What's new: 2015-04-12

суббота

The Internet Of Spooky Things Is Alive In 'Unfriended'

What scares teenagers?

The question has haunted horror movie producers ever since scaring teenagers became its own cottage industry, and the answer usually involves finding them where they live. Decades ago, the idea of psycho killers infiltrating suburbs (Halloween), dreams (A Nightmare On Elm Street), summer camps (Friday The 13th), or video stores (Scream) was enough to send jaded adolescents over the edge. So it was inevitable a new shocker, in this case the MTV film Unfriended, would find today's teens where they live: the Internet.

Set entirely on a desktop, with characters only visible via webcam, the film takes 82 minutes of real time to deliver its simple premise: It's the anniversary of a high-school girl's suicide. Six of her classmates are hanging out on a group Skype chat, each sequestered in their own house, their parents nowhere to be found. But there's an unknown figure on the call, represented by that spooky blue ghost Skype profile. The deceased, named Laura, is haunting their social media as one part virus, one part Slender Man, and one part I Know What You Did Last Summer. She sends taunting messages from her own Facebook account, commandeers the Spotify playlists, and forces the kids to play the ultimate form of torture, Never Have I Ever. Insult her or try to hang up on her call, and she compels you to commit real-life suicide with a speed that would put Uber to shame. Call it the Internet of spooky things.

Unfriended, which was originally titled Cybernatural, isn't the first film to take place entirely over the Internet. Some previous tech horror, including the Elijah Wood-starring Open Windows, already popped that bubble. But it is the first to so accurately depict the way today's youth piece together their online lives. The girl whose desktop we are peering at is Blaire (Shelley Hennig), whose life unfolds onscreen — a digital collage as character sketch. By peering at her Facebook page, YouTube videos and browsing history, we know she's a hard partier with a goober boyfriend (Moses Jacob Storm), a checkered history with Laura and a Teen Wolf obsession (Hennig's recurring role on the show might explain that one). The efficient exposition is entirely composed of a LiveLeak video and half a YouTube clip. It's supremely goofy and not scary in the slightest, but the movie is speaking the right language.

Made for a dirt-cheap $1 million, the film gets by with built-in laptop webcams, terrible sound and "buffering" at all effects-heavy moments. Of course the digitized lo-fi look is unpleasant on a big screen, but no more so than the found footage trend has been for the past several years. Having to follow the measured pace of chat forums does force the filmmakers into some degree of patience, though they can't escape the horror-film curse of cheap gotcha moments and idiotic, needless gore. But give credit where credit is due: The film was shot in a single take. Your move, Birdman.

In between the silliness, director Levan Gabriadze and writer Nelson Greaves manage a message about the dangers of cyberbullying that's like a less preachy version of the 2011 documentary Bully. Not the ghost-glitch business (a disappearing "Unfriend" button on Facebook isn't that spooky), but rather the more subtle touches: the way the friends spread gossip about one of their own mere seconds before she joins their group chat, the uploading of compromising media without permission and the casual nastiness of that common "kill yourself" refrain supposedly only meant as "a joke." By immersing us so thoroughly in this world, Gabriadze has made it easy to understand why words that only exist online can hurt so deep.

A communication system built by today's best and brightest minds has become a swamp of callous and evil behavior. That's what should really keep teens up at night. That, and the fear of going outside.

'Orhan's Inheritance' Is The Weight Of History

Next Friday, Armenians commemorate the events that took place 100 years ago, when the Ottoman Empire began forcibly deporting Armenians from their homeland, which lies within an area that is now Turkey. It was the beginning of a massacre that left more than one million Armenians dead. Armenians call it genocide; Turkey says the killing was not systematic, but part of widespread fighting at the time.

Aline Ohanesian tries to make sense of these events in her first novel, Orhan's Inheritance. She says she was inspired by a story her grandmother told her, one hot summer day when she was no more than 9 years old. "My cousins and I were all watching The Sound of Music, and she called me into her bedroom and just told me that she needed to tell me something, that she had a story too."

Orhan's Inheritance

by Aline Ohanesian

Hardcover, 340 pages | purchase

Purchase Featured Book

TitleOrhan's InheritanceAuthorAline Ohanesian

Your purchase helps support NPR Programming. How?

Amazon

Independent Booksellers

Fiction

Not My Job: Boston's Dick Flavin Is Quizzed On The 'Worst Poet Ever'

Everybody knows the Boston Red Sox are unique — in that they have the most pretentious, literary fans in all of baseball. Sure, the Yankees may have more World Championships, but only Red Sox fans routinely compare their team to the tragic heroes of Greek Drama.

So it's fitting that they have an official poet. Dick Flavin is an Emmy-award winning broadcaster, a PA announcer at Fenway Park, and, yes, the Poet Laureate of the Boston Red Sox.

Flavin is of course, an excellent poet, so in a game called "The worst poet in the entire world," he is being asked about his opposite, William McGonnagal, who in the 19th Century was widely hailed as the worst poet alive.

'Orhan's Inheritance' Is The Weight Of History

Next Friday, Armenians commemorate the events that took place 100 years ago, when the Ottoman Empire began forcibly deporting Armenians from their homeland, which lies within an area that is now Turkey. It was the beginning of a massacre that left more than a million Armenians dead. Armenians call it genocide; Turkey says the killing was not systematic, but part of widespread fighting at the time.

Aline Ohanesian tries to make sense of these events in her first novel, Orhan's Inheritance. She says she was inspired by a story her grandmother told her, one hot summer day when she was no more than nine years old. "My cousins and I were all watching The Sound of Music, and she called me into her bedroom and just told me that she needed to tell me something, that she had a story too."

Orhan's Inheritance

by Aline Ohanesian

Hardcover, 340 pages | purchase

Purchase Featured Book

TitleOrhan's InheritanceAuthorAline Ohanesian

Your purchase helps support NPR Programming. How?

Amazon

Independent Booksellers

Fiction

Suicide Attack Kills Dozens At Afghanistan Bank

A suicide bomb attack on a bank branch in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad has killed at least 30 people, officials said.

Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar province, said on Saturday that more than 80 people were also wounded in the attack in Jalalabad, the provincial capital.

"There are reports of many wounded people in critical condition at the hospital," Abdulzai said.

The attacker detonated an explosive-laden motorcycle, targeting a crowd of both military personnel and civilians who were gathered outside the bank to receive their monthly salaries. The bank branch is located in the heart of a crowded commercial district, Abdulzai said.

Another blast was reported Saturday near a shrine in Jalalabad, but no one was hurt. A third blast was also heard in Jalalabad, but it was later reported as a controlled explosion by the Afghan army in Nangarhar, Abdulzai said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

пятница

Many Obamacare Policyholders Face Tax Surprises This Year

The old saying goes, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes." But the Affordable Care Act has added a new wrinkle.

For many policyholders, the ACA has introduced a good deal of uncertainty about their tax bills. That has led to surprise refunds for some and higher-than-expected tax payments for others.

If you're insured by Obamacare, filling out your 2014 federal income tax return will require you to figure out whether the premium subsidies you received were appropriate for your level of income.

Ellen Goldlust of Blacksburg, Va., set out to do that when she tried to do her taxes early this year. But Obamacare presented problems for her online tax-filing software.

"So I took it to a friend's tax guy and he redid my taxes for me and I ended up with a $3,900 refund. It was about twice what I thought I was getting."

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates about 45 percent of Americans who got their health insurance through the ACA will get a bigger refund than expected.

Goldlust makes just $30,000 a year as a freelance book editor. The older of her two sons is headed for college next year, so her big tax refund was a welcome windfall.

"Discovering that I was getting $3,900 back was like winning the lottery," she says.

Part of the reason her refund was so large is that Goldlust chose to take less than her estimated $250-a-month premium subsidy when she made her monthly payments during 2014.

"With ACA being new, I didn't know what was going to happen," she says. "And I didn't want to take a chance that I would end up having to come up and pay a chunk of money."

A lot of Obamacare policyholders couldn't afford to do that, says Cynthia Cox, a senior policy analyst with the Kaiser Family Foundation. If they didn't take their full subsidy each month, she says, they couldn't pay their insurance premiums.

Shots - Health News

Quick Income Changes Can Threaten Coverage For Those On Medicaid

Shots - Health News

Lessons Learned For 2015 From This Year's Obamacare Sign-Ups

Shots - Health News

Administration Grants Tax Time Reprieve For Obamacare Procrastinators

IRS Head Says So Far, So Good For Obamacare's First Tax Season

But that leaves them no cushion to absorb reductions in the amount of their subsidy if their income rises or they have a change in family status. So, Cox says, they could have a nasty surprise.

"Roughly half of households who qualified for subsidies last year could owe some or all of that back to the government when they file their taxes," she says.

According to estimates generated by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average bill for those taxpayers will be almost $800 more than they expected. Increases in income could be the cause. But significant life-changing events might affect your subsidy, too.

That's what happened to Jody Cedzidlo. She got married in 2014 to her longtime partner, Eric Haugen. They didn't realize until tax time how much that changed things.

"Even though we have the same two incomes, when you add them together, we're not anywhere near eligible for the same subsidies," Cedzidlo says.

