What's new: 2014-10-19

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Rare Silent Film With Black Cast Makes A Century-Late Debut

A rare, untitled 1913 silent film is the subject of a new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibit, 100 Years In Post-Production: Resurrecting A Lost Landmark of Black Film History, tells the story behind the silent film's production.

The film features Bert Williams, one of the era's famed black entertainers and the first black Broadway star. He performed in blackface on the stage, and does the same in this film, a romantic comedy with a large black cast of actors.

The movie was never produced in its time; its seven reels of negatives were locked away by the Biograph film studio. The Museum of Modern Art claimed the reels in 1938 as part of its founding film collections. The negatives were inside a cache of 900 film canisters donated by Biograph when it closed and donated its vaults, and MOMA made the first print from the film in 1976.

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Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Field Day Project, starring Odessa Warren Grey and Bert Williams, was never released — or even titled — back when it was shot in 1913. Museum of Modern Art hide caption

itoggle caption Museum of Modern Art

Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Field Day Project, starring Odessa Warren Grey and Bert Williams, was never released — or even titled — back when it was shot in 1913.

Museum of Modern Art

The museum gave the orphan movie a working title — Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Field Day — for the exhibit and November screening, when it will be shown as part of the museum's annual festival of film preservation. The name is taken from one of the sources for the film's narrative, a stage routine based on a fictional black social club, the Lime Kiln Club.

The black characters are shown in scenes of play and leisure — rare for motion pictures of the time. It's a stunning contrast to the depictions of greedy and violent stereotypes shown two years later in Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith's controversial cinematic masterpiece.

MOMA curator Ron Magliozzi says the theater conventions of the day required one performer in a black musical to don blackface, and the rest of the cast could perform without makeup, more naturally.

"It was a sop to the white audience," Magliozzi says. "The fact that the lead wore blackface allowed the rest of the cast not to wear blackface before white audiences."

This film follows the convention of the time, with Williams wearing blackface. His performance is comic, but not buffoonish; he is a romantic lead and gets the girl in the end of the picture.

“ To see a black man and black woman kissing — it's an intimacy that we rarely see in black film again during that time period.

- Deborah Willis, NYU professor

"There's so much joy that we rarely ever see in films about black people," says Deborah Willis, the NYU chair of photography and imaging who recently screened the unedited footage.

"To see a black man and black woman kissing — it's an intimacy that we rarely see in black film again during that time period," Willis says. "This is an unknown story, the unseen story of African-American culture on screen."

Camille Forbes, author of the biography Introducing Bert Williams, has seen the museum's unedited version of the film and says it may reopen the book on Williams' art and vision, as well as his contemporaries.

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A scene from Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Field Day Project shows Odessa Warren Grey and Bert Williams in a light-hearted moment. The film is unusual for its time in that it shows dignified black characters as romantic leads. Museum of Modern Art hide caption

itoggle caption Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

"It's a very powerful statement on Williams' efforts to perform in character on his own terms and in an environment to make a character as powerful and rich as it could be; the most meaningful it can be," Forbes says.

Forbes says that understanding Williams' experience gives us a chance to understand other performers who we may have decided played unacceptable roles.

MOMA curator Ron Magliozzi hopes the film will now be liberated. Long after the public screening, he says, he hopes the film's future will include film festivals. Maybe it will come out as a DVD.

"We're a lending institution. After restoration comes resurrection. The next step is liberation," he says.

The exhibit runs through March 2015.

blackface

film

Cartoonist Looks Back On Career Built On Unnerving Visions

Interview Highlights

On one significant hallucination he had as a young man

That was a big one for me. I was taking an art history class. And when the screen went white, I hallucinated a huge, green, rubbery amphibious creature coming up from the bottom of the screen and it shocked me so badly that I can still feel it in the soles of my feet and my hands. ... It happened at a time when I was actively sort of looking for a sign. I needed direction in my life and I didn't have a lot of self-confidence and I didn't know where I was going to go or what I was going to do. And this frog provided me with the answers to that by way of making me feel that I had within me everything that I needed to go forth and make myself a productive life.

On the odd jobs he worked to supplement his income when he couldn't support himself by cartooning

For one thing, I worked at an advertising agency. And then for most of the '80s, a good friend of mine got me a job at a studio that made animated cartoons for children. And they weren't the kind of animated cartoons that you could take a lot of pride in. ... I don't want to badmouth my employers. They were awfully good to me. But the company was called Ruby-Spears. And the cartoons that I worked on were things like the Mister T show, Rubik the Amazing Cube, which was launched five years after the [Rubik's cube] fad was dead. ... I worked on the storyboards for those things and other things.

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A page from Jim.

On the frequency of his "apparitions" later in life

I haven't [seen any] for a couple of years now, actually. Last one I saw, I came up the stairs of my house to the second floor landing and I saw a guy standing at the end of the hall ... wearing a leather harness on his face and grimacing and staring at me. And at first I thought it was my reflection in the mirror until I realized there was no mirror there. And then I just lingered long enough for me to scrutinize it. And, as I usually do, I drew it. I made a picture of it. And it's a scary image.

On his reactions to hallucinations

It isn't frightening because something in me knows that it's not threatening. I don't know what it is. It's hard to explain how easily I can accept these things even though they're completely irrational. The one that I had before this, which was about four years ago, I looked out my window and I saw Thomson and Thompson from the Herg stories, the Tintin stories, in black and white walking down the street behind a 9-foot-tall hooker in red hot pants. When it resolved into what it was, it was just a woman and her two kids walking down the street but for about 10 seconds, I saw the aforementioned group in completely lifelike detail. It was as if they were really there.

No Small Feat: The NBA's Shortest Player Never Gave Up

At 5 feet 3 inches, Tyrone Bogues, better known as Muggsy Bogues, holds the record as the shortest player in NBA history.

He was drafted by the Washington Bullets in 1987, but he's best known for playing with the Charlotte Hornets alongside Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson.

