Ethics agency says HUD chief Castro violated Hatch Act; Politico, 7/18/16

Josh Gerstein, Politico; Ethics agency says HUD chief Castro violated Hatch Act:

"Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro violated a federal law against politicking on the job earlier this year when he fielded a journalist's questions about the presidential race and his own chances of being chosen as Hillary Clinton's running mate, a federal ethics watchdog agency has found.

The Office of Special Counsel determined that Castro ran afoul of the Hatch Act during his April 4, 2016, interview with Yahoo News anchor Katie Couric, even though he stressed that he was answering her political questions in his personal capacity."

As Pick for No. 2, Tim Kaine Sees Gifts Come Under Scrutiny; New York Times, 7/24/16

Eric Lipton and Steve Eder, New York Times; As Pick for No. 2, Tim Kaine Sees Gifts Come Under Scrutiny:

"Under Virginia’s lax ethics rules at the time, the gifts, which had a total value of more than $160,000, were all legal as long as they were disclosed.

But with Mr. Kaine’s selection on Friday as Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate, the gifts he received in the four years he served as Virginia’s chief executive and his time as lieutenant governor before that are certain to be cited by his Republican critics as a sign that Mr. Kaine, who is now a United States senator, is not as squeaky clean as he portrays himself...

After he was elected to the Senate, Mr. Kaine publicly urged the Virginia legislature to tighten state ethics laws, saying he had concluded that the more stringent rules in Congress were appropriate.

“The new year presents a superb opportunity to fix a major Virginia weakness: our lax ethical laws,” he wrote in an op-ed article published on Dec. 31, 2013, in The Washington Post. “Gifts to elected officials can create a subconscious sense of gratitude in even the most upright public servants.”"

The Dark Knight; New York Times, 7/22/16

David Brooks, New York Times; The Dark Knight:

"Finally, a law-and-order campaign calls upon the authoritarian personality traits that Donald Trump undoubtedly possesses. The G.O.P. used to be a party that aspired to a biblical ethic of private charity, graciousness, humility and faithfulness. Mitt Romney’s convention was lifted by stories of his kindness and personal mentorship.

Trump has replaced biblical commitments with a gladiator ethos. Everything is oriented around conquest, success, supremacy and domination. This was the Lock Her Up convention. A law-and-order campaign doesn’t ask voters to like Trump and the Republicans any more than they liked Richard Nixon in 1968...

This is less a party than a personality cult. Law and order is a strange theme for a candidate who radiates conflict and disorder. Some rich children are careless that way; they break things and other people have to clean up the mess."

Donald Trump’s RNC Speech Was a Terrifying Display of Nightmarish Authoritarianism; Reason, 7/22/16

Peter Suderman, Reason; Donald Trump’s RNC Speech Was a Terrifying Display of Nightmarish Authoritarianism:

"It was a relentlessly grim and gloomy picture of America, built on thinly disguised racial distrust and paranoia. It was a portrait that was also essentially false. Violent crime has been steadily falling for more than two decades. Immigrants are less prone to criminality than native-born Americans.

But portraying America in such a dark light let Trump cast himself as the nation's dark hero, a kind of billionaire-businessman fixer, unbound by rules or expectations of decorum—President Batman, the only one with the guts and the will to fight for the people.

Trump did not invoke superpowers, of course, but he might as well have; he had no other ideas or solutions to offer...

Trump's entire speech was packed with threats and power grabs, details be damned. It was a speech about how government should be made bigger and stronger and given more authority over every part of American life, and government, in most cases, simply meant Donald Trump himself. It was an argument for unlimited government under a single man, for rule by Trump's whim. He sounded less like he was running for president and more like he was campaigning to be an American despot."

Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as DNC chair as email scandal rocks Democrats; Guardian, 7/24/16

Dan Roberts, Ben Jacobs, Alan Yuhas, Guardian; Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as DNC chair as email scandal rocks Democrats:

"The most explosive new revelation from the Wikileaks release was an official’s suggestion that Sanders’ religious faith, or lack thereof, could be flagged as a way to dissuade voters from backing him in Bible belt states.

“I think I read he is an atheist,” the DNC chief financial officer, Brad Marshall, wrote in one email. “This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”

Sanders, who is Jewish, spoke little of religion during the primary, but the sight of a supposedly neutral body apparently seeking to weaken one of its own party candidates caused particular anger among progressives.

Schultz, a congresswoman from Florida who is herself Jewish, is not thought to have been directly involved in this email exchange, but she was seen in other messages writing dismissively of the Sanders campaign."

Donald Trump reminds me of Vladimir Putin — and that is terrifying; Washington Post, 7/23/16

Garry Kasparov, Washington Post; Donald Trump reminds me of Vladimir Putin — and that is terrifying:

"It is painful to admit, but Putin was elected in a relatively fair election in 2000. He steadily dismantled Russia’s fragile democracy and succeeded in turning Russians against each other and against the world. It turns out you can go quite far in a democracy by convincing a majority that they are threatened by a minority, and that only you can protect them.

The final and most worrying similarity between Putin and Trump is that so many are unwilling to believe that someone like Trump could ever become the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed to great jubilation, we never would have believed that a former KGB agent would become the president of Russia just nine years later. The moral: Be careful whom you vote for, it could be the last election you ever have."

At 75, Wonder Woman Lassos In A New Generation With An Ageless Fight; NPR, 7/24/16

Petra Mayer, NPR; At 75, Wonder Woman Lassos In A New Generation With An Ageless Fight:

"Arriving on comics pages just as the horrors of World War II were descending, Wonder Woman would rise above male aggression — she almost never kills — and she would leave her home on Paradise Island to fight for America, described in her comics as "the last citadel of democracy and of equal rights for women!"