Their total subsides went from about $250 a month, before being married, to just $60 after tying the knot. That's because their income as a couple came close to exceeding the level that qualifies for an ACA subsidy.

Their accountant's first pass at their taxes showed they owed the government about $1,800 for subsidies they shouldn't have received. But Cedzidlo thinks that's because the return showed them being married for the full year, when they actually didn't get married until Sept. 6. She hopes a redo of the taxes will show they'll owe only $400.

"We just did not know any of this. Our decision to get married — we didn't realize we needed to research it financially," she says. "I just can't believe what a big difference it made."

Cox of Kaiser says this tax year will be a learning experience. The lesson, she says, is to report any change in income or family status to HealthCare.gov so your subsidy is adjusted right away.

There is one other group that will owe more tax in 2014. Obamacare required everyone to have health insurance beginning last year. If you didn't, and didn't qualify for an exemption, a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of your income — whichever is larger — will be added to your tax bill. This year, the penalty fee increases to $325 or 2 percent of your income.

Obamacare

Affordable Care Act

taxes

Health Insurance

Big Bills A Hidden Side Effect Of Cancer Treatment

Anne Koller was diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer in 2011 and has been fighting it since.

But it's not just the cancer she's fighting. It's the bills.

"We went from drugs that cost a few hundred dollars for a course of therapy that might be a month or six months or a year, to drugs that were costing $10,000 a month."

- Dr. Neal Meropol, oncologist, University Hospitals, Cleveland

"Think of those old horror flicks," she says. "The swamp creature ... comes out and is kind of oozy, and it oozes over everything."

When she was able to work, Koller, who just turned 65, was in the corporate world and safely middle-class, with health insurance and plenty of savings.

At first, she was too sick to deal with the bills. They piled up.

"You start looking at these bills," Koller says, "and, as much as you know it's expensive, the shock itself is like, 'What?' "

Anne Koller was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2011. She has been fighting cancer and the medical bills ever since. Sarah Jane Tribble/WCPN hide caption

itoggle caption Sarah Jane Tribble/WCPN

Anne Koller was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2011. She has been fighting cancer and the medical bills ever since.

Sarah Jane Tribble/WCPN

Her response was to begin asking her doctors about the cost of the treatments they recommended.

Middle-income patients are feeling the weight of that financial burden more than ever, says Dr. Neal Meropol, an oncologist at University Hospitals in Cleveland. He took over Koller's care a couple of years ago.

"Patients are weighing this in their calculus now," Meropol says.

High-deductible health plans and soaring drug prices are to blame, he says, and a sea change happened when a new generation of drug therapies got FDA approval for treatment in the late 1990s.

"We went from drugs that cost a few hundred dollars for a course of therapy that might be a month or six months or a year, to drugs that were costing $10,000 a month," Meropol says.

Total cost of cancer care in the U.S. is projected to reach more than $150 billion by 2020, according to the National Cancer Institute. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study last year that found that, compared with people without a cancer diagnosis, cancer survivors are less likely to work and more likely to struggle financially. Another study, out of Washington state, found that the longer a cancer patient survived, the higher the rate of bankruptcy.

University of Chicago's Dr. Jonas de Souza argues that it's time for oncologists to begin considering the financial consequences as a real side effect of cancer care.

"We talk about hair loss," de Souza says. "We talk about numbness and tingling in the hands and feet. We talk about, 'This chemotherapy will cause low blood counts.' Right. Should we also be talking about, 'Well, this chemotherapy is expensive'?"

Shots - Health News

Medical Bills Linger, Long After Cancer Treatment Ends

He and Meropol are part of a growing field of researchers studying the impact of costs for cancer patients.

Koller will tell you cancer does cause financial stress.

Shots - Health News

How Much Does Cancer Cost Us?

"Here's what happens," Koller says. "I was talking about that swamp thing ... but you know, OK, you go to collections. You end up with a court thing. I had been talking to the hospital, asking for help — nothing, nothing. Finally, they went to a sliding payment scale."

Her credit is ruined. So she's driving an old car. Small expenses, like an Internet connection, are out of the question. And there are other challenges.

"Socially, things change a lot," she says. "You talk to people and, if you dare, say, 'God, you know, I can't afford this,' for instance." Or, " 'Let's go out to lunch,' on the day you can eat. You ... think twice about it."

Koller says she wishes more financial information had been given earlier in her treatments. She is now using the very last of her savings to pay the bills — and, still, some are going unpaid.

This story is part of NPR's reporting partnership with WCPN and Kaiser Health News.

chemotherapy

health costs

prescription drugs

Health Insurance

Cancer

Investment Guru Teaches Financial Literacy While Serving Life Sentence

Prison is perhaps the last place anyone would expect to learn about investing and money management.

But at San Quentin Prison, Curtis Carroll's class is a hot item. The 36-year-old has gained a reputation for his stock-picking prowess. He's even earned the nickname "Wall Street."

"You know, growing up in the neighborhood everything was always associated with white prosperity, black not."

- Curtis Carroll

Carroll and prison officials have teamed up to create a financial education class for inmates. He starts off the class with a motivational speech.

"Financial education for me has been a lifesaver," he says. "And I have always been passionate about trying to make money. The problem with that money is it was focused in the wrong area — crime."

Carroll is serving up to life in prison for a murder he committed when he was 15. When he first entered, he was illiterate. Then one day Carroll grabbed what he thought was the sports page of a newspaper so his cellmate could read it to him. What he actually picked up was the business section. An older inmate asked Carroll if he knew anything about markets.

"I was like, 'The markets what?' " he says. "And he was like, 'Man, that's the stocks.' And I was really like, 'Man, nah.' "

Business

What Do Shorted Stocks Tell Us About The Economy?

Business

The Numbers Add Up To This: Less And Less Opportunity For Poor Kids

The inmate then told Carroll that's where white people keep their money.

"I was like, 'Whoa, white folks?' I mean, anywhere white people make their money I want to be there," he says. "You know, growing up in the neighborhood everything was always associated with white prosperity, black not."

Carroll scraped together hundreds of dollars by cashing in unused postage stamps he acquired selling tobacco to prisoners. His first investment was in high-risk penny stocks, making just enough money to keep investing. The whole process motivated him to learn to read. Now, Carroll makes thousands of investments. He maintains notebooks filled with the daily stock price fluctuations of hundreds of companies.

Zak Williams, a graduate of Columbia Business School, says Carroll knows what he's talking about. He's one of several volunteers who assist Carroll with teaching the financial education class. But Williams also says Carroll's strategies are heavily based on short-term, high-risk investments. Instead, William emphasizes the long term.

"We need to take an approach that's enabling for an inmate to not have to take out a loan or a credit card line that might be considered predatory, high interest," Williams says. "We want to prevent that practice in favor of saving and responsibly investing."

San Quentin prison spokesman Sam Robinson says Carroll has learned a valuable life skill.

"Most of the skills that address rehabilitation inside of prisons have to do with vocational trades, anger management and victims-awareness type of education," he says.

The class also touches on the personal component. Prisoners are counseled about their emotional connection to money and the possible pitfalls. Rick Grimes, who is also serving a life sentence, says the lessons are valuable, teaching him to manage his money in prison and also invest money to give to his son.

"I can benefit by helping my family," Grimes says. "It still feels good to give back to my community even though I can't get out right now."

Many of the prisoners in this class will one day get out. And that feeling of being part of a community, and knowing how to manage their finances, could help make their re-entry more successful.

prisoners

invest

Wall Street

Hillary Clinton Supports Amendment To Get Hidden Money Out Of Politics

Hillary Clinton made a surprising move this week. It wasn't running for president — she'd already set the stage for that — but embracing the idea of a constitutional amendment to restrict or eliminate big money in politics.

The notion of amending the Constitution this way has been discussed, literally for decades. But Clinton is joining a new, if small, chorus of prominent politicians who are talking it up.

"We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccounted money out of it, once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment," she said to a gathering at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa.

Campaign finance reform is one of four pillars, "four big fights," of her campaign, she said, along with help for families and communities; a stronger, more balanced economy; and a strong national defense.

Activist groups have toiled for such an amendment since 2010, when the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision let corporate and union money directly into partisan politics.

Clinton spoke a few days after Republican Lindsey Graham's most recent comments on a possible amendment.

"The next president of the United States needs to get a commission of really smart people and find a way to create a constitutional amendment to limit the role of superPACs," said Graham, a senator from South Carolina who is weighing a presidential run. He was appearing on WMUR-TV in Manchester, N.H.

SuperPACs were created after Citizens United and a related appellate ruling, as political committees that raise unrestricted contributions from wealthy donors, corporations and unions. SuperPAC donors are publicly disclosed. Along with 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations, which have no disclosure as well as no contribution limits, superPACs are fueling the boom in bare-knuckle, lavishly financed campaigning by noncandidate, nonparty groups.

President Obama said yes to amending the Constitution in 2012, in a Q&A session on Reddit, and again last month, in an interview on the website Vox. "I would love to see some constitutional process that would allow us to actually regulate campaign spending, the way we used to, and maybe even improve it," he told Vox.

