Author: Andrew Sullivan

China was the first country to formally identify “Internet addiction” as a clinical disorder, according to Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam, whose documentary Web Junkie was recently adapted as an NYT short:

The two filmmakers discuss the global pathologies of the Internet:

[Whitney] Mallett: With this film and Love Child, about a couple who neglect their child for a computer game, there are a couple of cautionary tales about the dangers of the Internet premiering at Sundance. But your film really ends up being less about the Internet and more about rebuilding these families’ relationships. Do you think the internet is the problem, or merely a symptom of deeper problems?

Medalia: First of all, these kids are escaping something, that’s for sure. … In our premiere there was a woman who after the screening raised her hand for the Q&A and told us she has a 20-year-old who is addicted to Internet games and has been going in and out of rehab, and every time he will go through a program, when he comes back home, again the problem arises because the Internet is such an integral a part of your life – unlike heroin, where you can and should live without it. Here it’s like, how do you moderate it? And I think the fact the woman shared her story shows it’s such a global issue.

Shlam: The reason why we did it is not to show the story of China. It can be. But we add the point of view that it’s universal. It happens in China, but China is a mirror for other places.

As Medalia notes, the American Psychiatric Association listed Internet Gaming Disorder as “a condition warranting more clinical research” in its latest edition of the DSM; meanwhile, America’s first inpatient treatment center for Internet addiction opened late last year.

Readers counter my take on the California Bar rejecting Stephen Glass:

I’m a lawyer, and I take my obligations – imposed by a rigorous code of ethics put in place by the state – very seriously. That code of ethics is designed to protect clients, who trust in their lawyer, and David Plotz’s “buyer beware” view is antithetical to that. (I also am required to make payments into a fund used to reimburse clients who are cheated by their attorneys, and I don’t think we need to add a known sociopathic liar into that pool.) While I agree that Mr. Glass deserves a second chance at a career, I don’t think that a career in a highly regulated profession that is governed by a strict code of ethics is the right place for a known liar who has already blown through one professional code. The right second chance for a money launderer isn’t working at a bank; the right second chance for a rapist isn’t as a guard in a women’s prison; and the right second chance for liar isn’t in a position of trust.

Another lawyer agrees:

It irks me that I’ve seen commentators (with a questionable grasp of legal concepts) argue that “lawyers = dishonesty, Glass = dishonesty, therefore Glass = lawyer”. Given the public’s palpable distrust of lawyers (and by extension the law and the courts), why should we worsen that view by allowing Glass to practice law?

Another:

California lawyer here, and one who is roughly a contemporary of Glass.  I agree that the tone of the California Supreme Court decision is somewhat snide, but I do not disagree with the outcome. Even after his falsehoods as a journalist were discovered, Glass was dishonest on his application to the New York State Bar.

Later, he was not entirely honest on his application in California.  Glass had the opportunity – twice – to complete bar applications with honesty and integrity.  A lack of candor on an application for determination of moral fitness suggests the candidate has not rehabilitated himself, and should be disqualifying. End of story.

A paralegal studying for the LSAT:

Admission to a bar isn’t just about paying an obscene amount of money to a law school then passing a test. It requires a rigorous background check that ensures that each an every person admitted to that bar is a person of good moral character. If you want journalists to hold disgraced lawyers to that standard, then maybe journalists should create a licensing administration the way lawyers have. But I don’t think bars should cheapen theirs.

Others focus on the journalism side:

The First Amendment lets journalists lie (subject to libel laws) anytime they want.  If their audience is happy with it, they can even make a lucrative career of it. Mr. Glass was apparently unlucky enough to have an audience who wasn’t happy with it.

Another:

As a litigator who spent 15 years in journalism (and still freelances occasionally for the NYT), I’d like to share my perspective regarding Glass. In concluding that journalists would be more forgiving of an ethically-challenged lawyer entering the field than lawyers apparently are of an ethically-challenged journalists, I think you’re missing a very important distinction here: Attorneys are trusted with great power when it comes to monies and liberties.

I can, with a subpoena and a signature, compel you to appear in front of me and answer questions – even if you are not a party to a lawsuit. I can likewise demand you hand over most of your documents, assuming I can make a case such a request is vaguely relevant. Moreover, in many cases the attorneys on the other side provide me with their client’s secrets and, as a rule, trust me to keep those secrets.

Almost all of my time billed is on the honor system – no one knows how much I am really working except myself. I am frequently entrusted with large sums of money that I am expected to turn over to my client. In other cases, my collegues will oversee even larger sums held in trust until the beneficiaries reach a certain age.