"She really is the first superhero humanitarian," says Jim Lee, the co-publisher of DC Comics and a former Wonder Woman artist himself.

He says Wonder Woman's lasted so long partly because of good timing — she was just one of the first female superheroes.

But also, he says, "It is an interesting, unique tale of someone who is basically giving up a life of comfort to take on conflict and to be a crusader for justice and peace. And I think those are the things that give characters their longevity.""

Uncle Sam Wants You — Or at Least Your Genetic and Lifestyle Information; New York Times, 7/23/16

Robert Pear, New York Times; Uncle Sam Wants You — Or at Least Your Genetic and Lifestyle Information:

"People can sign up through academic medical centers at Columbia University, Northwestern University in Illinois, the University of Arizona and the University of Pittsburgh, each of which is working with local partners. Columbia, for example, is collaborating with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Harlem Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine.

Participants will be recruited to reflect the geographic, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the nation. To help achieve that goal, officials have enlisted community health centers, where more than 90 percent of patients have annual incomes less than twice the poverty level (less than $23,760 for an individual). About one-third of health center patients are Latinos, and about one-fourth are African-Americans.

Officials said they wanted patients to be partners in the research, not just “human subjects.” To that end, patients will have access to all the information about themselves, including laboratory and genetic test results. Doctors could eventually use the data to shape treatment for an individual patient, rather than using standard treatments that may not work for everyone. Patients will help guide the research, sitting on its steering committee and advisory board."

Canadian Lawyer Uncovers a Doping Scheme, and Russian Anger; New York Times, 7/22/16

Dan Levin, New York Times; Canadian Lawyer Uncovers a Doping Scheme, and Russian Anger:

"Mr. McLaren, 70, seems well equipped for the challenge. A respected lawyer from London, Ontario, he has spent much of the last 15 years focused on ethics in sport as an arbitrator in five Olympic Games and through his involvement in many sports inquiries and disputes. These include a watershed doping investigation of Major League Baseball, which resulted in what became known as the Mitchell report, and one last year for the antidoping agency that found systemic use of performance-enhancing drugs by Russian athletes in the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

“That’s why they chose me,” he said in an interview this week. “It takes a lot of experience to know how to conduct these types of investigations, to know what to look for.”

Despite his international reputation, Mr. McLaren is far more used to being surrounded by his students, known as “McLarenites,” at the law school of Western University in London, where he teaches courses on business, sport and banking law.

In interviews, Mr. McLaren’s colleagues described him as a dogged and ethical lawyer skilled at leveraging decades of legal experience and jurisprudence in the sometimes messy realm of athletics, whether it is resolving doping disputes as a member of the International Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, deciding cases involving cyclists and kayakers for the Sport Dispute Resolution Center of Canada or investigating accusations on behalf of the antidoping agency."

DONALD TRUMP’S GHOSTWRITER TELLS ALL; New Yorker, 7/25/16

Jane Mayer, New Yorker; DONALD TRUMP’S GHOSTWRITER TELLS ALL:

"Schwartz thought about publishing an article describing his reservations about Trump, but he hesitated, knowing that, since he’d cashed in on the flattering “Art of the Deal,” his credibility and his motives would be seen as suspect. Yet watching the campaign was excruciating. Schwartz decided that if he kept mum and Trump was elected he’d never forgive himself. In June, he agreed to break his silence and give his first candid interview about the Trump he got to know while acting as his Boswell.

“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”"

Make America Hate Again; New York Times, 7/22/16

Timothy Egan, New York times; Make America Hate Again:

"Starting on night one, when Republicans chose to manipulate the grief-deranged mother of a terrorist victim, the build-up to the hanging of Hillary Clinton was never subtle. Imagine if one party had exploited a widow of one of the 241 service members killed in the 1983 suicide bombing of Americans in Beirut — the deadliest single attack on marines since World War II — as a stick against Ronald Reagan, whose administrative negligence was much to blame.

You can’t imagine. Because nothing about this Republican Party, whose leader now stands ready to repudiate nearly 70 years of security for our European allies under an “America First” banner, even remotely resembles the Grand Old Party of before. You could not find a City on a Hill, a single Point of Light, no Morning in America. Only doom, dystopia, dread, darkness — and a bumper-sticker solution to restoring greatness.

The man who couldn’t manage his own convention, the creator of a “university” built on fraud, bet his shot at the top job in the world on a panicked public and collective amnesia of his serial misdeeds. “I will restore law and order to our country, believe me, believe me,” he said.

And the instigator of four corporate bankruptcies, the man who stiffed plumbers and carpenters, the failed casino owner, promised to use his dark arts to “make our country rich again.”"

"We Were Never Here and You Saw Nothing"; Bizarro, 7/19/16

Dan Piraro, Bizarro:

"We Were Never Here and You Saw Nothing"

Why Libraries Are Everywhere in the Czech Republic; New York Times, 7/21/16

Hana de Goeij, New York Times; Why Libraries Are Everywhere in the Czech Republic:

"Why so many Czech libraries? Well, for decades they were mandatory — every community, from a big city down to a tiny village, was required by law to have one.

The law was enacted in 1919, soon after Czechoslovakia emerged as an independent country. The idea was to promote universal literacy and education after the country was free of the German-speaking Austro-Hungarian Empire. And it worked.

“Czechs developed a strong reading habit, and even today, those who visit libraries buy more books — 11 a year, on average — than others,” said Vit Richter, director of the Librarianship Institute of the Czech National Library.

The library law survived the German occupation, the communist era and even the breakup with Slovakia in the early 1990s. What it couldn’t survive, in the end, was budgetary pressure."