Campaign spending has been constitutionally protected since a 1976 Supreme Court decision known as Buckley v. Valeo. The justices said Congress could not regulate political spending, because it was tantamount to free speech. All subsequent attempts to control political money have had to work around the Buckley distinction between contributions and spending.

Former Democratic presidential candidate and New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley said as early as the 1990s that a constitutional amendment was needed to overturn Buckley. In 2012, he told NPR's Talk Of The Nation, "You need a constitutional amendment that says federal, state and local governments may limit the amount of money in a campaign."

But back to Clinton. At People for the American Way, one of the groups mobilizing for an amendment, Executive Vice President Marge Baker said Clinton's statement can help the effort.

"When the leading candidate for president says she's going to make reducing the influence of money in politics one of the four pillars in her campaign, you know that that's going to be a major issue in 2016," Baker said. "So this is a very, very big deal."

Clinton drew a charge of hypocrisy from Republican Gov. Chris Christie, of New Jersey. Not a declared presidential candidate, he was stumping in New Hampshire.

"She intends to raise $2.5 billion for her campaign. But she wants to then get the corrupting money out of politics," he said to laughter at a town hall meeting. "It's classic, right? It's classic politician-speak."

In Congress this year, lawmakers have introduced nine resolutions proposing constitutional amendments — typically proposing to restrict political spending, or bar corporate spending in politics, or overturn the Supreme Court's 129-year-old precedent of giving corporations the constitutional standing of people.

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill simply say nobody should mess with the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky made the point on the Senate floor last fall.

"If the Democrats who run Washington are so determined to force the Senate into debate over repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment, then fine, let's have a full and proper debate," he said.

Democrats wanted a Senate vote on a constitutional amendment, and they got it. The proposal passed, 54 to 42 — 13 short of the two-thirds majority required for a proposed amendment. Ratification also requires a two-thirds vote in the House, and approval from 38 states.

Republican lawyer Trevor Potter has long worked for tougher campaign finance laws. He was the lawyer for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., when the Senate passed the McCain-Feingold bill in 2001. It's the last major campaign finance law to emerge from Congress. But now, Potter says a constitutional amendment poses problems that only start with ratification.

Potter said, "Beyond that is the issue of what is it that the amendment would say, and how would it be effective?"

These are questions of language that might go too far, or not far enough, or lie open to reinterpretation by future Supreme Courts.

So far, the answers don't satisfy all of big money's critics.

The Challenges Of War At A Distance

The opening moments of Good Kill, a new drama starring Ethan Hawke and written and directed by Andrew Niccol (who also directed Hawke in Gattaca), almost eerily resemble the opening moments of American Sniper. A man watches and tries to interpret the movements of a woman and child who don't see him, deciding whether to kill them. This man, however, isn't concealed nearby. The woman and child are in Afghanistan and the man is piloting a drone from an air conditioned trailer on a military base in Nevada.

U.S. Air Force Major Tom Egan (Hawke) used to fly planes. He'd like to be in the cockpit again. But he's been assigned to sit in a trailer and pilot drones for a variety of purposes: sometimes he's doing surveillance, sometimes he's carrying out a strike on a particular target and sometimes he's watching over American soldiers so they can get some sleep. He gets to go home at the end of the day to his wife (January Jones) and daughter (Sachie Capitani), to a little house with a little blob of lawn where he can barbecue. But he's miserable, and he's at his boss (Bruce Greenwood) to get him back in an actual plane. When the CIA gets involved and begins asking Tom to carry out different missions, things only get worse.

Niccol is working from a great knot of ideas here: the way it's affecting Tom to essentially engage in combat without risk to himself; the specific tactics he's asked to use; whether it's fair for a person with a family to voluntarily return to combat because he's miserable; the difference between war to the military and war to the CIA; what happens when drone surveillance turns up something you weren't expecting that it's not your job to address; the endlessness of war. There's plenty going on. And Hawke is solid, giving Tom's twitchy ambivalence an air of unsettling disconnection.

Unfortunately, in a lot of places, Niccol's script lets Hawke down. The generic dialogue given to Greenwood's military boss is frequently awful, and Tom's colleagues (including Zo Kravitz as his new young ... virtual co-pilot, sort of) are asked to have fights in which they lay out arguments for and against drone strikes in blunt terms that wind up sounding like a feisty Internet comment thread. Niccol is grappling with some great questions, but the film would be much stronger if they were allowed to arise from events (as they naturally do) without the hammering reinforcement of the characters' public policy shouting matches.

The domestic stuff with January Jones is very good, though. She makes Tom's wife Molly sympathetic and significant but not saintly, and a scene in which he finally opens up to her is simple enough to be a heart breaker. Hawke and Jones do some terrific work together that begs for a more complete film and a more polished script.

Niccol's visual motif of choice is the view of a target as Tom sees it on his screen: distant, sometimes shaky or blurry, intrinsically limited and limiting. There are also frequent shots of Tommy's house and car seen the same way: from above. Niccol seems to concentrate his own argument about drone strikes in the counting of seconds between the weapon being fired from thousands of feet in the air and the soundless explosion: the moments that pass when the person Tom is watching is dead though he doesn't know it yet. In that technique, and in that choice of focus, lies the film's greatest strength, which is simply the ability to take an often abstract-sounding concept from the news and give it a sensory dimension. As an attempt to educate and argue about drone strikes, Good Kill is a little too transparent for its own good, but as an attempt to give an audience an image to carry away of what it means to use this tactic in war and what some of the costs are, it's quite successful.

"Good Kill" is playing at the Tribeca Film Festival and will be released in theaters on May 15.

Why A Blockbuster Of A Trade Deal With Asia Matters

It has been a decade in the making, but when completed, it will be a free trade agreement to beat all others — representing 40 percent of the world's economy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, agreement would bring together the economies of the U.S., Japan, Australia, and nine other Pacific Rim nations, allowing the free trade of everything from agriculture to automobiles and textiles to pharmaceuticals.

President Obama said Friday that the deal is critical for the American market.

"Ninety-five percent of the world's markets are outside our borders. The fastest growing markets, the most populous markets, are going to be in Asia," he noted.

Negotiations over the trade agreement are in the final, toughest stages. Analysts say the sticking points are now between the U.S. and Japan, the two largest economies in the TPP. Both side are trying to protect key sectors — for Japan, it's agriculture; for the U.S., it's automobiles.

Those negotiations got a new shot of life Thursday when Congressional leaders agreed to give President Obama the authority to "fast track" the deal through Congress.

The move overcomes a significant hurdle in the talks because President Obama will be able to complete the deal without the details being picked apart by Congress.

Under the agreement reached yesterday, lawmakers would have the opportunity to give the TPP an up-or-down vote, but they cannot not alter terms of the final agreement reached between the U.S., Japan, Australia and other countries around the Pacific Rim.

However, if the final agreement doesn't meet standards laid out by Congress on the environment, human rights or labor issues, a 60-vote majority could shut off the fast track trade rules and open the deal to amendments, according to The New York Times.

Japan and the U.S. are due to have cabinet-level meeting over the trade deal next week, according to The Associated Press. Japan's Economy Minister, Akira Amari, told reporters, "We are pretty sure our talks won't break down."

Agreeing to give President Obama the authority to fast-track the deal marks a shift on the political landscape. Many Republicans are behind the bill to give the president more power. As NPR reported earlier, the trade deal is vigorously supported by the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.

But many Democrats oppose giving the president fast-track authority, known formally as the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), saying negotiations over the Asia-Pacific trade deal are held in secret and that there would be no way to amend the details. There are also deep-seated concerns that U.S. corporations would invest in foreign factories and then ship goods back to America.

President Obama on Friday acknowledged the concern about the free trade agreement, particularly among Democrats, because people have memories about outsourcing and job loss.

Still, Obama said, "If we do not help to shape the rules so that our businesses and our workers can compete in those markets, then China will set up rules that advantage Chinese workers and Chinese businesses."

China is not part of the TPP.

The agreement giving the president fast-track authority comes less than a month after Beijing humiliated the U.S. and Japan by persuading dozens of countries, including key American allies, to join a regional infrastructure bank over objections by Washington, according to The Wall Street Journal.

It also gives new significance to an upcoming visit to Washington by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

trans-pacific partnership

Asia

trade

Politics

China

Congress

Why A Blockbuster Of A Trade Deal With Asia Matters

It has been a decade in the making, but when completed, it will be a free trade agreement to beat all others — representing 40 percent of the world's economy.

President Obama said Friday that the deal is critical for the American market.

"Ninety-five percent of the world's markets are outside our borders. The fastest growing markets, the most populous markets, are going to be in Asia," he noted.

Those negotiations got a new shot of life Thursday when Congressional leaders agreed to give President Obama the authority to "fast track" the deal through Congress.

The move overcomes a significant hurdle in the talks because President Obama will be able to complete the deal without the details being picked apart by Congress.

President Obama on Friday acknowledged the concern about the free trade agreement, particularly among Democrats, because people have memories about outsourcing and job loss.

China is not part of the TPP.

It also gives new significance to an upcoming visit to Washington by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

trans-pacific partnership

Asia

trade

Politics

China

Congress

Yes, You Can Help The World And Make Money At The Same Time

So what do you call someone who runs a successful business that aims to make the world a better place? A CEO with a conscience? A do-good bottom-liner?