Bogues says he comes from a family of "five-footers," so when he stopped growing, it was no surprise.

"I always tell people, I think my mom had me when I was 5' 3" — I don't remember ever growing," Bogues says.

'Little Ty'

Raised in Baltimore's Lafayette projects, Bogues loved to play basketball — but he always had to prove himself. The other kids didn't take him seriously on the court, saying he was too short to play.

Tyrone Bogues had a passion for basketball at an early age. Growing up in Baltimore's Lafayette projects, he earned the nickname "Muggsy" for his scrappy, aggressive defense. Courtesy of Tyrone Bogues hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Tyrone Bogues

"I was Little Ty, Little Tyrone. I always got this negative feedback from the game of basketball," he says. People told him he was wasting his time; he'd never play basketball. He remembers thinking, " 'Why were these people saying this? I know I could play.' "

When the team captains picked their players, Bogues was always left out.

"The game is being played and we got to sit over there and watch," he says. "You get tired of just watching."

So he and his friends found empty milk crates and cut the bottoms out to make baskets.

"We tied the milk crates on each end of the fence and we had our own milk crate basketball pickup game and it was a good time cause we could jump off the fence and dunk the basketball," he says. "You had to be creative in order to play and I wanted to play."

Even back then, Bogues was an aggressive defender.

"I had to play that way because I was small," he says. "A little kid that just was out there trying to create havoc, just trying to disrupt a lot of things."

That's when the older kids started to notice him.

"All of a sudden, little Muggsy started getting a little reputation in the neighborhood," he says.

Rolling With The Punches

Throughout his teenage years, Bogues continued to build that reputation on the court. He even became a star player on the Dunbar High School basketball team.

"We were the No. 1 team in the nation," he says.

Yet he still overheard his skeptics in the crowd questioning his ability to play.

"People still didn't believe: 'Well, he played in high school, he had success in high school, but it's a whole other world when you get to college.' "

Luckily, not everyone saw it that way.

Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a school that's produced several NBA players, offered Bogues a four-year basketball scholarship.

"Wake Forest came knocking on the door and I accepted that offer," he says. "It changed my life completely."

Still, his critics were relentless.

Even the commentators at games openly criticized Wake Forest for taking a chance on Bogues.

" [They would say] 'Why did they waste a four year scholarship on a little kid that's only 5 foot 3, who can barely see over a table?' " Bogues says. "All this negativity started coming from so many directions."

It was almost too much to handle, but Bogues' talent was undeniable.

"We had the chance to play a national televised game against [North Carolina State University]," he says.

Finally, this was his chance to shine at Wake Forest. And it was one of his best games.

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Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan (left) looks down on Muggsy Bogues during a game in 1995. Bogues, who stands at 5' 3", is the shortest player in NBA history. Ruth Fremson/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Ruth Fremson/AP

Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan (left) looks down on Muggsy Bogues during a game in 1995. Bogues, who stands at 5' 3", is the shortest player in NBA history.

Ruth Fremson/AP

"I had 20 points, 10 assists," Bogues says. "From that moment on, I continued to keep building that reputation."

The stage was set for Bogues' professional career. By the time he graduated, he had a real shot at the NBA.

The Draft

On the night of the 1987 NBA Draft, Bogues was one of the many prospective players sitting in the crowd in New York. He had no idea what his future in basketball would look like.

NBA Commissioner David Stern said from his podium, "The Washington Bullets select" — pause — "Tyrone Bogues of Wake Forest."

"It felt like the whole world was lifted off your shoulders," Bogues says. "You felt like, 'I have arrived.' "

The 22-year-old, 140-pound, 5-foot-3 Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues became the shortest player in league history — a record he still holds.

"All the naysayers, the people saying that you'll never [play]. Why are you even thinking about it? A guy my size wanting to pursue a game that was supposed to be meant for the big guys," Bogues says. "That was a special, special moment."

NBA

Basketball

Iranian Entrepreneurs Make Pitches That Are Just Practice, For Now

Imagine this: You have a great idea for an Internet startup. You're sure it will work. You are ready to be part of the global market. There's one big problem: You live in Iran, a country facing some of the most extensive financial sanctions imposed on any country in the world.

That was the challenge for a team of young Iranian entrepreneurs competing in the recent Startup Istanbul, where aspiring entrepreneurs got to pitch ideas to the founders of successful tech companies and venture capitalists at a conference in Turkey.

The Iranians came armed with hot business ideas and plenty of enthusiasm, their first time competing on an international stage.

"We are so glad that today we have teams who traveled from Tehran and they are going to pitch here," says Mohsen Malayeri, the 29-year-old founder of Avatech Accelerator who describes himself as a builder of startup communities in Iran.

'Startup Fever Is Everywhere'

Malayeri has organized more than a dozen startup weekends in nine Iranian cities for a generation excited about the prospects of a tech career in a country where 65 percent of the population is under 35 years old.

"The average (age) is like 23 to 25 usually, but we have people who are showing up, a 12-year-old guy with an idea, which is quite impressive," he says.

I meet Malayeri at Microsoft headquarters in Istanbul as the competition kicked off.

"Startup fever is everywhere," he says.

The HBO show Silicon Valley is now a big hit in Iran, where it can be downloaded from the Internet. The fever swept through the country two years ago and there are already multimillion-dollar startups generating jobs.

Mohsen Malayeri, the 29-year-old founder of Avatech Accelerator, is trying to build startup communities in Iran. He organized the trip to Istanbul, where an Iranian e-commerce company earned an honorable mention — trailing startups from Turkey, Belgium and Jordan. Deborah Amos/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Deborah Amos/NPR

The Iranian teams came to Istanbul to learn international best practices to build on those successes.

"They are going to pitch, they are going to hear feedback from the mentors and investors," says Malayeri.

