Salon.com http://www.salon.com Sat, 25 May 2013 00:14:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 What’s 2013′s “Gone Girl”? Here are this summer’s best reads http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/whats_2013s_gone_girl_here_are_this_summers_best_reads/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/whats_2013s_gone_girl_here_are_this_summers_best_reads/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 23:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13306792 Step away from that Dan Brown novel! Better yet, don't let summer's distractions lead you to consider picking it up in the first place. Take our advice now and you won't find yourself scanning the shelves of dispiriting airport bookshops and beach-town drugstores before settling on yet another routine thriller. Contrary to what some mega-selling authors seem to believe, not every page turner has to be packed with ham-fisted clichés, wooden characters, pointlessly frenetic action and cheesy dialogue. Somewhere between Brown's "Inferno" and "War and Peace" lies the sweet spot where literary quality mingles freely with crackerjack storytelling.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/whats_2013s_gone_girl_here_are_this_summers_best_reads/feed/ 0 Title Post Title http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/title_post_title/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/title_post_title/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 23:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308592 Blah Blah Blah

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/title_post_title/feed/ 0 Twitter talks back: Obama’s missed salute http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/twitter_talks_back_obamas_missed_salute/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/twitter_talks_back_obamas_missed_salute/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 21:51:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308308 Boarding his helicopter today, President Obama gave a rather lackluster salute to the attending Marine. The President then realized his mistake or was made aware of it and returned to shake the Marine's hand.

A few Twitter users took this as an invitation to share their opinion:

[embedtweet id="337953875556450304"]
[embedtweet id="337995871977349121"]
[embedtweet id="338040343922606080"]
[embedtweet id="337937502692327424"]
[embedtweet id="337944382034546688"]
[embedtweet id="338036553475571712"]
[embedtweet id="333281623963492352"]
[embedtweet id="338042303199457281"]
[embedtweet id="338041853117071360"]
[embedtweet id="338041477450039296"]
[embedtweet id="338047598013345793"]
[embedtweet id="338047021091004418"]

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/twitter_talks_back_obamas_missed_salute/feed/ 14 Fox executive behind “Does Someone Have to Go?” leaving the network http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/fox_executive_behind_does_someone_have_to_go_leaving_the_network/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/fox_executive_behind_does_someone_have_to_go_leaving_the_network/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 20:55:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308379 Evidently, he was the one who had to go.

Mike Darnell, Fox's president of alternative entertainment, is leaving the network, Fox said via press release.

Darnell was the executive responsible for reality series like "American Idol" and "The X Factor" -- as well as the series that debuted last night, "Does Someone Have to Go?," which asks office workers to decide which of their colleagues should be fired. Writing for Salon, Willa Paskin called it "a vile show," noting, "Obviously, someone does have to go, but it really should be all the cameras."

Aside from the two singing-themed reality series -- one of which has cratered in the ratings, the other of which has never caught on despite perpetual reinvention -- Darnell's résumé is full of the sort of provocative specials and series Fox was known for in its wilder early years: “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” “Man vs. Beast,” “World’s Scariest Police Chases,” "The Swan," “When Animals Attack!,” et al.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/fox_executive_behind_does_someone_have_to_go_leaving_the_network/feed/ 0 Developers evict historic women’s shelter to build luxury hotel http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/insurance_company_forces_out_historic_womens_safe_house_to_build_luxury_hotel/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/insurance_company_forces_out_historic_womens_safe_house_to_build_luxury_hotel/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 20:24:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308294 For more than a century, the Anna Louise Inn provided housing for women fleeing abusive relationships, recovering from drug and alcohol addiction or escaping forced sex work. This month, the historic Cincinnati safe house gave up a two-year legal battle against a Fortune 500 insurance company looking to buy the building and convert it into a luxury hotel.

After running out of money to sustain the legal battle and viewing the ongoing litigation as a distraction from its core service mission, the Anna Louise Inn accepted the sale last week and will move to another location. The Western & Southern Insurance Group bought the building for $4 million, where it intends to build a boutique hotel.