At the Skoll World Forum this week in Oxford, England, the preferred term is social entrepreneur. In fact, the conference is completely devoted to the idea — and promoting its rising stars.

Young entrepreneurs are invited to join veterans for workshops, talks and confabs. Awards are given for "social entrepreneurship."

Everybody at the conference knows what the phrase social entrepreneur means. It's someone who had an innovative idea that will help people, but the project will sustain itself financially. That is, the do-gooder effort will generate income to support itself. So it's not charity.

An Indian woman holds up a photo of what the hillside behind her once looked like. The organization Foundation for Ecological Security improves public land so it can be a better place for growing food. Courtesy of Skoll Foundation hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Skoll Foundation

Courtesy of Skoll Foundation

That's more or less what a social entrepreneur does. Still, it's not the kind of term that's in the average person's vocabulary. And it seems a bit like jargon. You know? One of those words people toss around but never really think about what it means.

TED Radio Hour

Do We Have The Wrong Idea About Charity?

I thought it would be interesting to ask a few of the social entrepreneurs at the Skoll conference what they think of the term — and if they have any other label they might prefer.

Alasdair Harris is one of this year's recipients of the Skoll awards for social entrepreneurship. He's a marine scientist from London, who wants to save the oceans from pollution and overfishing. But he recognized early on that doing research and writing papers wasn't going to make much of a dent. So he turned entrepreneurial.

His organization, Blue Ventures, encourages communities in Madagascar to stop overfishing. By cordoning off parts of octopus-fishing waters for a spell, the octopi increase their numbers in the waters. And that means people can fish again for a spell and raise their income.

Many social entrepreneurs focus on improving education around the world. The organization Educate Girls, founded by Skoll awardee Safeena Husain, helps ensure more girls in rural India go to school and stay there. Courtesy of Skoll Foundation hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Skoll Foundation

Courtesy of Skoll Foundation

Blue Ventures earns money to run its environmental efforts by offering eco-tours. And Blue Ventures doesn't just help the community manage their fisheries. It has started family planning and maternal health services with some of the money it makes. So it's very social — and very entrepreneurial.

I asked Harris, a strapping 36-year-old Brit, to about the term social entrepreneur. He says he thinks of himself as a disrupting the status quo for the better. And he likes the idea of doing it with an eye on the bottom line.

So Harris prefers the term "change sustainers." In other words, "we try to drive change that can sustain itself," he says. "That's what I think I'm doing."

Goats and Soda

Far From Silicon Valley, A Disruptive Startup Hub

Entrepreneur Jagdeesh Rao Puppula is definitely disrupting status quo. Puppula does so much disruption that he has had stones cast upon him for his work in India.

Puppula's organization, Foundation for Ecological Security, tries to protect public land that has been neglected, so it can be a better place for raising animals and growing food. When he presented his idea in one village, guys who used the common land to distill liquor illegally didn't want to lose their haven. So they tossed rocks at him. They missed.

But Puppula has hit his targets. His organization earned an award for helping villagers "secure community rights to publicly owned land and support regulations to manage it in a more sustainable and productive way." The foundation helps villagers improve the soil, water and other conditions in what had been regarded as wasteland. So they're able to grow more crops and bring in more revenue. Wildlife benefits, as well, from the changes.

Like Harris, Puppula isn't so sure about the label social entrepreneur. "I'm a social ecological energizer," says the bearded 52-year-old, who lives in Anand, India.

Still curious to learn more about energizers and sustain changers, I ran the phrase social entrepreneur past one more Skoll attendee.

Jan Matern, 26, is from London. His company, Emerge Education, offers a three-month training program for start-ups that want to use technology to improve teaching and schools around the world. So he's a social entrepreneur. Or is he?

"I hate the label," Matern says. If social entrepreneurs are good guys, he asks, does that mean that other entrepreneurs have license to be unethical, or to think just of making money for themselves and nothing more?

"All the label means is that you have the attitude of a morally good person," Matern says. He also worries that the label will make outsiders think that perhaps a social entrepreneur's business is not financially viable because how could you do good and still pay attention to the bottom line?

All this got me thinking: Maybe the world would be a better place if all entrepreneurs think of social good as part of their business plan. But until that utopia arrives, maybe the phrase "social entrepreneur" is the best way to describe ... social entrepreneurs.

All you social entrepreneurs reading this story — let us know your thoughts about the label and if you have a better way to describe what you do.

entrepreneurship

business

Global Health

charity

Bloomberg Terminals Go Dark For Hours, Sending Ripples Through Markets

If there's one piece of hardware that can be found on nearly every trader's desk, regardless of time zone, it's the Bloomberg data terminal.

So, when the terminals experienced a global outage lasting hours, it sent chaos through markets where the "screens" are relied upon to analyze and interpret financial data — and to exchange market gossip with other traders around the world.

Zero Hedge, a financial news site, says the outage led to "widespread panic among traders mostly in Europe, who were flying blind and unable to chat with other, just as clueless colleagues (the one function used predominantly on the terminal is not charts, nor analytics, but plain old chat)."

Service now restored to most customers following disruption to parts of our network. Making progress bringing the full network back online.

— Bloomberg LP (@Bloomberg) April 17, 2015

The Wall Street Journal quoted Louis Gargour, the chief investment officer at London-based LNG Capital as saying "We're flying blind."

"It's scary how dependent we have become on our Bloomberg screens," Anthony Peters, a strategist at London-based capital markets adviser SwissInvest, was quoted by WSJ as saying.

Reuters, which is a Bloomberg competitor, quoted Ioan Smith, managing director of KCG Europe, as saying that traders had to "catch up" on important market chatter "after the Bloomberg terminals came back online, and that's when we saw the falls in Europe."

The Associated Press adds the problems "prompted the British government to postpone a planned 3 billion-pound ($4.4 billion) debt issue."

"Users say the outage started as trading was getting in full swing around 8 a.m. in London, one of the world's largest financial centers, particularly in foreign exchange and bond markets."

CNBCsays Bloomberg confirmed that the outage began about 8:20 a.m. London time and that service was restored to most users by 12:45 p.m.

AP notes: "The disruption is likely to cause concern at Bloomberg. The company has become the world's biggest financial information provider, overtaking rival Reuters. Bloomberg is privately held and is not obliged to divulge financial information, but it said in September that its revenue grew to more than $9 billion in 2014, with 320,000 subscribers globally."

stock exchange

Economy

Bloomberg Terminals Go Dark For Hours, Sending Ripples Through Markets

If there's one piece of hardware that can be found on nearly every trader's desk, regardless of time zone, it's the Bloomberg data terminal.

Service now restored to most customers following disruption to parts of our network. Making progress bringing the full network back online.

— Bloomberg LP (@Bloomberg) April 17, 2015

The Wall Street Journal quoted Louis Gargour, the chief investment officer at London-based LNG Capital as saying "We're flying blind."

"It's scary how dependent we have become on our Bloomberg screens," Anthony Peters, a strategist at London-based capital markets adviser SwissInvest, was quoted by WSJ as saying.

The Associated Press adds the problems "prompted the British government to postpone a planned 3 billion-pound ($4.4 billion) debt issue."

"Users say the outage started as trading was getting in full swing around 8 a.m. in London, one of the world's largest financial centers, particularly in foreign exchange and bond markets."

CNBCsays Bloomberg confirmed that the outage began about 8:20 a.m. London time and that service was restored to most users by 12:45 p.m.

stock exchange

Economy

четверг

Feds Cancel Commercial Sardine Fishing After Stocks Crash

Life has suddenly gotten easier for the sardine. Federal regulators are not only closing the commercial sardine fishing season early in Oregon, Washington and California, but it will stay closed for more than a year.

The decision to shut down the sardine harvest is an effort to build up depleted stocks of the small, oily fish. The conservation group, Oceana, says that sardine populations have crashed more than 90% since 2007.

There are a number of theories about why the fish stocks have collapsed. Oceana says it comes from overfishing. But a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts says the wide swings in the sardine population are normal and usually related to "decades-long shifts in ocean conditions."

The report says that although sardines are small individually, they are a key component in the ocean food web. They're considered a crucial forage fish for marine life along the U.S. west coast, and that the collapse in numbers can have a harmful effect on larger animals, including whales, tuna, birds, and seals, which depend on the sardine for sustenance.

Oceana says that 90% of this year's sea line pups died of starvation for lack of sardines to eat.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council initially decided to shut down the next sardine season for a year, which was due to start July 1st, according to The Associated Press.

But after studying the population numbers more closely, the council pushed that date forward, saying the ban on commercial sardine fishing would start immediately.

The council recognized the decision could pose financial problems for some fishermen, although most also harvest mackerel, anchovies and squid, according to Reuters. About 100 boats have permits to fish for sardines on the west coast.

California's sardine industry was the backdrop for John Steinbeck's classic book, Cannery Row.

fishing industry

conservation

United States

The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine Born Of U.S. Prejudice

If you ask people in the city of Mexicali, Mexico, about their most notable regional cuisine, they won't say street tacos or mole. They'll say Chinese food. There are as many as 200 Chinese restaurants in the city.

