At this writing, Getty Images photographer Chris Hondros is in critical condition after being wounded today in Libya. The New York Times has a portfolio of his photos taken earlier in the day.
UPDATE: Hondros has died.
Best line of the day
“New terror alert system unveiled today. Only two levels. They’re coming. They’re here.”
The General in His Study
A recently discovered 1871 letter written by Robert E. Lee’s daughter Mary Custis Lee, gives a new look at the General’s decision to forsake his oath and side with the rebellion.
And her words fundamentally alter the story of Lee’s fateful choice. Lee biographers have long claimed that his decision to leave the Army was an inevitable one, driven by the pull of relatives, state and tradition. However, as his daughter shows us, in the end the decision was highly personal, made in spite of family differences and the military conventions he revered.
Read The General in His Study for more.
Tim Hetherington
What made him special. News Desk: In Memoriam: Tim Hetherington
Best line — and best advice — of the day
“Live like you’re already dead, man. Have a good time. Do your best. Let it all come ripping right through you.”
Tonight’s Reading
“When you’re at the top in Hollywood, as he is now, you can do anything you want. Including doing what you want.”
“What a brush with death taught David Eagleman about the mysteries of time and the brain.”
When Eagleman was a boy, his favorite joke had a turtle walking into a sheriff’s office. “I’ve just been attacked by three snails!” he shouts. “Tell me what happened,” the sheriff replies. The turtle shakes his head: “I don’t know, it all happened so fast.”
Best line of the day
“The Bonds case shows what happens when practically everybody lies—the judicial system is brought to its knees. It’s amazing to me that the jury managed to convict on one count. The amount of lying in that case—and I don’t mean only Bonds—is astonishing. It’s world class lying, as one prosecutor told me.”
Fox News Explained
Unfortunately, losing the ability to detect the subtle social clues that help you know when you’re being doused with sarcasm or even dissed with a big fat lie may actually be an early warning sign of dementia, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.
The scientists, who reported their findings at a recent meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, have discovered that a certain type of neurodegenerative disease may chip away at the ability to understand the social, physical and verbal cues that help people recognize indirect language, such as sarcasm, and even deceit.
“These are the patients who fall for all the online scams, and lose all their money, because they just don’t get the lie,” said lead author Katherine Rankin, a neuropsychologist in the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, who led the new study. “They don’t understand sarcasm. They would think ‘The Colbert Report’ is real.”
Best line of the day
“The Arizona governor has vetoed the bill that would require presidential candidates to prove they are Americans. She had a bunch of complicated reasons that boil down to, ‘it’s just embarrassing, isn’t it? Really?’ ”
Top Paid Player by Team
I just received this email
. . . and thought to share.
Greetings,
ProPublica reporters Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their stories on how some Wall Street bankers, seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of their clients and sometimes even their own firms, at first delayed but then worsened the financial crisis. We at ProPublica are delighted by this award, and deeply honored.
This is ProPublica’s second Pulitzer Prize in as many years. Last year, ProPublica reporter Sheri Fink won a Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting for her article “The Deadly Choices at Memorial,” on euthanasia at a New Orleans hospital in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, published in partnership with The New York Times Magazine. This was the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to an online news organization. This year’s Prize is the first for a body of work not published in print.
. . .
But while we poked fun at the ironies in this story, and by so doing tried to make it more accessible, its central point is quite serious, and critically important: that the mores of Wall Street, at least in the period 2006-2008, were not consistent with the public interest or the national interest, and that greater oversight (and perhaps enforcement actions) may be in order. Our ultimate test for our work at ProPublica is impact, and we believe this reporting has helped spur activity by the SEC and the Congress—activity we continue to cover, as recently as twice this past week.
. . .
These awards mean a lot to our staff, especially as all of them reflect the judgment of our peers in journalism. But they are not why we are in business. Instead, as I indicated above, ProPublica was created to spur reform through journalistic means—and to do this by reporting and writing stories with “moral force,” that is, stories about abuse of power or failure to uphold the public trust. That is our mission, and today’s award encourages us to continue it with increased vigor.