There's a Silicon Valley vibe in the basement of Microsoft headquarters in Istanbul, and the Iranians fit right in. At long wooden tables, the clatter of keyboards and the familiar pings of email alerts is the background music in an open space where new ideas are shared over endless free coffee and competitive pingpong matches. The young crowd represents a new tech culture in the region.

Companies from Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the more than 100 Internet startups at the event. Women have founded some of the most successful ventures. The pitches to investors reflect the vision across the region to build Internet companies that streamline everything and create jobs.

No Way Around Sanctions

One of the most promising Iranian companies is a pioneer in e-commerce. Though it's new, Zarin Pal's market potential is huge: Iran has a population of 80 million. Established in 2010, it already has a customer base of 6 million, says Mostapha Amiri, a co-founder.

Amiri was making the pitches at the Istanbul event. Sotoodeh Adibi, another founding member, was going over last-minute details with him.

"It is going to become very popular year by year," she says of Zarin Pal, which is based on the same model as PayPal.

Amiri is obviously nervous as he faces the panel of mentors who will help him shape the pitch. He has never done this before in English.

The mentors include a venture capitalist from Silicon Valley and a couple of successful startup pioneers.

“ We need their help to open the doors of our country.

- Tech entrepreneur Mostapha Amiri, on the role of international investors

Amiri has 10 minutes to outline his proposal and describe the Iranian market. He explains there is a young, connected population with no access to international credit cards due to sanctions. However, debit cards linked to Iranian banks are extremely popular.

Zarin Pal has built these links into a successful Internet business for the domestic market and now wants to offer the service to the 5 million Iranians who live abroad, Amiri explains.

If the team came from any other place in the Middle East, Zarin Pal would be an obvious candidate for investment. But the financial sanctions are still firmly in place, and that means the doors are closed to the global market. The mentors are impressed with the business model, but when it comes to sanctions, there's nothing they can do, they say.

Despite the warm applause, the Iranian team leaves the mentor session deeply disappointed.

"We need their help to open the doors of our country," Amiri says.

Investments, Not Boycotts

They voice the frustration of many young Iranians, born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. They are eager for change, for jobs and for a role in building Iran's future.

American Dave McClure, one of the mentors at the Istanbul event, wants to help.

"Instead of boycotting countries maybe we should be investing in their entrepreneurs," says McClure, a founding partner of 500 Startups, which backs promising Internet business in the region — although "not in Iran yet, it's still illegal."

McClure encourages investment to counter the region's gloomy news narrative.

Here are the top Internet companies in Iran and their estimated value:

Digikala: $150 million

Aparat Group: $30 million

Caf Bazaar: $20 million.

Source: The Economist

"Young people without jobs is a problem, so, creating jobs is a way to fill that gap," he says.

McClure is convinced that regional investment is good for the U.S. "as a way to have a better foreign policy approach and probably increase national security." And he's willing to write a check to test it.

His latest venture is Geeks on a Plane, where he invites investors to travel to the region to finance the new tech culture. Tehran is on his wish list for next year.

He's a hero to Iranian entrepreneurs after a recent speech in Berkeley where he challenged wealthy Iranian-Americans to invest in Iran's tech culture rather than what he called expensive, "sexy sports cars." His speech went viral in Tehran.

Talking To Top Investors

On the closing day of the competition, the Iranian team was one of 14 companies the judges sent on to the finals. Amiri was on stage again in front of a panel of judges and a packed house. This is the pitch that counts.

"Hi, I'm Mostapha from Zarin Pal, we are the first Iranian e-wallet system," he begins in a bit of a shaky start.

He's honed the presentation over the four days of this event. He's learned to hit all the highlights. It's the first time an Iranian team has pitched in English.

Back home, the Iranian government still places restrictions on the Internet, banning access to Facebook and Twitter. But it is removing domestic barriers for these startup entrepreneurs. Many are encouraged by a government-backed increase in Internet speed and a mobile 3G connection now offered by two main operators in Iran.

Malayeri, Avatech Accelerator's founder and organizer of the trip, says the team has won just by coming to Istanbul.

"I'm not sure if there is any cash prize in place, but talking to top active investors is considered as a prize," he says, beaming.

As for the Zarin Pal team, their efforts were good enough to garner an honorable mention — the only one in the entire competition — and, more important, the attention of international investors. If the sanctions are lifted, these young Iranians want to be ready to jump quickly into the global market.

Iran

Tech Week: Voice Mail Hang-Ups, Apple Pay And Zuckerberg's Chinese

It's the weekend, which means it's time to look back on the week in technology that was. As your handy NPR One listening app says, here we go...

ICYMI

Please Do Not Leave Voice Mail: As part of our ongoing #newboom series, Rachel Rood reports on how annoying voice mail is to millennials. If it's important enough, just text me, younger generations say.

Online Gaming And Women: The Pew Research Center released its first ever study on online harassment and found that there's one online space where people don't perceive women and men are treated equally — gaming. In light of the ongoing, sprawling #Gamergate crisis, it probably surprises no one.

The Big Conversation

Apple Pay Debuts: With Apple's new mobile payment system, a major shift away from credit cards and wallets could be happening. But as Aarti Shahani noted on Morning Edition, other vendors have tried this before and failed.

iCloud And The Chinese?: A group claims the Chinese government supported an attack against users of Apple's iCloud service, and experts fear it may be a harbinger of more attacks to come.

Curiosities

BuzzFeed: Facebook Rebukes DEA For Impersonating Woman Online

The company isn't happy the Drug Enforcement Administration created a phony Facebook page using a real woman's name, without her knowledge.

Wired: New Tablet Case Recognizes Sign Language and Translates It Into Text

A California startup is developing a case for tablets that can serve as a virtual interpreter for deaf people.

NPR: Mark Zuckerberg Shows Off His Mandarin Chinese Skills

During a visit to a Beijing university, the Facebook co-founder and CEO conducted a full Q&A in Mandarin Chinese. It's tonally cringe worthy, but he got a lot of props for his commitment.

tech week

New Incan Find One-Ups Peru's Famous 12 Angle Stone

Hundreds of years after it was precisely carved and placed into a wall, a stone has been found in Peru that could undermine the country's famous 12 Angle Stone.