EFF sues US government, saying copyright rules on DRM are unconstitutional; Ars Technica, 7/22/16

Joe Mullin, Ars Technica; EFF sues US government, saying copyright rules on DRM are unconstitutional:

""Section 1201 is a draconian and unnecessary restriction on speech and the time has come to set it aside," writes EFF staff attorney Kit Walsh in a blog post announcing the lawsuit. "The future of cultural participation and software-related research depends on it."

"[C]opyright law shouldn’t be casting a legal shadow over activities as basic as popping the hood of your own car, offering commentary on a shared piece of culture (and helping others do so), and testing security infrastructure," writes EFF's Parker Higgins, in a separate post explaining the effects that Section 1201 has on scholars, artists, and activists. "It’s time for the courts to revisit Section 1201, and fix Congress’s constitutional mistake.""

Fox After Ailes; Slate, 7/22/16

Isaac Chotiner, Slate; Fox After Ailes:

"Gabriel Sherman, a reporter for New York magazine and author of a decidedly unauthorized biography of Ailes, has broken the lion’s share of news about Ailes’ conduct and the subsequent News Corp. investigation.

I spoke by phone with Sherman after Ailes’ departure. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed the Murdoch family’s internal debates, Donald Trump’s relationship with Roger Ailes, and the future of the network...

"Many people see Fox News as a cynical production of people who know better. But you seem to be saying that people believe in what they are doing or their leader. Maybe those aren’t exclusive—

No, they aren’t mutually exclusive. The culture of sexual harassment is widely known at Fox News. The whole idea that it is a family values network is incredibly cynical, and everyone knows that. But the fear and psychological control that Ailes had over his employees—if he says the sky is green and not blue, even very intelligent people, maybe even liberals, tend to start believing it. He has this charismatic, cultlike power to shape a corporation in his image. And that’s why Fox, whatever it becomes, is going to be very different. There is no executive in American media and politics who has that charisma and that ruthlessness, and, as these allegations have shown, the kind of darkness of his mind to control women and people.

Do you think the Murdochs were aware of the culture as it pertained to sexual harassment?

Rupert Murdoch, based on what we know publicly, was clearly aware of the culture at Fox News: In 2004, Bill O’Reilly was accused by a former producer, Andrea Mackris, of sexual harassment in the whole loofah scandal. Fox’s biggest host at that point was exposed."

The fall of Roger Ailes: He made Fox his ‘locker room’ — and now women are telling their stories; Washington Post, 7/22/16

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Scott Higham, Paul Farhi and Krissah Thompson, Washington Post; The fall of Roger Ailes: He made Fox his ‘locker room’ — and now women are telling their stories:

"“Boorish behavior is Murdoch company behavior — boorish behavior as defined by tough-guy behavior,” Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff said in an interview. “The tough-guy behavior sometimes intersects with sexual harassment, and this is very strong within the organization.”

In a statement Thursday announcing Ailes’s resignation (which made no mention of the claims against Ailes), Lachlan and James Murdoch said: “We continue our commitment to maintaining a work environment based on trust and respect. We take seriously our responsibility to uphold these traditional, long-standing values of our company.”"

Study: The Digital Divide Between Latinos And Whites Is Shrinking; NPR, 7/22/16

Ericka Cruz Guevarra, NPR; Study: The Digital Divide Between Latinos And Whites Is Shrinking:

"After years of lagging behind other ethnic groups when it comes to accessing the Internet, the "digital divide" between Latinos and whites is now at its narrowest point since 2009.

A new study from the Pew Research Center found that the percentage of Latino adults who report using the Internet increased from 64 percent to 84 percent between 2009 and 2015, a faster growth rate than that of whites going online in the same period (80 percent to 89 percent).

As a result, the gap in Internet use between Latinos and whites shrank from 16 percentage points in 2009 to just 5 points in 2015."

Turns Out, Fighting Fat Shaming And Racist Trolls Is Also A Ghostbuster's Job; NPR, 7/22/16

Tanya Ballard Brown, NPR; Turns Out, Fighting Fat Shaming And Racist Trolls Is Also A Ghostbuster's Job:

"I don't know what makes trolls attack so viciously on social media. Is it that they don't like it that some women — in this case a 6-ft.-tall, larger than size zero dark-skinned black woman — are confident and comfortable with themselves?

Who knows, but now that Leslie has returned and is once again engaging on social media with her fans, maybe she can reach out to help some of the women who aren't comedians or actors in summer blockbuster movies navigate troll attacks."

Trump Rehashes JFK Conspiracy Theory Linking Ted Cruz’s Father To Lee Harvey Oswald; Huffington Post, 7/22/16

Matt Ferner, Huffington Post; Trump Rehashes JFK Conspiracy Theory Linking Ted Cruz’s Father To Lee Harvey Oswald:

"At a televised speech Friday, and less than 24 hours after Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, the reality television personality breathed new life into a conspiracy theory that Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was an associate of President John F. Kennedy’s assassin.

“His father. I don’t know his father, I met him once,” Trump began, referencing Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz. “I think he’s a lovely guy. I think he’s a lovely guy. All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast.”"

Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy; Washington Post, 7/22/16

Editorial Board, Washington Post; Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy:

"Most alarming is Mr. Trump’s contempt for the Constitution and the unwritten democratic norms upon which our system depends. He doesn’t know what is in the nation’s founding document. When asked by a member of Congress about Article I, which enumerates congressional powers, the candidate responded, “I am going to abide by the Constitution whether it’s number 1, number 2, number 12, number 9.” The charter has seven articles.