North of the border, in California's rural Imperial County, the population is mostly Latino, but Chinese restaurants are packed. There are dishes in this region you won't find anywhere else, and the history behind them goes back more than 130 years.

Every couple of weeks, the Salcedo family travels more than an hour from Yuma, Ariz., to dine at Fortune Garden in El Centro, Calif., just north of the border with Mexico. Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

Every couple of weeks, the Salcedo family travels more than an hour from Yuma, Ariz., to dine at Fortune Garden in El Centro, Calif., just north of the border with Mexico.

Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

The Salcedo family sits in a coveted booth at the Fortune Garden restaurant in the city of El Centro, north of the border. The mother and three adult sisters are almost drooling, waiting for their food to show up. They come from Yuma, Ariz.— over an hour away — twice a month just to eat here.

A huge side order arrives, light-yellow deep-fried chilis, a dish I've never seen. Then a salt-and-pepper fish, which the Salcedos describe as "Baja-style," with lots of bell peppers, chilis and onions. But have you ever heard of "Baja-style" dishes in a Chinese restaurant?

Mayra Salcedo explains, "It's like a fusion, Mexican ingredients with the Chinese. It's very different than if you go to any other Chinese restaurant, Americanized Chinese restaurant."

Fried yellow chilis in the Fortune Garden kitchen. This dish showed up on almost every table at the Chinese restaurants we visited on both sides of the U.S. border with Mexico. Their sauce has kind of a margarita flavor: lemon with lots of salt. Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

"When they order, they don't say barbecue pork," says Fortune Garden co-owner Jenissa Zhou. "They say carnitas — carnitas coloradas." That's "red pork" in Spanish.

Zhou came to the U.S. from southern China. Her husband, Carlos, is from Mexicali, Mexico, where he worked in Chinese restaurants. It took her a while to get used to her customers' taste buds.

"You can see, every table, they have lemon and hot sauce," Zhou says. "In Chinese food, we don't eat lemon."

Those fried yellow chilis on almost every table, chiles asados, are served in a lemon sauce with lots of salt — kind of a margarita flavor. If you believe the rumors, some chefs marinate pork in tequila.

It's not just on the plate where cultures combine. In the Fortune Garden kitchen, the cooks speak to each other in Cantonese. The waiters speak Spanish and English.

Today's Border Patrol grew out of the Mounted Guard of Chinese Inspectors, created to keep Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S.

"The restaurants you see now are remnants of the Chinese population that used to fill the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in Mexicali and in Baja California," explains Robert Chao Romero, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He teaches in both the Chicano and Asian-American studies departments and wrote the book The Chinese in Mexico.

And just why were the Chinese there? Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Spurred by anti-Chinese laborer sentiment among American workers, the 1882 law banned immigrants from China from entering the U.S. Tens of thousands went to Cuba, South America and Mexico instead. Many settled along the U.S.-Mexico border, becoming grocers, merchants and restaurant owners. Others managed to cross illegally and make lives in the U.S., including in Imperial County.

One of the inventive dishes at El Dragon, in Mexicali, Mexico: arrachera beef (great in tacos) with asparagus and black bean sauce. Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

One of the inventive dishes at El Dragon, in Mexicali, Mexico: arrachera beef (great in tacos) with asparagus and black bean sauce.

Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

"The Chinese invented undocumented immigration from Mexico," says Romero. He says they were smuggled in with the help of guides hired to lead them across the border. "Smuggling with false papers, on boats and trains — the infrastructure for that was all invented by the Chinese."

Today's Border Patrol grew out of the Mounted Guard of Chinese Inspectors, created to keep Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S. At the same time, the Mexican government welcomed Chinese immigrants to go to the sparsely populated border region, to work on farms and in mines and canals.

The Chinese-Mexican cuisine this history begot is even more prominent on the Mexican side of the border, as I learn while taking a drive over the border with George Lim. He lives in the U.S. but commutes every day to Mexicali, Mexico. Lim helps run one of the city's oldest: El Dragon.

Why cross the border every day to run a restaurant? Lim explains that Mexicali's population is nearly a million, which dwarfs the rural population on the California side of the border.

The egg roll at El Dragon in Mexicali, Mexico, is a Chinese-Mexican-American combo: shrimp, cilantro and cream cheese. Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

The egg roll at El Dragon in Mexicali, Mexico, is a Chinese-Mexican-American combo: shrimp, cilantro and cream cheese.

Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED

"Just doing the math, you're going to have a lot more customers here in Mexico," he explains. "And I hate to say it, but people in Mexico are more sophisticated than in Imperial about Chinese food."

That sophistication may come from decades of people eating Mexican-influenced Chinese food here. Once, it was a necessity: Chinese cooks used Mexican ingredients like chilis, jicama and certain cuts of meat, because that was what was available. Now it's part of a culinary legacy.

There's a new dish at El Dragon: arrachera beef, served with asparagus and black bean sauce. Lim says that's the best meat for tacos, a clear Mexican influence: "Asparagus could be both Chinese and Mexican, but the sauce, the black bean, that's Chinese."

I try out a kind of Mexican-Chinese-American hybrid: an egg roll with shrimp, cilantro and cream cheese that seems like it shouldn't be good, but is. And at El Dragon, they put avocado in the fried rice.

Lim says people still come from China to work in Mexicali restaurants, and sometimes these cooks move up north, to work in Chinese kitchens in Imperial County.

"One of the goals is to go to the U.S., have a better life for you and for your kids, give them a better education, better opportunity, maybe earning dollars instead of pesos," he says.

The same reasons, in other words, that drew their ancestors here from southern China 130 years ago.

This story first ran on KQED's The California Report. Vickie Ly helped with reporting and translation. The series California Foodways is supported in part by Cal Humanities. Lisa Morehouse, an independent journalist, produced this story during a fellowship at Hedgebrook, a residency for women writers.

border food

fusion cuisine

Mexican food

chinese food

foodways

Lewis And Clark Battle Giant Spiders In 'Dead Lands'

Some background is necessary here. In Percy's world, pretty much everyone died, either from the pandemic flu or the nuclear bombs mentioned above. But the brave and resourceful people of St. Louis had a plan. They erected massive walls, killed anything that came close, declared themselves the guardians of the American Way, and essentially shut themselves off from the world in hopes of weathering the catastrophe. Which they did — right up until the start of the book, when we meet the citizens of Sanctuary (a.k.a. Old St. Louis) being abused by a tyrannical mayor, terrorized by crooked police, baked by an unforgiving sun and running quickly out of water.

To Percy's credit, Sanctuary is no insta-dystopia. He goes to great and detailed lengths to describe the rise and fall of the place — the terror in which it was conceived, the expediency with which it was built, the ruthlessness with which it was maintained, and the eventual (arguably inescapable) corruption of the 1% which is in the process of bringing it down. There's dissent brewing among Sanctuary's 99%. A feeling that their foothold on civilization is becoming untenable. And when a rider suddenly appears outside the walls, bringing news of rain, food and salvation waiting in the Pacific Northwest, obviously someone is going to grab a map and go looking.

Book Reviews

Literary Werewolf Tale 'Red Moon' Sheds A Dim Light

My Guilty Pleasure

Specters And Ghosts In 'Haunted Wisconsin'

Some of Percy's bad guys are a little bit mustache-twirly. The plotting is a little heavy on the set-up and light on the epic voyage from St. Louis to Oregon. And sure, Lewis is a cocaine-addicted old hermit with magical powers, Clark is an alcoholic female ranger with rage issues, and Aran Burr (Aaron Burr, get it?) spends most of the book as a hallucinatory figure from Lewis's drug-addled dreams, and then enters the plot as a kind of fascist wizard with only the loosest grasp on the low points of American history. But honestly, once you swallow the giant spiders and accept the fact that, in this world, the entire Mississippi River has apparently dried up, none of the rest of this presents much of a problem.

Percy is a good writer who, though a bit over-dependent on repetition and long, list-y sentences, gives surprising depth to both his characters and his world. The weirdness he plays with is doled out slowly, and the dead world he brings us to feels believably dead. His two-line description of a television set with the screen smashed in, dolls and action figures set up among its innards like a diorama, did more to root me in his broken world than any 20 pages of nightmare scene-setting done by a lesser writer.

The voyage of Lewis and Clark is America's Lord of the Rings — our great and foundational quest narrative. And even with all the giant spiders and ghostly ex-presidents, the bones of that tale are in good hands here. Percy has some literary ambition. He wants very badly to make this a fable about environmental stewardship, the punishing lash of class division and the dangers of American exceptionalism. But his story of broken weirdos wandering a dead America in search of a better life is a great read no matter how you approach it.

Even (or maybe especially) without the zombies.

Jason Sheehan is an ex-chef, a former restaurant critic and the current food editor of Philadelphia magazine. But when no one is looking, he spends his time writing books about spaceships, aliens, giant robots and ray guns. Tales From the Radiation Age is his newest book.

Read an excerpt of The Dead Lands

среда

Street Food No More: Bug Snacks Move To Store Shelves In Thailand

C'mon, who doesn't like bugs in a bag? Crunchy little critters that are good and good for you? Panitan Tongsiri is hoping the answer is: no one.