While the safe house will continue to serve women and families in its new location, many view the victory of the insurance company over a community touchstone as a major blow to the city, as Aviva Shen at ThinkProgress notes:

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/insurance_company_forces_out_historic_womens_safe_house_to_build_luxury_hotel/feed/ 2 Guantánamo prisoner on hunger strike cries for help on Twitter http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/guantanamo_prisoner_on_hunger_strike_cries_for_help_on_twitter_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/guantanamo_prisoner_on_hunger_strike_cries_for_help_on_twitter_partner/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 20:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308312 The Daily Dot Shaker Aamer, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who is on day 107 of a hunger strike along with 102 of his fellow inmates, was cleared for release six years ago from the Guantanamo Bay military detention camp. Although he was imprisoned before Twitter was invented, his lawyer says he's quite aware and appreciative of the social media support for #OpGTMO and his case in particular.

Aware enough, in fact, to take a page from weev's book and tweet from prison (via intermediaries).

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/guantanamo_prisoner_on_hunger_strike_cries_for_help_on_twitter_partner/feed/ 2 Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/kaitlyn_hunt_refuses_plea_offer_will_go_to_court_over_high_school_relationship/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/kaitlyn_hunt_refuses_plea_offer_will_go_to_court_over_high_school_relationship/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 19:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308091 Kaitlyn Hunt, the 18-year-old high school senior facing felony charges over a same-sex relationship with a 14-year-old freshman classmate, has refused a plea deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest for two years. Hunt's parents, citing that the relationship was consensual, had requested Florida prosecutors reduce the charges to a misdemeanor, but their request was denied by the state.

Hunt's lawyer Julia Graves explained the decision to go to court in a statement: "This is a situation of two teenagers who happen to be of the same sex involved in a relationship. If this case involved a boy and girl, there would be no media attention to this case ... If this incident occurred 108 days earlier when she was 17, we wouldn’t even be here."

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/kaitlyn_hunt_refuses_plea_offer_will_go_to_court_over_high_school_relationship/feed/ 94 The secrets of cicada survival http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/cicada_mating_by_the_numbers_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/cicada_mating_by_the_numbers_partner/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 19:09:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13307336 Scientific American

“Periodical cicadas have the longest life cycles known for insects. They are called ‘periodical’ because in any one population all but a trivially small fraction are exactly the same age. The nymphs suck juices from the roots of forest trees and finally emerge from the ground, become adults, mate, lay their eggs, and die, all within the same few weeks of every 17th (or in the South, every 13th) year. Not one species does this, but three, and they always do it together.”
—Monte Lloyd and Henry S. Dybas, 1966

There is safety in numbers or, at least, there is survival in numbers. That is the maxim that periodical cicadas live by.

Periodical cicadas—insects of the genus Magicicada—are remarkable creatures. They develop extremely slowly, underground, before surfacing en masse at either 13- or 17-year intervals, when the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit. As described in the epigraph above, they quickly mate, lay eggs and die, disappearing from view until their offspring crawl out of the ground more than a dozen years later.

Much has been made of this year’s cicada emergence, but in fact periodical cicadas rise to reproduce in most years: there are 15 different geographic “broods” of periodical cicadas, each on its own synchronized life cycle. This year, brood II—which stretches from North Carolina to New York and Connecticut—is emerging for the first time since 1996. Meanwhile the 14 other broods are maturing underground, awaiting their turn in the limelight.

Staying Alive
Periodical cicadas are only found in the forests of the Eastern U.S. (Other, more numerous species of nonperiodical cicadas appear more often and in more locations.) The genus Magicicada includes seven species: three 17-year cicadas in the northern U.S. and four 13-year cicadas in the south. Those species are more broadly divided into three groups: decula, cassini and decim. For each group there exists a 13- and a 17-year species—for instance, the 13-year Magicicada tredecula and the 17-year Magicicada septendecula—which, other than their lifespans and their geographic range, are almost indistinguishable. Amazingly, a single brood often contains multiple species, which grow alongside one another as nymphs and emerge from the ground in synchrony but do not interbreed. The video above shows the subtle visual differences between the species and the much more dramatic differences between their respective mating calls.

Synchronized life cycles deliver Magicicada a major benefit: when all the insects emerge at once, their predators, which can only eat so much, become sated before consuming the entire population. It is a brute-force survival tactic—akin to storming a fortress, unarmed, in huge numbers—but it works.