Worse, he doesn’t seem to care about its limitations on executive power. He has threatened that those who criticize him will suffer when he is president. He has vowed to torture suspected terrorists and bomb their innocent relatives, no matter the illegality of either act. He has vowed to constrict the independent press. He went after a judge whose rulings angered him, exacerbating his contempt for the independence of the judiciary by insisting that the judge should be disqualified because of his Mexican heritage. Mr. Trump has encouraged and celebrated violence at his rallies. The U.S. democratic system is strong and has proved resilient when it has been tested before. We have faith in it. But to elect Mr. Trump would be to knowingly subject it to threat."

By Russian Standards, Melania Trump Would Be a Plagiarism Amateur; New York Times, 7/22/16

Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times; By Russian Standards, Melania Trump Would Be a Plagiarism Amateur:

"A study published in the newspaper Novaya Gazeta found that out of 450 members of Parliament, about 200 claimed advanced degrees and at least 49 had been accused of plagiarism, including the speaker. (He denied it.)

Dissernet started work in 2013 after a political appointee with a limited academic record was tapped to lead a prestigious mathematics school. Academics began pouring over his history dissertation line by line, which inspired Mr. Rostovtsev to write software to automate the process.

The Dissernet group knew that an electronic synopsis of every doctoral thesis was posted online in Russia. Its software selects a thesis and compares it with all others in the system. If there is more than a 50 percent overlap, the computer flags the material and a volunteer compares both full works manually.

The software makes comparisons 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and a band of about 50 volunteers does the rest. The results are published on Dissernet.org."

Can Big Data Help Head Off Police Misconduct?; NPR, 7/19/16

NPR Staff; Can Big Data Help Head Off Police Misconduct? :

"Big Data has been considered an essential tool for tech companies and political campaigns. Now, someone who has handled data analytics at the highest levels in both of those worlds sees promise for it in policing, education and city services.

For example, data can show that a police officer who has been under stress after responding to cases of domestic abuse or suicide may be at higher risk of a negative interaction with the public, data scientist Rayid Ghani says.

Ghani, the chief data scientist for President Obama's re-election campaign in 2012, is now director of the Center for Data Science and Public Policy at the University of Chicago. He spoke to NPR's Ari Shapiro about finding ways to use data analytics in fields where it's not so common, like policing and city services."

In praising Trump, Mike Pence pushes an imaginary and corrupt narrative; Washington Post, 7/21/16

Michael Gerson, Washington Post; In praising Trump, Mike Pence pushes an imaginary and corrupt narrative:

"The reputation of any politician close to Trump will eventually be ruined. But it is particularly sad when good and decent people vouch for Trump’s character, knowing almost nothing about him. They surely believe that they can guide and shape a political novice in helpful and positive ways. There is no evidence of this — no proof that Trump is willing to internalize good advice. In fact, the best of the Republican Party is being exploited. And such politicians are viewed as weak (see Trump’s announcement of Pence) by a candidate with contempt for weakness. The only politician who will be proud of what he did on Wednesday evening is Ted Cruz, who refused to endorse. He may have been booed on the floor, but I imagine he slept well. And he won’t be ashamed to recount that night to his children and grandchildren.

In his essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell said: “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” The construction of an imaginary narrative of virtue and insight around Donald Trump is a form of political corruption, no matter how skilled or well-intentioned the effort. “In our time,” said Orwell, “political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” A fitting epitaph for the 2016 Republican convention."

An appeal to Mike Pence: Leave your anti-LGBT views behind; Washington Post, 7/20/16

Chrys P. Kefalas, Washington Post; An appeal to Mike Pence: Leave your anti-LGBT views behind:

"Pence’s vice-presidential nomination, and this Republican convention, make it seem like it was so long ago when leading Republicans such as Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, among others, joined former vice president Dick Cheney and former George W. Bush administration solicitor general Ted Olson in embracing marriage equality. But it wasn’t. Progress, however, is full of setbacks and false starts.

But Pence can still do a lot to turn the page — and take an important step to making the Republican Party great again by renewing the legacy of Lincoln, disavowing his old thinking and embracing a future of inclusion."

Banning Leslie Jones’s trolls won’t change a thing — hate is still the norm online; Washington Post, 7/20/16

Mikki Kendall, Washington Post; Banning Leslie Jones’s trolls won’t change a thing — hate is still the norm online:

"This is not just a matter of speech, despite the persistent notion that online harassment is easy to escape because in theory you can close the tab or turn off the computer. Online harassment spilled offline years ago. Harassers may imitate a deceased parent, contact employers in an attempt get a target fired or track someone down and drive them from their home. The last is often accomplished via SWATting, a tactic where a harasser files phony reports alleging a hostage situation or something similar so that police will in theory send the SWAT team into their target’s home.

Can we really claim that the trolls are outside the norm when the norm dismisses their behavior or even supports it on flimsy free speech grounds? After all, the people behind those keyboards sending hateful messages and imagery can vote. They can work on political campaigns; they can run for election. Ignoring bigots in our midst and failing to take them seriously can have a negative impact on everyone.

People like Yiannopoulos and his supporters are the symptom, but the real disease is the way that bigotry is being normalized as something harmless. It’s not. Some of the world’s darkest moments have happened because hate of “the other” spread like wildfire and stripped people of empathy, reason or basic human decency."

The significance of CNN’s Chris Cuomo dropping the ‘L’ word (lying) on Trump’s campaign chairman; Washington Post, 7/20/16

Callum Borchers, Washington Post; The significance of CNN’s Chris Cuomo dropping the ‘L’ word (lying) on Trump’s campaign chairman:

"The Trump campaign's refusal to admit obvious plagiarism undermines the Republican presidential nominee's credibility, as he attacks Clinton for dishonesty. And Trump's general unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes raises questions about how he would handle missteps as president. That's why a seemingly small issue like borrowing language from a Michelle Obama speech matters in the election — and why Cuomo and the rest of the press won't just let it go.