The 29-year-old Thai entrepreneur is trying to change the way Thais eat insects — OK, the way some Thais eat insects — one bag at a time.

On the streets of Bangkok, you can buy just about any kind of food you can imagine. And more you probably don't want to. Pad Thai, spicy stir-fried shrimp with noodles, thick red chicken curries would fall into the first category. Fried silkworm larvae, grasshoppers or stir-fried bees might fall into the latter.

Many Thais — in fact, many people all over the world — eat insects. And Panitan Tongsiri is hoping to grow the market in Thailand by bringing deep-fried insects off the street and into convenience stores and gourmet shops. He believes there's a vast, untapped market out there, and he wants to plug the hole.

"Thai people have been eating insects for a long time," he says. "The traditional way is to buy it from a street vendor. But nowadays, when you want to buy edible insects, you have to wait for a street vendor to come. That's the first problem."

The Salt

Even Neil DeGrasse Tyson Is Now Munching On Bugs

The second, he says, is hygiene. I mean, who wants to eat dirty bugs?

"They don't have any real quality control or any standards. And the third problem is perception of edible insects, for some people. They are on the news on TV often, but it's always bad news. People eat insects, then they go to the hospital. So we have to solve all these three problems at once."

Panitan is a graduate of Bangkok's prestigious Chulalangkorn University, with a degree in psychology and a keen interest in marketing and design. His company has been selling bugs in a bottle for a couple of years now, with mixed success. So he and his partners decided to build the brand by targeting young people, and those just entering the workforce, who haven't eaten bugs before or had a chance to form a bad impression of the practice — television notwithstanding.

The HiSo brand of fried silkworm pupae and crickets is the result. These snacks come in small, colorful, potato chip-sized bags that extol the health benefits of crispy critters — something the United Nations is on board with, too. A 2013 report by the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) suggests that edible insects could help offset food insecurity as the world's population increases — they're high in protein, vitamins and fiber.

Women at the HiSo factory outside Bangkok thaw, clean and process the insects that come frozen from the farm from which they are sourced. Michael Sullivan for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Michael Sullivan for NPR

Women at the HiSo factory outside Bangkok thaw, clean and process the insects that come frozen from the farm from which they are sourced.

Michael Sullivan for NPR

Panitan and his partners are doing their bit: They're already churning out their new bugs-in-a-bag in a factory on the outskirts of the capital. Two women in white smocks and hairnets clean and prep the insects that arrive quick-frozen from the farm where they're sourced. The bugs are inspected, then taken into the kitchen for deep frying.

Panitan can't show me the frying station. It's a sterile area, and you need a health certificate to be able to enter. Even he can't go in. So we go upstairs to sample the product.

"We have four flavors: seaweed, barbecue, cheese and original, which is soy sauce and pepper," he explains. "The most popular is the original, because people are used to it —it's the same taste as the street vendors."

"We produce many flavors to attract people who haven't tried before," he goes on. "They're used to barbecue, seaweed and cheese from other snacks. So we have to link behavior" — here's where his interests in psychology and marketing meet – "to these flavors." For now, the product line is limited to just two insects, silkworm pupae and the house cricket.

Not grasshopper. Cricket. I try the seaweed flavor, which is OK as far as crunchiness, but the taste? Uh-uh. For thoroughness, I also sample the cheesy silkworm larvae and the barbecue cricket. Not impressed with those, either. In fact, the original flavor turns out to be my favorite. And Panitan's, too.

The new line of HiSo edible insects. The fried crickets are on the top row, in order: original flavor, cheese, barbecue, seaweed. The fried silkworm pupae snacks are seen on the bottom row, in the same order of flavors. Michael Sullivan for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Michael Sullivan for NPR

Michael Sullivan for NPR

I go back into the city to get a real bug eater's opinion and find 32-year-old Patcharee Sanpantana, who works at a small boutique hotel in the Sukhumvit area. She's skeptical — fresh is best, she says — but is willing to try.

She starts with the original, which she calls "pretty good" and "salty." The seaweed crickets are a no-go, but the cheesy silkworm larvae are pretty good, too, she says. Most importantly, she says she'd definitely pay the asking price of 25 baht a bag (about 75 cents) to eat them again.

And then a customer walks into the hotel, a Brit named Adam Bennington, and I offer him a taste. He gamely accepts. His face brightens after a go at the cheesy crickets.

"That's not bad at all," he says, adding, "If I was going to sit down and have a few drinks and someone was to present me with a bowl of those, I would not not eat them. I'd still like crisps or chips or nuts, like anybody else, but it's nice to have something different."

Panitan isn't just waiting for word of mouth to increase his brand's popularity. He also has a small fleet of tricked-out motorcycle carts that spread the bug-eating gospel on the streets of Bangkok.

He says he has no plans to export his snacks outside of Southeast Asia just yet, though several U.S. and European firms are already buying his cricket powder. And in a few months, his new factory will open and expand production tenfold.

The company has taken the usual insect vendor's truck and tricked it out with lights and music in an effort, in Panitan's words, to improve the image of the edible insects by making the cart more fun and attractive and to build awareness of the brand. Michael Sullivan for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Michael Sullivan for NPR

Michael Sullivan for NPR

"Our company is ready for the world," he says. "If you want to order any kind of edible insect in any form, we're ready. And our clients have the same vision as us, see the future."

The future: bugs in a bag, coming soon to a 7-Eleven near you?

eating bugs

edible insects

Dog Team Races To Rescue Lost Hiker In The Himalayas

"He has always wanted, for the longest time, to go to Nepal," says his wife, Jennifer Peters-Lee, who flew to Nepal to follow the search at a town in the Annapurna area.

Dennis had had second thoughts about the trek, Jennifer says. He was uncertain about leaving her to juggle her job and his two teenage daughters from his earlier marriage, one of whom has autism. But Jennifer, who's not a hiker, had assured him she and the girls would be fine.

The area where Dennis disappeared is mostly above 11,800 feet elevation. It's between the tiny hamlets of Khopra Danda and Bayali in the center of the Annapurna circuit, with an achingly beautiful panorama of mountains, rising nearly 23,000 feet above sea level.

Karna Dura, of SAR Dogs Nepal, is leading the search for Dennis Lee Thian Poh. The team has about 10 men with four dogs. Courtesy of SAR Dogs Nepal hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of SAR Dogs Nepal

Karna Dura, of SAR Dogs Nepal, is leading the search for Dennis Lee Thian Poh. The team has about 10 men with four dogs.

Courtesy of SAR Dogs Nepal

The region is also one of Nepal's most dangerous for trekkers. The mountains collect moisture from the area, resulting in frequent rain, hail and snow. Once a trekker heads higher into the mountains, like Dennis' group did, wide walking paths and stone steps are replaced by narrow, slippery and unstable paths, often on the edge of vertical precipices.

Last season, a sign was posted on the track to Bayali warning trekkers not to walk it solo. It's unclear whether the group guide warned Dennis, and no one knows whether he saw the sign.

"People always underestimate the mountains," says Jit Bahadur Masrangi Magar, director of operations at SAR Dogs Nepal, the group that's spearheading Dennis' search with four of its dogs. "The mountains are not your friends. So many people believe they can do it alone."

The Two-Way

Death Toll In Himalayan Avalanches Reaches 29

Eight of the world's 10 highest mountains are in Nepal, and tourism — especially mountain adventure and trekking — is a backbone of the country's economy.

About 800,000 visitors come each year from all over the world and in increasing numbers from China, Southeast Asia and Israel. The Annapurna Circuit, a favorite trekking destination, was once just traversable on foot. Now it's crisscrossed with rough and, at times, terrifying dirt roads, passable only in 4-wheel drive jeeps. Adventurous tourists increasingly aim for areas that are more isolated and more pristine, such as the path to Bayali.

But when someone goes missing, the odds of finding them is low. And you don't have to be hiking on Everest to get lost.

"It is surprisingly easy to disappear in the mountains here, especially if you are trekking alone," says a diplomat in Kathmandu.

Fog and rain have blocked helicopters from reaching the area where Dennis Lee Thian Poh is thought to be. Courtesy of SAR Dogs Nepal hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of SAR Dogs Nepal

Fog and rain have blocked helicopters from reaching the area where Dennis Lee Thian Poh is thought to be.

Courtesy of SAR Dogs Nepal

The U.S. State Department warns visitors not to trek alone and urges everyone to register with the embassy in Kathmandu, where the consular section has pictures of missing American trekkers posted on the walls of its visitor area. Some trekkers' remains are not found for years.

SAR Dogs Nepal, the country's main dog search and rescue organization functions entirely on donations. In 2014, the agency rescued five foreigners and about 200 Nepalis.

And it's not just the rugged terrain and weather that hinder rescue operations. Linguistic and cultural barriers, weak government infrastructure and disorganized communication channels slow down searches.

Dennis' trekking guide immediately started searching for him when he disappeared. But the company waited 48 hours to alert local authorities, the dog teams and Dennis' family. Dennis managed to place a call that never went through. Rescuers traced the call's location. But they made a mistake, at first, which further delayed the identification of the general area where he disappeared.