Researchers say the stone is part of "a hydraulic system built at the archaeological site Inkawasi in Huancavelica," hundreds of miles from the other stone that has long been revered as a paragon of the Incas' intricate masonry.

The find was announced by Peru's Ministry of Culture, which says the 13-angled stone was part of a water system that irrigated a strategic area southeast of Lima.

"Inkawasi, located about 3,800 meters [12,467 feet] above sea level, was believed to have been one of the most important Inca fortresses in Huancavelica," says The Peruvian Times. "The site was strategically important as it was located at the start of the river that irrigates the Huaytara valley."

It remains to be seen whether the new stone might rival the 12 Angle Stone that has drawn thousands of tourists to the ruins of Hatunrumiyoc Palace in Cusco. That stone remains an integral part of a wall that lines a street with imposingly large stones, all intricately joined together in what one visitor calls "a unique stone puzzle."

archaeology

tourism

Peru

Calling 911 On Your Cell? It's Harder To Find You Than You Think

Today's mobile phones can do almost everything a computer can. But we still need them for their most basic purpose: making phone calls — especially in emergencies.

Yet existing technology can't always pinpoint a caller's location, particularly when a 911 caller is indoors.

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed new regulations for wireless carriers to help address the problem, but so far, wireless providers are resisting the changes.

One of the first questions callers are asked when they call 911 is, "Where is your emergency?" It's also "absolutely the most important," says Steve Souder, director of the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications in Virginia.

"We need to know where you are to send somebody. We don't need to know what; we don't need to know how; we don't need to know when," Souder says. "The 'where' is the No. 1 thing."

But that's become a much harder question for first responders in the past 20 years. First, the GPS on cellphones doesn't work as well indoors as it does outside.

Second, callers used to reach 911 via a landline, which was linked to a specific address — down to the apartment number. That's not true with cellphones.

Chris Frederick, a 911 call taker in Fairfax County, remembers when an 8-year-old called him on a cellphone because his parents had a medical emergency. The boy couldn't read very well, and his parents didn't speak English. So Frederick asked him to walk outside.

NPR/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Center for Health Statistics National Health Interview Survey

"And I said, 'Can you tell me what the number is on your house?' And he told me the number. It took about 10 minutes."

If the call had come in on a landline, Frederick says, identifying the house would have been instantaneous — the location would have just popped up on his computer screen.

With nearly half the children in the U.S. — like the boy Frederick helped — living in wireless-only households, situations like that are common. According to the National Emergency Number Association, around 210 million 911 calls come from cellphones every year. And about half of the people calling on a cellphone from indoors don't know where they are specifically.

The FCC regulates the cellphone industry, including wireless carriers like Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. Currently, the FCC requires cellphones to have technology that tracks a person to between 100 and 300 meters of where he is.

But as Jodie Griffin, senior staff attorney at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, points out, "100 meters, which is the stricter end of the rules right now, is more than a football field."

And a football field is longer than some city blocks.

"When you're talking about someone who's outdoors, the ambulance may be able to arrive and just see where someone is in distress," Griffin says.

But if a caller is inside one of these buildings? Good luck.

So earlier this year, the FCC proposed new rules that would require vertical location information. That way, first responders could identify which floor a caller is on. The rules would also require location information within 50 meters — still longer than some apartment building hallways.

The new rules would apply to any phone, no matter what type.

So far, wireless providers are resisting the proposed changes. In filings with the FCC, Sprint said that the agency's timeline wasn't realistic.

In an email to NPR, Verizon said the company is "working with a variety of organizations across the ecosystem on a viable path forward."

The technology to meet those requirements is actually already available.

All Tech Considered

New Digital Amber Alerts Could Create A Backlash

Several companies have created systems that can better track a phone's location. The company TruePosition creates custom geolocation technology.

NPR Ed

Enlisting Smartphones In The Campaign For Campus Safety

"Special receivers are installed in the existing wireless operators' or carriers' cell towers," says Rob Anderson, TruePosition's chief technology officer. "Those receivers are able to very accurately measure the time the signals that are transmitted from the cellphones arrive at the various cell towers. And by making those time measurements, we can compute a position. And we measure those signals very precisely, on the order of nanoseconds."

Cities Project

Police Take Different Approaches To 'The Tyranny Of 911'

TruePosition's system doesn't require updates to every cellphone, but it does require cellphone carriers to add equipment to their towers.

Obviously, this would cost money — which companies would likely pass on to consumers in one way or another.

Public Knowledge's Griffin says the added cost could also raise another problem.

"The people who can't afford the newest smartphone, or can't afford to be on an LTE network, are going to be left behind if we just assume that we'll let the new technology that comes along in two years solve everything," she says.

The FCC is currently taking comments on the proposed rules. If they're approved, the regulations would still take at least a year to implement.

911 service

emergencies

emergency response

cellphones

geolocation

GPS

Tobacco Farmers Lose Longtime Safety Net

Tobacco growers are about to face a completely free market. This month, they'll receive their last checks from a government program meant to ease them out of a Depression-era tobacco-price-fixing system.

That has left Stanley Smith, who grows about 60 acres of tobacco on his farm not far from Winston-Salem, N.C., feeling a little unsettled.

"I've farmed all my life," Smith says. "I think the best way to sum it up is our safety net now is gone."

Food

Some U.S. Farms Trade Tobacco For A Taste Of Africa

StoryCorps

No More Livelihood: Tobacco Auctions' Last Call

The safety net is the Transitional Tobacco Payment Program, also known as the buyout. Since the 1930s, the government regulated the tobacco market with a quota system. It limited how much a farmer could grow to control supply and demand, and farmers profited. That ended in 2004 with the $9.6 billion buyout program that paid growers yearly sums to help them adapt to the free market.