Cuomo's unvarnished assertion that Manafort "keep[s] lying" matters, too, because mainstream journalists have been so reluctant to attach variations of the word "lie" to the Trump campaign. Reporters have mostly stuck with less-loaded terms such as "factual inaccuracies," or "false statements." Word choice is significant because "lie" suggests intent; calling a statement "false" or "inaccurate" leaves open the possibility that the speaker got it wrong but didn't mean to."

Melania Trump Plagiarized Her Convention Speech From Michelle Obama; Huffington Post, 7/19/16

Christina Wilkie, Huffington Post; Melania Trump Plagiarized Her Convention Speech From Michelle Obama:

"Trump communications adviser Jason Miller, in a response early Tuesday, acknowledged that Melania Trump plagiarized “fragments” of her speech and referred to a “team of writers,” essentially refuting her claim that she wrote the speech.

“In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking,” Miller said in a statement. “Melania’s immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success.”"

Zika Data From the Lab, and Right to the Web; New York Times, 7/18/16

Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times; Zika Data From the Lab, and Right to the Web:

"Dr. O’Connor’s decision was the most radical manifestation of a trend already underway. In early February, more than 30 of the most prominent academic journals, research institutions and research funders signed a “Statement on Data Sharing in Public Health Emergencies” in which the journals agreed to make all articles about the Zika virus available free instead of charging their subscription fees, which can be hundreds of dollars.

The journals also agreed to consider articles that had first been posted for comment on public forums like bioRxiv, which is hosted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. The funders agreed to make everyone receiving their money share data as widely as possible...

“I never planned to be an evangelist,” he said. “I was happy toiling in anonymity, so this is a surreal experience. We all grew up in the same system: You do a study, you submit it to a journal, and your place in the hierarchy depends on the quality of the journal it appears in.”

“If it’s all you’ve known, you assume it’s the right way. But if you’ve got data that can contribute to the public health response during an epidemic — is it really yours to hang onto?”"

Both Sides Now?; New York Times, 7/18/16

Paul Krugman, New York Times; Both Sides Now? :

"And in the last few days we’ve seen a spectacular demonstration of bothsidesism in action: an op-ed article from the incoming and outgoing heads of the White House Correspondents’ Association, with the headline “Trump, Clinton both threaten free press.” How so? Well, Mr. Trump has selectively banned news organizations he considers hostile; he has also, although the op-ed didn’t mention it, attacked both those organizations and individual reporters, and refused to condemn supporters who, for example, have harassed reporters with anti-Semitic insults.

Meanwhile, while Mrs. Clinton hasn’t done any of these things, and has a staff that readily responds to fact-checking questions, she doesn’t like to hold press conferences. Equivalence!

Stung by criticism, the authors of the op-ed issued a statement denying that they had engaged in “false equivalency” — I guess saying that the candidates are acting “similarly” doesn’t mean saying that they are acting similarly. And they once again refused to indicate which candidate was behaving worse.

As I said, bothsidesism isn’t new, and it has always been an evasion of responsibility. But taking the position that “both sides do it” now, in the face of this campaign and this candidate, is an act of mind-boggling irresponsibility."

Are MOOCs Forever?; Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/14/16

[Podcast and Transcript] Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education; Are MOOCs Forever? :

"Think back to the early days of MOOCs. Professors at Stanford and Harvard and other places were suddenly teaching really big classes, free. Hundreds of thousands of students at once were in those courses. It was an unprecedented giveaway of what had traditionally been the most expensive education in the world.

Back then, I met several students who were binging on the courses the way you might binge-watch a season of your favorite show on Netflix. They took as many courses as they possibly could, powering through and finishing as many as 30 courses in a year. When I asked why they were in such a hurry, the most popular reason was that they thought it was all too good to last. As one of those binging students told me, "I’m just afraid this whole thing might end soon." Surely, universities would change their mind about this, or the start-ups working with colleges might lock things up.

Fast forward to last month, when Coursera did something that stirred up all of those concerns again. On June 30 the company deleted hundreds of its earliest courses, as part of a shift to a new software platform. Reaction, as you might expect, was negative on social media and blogs. One programmer called it cultural vandalism...

Hello, and welcome to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Re:Learning Podcast. I’m Jeff Young, and I recently had the chance to talk with Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera, about those issues."

"Tragic Coverage"; robrogers.com, 7/17/16

robrogers.com; "Tragic Coverage"

Boris Johnson ‘lied a lot,’ says French foreign minister; Washington Post, 7/14/16

Michael Birnbaum and Griff Witte, Washington Post; Boris Johnson ‘lied a lot,’ says French foreign minister:

"Britain’s new top diplomat, Boris Johnson, swept into office Thursday on a cloud of acrimony, amid worldwide disbelief that the irreverent campaigner for a British break from the European Union will now be his nation’s main voice abroad.

From composing a dirty limerick about the Turkish president and a goat to comparing the E.U. to Hitler and calling Hillary Clinton a “sadistic nurse,” the mop-haired Johnson spared few world leaders in his previous career as the devil-may-care mayor of London. This time, he was on the receiving end: France’s foreign minister declared that the “leave” campaigner had “lied a lot,” and Germany’s top diplomat called him “irresponsible.”

The unusually sharp rhetoric from Johnson’s new peers reflected the degree to which he has alienated Britain’s global partners and the challenges he faces as he takes part in his nation’s divorce from the E.U. From Washington to Paris and Berlin to Ankara, leaders uttered bitter cries of surprise at the appointment of a man who has reveled in dishing offense, not making friends. Critics said Britain appears to be taking further steps to disengage from the world."