There are many more similar points/situations I could point out to you where trust and honesty are everything in our profession. So, yes, attorneys are probably harder on prospective attorneys than journalists might be on prospective journalists.

One more:

You conclude your post on Stephen Glass with the following: “Would journalists say that of an ethically challenged lawyer seeking to write about the news? I doubt it.”

We have an interesting parallel that proves your point. Henry Blodget, whose Business Insider is backed by Jeff Bezos, is a proven fraud and crook on a scale much larger than anything Glass did.  Yet after agreeing to a lifetime ban from the securities industry (and a $2 million fine) for illegal and unethical acts that did far, far more direct and calculable damage than Glass’s misdeeds, Blodget is now considered a top entrepreneur and voice in American journalism. His rehabilitation, via Slate and elsewhere, is a real disgrace to American journalism.  In a just universe, he would be forbidden to publish or benefit financially from anything having to do with business.

A reader writes:

I think you’re almost giving too much credit to the financial masters of the universe and what they might feel “deep down” about their own failures in the past. I know a lot of these people personally, and to a man – and they’re almost all men – they truly believe that a) the financial crisis was brought about by a few bad apples and second-rate firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and that they personally had nothing to do with the crisis; b) that the big banks were forced to take the bailouts even if they didn’t need them because firms with more exposure were stupid and reckless and had to be covered for by forcing everyone to take a bailout – this has been fairly well documented, actually, as what Paulson did during the crisis – and c) the work they do is absolutely integral to a well-functioning capitalistic society, and the more money they have to work with and the less regulation there is, the better off everyone is.

Really, the best analogy is to Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men, Col. Jessup, when he gave the speech about needing him on that wall because even if we don’t like to think about how he protects us, his protection (and the “manner in which he provides it”) is vital, even if it might offend us. That’s how these guys see themselves, really, when it comes to the flow of money and capital throughout the system, full stop. No need to psychoanalyze further.

Another zooms in on Silicon Valley:

As someone who has been living for years in the Bay Area, I think many people’s analysis of Tom Perkins’ meltdown (including yours) misses a very critical element:

Silicon Valley’s relative insulation from the rest of the economy. The tech industry and its VCs and angel investors didn’t suffer much damage from the Great Recession, and in fact probably kept California’s incredibly high unemployment rate from going into space. Perkins, along with other investors in the Valley such as Y Combinator, did not have to be bailed out like Dimon and his Wall Street ilk were. These investors, along with a significant chunk of the local tech industry, have been living in a social bubble, which began to break last year in part due to significant protests in San Francisco and (to a lesser extent) Oakland.

Tom Perkins isn’t actually writing from the standpoint of the one-percent Wall Streeter who has been humbled. His angle is worse: He’s writing from the standpoint of an overreaching tech billionaire who has not been humbled, and is bemoaning the fact that the tech industry’s “disruption” of the Bay Area has not been welcomed and appreciated by native residents like he thinks it should, and fears it might lead them to being “humbled” as well. He is acting, in essence, more like Iraq invasion-era Cheney and Rumsfeld (“They would welcome us as liberators!”) than post-9/11 Cheney and Rumsfeld in general. In fact, if I dare say it, I don’t even think he is particularly talking about Obama, but rather supposed “lefties” in the Bay Area who are legitimately angry at being evicted from their homes and apartments and being unable to afford rent anywhere (let alone SF). In other words, the working class.

More stories fill the thread:

In the 1980s, I taught conversational English in Japan. One of my favorite classes had just three students – three middle-aged women who weren’t afraid to say what they felt. Once, one of the ladies missed two weeks. When she returned, she apologized for missing class – her father had died. I hurriedly said how sad I was to hear it, but before I could go on, she stopped me. She told me that I shouldn’t be sad – his death was beautiful. That’s certainly an adjective I had never heard applied to death before.

She explained that her father had caught a cold while he was riding his bike. He was in his late 70s. After a few hours in bed, as the cold turned into pneumonia, he told everyone that he was dying. His children and their families came from where they lived and congregated at his bedside. He was alert and not in pain. He spent a day saying goodbye to everyone. Once he had a chance to talk to his children and grandchildren, he went into a coma. He died an hour later.

By the time the student finished the story, we were all crying and smiling.

Another joins this reader in some gallows humor:

The thread has reminded me of the old joke: I want to die like me grandfather did – peacefully in his sleep – and NOT like the screaming, terrified passengers in that bus he was driving.