One last point: to do this, it takes money. ProPublica is a non-profit, and contributions are tax deductible. We had more than 1300 donors last year and almost 500 so far this year. The median donation is $50, but whatever you can give will be greatly appreciated, and will truly help us make a difference. I invite you to celebrate with us by making a contribution.
Pulitzer Winners in Letters, Drama, and Music
Fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A.. Knopf)
Drama
Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris
History
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner (W.W. Norton & Company)
Biography or Autobiography
Washington : A Life by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)
Poetry
The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by Kay Ryan (Grove/Atlantic)
General Nonfiction
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)
Music
Madame White Snake by Zhou Long (Oxford University Press)
Samantha Henig has a brief rundown of the journalism awards and some links at the News Desk : The New Yorker
Jill Lepore reviewed Ron Chernow’s “Washington: A Life” and Hendrik Hertzberg gave it a rave: George Washington, Ron Chernow, and ‘Small Government’ .
Today’s Longer Reads
“If you think global warming is some distant threat, come visit Yellowstone, our most beloved national park. Acres of trees are dying, trout runs are disappearing, and starving bears are attacking campers. It’s an ecosystem in collapse, and things are only getting worse.”
The Ghost Park | Men’s Journal
Interesting look by David Remnick at Malcolm X, his Autobiography written with Alex Haley in 1963, and the new biography by Manning Marable.
Hero
April 18th
Today is the birthday
. . . of Pollyanna. Hayley Mills is 65.
. . . of two-time Oscar nominee James Woods. He’s 64.
. . . of Rick Moranis, 58.
. . . of Daphne Moon. Jane Leeves of “Frasier” is 50.
. . . of Conan O’Brien. He’s 48.
. . . of America Ferrera; anything but ugly, Betty is 27. Ms. Ferrera is of Honduran descent.
Lawyer and author Clarence Darrow was born on this date in 1857.
Darrow became famous for defending some of the most unpopular people of his time. In the 1925 Monkey Trial, he defended high school teacher John Scopes for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in a Tennessee school. In “The Crime of the Century,” in 1924, he successfully defended two confessed teenage murderers, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, from receiving the death penalty.
. . .He once said: “I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure.”
The San Francisco earthquake was on April 18, 1906. It was magnitude 8.3; 3,000 people are estimated to have died.
The first game was played at Yankee Stadium on this date in 1923.
War correspondent, and Albuquerquean, Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa, on this date in 1945.
Albert Einstein died at age 76 on this date in 1955.
Chiricahua National Monument (Arizona)
… was proclaimed such on this date in 1924.
Twenty seven million years ago a volcanic eruption of immense proportions shook the land around Chiricahua National Monument. One thousand times greater than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the Turkey Creek Caldera eruption eventually laid down two thousand feet of highly silicious ash and pumice. This mixture fused into a rock called rhyolitic tuff and eventually eroded into the spires and unusual rock formations of today.
The monument is a mecca for hikers and birders. At the intersection of the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts, and the southern Rocky Mountains and northern Sierra Madre in Mexico, Chiricahua plants and animals represent one of the premier areas for biological diversity in the northern hemisphere.
National Park Week April 16-24
Get out and discover something new about your 394 national parks. This year’s focus, Healthy Parks, Healthy People, highlights the connection between human and environmental health and the vital role America’s national parks play in both.
Whether you prefer a 20-mile backcountry hike in Yosemite or a leisurely stroll around Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, moving outside is good for you and offers a chance to explore these places you own.
The Midnight Riders of April 18th
Late on the night of April 18, 1775, Boston patriot Joseph Warren learned of a British military operation planned for the next day. To warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were across the Charles River in Lexington, Warren dispatched two riders, Paul Revere and William Dawes. Revere took the shorter route “by sea,” while Dawes went “by land” over the isthmus from Boston to Roxbury, then crossing the Charles River over a bridge in Cambridge. Revere’s ride has been celebrated in poems and textbooks, but Dawes’ role was at least as important.