Around the Nation

Tobacco Farmers Feel The Pinch Of Rising Taxes

"Twenty-five, 30, 40 years ago tobacco was clearly the most profitable thing you could do on the farm," says Tim Hambrick, with the agricultural extension office in Winston-Salem. He says back then farmers could get $1,000 an acre. Now it's more like $200. So they have to grow more tobacco to make the same money. Farms get bigger, or they get squeezed out. And everyone is trying new things.

"You see guys invest heavier into the grain market. You see guys put up chicken houses. You see guys retire and just get out of the business. They look for other things to do. They encourage their kids to look for other things to do," Hambrick says.

But tobacco is still big business. The U.S. tobacco crop has been steadily bringing in about $1.5 billion a year and may even grow, given the global nature of the market. Blake Brown, an agricultural economist at North Carolina State University, says even though Americans are smoking less, overseas markets are promising. And there's still demand for the highly prized North Carolina leaf.

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Marvin Eaton owns a farm in Belew's Creek, N.C., where he grows 200 acres of tobacco. He bought the farm from his grandfather and plans to pass it down to his son. Emily McCord/WFDD hide caption

itoggle caption Emily McCord/WFDD

Marvin Eaton owns a farm in Belew's Creek, N.C., where he grows 200 acres of tobacco. He bought the farm from his grandfather and plans to pass it down to his son.

Emily McCord/WFDD

"So I think for the next five years, demand for U.S. tobacco may be stable and could actually increase a little bit because of the export demand, but we don't know exactly whether the growth in China will offset the decline in demand in the U.S. and Europe," Brown says.

And another unknown: how e-cigarettes will affect the demand for tobacco leaf.

It's the growers at larger farms that have a little more breathing room. Marvin Eaton grows 200 acres of tobacco, along with grain and strawberries, in Belew's Creek, N.C. He has a contract with Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds. Right now, that's paying Eaton's bills.

"The companies, they're in control, and if they don't want Marvin Eaton raising tobacco and I can't make a living on what they say they're going to pay me for, then I, Marvin Eaton needs to get him something else he enjoys doing," Eaton says.

For now, Eaton is hopeful. He points to his son, who has finished college and is back home to help his dad and learn the family business. Buck Eaton stands watch over a giant conveyer belt that's sorting tobacco leaves. Someday this farm will be his.

tobacco

Winston Salem

North Carolina

Tracing A Gin-Soaked Trail In London

In Scotland, some long-time whisky makers are switching over to gin. In Germany, people who distill traditional brandies are doing the same. The world is in the middle of a gin distillery boom, and it is coming to America.

One place to find the roots of this boom is London, where 250 distilleries once existed in the city limits alone.

For Charles Maxwell, this story is personal. "My great-great-grandfather was apprenticed in the city of London in the 1680s to learn how to make gin," Maxwell says. "And from that day to this, we've distilled gin in London."

Maxwell is the only man ever to have received the London Gin Guild's lifetime achievement award. He and his ancestors have watched the drink go in and out of fashion many times over the centuries. The high point — or really the low point — was in the mid-1700s.

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A depiction of "Gin Lane," filled with sins caused by drunken revelries. William Hogarth/Wikimedia hide caption

itoggle caption William Hogarth/Wikimedia

A depiction of "Gin Lane," filled with sins caused by drunken revelries.

William Hogarth/Wikimedia

"Things had got slightly out of hand in England," says Maxwell. "We'd actually got to the point where the consumption per person in England was over four cases of gin a year."

That's 48 bottles of gin each. More if you leave out children, though some kids drank it, too.

In 1751, the artist William Hogarth created his famous print, "Gin Lane," showing chaos as a drunken mother drops her baby in the gin-soaked London streets. (That print was commissioned by the beer brewers.)

London is not returning to the days of Gin Lane. For one, alcohol is now tightly regulated and can no longer be sold out of bathtubs. But we are in the midst of a worldwide gin distillery boom.

At a bar in central London called Graphic, more than 300 gin brands line the shelves. Manager Dom Balfour says the owners didn't set out to create a gin destination — "it's just something that happened over time a few years ago."

"Someone took an interest in gin and started to increase the amount of gins. Before you know it, you've got 100. Then you've got 200. Then you've got 300, and it keeps going."

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A bartender at Graphic works on drinks for NPR reporter Ari Shapiro and producer Rich Preston. Ari Shapiro/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ari Shapiro/NPR

A bartender at Graphic works on drinks for NPR reporter Ari Shapiro and producer Rich Preston.

Ari Shapiro/NPR

On this night, an up-and-comer is trying to find a bit of space on the crowded shelves. Nick Tilt is here representing Sloane's gin, a new brand from the Netherlands. He launches into a sales pitch about the flavors of fresh citrus fruits, and vanilla from Madagascar "that creates a full creaminess to the middle of the palate and holds all the other flavors together."

His colleague pulls out little vials of angelica root and coriander seeds. He deploys spray bottles to spritz the aromas. It's quite a production.

There's a simple reason that so many new alcohol producers are making gin instead of vodka or whiskey.

"Gin has a flavor profile. But it doesn't require the lengthy aging process you get with a whiskey or a brandy," says Frank Coleman of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

So it has more personality than vodka, but it doesn't take the time to produce that brown spirits demand. With gin, you can distill today and sell tomorrow. And Coleman says the big brands are happy to see these new guys pop up on the scene.

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Bottles lined up at the Thames Distillery in London, waiting to be filled. Ari Shapiro/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ari Shapiro/NPR

Bottles lined up at the Thames Distillery in London, waiting to be filled.

Ari Shapiro/NPR

"It's sort of like the farm team, you know? In the past, they spent millions of dollars, in some cases, to develop new brands. Now they look at the marketplace and they can just buy a brand if they want to incorporate it into their portfolio."

In the U.S., Coleman says, more than 45 states now have small new distilleries. There is no reliable data on how many of those new distilleries are gin, but Coleman believes the percentage is high, since gin is so easy and quick to produce relative to other alcohols.