The long life cycles of periodical cicadas have fascinated entomologists for decades. As Richard D. Alexander and Thomas E. Moore of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor put it in 1962:

Their incredible ability to merge by the million as noisy, flying, gregarious, photo-positive adults within a matter of hours after having spent 13 or 17 years underground as silent, burrowing, solitary, sedentary juveniles is without parallel in the animal kingdom.

And for years researchers have sought to explain how the Magicicada life cycles developed, why they are so long, and why they are both prime numbers.

Why So Slow?
The pronounced elongation of the Magicicada life span may trace to about 20,000 years ago, during the last glacial period. The colder conditions then may simply have slowed the growth and development of cicadas—as suggested in 1997 by Jin Yoshimura, now of Shizuoka University in Japan—thereby extending what had been a somewhat shorter lifespan toward the long life cycles that exist today. (Warmer ground temperatures in the south as compared to the north allow cicadas to develop more rapidly, which may account for their shorter 13-year life cycles.)

Alternately, the insects may have adapted to life in the glacial period by extending their life cycle so as to limit the chances of emerging in an unusually cold year that would prevent mating. As proposed in 1988 by Randel Tom Cox, now at the University of Memphis, and C. E. Carlton, now at Louisiana State University, the lifespan of Magicicada ancestors may have “increased progressively to lengths similar to those observed today as an adaptive strategy during glacial stades in which maximum annual temperatures may occasionally not have reached the critical level for flight and copulation…. The longer the nymphal life cycle, the smaller the chance of emerging during a cold summer.” Such an effect would be strongest in colder climates, which would also explain the longer 17-year lifespans of northernMagicicada species.

Primed for Success
If a cold climate forced cicadas to develop long lifespans, the insects may have emerged from the last glacial period with a spectrum of life cycles, perhaps ranging from 12 to 20 years. Eventually two of those life cycles, 13 and 17 years, won out.

The fact that the surviving periodical cicadas have life cycles built on prime numbers may have conferred key survival advantages. A prime-numbered lifespan means that predators cannot match their own shorter life cycles to the availability of cicada prey. For instance, if the cicadas had even-numbered lifespans, a predator with a two-year life cycle could expect a cicada feast, and a subsequent population bump, every few generations, because all even numbers are divisible by two. As explained in 2001 by a trio of researchers from the University of Chile and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Germany, “a prey with a 12-year cycle will meet—every time it appears—properly synchronized predators appearing every 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 or 12 years, whereas a mutant with a 13-year period has the advantage of being subject to fewer predators.” Prime numbers are still divisible by themselves and by 1, of course, but they have no other divisors.

On the other hand, prime lifespans may relate to periodic overlaps between different cicada species, rather than overlaps between cicadas and their predators. The two prime-numbered life cycles of Magicicada ensure that asynchronous broods rarely interact where their geographic ranges overlap—a 13-year cycle and a 17-year cycle match up only once every 221 years. Those rare meetups may confer the advantage of preventing the two groups from mating and producing hybrid offspring. As Cox and Carlton wrote in 2003, “cicadas that are hybrids of two populations with different life cycle lengths will suffer greater predation losses, as many may emerge on years before or after the main population. Cicadas with prime-numbered cycles (13 years and 17 years) will hybridize significantly less frequently than cicadas with non-prime (composite) cycles and thus will have larger emergences and a greater advantage of predator satiation.”

More recently, in a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), researchers in Japan and the U.S. have deployed genetic evidence in support of a different model: that periodical cicadas simply jumped from one life cycle to the other. “They are time travelers,” says study co-author Chris Simon of the University of Connecticut. “They undergo these four-year accelerations or decelerations in their life cycles. If you go to a site where 17-year cicadas emerge, you’ll find a lot of them coming out four years early.” Some stragglers will also emerge four years late.

Given a large enough population of Magicicada, the insects emerging four years off-schedule could form a group numerous enough to survive predation, thus spinning off their own population on a new life cycle. Four years is a key offset—populations separated by less than that seem not to be able to coexist in the same location, perhaps because of fierce competition for resources between nymphs growing underground.