What Ethics Should Guide the Use of Robots in Policing?; New York Times, 7/14/16

Room for Debate, New York Times; What Ethics Should Guide the Use of Robots in Policing? :

"The decision by Dallas police to deploy a robot to kill the man who shot and killed five officers last week appears to be unprecedented. Though the police chief said other options would have exposed officers to grave danger, the move fomented debate around the militarization of police and the ethical implications of remote-controlled use of force.

What considerations should guide the use of robots in policing?"

"Not a Racist"; Doonesbury, Go Comics, 7/17/16

Garry Trudeau, Doonesbury, GoComics:

"Not a Racist"

Justice department 'uses aged computer system to frustrate Foia requests'; Guardian, 7/16/16

Sam Thielman, Guardian; Justice department 'uses aged computer system to frustrate Foia requests' :

"A new lawsuit alleges that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) intentionally conducts inadequate searches of its records using a decades-old computer system when queried by citizens looking for records that should be available to the public.

Freedom of Information Act (Foia) researcher Ryan Shapiro alleges “failure by design” in the DoJ’s protocols for responding to public requests. The Foia law states that agencies must “make reasonable efforts to search for the records in electronic form or format”."...

Not only are the records indexed by ACS allegedly inadequate, Shapiro told the Guardian, but the FBI refuses to search the full text of those records as a matter of policy. When few or no records are returned, Shapiro said, the FBI effectively responds “sorry, we tried” without making use of the much more sophisticated search tools at the disposal of internal requestors.

“The FBI’s assertion is akin to suggesting that a search of a limited and arbitrarily produced card catalogue at a vast library is as likely to locate book pages containing a specified search term as a full text search of database containing digitized versions of all the books in that library,” Shapiro said.

Presidents need to be able to do nothing. Donald Trump can’t do it.; Washington Post, 7/15/16

J. Peter Scoblic, Washington Post; Presidents need to be able to do nothing. Donald Trump can’t do it. :

"In crises, there is enormous pressure to act — a “plunge toward action,” as historians Richard Neustadt and Ernest May have written. Yet smart leadership demands self-control. Presidential history is replete with examples of judicious inaction...

The presidency may be a bully pulpit, but that makes it all the more imperative that its occupant knows how to keep his mouth shut and his powder dry. Trump rarely has shown such discipline — in his campaign statements or his business ventures.

During his presidential run, he has lurched from one angry outburst to the next, attacking anyone who dares criticize him, childishly belittling his opponents and excommunicating news organizations (including The Washington Post) that don’t sufficiently flatter him. He is so reflexively combative that, according to Fox News’s Howard Kurtz, his staff has stopped presenting him with interview requests to reduce the “risk of the candidate making mistakes or fanning minor controversies.”"

"Jail for Self-Publishing Novels"; Bizarro, 7/16/16

Dan Piraro, Bizzaro:

"Jail for Self-Publishing Novels"

Drones and M&M’s Help Vaccinate Endangered Ferrets; Future Tense via Slate, 7/14/16

Matt Miller, Future Tense via Slate; Drones and M&M’s Help Vaccinate Endangered Ferrets:

[Kip Currier: Following on the heels of the Facebook story below, another positive application of technology: specifically, the ingenius use of drones (much in the press over the past few years as a technology deployed for military/national security/reconnaissance purposes) in an 11th hour rescue of highly endangered North American black-footed ferrets from extinction in the wild.]

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just announced a plan (h/t the Verge) to save wild ferrets in the Great Plains region using brilliant combination of drones and M&M’s candy. Endangered since 1967 and thought to be extinct twice, the black-footed ferret is one the rarest mammals in North America—just 300 are thought to live in the wild. According to the FWS, the “primary obstacle” to this species’ recovery is its susceptibility to a virus called the Sylvatic plague, similar to the bubonic plague in humans.

That’s where the drones come in.

To protect the ferrets from the plague, they need to be vaccinated. But tracking down wild animals is tough, which is why the FWS has partnered with private contractors to develop a vaccination delivery system in which unmanned aerial systems (aka drones) will fly above the ferrets’ territory in northeastern Montana and drop M&M’s candies coated with the vaccine in the area.

Strangely, it won’t be the ferrets eating the vaccine candy. Prairie dogs, which make up more than 90 percent of the ferrets’ diet and are thought to be the main source of infection for the ferrets, are the intended targets of the treats."

Facebook Reunites Family With Baby Boy Missing In Nice Terror Attack; Huffington Post, 7/15/16

Lee Moran, Huffington Post; Facebook Reunites Family With Baby Boy Missing In Nice Terror Attack:

[Kip Currier: It was timely seeing this story today, in the wake of the horrific Bastille Day terror attack in Nice, France yesterday. A trainer at my gym this morning ruefully said that he was starting to think social media may be being used for more bad purposes than good ones. This story reminds us that technology, specifically digital age tech, has positive applications too.]

"A baby boy who went missing Thursday amid the carnage in Nice, France, was reunited with his family the next day after Facebook posts appealing for help in finding him went viral...

The pastor described the turn of events as “a miracle” and hailed the power of social media in helping reunite the boy with his family. “Social media has been used for a lot of bad things as well,” she said, “but I really believe that technology can be good and used to share hope and to encourage people during this very traumatic time.”"

The Fight for the "Right to Repair"; Smithsonian.com, 7/13/16

Emily Matchar, Smithsonian.com; The Fight for the "Right to Repair" :

"The problem, Gordon-Byrne says, began in earnest in the late 1990s. Companies were increasingly embedding software in their products, and claiming that software as their intellectual property. Companies would argue that they needed to control repairs as a way of maintaining security and customer experience, reasons Gordon-Byrne calls “all fake.”...

