Obama to make concessions in exchange for that flexibility. That has angered Obama, who finds himself all but impotent in the matter — which is why we have this big leak about the deteriorating relations between Washington and Jerusalem.

In Beauchamp’s takeaway, this incident illustrates just how one-sided our government’s relationship with Israel has become:

Entous’ reporting illustrates why the US is so bad at pressuring Israel. The United States and Israel are bound so tightly together in so many ways that Israel has all sorts of avenues to get around the limited pressure that administrations might want to bring to bear. US officials admitted to Entous that their influence over Israel has been “weakened” during the Gaza war. That’s because Netanyahu “has used his sway in Washington, from the Pentagon and Congress to lobby groups, to defuse US diplomatic pressure on his government over the past month.”

The American public and Congress both overwhelmingly support Israel and sympathize with it over its enemies during conflicts. That helps maintain a strong US-Israel relationship, even when the leaders of both countries can’t stand each other. It also seriously ties America’s hands when the two countries disagree.

Drum sees dim prospects for the US standing up to Netanyahu anytime soon:

It’s not as if Obama has actually done much of substance to put pressure on Israel despite endless provocations from Netanyahu, but it’s a very good bet that the next president will do even less. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is the heavy favorite, and she’s made it crystal clear that her support for Netanyahu is complete and total. On the Republican side, it doesn’t really matter who the nominee is. As long as it’s not Rand Paul, Netanyahu can expect unquestioning fealty.

And in the meantime, he can count on the US Congress not really caring that he publicly treats the US president like an errant child. I keep wondering if one day he’ll go too far even for Congress, but I’ve mostly given up. As near as I can tell, there’s almost literally nothing he could do that would cause so much as a grumble.