In truth, I actually would like to die as my grandmother did. At age 90 she was in marvelous health, needed no medications, and was quite active in her community and church.  On the eve of one of her many trips to Norway to visit relatives, she visited her doctor for a checkup. After the nurse had checked her vitals my grandmother remained seated on the exam table.  The nurse exited saying the doctor would be in to see her momentarily. My grandmother joked that if it took too long she might just take a nap.

When the nurse and the doctor came back in my grandmother was down on the table, a smile on her face.  She had passed, simply, and one assumes painlessly. Would that we all slipped this mortal coil with such ease.

Another reader:

My mom was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer in November 2009.

She refused any radiation or chemotherapy (she was 84), but in the five months of her final illness, she claimed never to have a minute of pain. (Personally, I think this was due to a benign tumor she had for years above her ear – I think it must have blocked pain receptors in some way.)

At any rate, Easter was April 4 in 2010. Our family celebrated on Saturday so various college students could get back to school on Sunday, and my sisters and all our kids (and their multiple significant others) were there. We had a splendid time, although by then Mom was very frail and occasionally on oxygen. She wasn’t strong enough to sit at the dinner table, but she did spend that time in a chair in the living room, close enough to hear and enjoy the fun. Later that evening we helped her up the stairs to her bedroom. This was the first time she needed help – she was pretty indomitable. We helped her into bed and told her we loved her, and she died in her sleep sometime during the night.

When we went up to see her in the morning, she looked so peaceful. If she had scripted her last 24 hours, I don’t think it would have been any different.

Another:

We lost my brother last year. He was 25, perfectly healthy, almost done with the Navy’s cryptology network technician training, when he started having trouble breathing. After a month or two of struggling with what the base doctor thought might be asthma, he almost blacked out walking to his truck, and checked himself into a hospital. He had rhabdomyosarcoma, a heart tumor. He passed away less than eight months after his original diagnosis.

What was good about that? Nothing – but so many things. He was tired of fighting about three months in, and I worried for him then; so many cancers take years and years to reach a conclusion. The speed of it all was hard – but also merciful, in a way.

His greatest hope was that he wouldn’t lose mental and physical faculties, and for the most part, he didn’t. The stroke and subsequent brain tumor impeded his language faculties, but he could still speak and interact with us, and take care of himself – albeit slowly – almost to the very end.

His treatments were conducted about two hours away from our hometown, which allowed him a strong support system of family and friends. Our mom was able to stay with him at the cancer care center, so from the diagnosis to the end, he was never on his own. In the end, he died in his childhood room, with my mom singing to him and his siblings around him holding his hands and sufficient meds to keep the pain and anxiety at bay, and enough counseling from hospice and the funeral home staff that we knew kind of what to expect.

We all knew this was a traumatic thing, but it didn’t feel traumatic – more like a clock winding down and then just not ticking anymore. There wasn’t a visible wrenching from life to death, just smaller and smaller steps until you pass some invisible line and then … then he looked just like before, only motionless. Whether as the person leaving or as the person being left – I really don’t know what I would change about that. I can’t come up with a much better way to go.

Alastair Philip Wiper visited Denmark’s Danish Crown Slaughterhouse:

Danish Crown is the world’s largest exporter of pork, supplying pork to customers all over the world – 90% of the pork slaughtered in Denmark is exported, with the UK being the biggest market. Completed in 2004, the slaughterhouse at Horsens kills approximately 100,000 pigs per week, making it one of the largest in the world. 1,420 people are employed there, and the slaughterhouse receives around 150 visitors per day. The slaughterhouse has been designed with openness in mind – a viewing gallery follows every step of the production, from the pigs arriving, to the slaughter itself, to the butchering and packaging.

Other photos from the series here. Shepard at Metafilter is put off by the images:

From the very first word on through to the author enjoying delicious sausages in the plant cafeteria, this is 10,000% a puff piece. It has nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with PR.

Another Metafilter commenter pushes back:

So here’s a slaughterhouse that TRIES to do the right thing by being clean and open about what they do, and it’s still no good to some people? I understand that some people feel very strongly about (not) eating meat, but it’s a fact that to most people, eating meat is just as much a staple as eating veggies. That’s not going to go away. To me, a slaughterhouse like this, that tries to be open and ethical about the process, is to be commended, not vilified — in fact, I wish we had abattoirs like that here in the US.

More of the Wiper’s work, which focuses on industrial and architectural spaces, can be viewed at his website and on his Facebook page.