The problem isn’t limited to traditional home electronics. A farmer may have paid for his or her John Deere tractor, a piece of farm equipment that can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But John Deere still owns the software that runs the tractor, and trying to fix it without going to an authorized repair center could put the farmer afoul of copyright laws. This means that, in order to make legal repairs, a farmer in a rural area might have to haul a broken 15-ton tractor for hundreds of miles to an authorized dealer or repair shop. In the harvest season, this could mean a crushing loss of revenue.

Nor does the problem only harm consumers. Independent repair professionals, from camera shop owners to computer technicians, suffer, saying the lack of access to repair parts and manuals makes them unable to do their jobs."

With Obama, the Personal Is Presidential; New York Times, 7/15/16

Timothy Egan, New York Times; With Obama, the Personal Is Presidential:

"It’s not fair to give him his due as a person, his high grade for character, for being scandal-free in his private life, just because a potential successor has no character, no class, and breaches a new wall of civility every time he opens his mouth. If Obama had bragged about infidelities and the size of his genitals, if Obama had talked about wanting to date his own daughter and reduced women to a number on a hotness scale, it would be about race. But when Donald Trump says such things, nobody ties it to his being white, nor should they. Trump is a singular kind of vulgarian.

And those who praise Obama as a model father or husband for the black family do him a disservice. He’s a model, without asterisk for race. It’s a hard thing to go nearly eight years as the most powerful man in the world without diminishing the office or alienating your family. He’s done that, and added a dash of style and humor and a pitch-perfect sense for being consoler in chief.

As we saw again this week, when he took the deep breath for us, when he begged us not to let hearts turn to stone when the world is a quarry of hate, he is at his best when the rest of us are at our worst. We will long remember him singing “Amazing Grace” at that service for people slaughtered in a Charleston church, their deaths a hate crime. And we may well remember him trying to wring something teachable from the ambush of police officers; their deaths also a hate crime.

“All of us, we make mistakes,” he said. “And at times we are lost. And as we get older, we learn we don’t always have control of things — not even a president does. But we do have control over how we respond to the world. We do have control over how we treat one another.”"

Pokemon Go spurs lawyers to stop and consider legal issues; ABA Journal, 7/13/16

Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal; Pokemon Go spurs lawyers to stop and consider legal issues:

"Some lawyers say Pokemon Go, an “augmented reality” game, raises legal issues and public safety concerns. Alabama lawyer Keith Lee, writing at his Associate’s Mind blog, says his legal questions include:

Does placing a Pokemon character on a private property, without permission, affect the owner’s interest in exclusive possession of the property? Does it create an attractive nuisance? Does owning real property extend property rights to intellectual property elements that are placed on it? Is there liability for placing the characters on private property or in dangerous locations?

Michigan lawyer Brian Wassom raises other legal issues in a post for the Hollywood Reporter’s THR, Esq. blog. Augmented reality games can lead to competition for the use of the same physical spaces, disrupting the ability of players and nonplayers to enjoy the place, and possibly leading to violence, he says. Could government limit the players in a public space? Would that bring a First Amendment challenge?"

Extreme Anger Management: Is It O.K. to Kill the Hulk’s Alter Ego?; New York Times, 7/14/16

George Gen Gustines, New York Times; Extreme Anger Management: Is It O.K. to Kill the Hulk’s Alter Ego? :

[Spoilers]

"Marvel’s heroes have found themselves divided in the mini-series Civil War II and the conflict has taken another victim. In Wednesday’s issue, Bruce Banner, the alter ego of the Incredible Hulk, is killed by his fellow hero Hawkeye, who believed he was preventing an even more horrible future from coming to pass: a rampage by the green behemoth that would have left even more heroes dead.

Like the 1956 short story “Minority Report” by Phillip K. Dick, Marvel’s champions are dealing with questions of free will and determinism. They have encountered Ulysses, who has the power to see the future. Some of the heroes, led by Captain Marvel, want to use that knowledge to prevent crimes before they occur, while others, who stand behind Iron Man, wonder about the ethics of prosecuting people for crimes they might commit."

Meet Your New Librarian of Congress; Smithsonian.com, 7/14/16

Erin Blakemore, Smithsonian.com; Meet Your New Librarian of Congress: Carla Hayden will make history as the first African-American in the role—and the first woman:

"In the past, presidential nominations tended to focus on patronage and vague qualifications, and the role did not require that the librarian have served as a professional librarian at any time. Former Librarians of Congress carried out what was, in effect, a lifetime term. As a result, the the institution has only had 13 leaders in its 216-year-long history. That recently changed when Congress passed a bill limiting the term of the Librarian of Congress to 10 years.

Hayden had to undergo a confirmation hearing and political gridlock before being confirmed to the position by a 74-18 vote, McGlone reports. Just what does her post entail? In short, she’ll be responsible for overseeing the nation’s largest cultural institution, but her job will have other perks (and challenges). Not only does the Librarian of Congress name the nation’s Poet Laureate, but she oversees the Copyright Office, makes critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, oversees the National Recording Registry and National Film Registry and serves as the public face of books in the United States.

It’s a tall order—but one that America’s newest Librarian of Congress seems enthused to take on. Hayden tells Fritze that she looks forward to opening “the treasure chest that is the Library of Congress even further and [making] it a place that can be found and used by everyone.”"

From A Murrow Moment To A Murrow Mindset: How Not To Normalize Donald Trump; Huffington Post, 7/11/16

Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post; From A Murrow Moment To A Murrow Mindset: How Not To Normalize Donald Trump:

"You can feel the press itching to normalize Trump, and relieve them from having to reluctantly abandon the safe shelter of “balance” and “objectivity,” and call Trump out. But Trump is a candidate who has broken so many rules of the political process, so the press can use this opportunity to break, and discard, the obsolete rules of political coverage that are clearly not working this cycle. What we need is not just a Murrow moment but a sustained Murrow mindset.