One strange quirk of this boom is that people are not, overall, drinking more gin than before. Instead, people are drinking a wider range of gins and paying more for the privilege. That is, the slices of the pie are getting smaller, and each slice is becoming pricier.

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Desmond Payne, master distiller for Beefeater. Ari Shapiro/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ari Shapiro/NPR

Desmond Payne, master distiller for Beefeater.

Ari Shapiro/NPR

The Salt

New York Toasts Long-Awaited Revival Of Its Distilleries

On the London gin scene, the wise old man is Beefeater — for decades, the only distiller left in the city limits. Today there are eight. Desmond Payne is the master distiller, tasting the brew every day to make sure the blend is just right.

"Every drop of our 2.6 million cases comes from this distillery," he says, standing in a massive room surrounded by ancient bulbous copper stills. The air smells like juniper and orange peel.

Payne believes part of the new interest in small-batch gins comes from a broader locavore, farm-to-table trend.

"I think people are far more interested in what they eat and drink, and how it's made, and what the ingredients are and where they come from," he says.

It's easy for him to be generous about the newcomers. Small distilleries are still only a tiny fraction of the total gin market. And the big brands have watched many of them come and go over the decades, as fickle drinkers slurp up a trend, then leave it at the bar.

And now, some gin recipes straight from the source.

Desmond Payne from Beefeater: Negroni

25ml Beefeater

25ml sweet vermouth

25ml Campari

Stir and strain

Rocks glass

Cubed ice

Orange slice or twist

Charles Maxwell from Thames Distillers: Tom Collins

2 oz gin

1 oz lemon juice

1 tsp superfine sugar

3 oz club soda

1 maraschino cherry

1 slice orange

Combine the gin, lemon juice, and sugar in a shaker with ice. Shake well. Strain into a collins glass almost filled with ice cubes. Add club soda. Stir and garnish with the cherry and the orange slice. Tip: You probably want a beefier, big gin.

Giovanni Cascone, from Graphic Bar: Corpse Reviver #2

Equal parts gin, lemon juice, triple sec (commonly Cointreau), Kina Lillet, and a dash of absinthe. Tip: "I use a Beefeater – you want a citrusy gin in this case."

mixed drinks

locavore

gin

In North Carolina, Latino Voters Could Decide Tight Senate Race

Ahead of the midterm elections, Michel Martin is visiting Charlotte, N.C., to learn more about Latino voters' growing influence in the state. Join Michel for a Facebook chat from 4:30-5 p.m. ET today as she answers questions and shares more on her reporting.

Twenty-year-old Mary Espinosa is eager to get to the polls this Election Day. "I have a lot of friends who are undocumented [and] can't vote," she says. "My parents can't vote, and so for me, using my ability to vote as a way of kind of letting my dad's voice count."

Outside traditional Latino strongholds in the West and Southwest, voters like Espinosa are poised to have an impact in close races. She lives in North Carolina, where Latinos make up 9 percent of the state's population and some 2 percent of registered voters. Many of them are young, first-time voters. And there's a tight Senate race in the state that could hinge on them.

The first generation of people from Latin America arrived in the state in the 1980s, according to the University of North Carolina's Latino Migration Project, and they were "farmers, scientists, builders, housekeepers, teachers, cooks, factory workers and entrepreneurs."

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Diego Fernando Barahona Andrade is the editor of La Noticia, North Carolina's oldest Spanish-language newspaper. Andy McMillan for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Andy McMillan for NPR

Diego Fernando Barahona Andrade is the editor of La Noticia, North Carolina's oldest Spanish-language newspaper.

Andy McMillan for NPR

Architect Alina Bartlett moved from Caracas, Venezuela, in 1978 to attend UNC in Charlotte. "There were, what, about nine Hispanic students at the time, and they were very open to diversity in their student body, so they made it very accessible," she says.

Diego Barahona is the editor of La Noticia, the state's oldest Spanish-language newspaper. He points out that, in most of Latin America, voting is compulsory, but not so in the U.S. So voters who don't like the candidates might actually welcome the option of not voting.

In that heated Senate race, according to a new North Carolina study from the National Council of La Raza Action Fund and Latino Decisions, 40 percent of Latinos polled support incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan, while 15 percent support Republican challenger Thom Tillis. That means 45 percent of Hispanic voters are undecided.

Meet Charlotte's Latino voters

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Deborah Aguiar-Velez is a chemical engineer by trade and CEO of Sistemas Corp., a technology consulting company she founded in 1983. Aguiar-Velez was raised in Puerto Rico and moved to the United States in 1978. She settled in Charlotte, N.C., after 2006, after almost 30 years in Georgia. Andy McMillan for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Andy McMillan for NPR

Andy McMillan for NPR

Deborah Aguiar-Velez

"One of the great things about Charlotte is that you can talk to everybody. You can talk to the mayor, you can talk to anybody who is running — you invite them. And because we're Latinos, everybody comes and talks to us on election years. And they love you, and then they forget about you. That's the way that I think they think about most of the Latinos. All the people who are running just went to the Latin American Chamber [of Commerce], and then you don't see them again until the next year."

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Originally from Peru, Milagritos Aguilar is the manager and owner of Royal Roofing LLC., a roofing and solar panel company. She used to live in Pennsylvania and says the recession brought her to Charlotte in 2008. Andy McMillan for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Andy McMillan for NPR

Andy McMillan for NPR

Milagritos Aguilar

"As a minority businesswoman, I started my business five years ago, with no money and no experience. When I see that Charlotte opened doors for me and gave me so many opportunities, I thought that I had to give in return something. And little by little, I start having my business get successful and, little by little, saw that Charlotte also gives me the opportunity to speak out about my country. So it's a very interesting experience."