Once a 13-year brood had successfully spun off from a 17-year brood, or vice versa, that new population would act as a “nurse brood,” Simon and her colleagues argue, protecting invading cicada populations—provided that the invaders adapted to the new life cycle as well. “Natural selection would have promoted synchronization of invading populations to resident populations because invaders would gain protection from predation and, consequently, avoid Allee effects (failure to reproduce due to low population density),” the researchers propose. In that case, the four-year gap between the two life cycles may be more important than the fact that both are prime numbers. Says Simon: “It’s hard to say whether 13 and 17 is an accident or whether it has an advantage.”

As brood II makes its long-awaited 21st-century debut, Simon and her colleagues are out in the field studying these unique insects and working to uncover the basis for their extreme behaviors. She notes that anyone in the vicinity of a cicada brood can aid in this ongoing investigation by reporting cicada sightings to magicicada.org, a Web site run by her University of Connecticut colleague and PNAS study co-authorJohn Cooley.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are the expected emergences of periodical cicadas in the next few hundred years:

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/cicada_mating_by_the_numbers_partner/feed/ 1 Hillary Clinton memoir shows up on Amazon http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/hillary_clinton_memoir_shows_up_on_amazon/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/hillary_clinton_memoir_shows_up_on_amazon/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 19:09:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308242 It'll be the best beach read of 2014.

Hillary Clinton's untitled new memoir, to be released June 1, 2014, now has its own Amazon page where fans of the former Secretary of State can preorder the book at a steep discount from the hardcover list price of $40. The Simon and Schuster tome, listed as "New Memoir," is 320 pages and features what may be placeholder art (the same photograph Clinton uses on her official Web page) on its cover. As of right now, the book is ranked #196,490 among hardcovers on Amazon. It is likely to rise over the course of the next year.

Here's the synopsis provided on Amazon:

Hillary Clinton's candid reflections about the key moments during her time as Secretary of State, as well as her thoughts about how to navigate the challenges of the 21st century.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/hillary_clinton_memoir_shows_up_on_amazon/feed/ 0 Nobody “needs” to rape http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/the_ugly_narrative_of_the_jose_canseco_rape_accusation/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/the_ugly_narrative_of_the_jose_canseco_rape_accusation/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 18:58:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308174 This isn't about whether or not Jose Canseco is guilty of the rape that he was accused of earlier this week, an incident that is currently being investigated and for which he has not been charged. This is, instead, about something else. It's about the narrative that unfolds in the wake of an accusations of sexual abuse – and how ridiculously screwed up that tale too often is.

The controversial former baseball all-star set the tone with a bizarre series of tweets in which he announced the charge, named his accuser and said the woman "told the police that I druged her and then raped her.hmmmmm.lets find out what really happened." [sic] He subsequently deleted the tweets, but he did leave up the cryptic message, "Sometimes your mind says yes and your body doesn't. Hate that." 

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/the_ugly_narrative_of_the_jose_canseco_rape_accusation/feed/ 31 A brief history of Jennifer Weiner’s literary fights http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/a_brief_history_of_jennifer_weiners_literary_fights/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/a_brief_history_of_jennifer_weiners_literary_fights/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 18:31:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13307053 Jennifer Weiner, the best-selling author, wrote an essay for Slate this week raking Claire Messud over the coals for recent statements Messud made in an interview with Publishers Weekly, pegged to her new book "The Woman Upstairs." Messud had spoken out forcefully in defense of unlikable characters after her interviewer told her that "I wouldn't want to be friends with Nora," the novel's protagonist:

For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/a_brief_history_of_jennifer_weiners_literary_fights/feed/ 10 First look: Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard shine in “The Immigrant” http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/first_look_joaquin_phoenix_marion_cotillard_shine_in_the_immigrant%e2%80%9d/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/first_look_joaquin_phoenix_marion_cotillard_shine_in_the_immigrant%e2%80%9d/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 18:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308135 CANNES, France – Immigration is a central theme of American life, and a political issue that never goes away. Whether the constant tide of people who come to the United States from other countries is a pollution of the national essence or a rejuvenating injection of life force is a question we keep hashing out over and over again, generation after generation. In “The Great Gatsby,” the film that opened the Festival de Cannes this year, Joel Edgerton’s Tom Buchanan gives his famous speech about how the “Nordic race” is in danger of being overwhelmed by dark invaders. Hardly anyone would phrase it quite that way today -- OK, Pat Buchanan comes pretty close – but the sentiment lingers in certain quarters.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/first_look_joaquin_phoenix_marion_cotillard_shine_in_the_immigrant%e2%80%9d/feed/ 2 DHS admits “impossible” to control 3D-printed guns http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/dhs_admits_impossible_to_control_3d_printed_guns/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/dhs_admits_impossible_to_control_3d_printed_guns/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 18:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308179 As Salon noted, when DHS ordered that Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson take offline his design for the the 3-D-printable “Liberator” handgun to review the files for export compliance, The Pirate Bay stepped in. Users shared the file by the tens of thousands within days -- that Wilson had complied with DHS demands and removed his files was one little consequence to the sprawling, sharing online networks. The Libertarian Wilson at the time expressed what the DHS has now admitted concerns about: Referring to the letter he received from the government ordering that his files be taken down, he told Forbes, “All such data should be removed from public access, the letter says. That might be an impossible standard.”

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/dhs_admits_impossible_to_control_3d_printed_guns/feed/ 8 3 possible solutions to international tax avoidance http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/3_ways_to_stop_international_tax_avoidance_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/3_ways_to_stop_international_tax_avoidance_partner/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 18:17:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308171 Both the WaPo and the NYT have articles today on a topic of great importance for the tax debate in advanced economies.  The pieces discuss how officials from the UK and European economies are being pushed by their citizens to go after the type of tax avoidance engaged in by Apple, Google, GE, and countless other multinationals.

There are at least two reasons this development is important.  First, technology and tax law have led the emergence of what international tax analyst Ed Kleinbard calls “stateless income,” a phenomenon that was on full display at the Apple hearing yesterday, where the company’s spokesperson said in so many words, “you can’t tax this income because it only exists where tax liabilities do not exist.”

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/3_ways_to_stop_international_tax_avoidance_partner/feed/ 4 “I just want the U.S. to send my father home” http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/%e2%80%9ci_just_want_the_u_s_to_send_my_father_home%e2%80%9d/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/%e2%80%9ci_just_want_the_u_s_to_send_my_father_home%e2%80%9d/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13307994 Muhammad al-Baidhani, an 11-year-old Yemeni boy with a mop of brown curls, only knows his father from photos and a one-hour video conference every two months. Before Muhammad was born, his father was captured and sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, where he’s been held without charge ever since.

“Thanks to the U.S., I don’t even know what the word ‘Dad’ means,” Muhammad told me when we met at his family’s house earlier this month in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. Clutching a portrait of his father, Abdul Khaliq al-Baidhani, in a white prison jumpsuit, he added: “I just want the U.S. to send my father home.”

If President Obama stands by his statements on Thursday, Muhammad may finally get his wish. During a wide-ranging speech on counterterrorism policy, Obama vowed to lift a freeze on repatriations of Yemenis from Guantánamo that he imposed in January 2010, days after a botched effort to attack a U.S. airliner that authorities linked to Yemen. Obama also renewed the pledge he made on his first day in office in 2009 to close Guantánamo altogether – though without offering a time frame.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/%e2%80%9ci_just_want_the_u_s_to_send_my_father_home%e2%80%9d/feed/ 6 Journalists file suit against Manning trial secrecy http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/journalists_file_suit_against_manning_trial_secrecy/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/journalists_file_suit_against_manning_trial_secrecy/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 17:06:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13307972 A group of journalists including Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, Amy Goodman and Kevin Gosztola -- all of whom have closely followed the Bradley Manning pretrial proceedings -- are filing suit to see the veil of fierce military secrecy lifted from the accused whistleblower's court martial.

The military judge presiding over the case can currently close a courtroom to the press and public for "security" reasons -- citing sensitive classified information. The plaintiffs are calling on the judge to grant public and press access to the historic trial and its attendant documents. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has already had some success in having pretrial transcripts published, but for the most part public access to the proceedings has been provided in the form of rush transcripts compiled by dedicated independent journalist, Alexa O'Brien. Common Dreams reported on this week's filing:

In a complaint filed in a federal district court Wednesday by the Center for Constitutional Rights -- along with journalists Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Kevin Gosztola, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, and Chase Madar -- the group of plaintiffs motioned for a preliminary injunction that would compel the judge to "grant the public and press access to the government’s filings, the court’s own orders, and transcripts of the proceedings." To date, none of these have been made available to the public.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/journalists_file_suit_against_manning_trial_secrecy/feed/ 4 Russia: Syrian regime ready to talk peace http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/russia_syrian_regime_ready_to_participate_in_peace_talks_ap/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/russia_syrian_regime_ready_to_participate_in_peace_talks_ap/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 17:03:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308028 BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian government has agreed "in principle" to attend a conference proposed by Russia and the United States on ending the country's civil war, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Friday, the first confirmation that President Bashar Assad's regime would be willing to take part in the talks with the opposition.