Base camp for the rescue team looking for the lost trekker. Courtesy of SARS Dogs Nepal hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of SARS Dogs Nepal

Base camp for the rescue team looking for the lost trekker.

Courtesy of SARS Dogs Nepal

The head of the SAR Dogs Nepal team searching for Dennis is a 29-year-old fine arts major from the village of Lamjung in the nearby hills. Karna Dura grew up around dogs and the search and rescue world. He knows intimately the odds and complexities of survival.

In 2013, Dura and SAR Dogs Nepal found the body of a German trekker missing for 22 days after they believe he fell down a gorge, as he left the trail to get a better angle to take pictures. He had managed to survive until a few days before SAR Dogs Nepal found him. The trekker had filmed his last few days and a message to his family on his camera.

In 1991, an Australian man disappeared in northern Nepal, surviving 43 days before being rescued. Unlike Dennis, both these men were trekking solo without a group and not on a set route.

If a trekker is fully fit and does not have a head injury, trackers with SAR Dogs believe it's possible to survive three to four weeks in the mountains. Dennis, an avid and fit hiker, has a black belt in taekwondo. In his day-pack, he had a warm winter jacket, about two pints of water, a knife, a compass and some muesli. Now the weather is Dura's biggest enemy.

Working with a 10-man team, three air-scenting dogs and one dog that tracks a person, Dura and his team have identified four spots where Dennis was. One spot is a boulder, marking Dennis' last location on the main trail halfway to Bayali. The team is using Dennis' boots, sleeping bag and clothes that the porters were carrying to give the dogs his scent.

But large boulders below this site, combined with heavy fog and rain, make it impossible for the team to see down the ravine. Though they have been joined by 60 local villagers and six policemen, poor visibility has blocked helicopter assistance. Rappelling is the only way down the gorge, and the army is coming Thursday with professional rappellers.

Snow and hail for the past few days have kept nighttime temperatures below freezing. The trail is a slippery mud morass.

"This is very stressful," Dura says in a phone call from Bayali, which at over 13,000 feet elevation is cloaked in snow. "I pray he is alright."

Dennis' wife, Jennifer, struggles to hold onto hope. But she also feels her world is crumbling. She has made fliers with Dennis' picture, with the offer of a reward, to be distributed to local Nepali villagers. "I am so desperate," she says. "I have written a letter to the prime minister of Malaysia asking him for help."

Donatella Lorch is a freelance journalist who's based in (and who blogs about) Katmandu, Nepal.

Himalayas

dogs

hikers

Nepal

Congress Says It Will Not Tolerate 'Agents Gone Wild'

Members of Congress have a message for federal law enforcement: "We will not tolerate further episodes of 'agents gone wild.'"

That's the word from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, who holds a hearing Wednesday afternoon on sexual misconduct and security lapses by employees at the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Secret Service.

Goodlatte wants answers not only about federal agents' wrongdoing, but also on system-wide breakdowns by the agencies, which allegedly failed to report and punish many of the allegations with sufficient vigor.

The hearing follows weeks of lurid headlines about employee misconduct at the nation's top law enforcement agencies.

The Secret Service has come under scrutiny for an episode of alleged sexual assault of harassment of a female worker by a senior manager and the questionable behavior of two supervisors who drove near an active investigation of a suspicious package after a retirement party. John Roth, the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security, is investigating those incidents and is scheduled to testify to Congress Wednesday.

Meanwhile, this week, more new details came to light about DEA participation at overseas "sex parties" financed by drug cartels and U.S. taxpayer funds. The parties date back earlier than previously believed, to 2001, according to a report released by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and other members of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform.

"I'm very concerned about the public's respect for law enforcement officers and the safety of those they are designed to protect," Goodlatte told NPR. "This is a very important issue to me and one I intend to follow closely."

Also testifying Wednesday will be Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who reported last month that employees at the DEA and other agencies have engaged in "high-risk sexual behavior" that exposes them to blackmail or extortion attempts. His report mentions a DEA inspector deciding to close a case by saying, "if you look a man in the eye and he says no, then the answer is no — to do more is above my pay grade."

Goodlatte said, among other things, the Judiciary Committee will consider whether agencies need greater authority to investigate themselves and more leeway in doling out punishments for employee misconduct.

Goodlatte said the vast majority of agents are "outstanding" performers. But, he added: "Simply taking their word for something given the track record that we've seen here in recent weeks is concerning to me and should not be the end of that kind of investigation."

DEA Deputy Chief Inspector Herman "Chuck" Whaley, a career federal law enforcement officer, will tell lawmakers he's "disgusted by the behavior described in these cases," and "disappointed" by the lax punishment the employees faced, resulting in unpaid suspensions of a few days or more, according to a copy of his written testimony.

Mark Hughes, the chief integrity officer at the Secret Service, will tell lawmakers "the successes of the many have recently been overshadowed by the unacceptable failures of a few," his written testimony says.

Dispatch From South Carolina: At Walter Scott's Funeral, An Unexpected Conversation

This past Saturday morning, my wife Saadiqa and I pulled into the parking lot of W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center, a little brown brick church surrounded by lush oak and maple trees in Summerville, South Carolina, where Walter Scott's funeral was about to begin. Cars were parked all over the grass and lined the surrounding streets. On the lawn, friends and families exchanged warm, tight hugs, fully dressed in sharply pressed suits, dark dresses, and elegant hats despite the already blistering heat.

Blink, and you might think it was a family reunion. But before the glass doors to the church stood two large black hearses, like watchmen poised to snatch any stray moment of relief or forgetting. You can never relax, they seemed to say, not in church, not waiting for the light to turn, not walking down a sidewalk enjoying a bag of candy.

Saadiqa and I got out of our car, sore from the four-hour drive from Clemson, SC., where we moved to from Pennsylvania two years ago to start new jobs at Clemson University, where she teaches women's leadership and I teach popular culture and social movements. We took a place in the line of people standing outside the church to pay their respects, holding tight their neatly folded white handkerchiefs, dabbing gently at sweat and tears.

Behind us in line was an elderly woman who appeared to be in her late 70s, with grey natural hair and a floral print on her worn but starched cotton blouse. We got to chatting, and I told her about our morning's travel. She peered at me sternly over her glasses. "You know, Clemson is a good university," she said, in a kind but firm way that signaled a but coming. "But it's hard for young folk — like my kin — to get into Clemson, and I'm starting to see some of the Clemson students come here and get a lot of high-paying jobs. I see those Clemson flags from my backyard."

Mourners arrive for the funeral of Walter Scott at W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center, Saturday, April 11, 2015, in Summerville, S.C. David Goldman/AP hide caption

itoggle caption David Goldman/AP

Mourners arrive for the funeral of Walter Scott at W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center, Saturday, April 11, 2015, in Summerville, S.C.

David Goldman/AP

She's talking about gentrification, of course. North Charleston is a far cry from the growing economies of Greenville and Columbia, but in recent years, new industries and malls have started to slowly attract college graduates to this area. Some of my students will likely be among them, and their arrival will transform the business, cultural, and political landscape here. It is also likely to raise rents and, over time, displace folks like this grandmother and her family.

On some level, her words stung. As a Clemson professor, I work hard to give my students the knowledge and credentials to make a good living wherever they find opportunities. I help push this tide.

Perhaps it seems odd to meditate on gentrification when there's a body not ten feet away, the sound of recorded gunshots still ringing in all of our ears. But as NPR's Martin Kaste reported last week, black lawmakers brought it up at a press conference outside North Charleston's shiny new city hall. They talked about body cameras, but also about how poor black residents here have been getting shuffled around for decades. When the city of Charleston gentrified in the 80s, those folks were squeezed into North Charleston. Now, with the new malls and industries creeping up into North Charleston, they're getting elbowed out again. The lawmakers said unfair policing practices — like excessive police stops —are helping to speed that along.

In the meantime, people from poorer towns like these across the state pay taxes to support my university, which is 10 percent taxpayer-funded. But what do they get back? While South Carolina is 28 percent African-American, and on average, African-American students make up 22 percent of four-year public colleges across the state, Clemson's black student population has dropped from 9 percent in 2009 to just 6 percent today.

The author (left) and North Charleston resident Nathaniel Grant Junior — who happened to be wearing a Clemson tee—at the site of Walter Scott's killing. Courtesy of Chenjerai Kumanyika hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Chenjerai Kumanyika

The author (left) and North Charleston resident Nathaniel Grant Junior — who happened to be wearing a Clemson tee—at the site of Walter Scott's killing.

Courtesy of Chenjerai Kumanyika

Code Switch

A White Supremacist's Legacy Looms Over Schools In South Carolina

It occurs to me that after two years of getting to know many of my students, I have yet to encounter one who called North Charleston or Summerville home.

A lot of these tensions go way, way back. The school was founded in 1889, and one of its founders was a white supremacist and South Carolina politician named Ben Tillman who refused to accept federal funding for Clemson unless he could take half of the state funds originally meant for the South Carolina's black colleges. Clemson begrudgingly accepted African-American students in 1963 only after Harvey Gantt, Clemson's first black student, lobbied the United States district court in Anderson to require integration.