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Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Carlos Salum is a leadership performance adviser and the founder of Salum International Resources Inc. He says the first reason he moved to Charlotte was for the weather. Andy McMillan for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Andy McMillan for NPR

Andy McMillan for NPR

Carlos Salum

"Twenty-three years living under military dictatorships, that's something to you. And when you come to this country and vote for the first time, it makes you feel that you have an opportunity to sit at the table and make an impact."

On Wednesday night, the Latin American Coalition and National Council of La Raza held a Community Town Hall around voting and the election at Caldwell Presbyterian Church in Charlotte.

Many of the Latinos we met said they feel as though politicians take them for granted and aren't addressing the issues that matter most to the community. According to the NCLR/Latino Decisions poll, 33 percent of those polled said immigration reform is a top issue, followed by the economy (28 percent) and health care (22 percent).

Jorge De La Jara, the chairman of the Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Charlotte, says it's just a matter of time before politicians start paying serious attention.

In the meantime, he says, Latino professionals will help motivate young voters. "You have to be part of the change; you can't complain without being involved, he says."

I'll be returning to Charlotte on Monday for a live event on voting rights that will include a parallel bilingual Twitter chat, in English and Spanish, from 7 to 9 p.m. ET. Pop-up videos from our reporting trip in Charlotte are here on Storify.

Justice Ginsburg Revises Texas Voter ID Dissent, Then Announces It

Once again the U.S. Supreme Court is correcting its own record, but Wednesday marks the first time that the court has called attention to its own mistake with a public announcement. And it was the erring justice herself, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked the court's public information office to announce the error.

Last Friday Ginsburg pulled an all-nighter to write a dissent from the court's decision to allow the Texas voter ID law to go into effect while the case is on appeal. The dissent, released Saturday at 5 a.m. and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, listed a variety of photo ID forms not accepted for purposes of voting under the Texas law. Among those listed in the Ginsburg dissent as unacceptable was a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs photo ID.

Three days after the opinion was released, professor Richard Hasen of the University of California, Irvine said on his election law blog that the state does in fact accept the Veterans Affairs IDs. Upon confirmation of that fact by the Texas secretary of state's office, Ginsburg amended her opinion.

Not surprising. What was surprising is that, according to Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg, Justice Ginsburg instructed the press office to announce that the opinion had "contained an error" and that it was being corrected.

On Wednesday, the court announced the mistake and the correction.

Texas Can Enforce Voter ID Law For November Election Oct. 18, 2014

The Two-Way

Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce Voter ID Law For Nov. Election

Errors of this sort are not exactly rare. In this case, it appears that Ginsburg may have gotten the Wisconsin and Texas voter ID provisions, both before the court, mixed up.

Until the era of the blogosphere, however, this sort of mistake was the stuff of academic gossip. Now it is the stuff of academic blogs, which sometimes get picked up in the popular press. A more embarrassing mistake by Justice Antonin Scalia was caught by Harvard Law professor Richard Lazarus last spring; the error was quickly fixed, but it was not announced. Nor was another error made and corrected by Justice Kagan.

Ginsburg is the first justice to call the public's attention to her own mistake.

Web Resources

Revised Dissent

Democratic Climate Activist Is Election's Biggest Donor — That We Know Of

Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer has spent an astonishing $58 million this election cycle, more than any other donor in the traditional, fully disclosed part of the political system. He recently gave $15 million to a superPAC.

This latest contribution, like most of Steyer's others, went to NextGen Climate Action. It's pretty much Steyer's personal superPAC; he's supplied 70 percent of its money.

In a video last month, Steyer talked about his reasons for launching NextGen: "Together, we're sending an unmistakable message to Washington. Climate change is not just an important issue, it's the issue. And we need leaders who will take it seriously." Put more bluntly, the superPAC is using climate change as a wedge issue in battleground states.

Its biggest fight is the gubernatorial race in Florida. Republican incumbent Rick Scott is seeking a second term. NextGen calls him "a climate change denier." And — as in six states where NextGen is involved in Senate races — it links Scott to billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch, who oversee a network of conservative political groups.

YouTube

NextGen just put this message on TV in the Jacksonville market, where the Koch-owned company Georgia Pacific has a plant: "Who owns Georgia Pacific? The Koch brothers, spending $6 million on Scott and his allies. Rick Scott, for the powerful few, and sometimes just the powerful two."

The Scott campaign tags Steyer as an ally of Scott's Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist. Scott made millions as a health care executive, but he isn't as wealthy as Steyer or the Koch brothers. He self-financed his first run for governor and now says he's considering putting money into his re-election campaign.

Earlier this week, he told reporters, "If I put in money, it will be nothing compared to what Tom Steyer — the radical, left-wing billionaire from the West Coast — is helping Charlie with, to bring these policies to Florida."

In this new world of billionaire-against-billionaire politics, Steyer's operation and the Kochs' look similar. Both produce ads that pack a roundhouse punch. Both spend heavily on ground operations. In Florida alone, NextGen runs 21 field offices and has spent $12 million.

But in another way, Steyer and the Kochs represent polar opposites.

Chris Lehane, Steyer's political adviser, says, "We do think it's a competitive advantage to be clear about where the money's coming from and why it's being injected into the system." So NextGen Climate Action files public reports listing its donors. Steyer's spending on the Senate and gubernatorial campaigns is not a secret.

Of the dozen or so groups in the Koch network, just one discloses its donors: the superPAC Freedom Partners Action Fund. The others are 501(c) tax-exempt organizations, which operate outside the federal campaign finance laws. This kind of political activity was made possible by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision of 2012 and other recent court rulings. The upshot: David and Charles Koch have, on the public record, contributed only $2 million apiece this cycle to the network they built.

Whether Steyer's money is making a difference — that's another matter.

"They've put up two 30-second attack ads, both of which contained significant errors of fact," says political scientist Rick Foglesong of Rollins College, in Winter Park, Fla. "And these were errors that the other side seized upon in counter-ads, which probably blunted the message that NextGen was trying to communicate."

Foglesong says the ads were "counterproductive."