Despite the announcement from Moscow, one of Assad's staunchest allies, Damascus has not issued a definitive statement of its own on the proposed talks.

Russia and the U.S. joined efforts earlier this month to convene an international conference to bring representatives of Assad's regime and the opposition to the negotiating table. The aim of the talks would be to establish the outlines of a transitional government as a way out of the crisis.

More than 70,000 people have been killed and several million displaced since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war.

The main opposition Syrian National Coalition has not yet said whether it will attend the conference in Geneva, expected within two weeks, and is currently discussing its position at a gathering in the Turkish city of Istanbul. But members have said they want guarantees that Assad's departure is foremost on the agenda.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/russia_syrian_regime_ready_to_participate_in_peace_talks_ap/feed/ 0 Catholic Church in market for more exorcists http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/catholic_church_in_market_for_more_exorcists/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/catholic_church_in_market_for_more_exorcists/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 16:47:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308065 MADRID -- The Catholic archdiocese in Madrid says it needs more exorcists to help some of its faithful cope with the devil.

An archdiocese spokeswoman said Friday that Madrid only has one exorcist priest and that it is considering a plan to train more. She spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with archdiocese policy.

"The devil exists. That's a fact," she told The Associated Press.

Only a priest authorized by a bishop can perform an exorcism and the brief rite involves blessings with holy water, prayers and an interrogation of the devil by the exorcist during which the demon is asked to leave the victim.

ReligionenLibertad, a Catholic website, blames the growing secularization of Spanish society for what it calls an increase in people asking for help with their demons.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/catholic_church_in_market_for_more_exorcists/feed/ 4 Report: Nearly a quarter of all Americans struggle to afford food http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/report_nearly_a_quarter_of_all_americans_struggle_to_afford_food/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/report_nearly_a_quarter_of_all_americans_struggle_to_afford_food/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 16:29:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13308009 A new Pew Research report on the economies of emerging markets reveals that nearly a quarter of all Americans are struggling to afford food, putting the United States far out of step with other wealthy nations, as Pew notes:

Reports of deprivation are closely related to national wealth. For example, in Australia, Canada and Germany -- three of the richest countries surveyed in terms of 2012 GDP per capita -- roughly one-in-ten or fewer have struggled in the past year to afford food. Meanwhile, in Uganda, Kenya and Senegal -- among the poorest countries surveyed -- half or more say food for their family has been hard to come by.

The United States is a clear outlier from this pattern. Despite being the richest country in the survey, nearly a quarter of Americans (24%) say they had trouble putting food on the table in the past 12 months. This reported level of deprivation is closer to that in Indonesia or Greece rather than Britain or Canada.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/report_nearly_a_quarter_of_all_americans_struggle_to_afford_food/feed/ 40 Army weapons engineer tied to white nationalist organizations http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/army_weapons_engineer_tied_to_white_nationalist_organizations_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/army_weapons_engineer_tied_to_white_nationalist_organizations_partner/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 16:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13307356 The Southern Poverty Law CenterA young research engineer at the U.S. Army’s elite chemical and biological research laboratory in Maryland has close ties to two racist groups espousing white nationalist views, one of which has called for a homeland for white people.

John Stortstrom, a mechanical engineer who works for the Army at its Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC), was among 150 white nationalists, many of them young, who attended the American Renaissance conference held in early April in Tennessee. American Renaissance is a journal dedicated to race and intelligence, with a heavy focus on the “psychopathology” of black people. Its editor has written that black people are incapable of sustaining any kind of civilization.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/24/army_weapons_engineer_tied_to_white_nationalist_organizations_partner/feed/ 14