Let me be clear about something: I enjoy working at Clemson. I'm constantly meeting with colleagues and students who are clearly genuinely enthusiastic about changing problems that they understand. But after many months on this campus, I can't help feeling that racial minorities are primarily visible in the imaginations of many white Clemson students as the sources of their musical and athletic entertainment.

And, increasingly, as the subjects of crime stories.

Perhaps that's how you get an environment in which something called a "Clemson Cripmas party" can occur. This was back in December, when SAE fraternity members made headlines after inviting students to a party dressed in red and blue headbands, fake jewelry, and shirts featuring black rappers, to pose for Instagram with scrunched-up faces and "gangster" hand gestures. When confronted, some SAE members explained that these kinds of parties are a regular tradition, so why was it a problem this year?

As North Charleston continues to gentrify and become more attractive to students at Clemson figuring out their next steps, including the more privileged and less culturally literate among them, it's hard to see how this latest economic wave can wash over its poorer residents without crashing into them.

On some level, her words stung. As a Clemson professor, I help push this tide.

The elder woman's words were still in my head as we inched closer to the church doors at the funeral. Saadiqa and I strike up conversations with more people in line, and a couple tell us about acquaintances who went to Clemson. Far more tell us about their children in high school who would like to go to Clemson. I hand out my business card.

A deacon in a dark black suit and spotless white gloves asked us to move back to make room for Scott's family as they exit the church, and the elder lady we were chatting with grabbed my arm to say goodbye before she drove off to the cemetery. "You keep doing what you're doing, young man," she said, with a full smile. "I'm going to think about you when see those orange flags waving in my neighborhood. We just have to figure out a way to get more young people from our communities in there, because they are going to be the ones who really help."

Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika is an artist, activist, and scholar who holds an assistant professorship in Clemson University's Department of Communication Studies and a creative professorship in the College of Architecture, Art and Humanities. His January 2015 article on whiteness and public radio voice was featured on National Public Radio, The Washington Post, and Buzzfeed and spawned a nationwide discussion on diversity and voices in public media.

Clemson University

Walter Scott

gentrification

'The Fishermen' Ventures Into Dark Waters

There is very little light in The Fishermen; it's a relentlessly somber book that still manages to pull the reader in even as it gets more and more melancholy. The few scenes of carefree childhood joy are clouded by the prospect of what's to come, and Obioma is unsparing when it comes to writing about death, grief and the increasingly tragic destruction of an already beaten down family.

As dark as Obioma's prose is, though, it's also beautiful. His use of language is rich and hypnotic, and nearly every page is filled with an unexpected and perfectly rendered description. Abulu, for example, "subpoenaed tranquil spirits, fanned the violence of small flames, and rattled the lives of many," while the boys' mother "owned copies of our minds in the pockets of her own mind and so could easily sniff troubles early in their forming, the same way sailors discern the forming foetus of a coming storm."

Many parts of The Fishermen read like an incantation, albeit one that slowly turns into an elegy. It's hard to overlook the religious themes of the book — a priest tries to shoo the boys away from the river, but they pay him no heed. And when Ikenna initially invites his brothers to join him in his new hobby, he tells them, "Follow us, and we will make you fishermen!" It's almost certainly a reference to the Book of Matthew, when Jesus tells Simon Peter and Andrew "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

Things don't work out for Ikenna; of course, but they didn't work out for Jesus, either — at least in this world. The Fishermen might be bleak, but it's an excellent debut that does a very good job wrestling with some extremely difficult themes. Chigozie Obioma writes with sophistication and inventiveness; he's obviously deeply in love with the English language, and it shows. This is a dark and beautiful book by a writer with seemingly endless promise.

Historian: John Wilkes Booth Not A Deranged Lone Madman

President Lincoln's killer, John Wilkes Booth, is largely regarded as a deranged, lone gunman.

But historian Terry Alford, an expert on all things John Wilkes Booth, says that's not the case. His new book, Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth, tells the story of a well-liked actor and his life before going down in history as the man who assassinated a president.

Booth was born into a prominent family of actors. According to Alford, he had the good looks, and exceptional range as an actor to stand out, playing both dark roles as bad guys, and softer roles such as Romeo. By 1865, the 26-year-old was a headliner on the American stage. As Alford explains, Booth was so rich and famous, he was the first actor known to have had his clothes torn by fans.

"When he was coming out of a theater in Boston, the manager had to come back and tell people, 'Back up, let him out just let him walk to his hotel.' "

Alford says it's interesting that, over the years, people felt free to talk about Booth, and while they shrank away from what he did, they didn't really shrink from him. They remembered things about him like courtesies and acts of heroism.

"One time on stage, he saved a young woman whose dress caught on fire," he says. "A young actress who had wandered too close to the gas footlights."

Contrary to what many believe, Booth was not a lone madman, according to Alford. In fact, he was politically motivated to assassinate Lincoln.

"John Wilkes Booth was one of those people who thought the best country in the history of the world was the United States as it existed before the Civil War," Alford says. "And then when Lincoln came along, he was changing that in fundamental ways."

Those ideological differences includes increasing the power of the federal government and emancipating the slaves, both things Booth was vehemently against. He was angered by the government instituting an income tax, the military draft, occasionally suspending habeas corpus — a legal protection against unlawful imprisonment. All these things, Alford says, agitated Booth.

"John Wilkes Booth was one of those people who thought the best country in the history of the world was the United States as it existed before the Civil War. And then when Lincoln came along, he was changing that in fundamental ways."

- Terry Alford

"But Booth brought to that agitation an extremism, the passion almost of a fanatic," Alford says. "And it was very dangerous, as we find out."

Booth's opposition to Lincoln's policies persuaded him to fight with the Confederate Army during the Civil War. But, according to Alford, his mother was a widow and had already lost four of her children. So she begged and pleaded for him to stay clear of the war. Booth agreed.

"But he felt like a slacker," Alford says. "He even uses the word 'coward' to describe himself because, as an actor, he played a hero on stage but really wasn't one."

One of the people closest to Booth was his older sister, Asia Booth Clarke. After Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Asia and her family went into exile in England. There she wrote a secret memoir about her brother, but it wasn't published until 1938. Alford wrote the forward in the latest edition. In her memoir, Clarke recalls a time where a psychic predicted his untimely death.

"The old gypsy said, 'You've got a bad hand, it's full of sorrow. Trouble plenty everywhere I look, I see you'll break hearts. You'll die young, and you will leave many to mourn you. You'll be rich, you'll be free but you're born under an unlucky star,'" Alford says. "And his sister said, 'Oh, don't let that worry you. These gypsies will just say anything for money.' And he laughed and said, 'That's right.' "

NPR History Dept.

Lincoln's Private Side: Friend, Poet, Jokester

Revisiting The Night Abraham Lincoln Was Shot 150 Years Ago

7 min 25 sec

Add to Playlist

Download

Alford adds that Booth would refer to the gypsy's predictions years later in conversations.

"The little fortune he wrote down grew tattered from folding and unfolding, as he would get it out and look at it and put it back," he says. "So thoughts like that preyed on his mind."

Alford says the assassination of President Lincoln shattered the Booth family.

"The brothers were actors," he says. "In other words, you've got to get out in front of thousands of strangers and dozens of towns and be public again. And this was exceptionally hard because a lot of people did feel you are your brother's keeper. 'Why didn't you do something about this? What did you know? Why didn't you take care of it?' And, so it was extremely hard to be a Booth for a long, long time."

President Lincoln

John Wilkes Booth

American History

Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

What's new

The Internet Of Spooky Things Is Alive In 'Unfriended'

'Orhan's Inheritance' Is The Weight Of History

Not My Job: Boston's Dick Flavin Is Quizzed On The 'Worst Poet Ever'

'Orhan's Inheritance' Is The Weight Of History

Suicide Attack Kills Dozens At Afghanistan Bank

Many Obamacare Policyholders Face Tax Surprises This Year

Big Bills A Hidden Side Effect Of Cancer Treatment

Investment Guru Teaches Financial Literacy While Serving Life Sentence

Hillary Clinton Supports Amendment To Get Hidden Money Out Of Politics

The Challenges Of War At A Distance

Why A Blockbuster Of A Trade Deal With Asia Matters

Why A Blockbuster Of A Trade Deal With Asia Matters

Yes, You Can Help The World And Make Money At The Same Time

Bloomberg Terminals Go Dark For Hours, Sending Ripples Through Markets

Bloomberg Terminals Go Dark For Hours, Sending Ripples Through Markets

Feds Cancel Commercial Sardine Fishing After Stocks Crash

The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine Born Of U.S. Prejudice

Lewis And Clark Battle Giant Spiders In 'Dead Lands'

Street Food No More: Bug Snacks Move To Store Shelves In Thailand

Dog Team Races To Rescue Lost Hiker In The Himalayas

Congress Says It Will Not Tolerate 'Agents Gone Wild'

Dispatch From South Carolina: At Walter Scott's Funeral, An Unexpected Conversation

'The Fishermen' Ventures Into Dark Waters

Historian: John Wilkes Booth Not A Deranged Lone Madman

Ïîïóëÿðíûå ñîîáùåíèÿ

Blog Archive