“This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent,” Murrow said on the air in 1954. “We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities... We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom wherever it continues to exist in the world. But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home... Cassius was right. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’ Good night, and good luck.”"

Marvel had one Avenger kill another. It’s a turning point in Civil War II.; Vox, 7/14/16

Alex Abad-Santos, Vox; Marvel had one Avenger kill another. It’s a turning point in Civil War II. :

[Spoilers]

"The trial gives Bendis the structure to really spell out the personalities at play, and to let him fiddle with Captain Marvel, Iron Man, and Hawkeye’s individual points of view. At the same time, we get to see three different interpretations of who Bruce Banner is but don’t get to witness what actually happened.

And it’s hard to cleave Bendis’s interpretation of Hawkeye without thinking of recent examples from American reality, specifically the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police. To be clear: Civil War II and crossover events like it are planned out far in advance, and months and months before the recent tragedies in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Texas. But the ideas and debate surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement and police accountability extend far beyond this month’s tragedies."

To Boldly Go Where No Fan Production Has Gone Before; Slate, 7/13/16

Marissa Martinelli, Slate; To Boldly Go Where No Fan Production Has Gone Before:

"The issues at the heart of the Axanar case are complex—in addition to copyright infringement, CBS and Paramount are accusing the Axanar team of profiting from the production by paying themselves salaries, among other things. Abrams, who directed 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, promised during a fan event back in May that the lawsuit would be going away at the behest of Justin Lin, the Beyond director who has sided, surprisingly, with Axanar over Paramount. But despite Abrams’ promise, the lawsuit rages on, and in the meantime, other Trekkie filmmakers have had to adapt. Federation Rising, the planned sequel to Horizon, pulled the plug before fundraising had even started, and Star Trek: Renegades, the follow-up to Of Gods and Men that raised more than $132,000 on Indiegogo, has dropped all elements of Star Trek from the production and is now just called Renegades. (Amusingly, this transition seems to have involved only slight tweaks, with the Federation becoming the Confederation, Russ’ character Tuvok becoming Kovok, and so on.) Other projects are stuck in limbo, waiting to hear from CBS whether they can boldly go forth with production—or whether this really does spell the end of the golden age of Star Trek fan films.

Axanar may very well have crossed a line, and CBS and Paramount are, of course, entitled to protect their properties. But in the process, they have suffocated, intentionally or otherwise, a robust and long-standing fan-fiction tradition, one that has produced remarkable labors of love like Star Trek Continues, which meticulously recreated the look and feel of the 1960s show, and an hourlong stop-motion film made by a German fan in tribute to Enterprise—a project almost eight years in the making. It’s a tradition that gave us web series like Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, which was exploring same-sex relationships in Star Trek well before the canon was ready to give us a mainstream, openly gay character."

An Open Letter From Technology Sector Leaders On Donald Trump’s Candidacy For President; Huffington Post, 7/14/16

Alec Ross, Huffington Post; An Open Letter From Technology Sector Leaders On Donald Trump’s Candidacy For President:

"We are inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, researchers, and business leaders working in the technology sector. We are proud that American innovation is the envy of the world, a source of widely-shared prosperity, and a hallmark of our global leadership.

We believe in an inclusive country that fosters opportunity, creativity and a level playing field. Donald Trump does not. He campaigns on anger, bigotry, fear of new ideas and new people, and a fundamental belief that America is weak and in decline. We have listened to Donald Trump over the past year and we have concluded: Trump would be a disaster for innovation. His vision stands against the open exchange of ideas, free movement of people, and productive engagement with the outside world that is critical to our economy—and that provide the foundation for innovation and growth."

Scholars Steeped in Dead Politicians Take On a Live One: Donald Trump; New York Times, 7/12/16

Jim Dwyer, New York Times; Scholars Steeped in Dead Politicians Take On a Live One: Donald Trump:

"Now Mr. McCullough and Ken Burns, the filmmaker and author, have assembled a group of distinguished American historians to speak about the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, in videos being posted to a Facebook page, Historians on Donald Trump.

It is a diverse, honored group — including, among others, Robert A. Caro, Ron Chernow, David Levering Lewis, William E. Leuchtenberg, Vicki Lynn Ruiz — that speaks with alarm about Mr. Trump’s candidacy and his place in the march of American history.

Mr. McCullough, raised in a Republican home and now aligned with no party, said the prospect of a Trump presidency so distressed him that he felt he could not remain publicly detached...

Mr. McCullough said he contacted Mr. Burns after seeing him tell this year’s graduating class at Stanford University that despite 40 years of avoiding advocacy in his work, he no longer had “the luxury of neutrality or ‘balance’ or even of bemused disdain.” After a few conversations, Mr. McCullough said, the two men came up with a plan: “Why don’t we see if we can round up some other people who care about the American story, and who have given so much of their life’s work to it, see if they are willing to step out and make themselves heard.”"

Top American Historians Find a Modern Way to Rip Donald Trump; Daily Beast, 7/13/16

Eleanor Clift, Daily Beast; Top American Historians Find a Modern Way to Rip Donald Trump:

"“I just finished a children’s book on Grover Cleveland. I know all of them [the former presidents], and they are deeply flawed—but none of them have the glaring flaws of Donald Trump. Those of us who spend our lives studying American history are upset about the rise of Trump. There’s been nobody like him. I wish there were a Murrow [Edward R.] or a Cronkite [Walter] to expose him,” Burns said, voicing nostalgia for the giants of the journalistic past who took on Joe McCarthy and his communist witch hunts, and brought the truth about the Vietnam War into American living rooms.

Today’s media, for whatever reason, has failed, said Burns."