Lehane says that overall, NextGen is executing its game plan. "Any objective analysis of the seven states that we're in, it's abundantly clear that Democrats, really for the first time, are playing offense on the issue of climate and environment, and Republicans are playing defense. "

Lehane says Steyer is in it not just for two more weeks but for the long haul.

Just like David and Charles Koch.

пятница

Mali's First Ebola Case In Current Outbreak Is 2-Year-Old Girl

Mali has become the sixth country in West Africa to confirm a case of Ebola, after a 2-year-old girl who arrived from neighboring Guinea tested positive for the hemorrhagic virus.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib says of the young girl: "She traveled with her grandmother in Guinea and returned to Mali. We don't have all details of this trip."

NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton says there are unconfirmed reports that the toddler's mother died from Ebola in Guinea. "After that, the child was brought across the border to Mali's capital, Bamako, before traveling to Kayes, where she was admitted to the hospital Wednesday night, promptly tested positive for Ebola and isolated."

Mali's health minister, Ousmane Kone, told state television that the girl's condition is improving, but the spread of the current outbreak to a new country in the region is a concern. The World Health Organization said Friday that it was sending more experts to Mali to help fight the disease.

"This team is being assembled this morning and will leave for Mali as soon as possible," Chaib said.

The spokeswoman said three WHO experts were already in Mali evaluating the country's precautions against Ebola.

According to Reuters, Chaib said Malian authorities are monitoring 43 people who were in contact with the girl, including 10 health workers.

WHO says 4,900 have died of the disease and nearly 10,000 have been infected. All but two cases were contracted in West Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a breakdown here. Earlier this week, Senegal joined Nigeria in being declared free of the disease.

On Thursday, it was announced that Dr. Craig Spencer, a physician in New York who returned recently from Guinea where he was treating Ebola patients for the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders, has been diagnosed with the disease.

Guinea

West Africa

Mali

ebola

WHO

You're Enjoying Low Gas Prices, But Is It Really A Good Sign?

All around the country, gasoline prices have been falling for weeks, down to an average of about $3 a gallon. Those lower prices are helping restrain inflation across the board.

On Wednesday, the Labor Department said its consumer price index barely inched up 0.1 percent last month. Over the past 12 months, the CPI has risen by 1.7 percent, roughly half of its historical average rate of increase.

That sounds great for consumers.

But some economists see possible trouble ahead. They worry that if energy prices were to keep sliding, the process could contribute to deflation — a brutal cycle of falling prices last seen in this country during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Economists consider deflation to be the nightmare scenario. To understand why, imagine you own a factory. To make your product, you first must purchase parts and raw materials. You promise workers a certain wage. You borrow money to expand.

All of these transactions are based on the idea that you will be able to sell your goods at a particular price. But what if prices start falling?

Suddenly, you can't afford to repay your loan or live up to your contract with workers. You can't afford the parts that already are sitting on your inventory shelves. You have to start selling products at a loss, even as your competitors are slashing their prices.

FDA Cracks Down On Fake Ebola Cures Sold Online

Snake venom, vitamin C, Nano Silver and herbs have all been pitched online as a treatment or cure for Ebola. None has the backing of the FDA.

"Unfortunately during public health threats such as Ebola, fraudulent products that claim to prevent, treat, cure disease often appear on the market almost overnight," says Gary Coody, the FDA's national health fraud coordinator. In particular, the FDA wants consumers to beware Ebola "cures" peddled online.

“ It's like storm-chasing roofers, who go and try to defraud people after a big storm. Some of them may be making an honest mistake; other companies are trying to rip people off.

- Nathan Cortez, law professor, Southern Methodist University

The problem isn't just that such products are worthless. "Consumers who are misled by false claims may delay seeking the medical care they need, such as proper diagnosis and supportive care," Coody says. Or they may have a false sense that the product will protect them from the virus.

Goats and Soda

Fake Cures For AIDS Have A Long And Dreadful History

The FDA has sent warning letters to three companies it says are making fraudulent claims about Ebola cures. The letters threaten property seizure and even criminal prosecution if the firms don't respond appropriately.

The strategy amounts to "public shaming," says Nathan Cortez, who teaches law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "It's one mechanism that the FDA uses to lean on companies in a very public way. It's also meant as a warning to other firms, he says, "to say we know companies are trying to defraud the public with fake Ebola tests and treatments and we're on the case."

Two of the firms that got the FDA warning letters didn't respond to my emailed messages. But Ralph Fucetola of the New Jersey-based company Natural Solutions Foundation says he heard the FDA's message loud and clear. Natural Solutions received the warning for its claims that a product known as Nano Silver can effectively kill Ebola.

Shots - Health News

Banned Drugs Still Turning Up In Weight-Loss Supplements

Shots - Health News

How To Sell Bogus Health Cures In 5 Easy Steps

"We understand that there is no approved treatment for Ebola," Fucetola says. "Since we are in the middle of negotiating with the government with regard to how we can best describe what we believe is a very important health breakthrough, we are not using the legal term of art 'treatment of disease.' "

Even if the company doesn't explicitly say that Nano Silver "treats" Ebola, it has claimed on its website, Twitter and Facebook that Ebola has a cure — a statement not borne out by the evidence so far, according to the FDA, CDC and other health officials.

While there are experimental drugs and vaccines being tested in the current Ebola outbreak, nothing yet has been proved to work.

Online, other companies tout clove oil, oregano and homeopathic treatments to prevent the virus. There's even a tutorial that was up on YouTube for a do-it-yourself vaccine.

Some businesses, Cortez says, take advantage of fear.

"It's like storm-chasing roofers, who go and try to defraud people after a big storm," he says. "Some of them may be making an honest mistake; other companies are trying to rip people off."

Mistake or not, the FDA says Ebola cures advertised on the Internet are misleading and dangerous. The agency encourages consumers who have seen such claims to report them.

health fraud

ebola

FDA