One By Land
William Dawes rode by land past the guard at the gate of the strip of land that connected Boston to Roxbury. Dawes had befriended a number of guards in the preceding weeks, and was lucky to find a friendly face on duty that night. He slipped through the gate after some Redcoats. Continuing west to Brookline, over the Charles at a bridge in Cambridge, he sped his horse through Menotomy (today called Arlington) to Lexington.One By Sea
Paul Revere took the more direct sea route. After he was rowed quietly across the Charles, within sight of the British warships, Revere obtained a horse at Lechmere and rode through Cambridge toward Adams and Hancock in Lexington. Stopped by British officers en route, Revere made a quick escape and chose an indirect path to Lexington, through Medford.The Alarm is Sounded
Both riders arrived in Lexington just after midnight and delivered their news of the British plans. The two messengers also decided to warn the militia in Concord that their military supplies would be targeted. They were joined on this leg by Dr. Samuel Prescott, a Concord resident who had been visiting a Lexington friend. Prescott proved invaluable when the riders were surprised by more British soldiers. Revere was captured and Dawes lost his horse, but Prescott took the back trails he knew to reach Concord and sound the alarm.
Excerpted from American Experience | Patriots Day
Best line of the morning
“See, what I’ve done, and you all can try this yourselves, is to simply avoid reading the news as much as possible. I read old books and the only periodicals I even look at lately are NFL draft guides. I’ve read Nolan Nawrocki’s draft booklet like 400 times already. To me he’s the greatest novelist since Waugh. That does wonders for my general sanity, but then I’ll have something happen like last Friday, when I went into 30 Rock to do a hit on Cenk Uygur’s show and saw him talking about a poll that had Donald Trump leading the field of prospective Republican candidates. Donald Trump has 26% of the Republican vote right now? What the fuck? Things like that, honestly, I don’t even want to know, until I have no choice… ”
Is Sitting a Lethal Activity?
People don’t need the experts to tell them that sitting around too much could give them a sore back or a spare tire. The conventional wisdom, though, is that if you watch your diet and get aerobic exercise at least a few times a week, you’ll effectively offset your sedentary time. A growing body of inactivity research, however, suggests that this advice makes scarcely more sense than the notion that you could counter a pack-a-day smoking habit by jogging. “Exercise is not a perfect antidote for sitting,” says Marc Hamilton, an inactivity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
This is your body on chairs: Electrical activity in the muscles drops — “the muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse,” Hamilton says — leading to a cascade of harmful metabolic effects. Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to about one per minute, a third of what it would be if you got up and walked. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes rises. So does the risk of being obese. The enzymes responsible for breaking down lipids and triglycerides — for “vacuuming up fat out of the bloodstream,” as Hamilton puts it — plunge, which in turn causes the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol to fall.
“Patel estimates that on average, people who sit too much shave a few years off of their lives.”
Sitting, it would seem, is an independent pathology. Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterward or hit the gym. It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin. “Excessive sitting,” Dr. Levine says, “is a lethal activity.”
Eva Cassidy
1994
Let’s have another.
Why not?
Paragraph of the day
No minimally honest or rational person can reconcile the President’s Friday signing statement with the vow he gave during that campaign event, nor can any such person reconcile his claimed war powers regarding Libya with the view he emphatically expressed during the campaign. And, of course, the list of similar departures from his own claimed views during the campaign is depressingly long: from railing against the evils of habeas corpus denial to fighting to deny habeas review to Bagram detainees; from vowing to protect whistleblowers to waging the most aggressive war in American history against them; from condemning the evils of writing bills via secret meetings with industry lobbyists to writing his health care bill using exactly that process; from insisting that Presidents have no power to detain or even eavesdrop on Americans without due process to asserting the power to assassinate Americans without due process, etc. etc. etc.
It would be one thing if these full-scale reversals were on ancillary issues. But these are fundamental. They’re about the powers of that office and the nature of our government. And Obama made these issues the centerpiece of his campaign.
Best line of the day
“Thus, the metric system did not catch on in the United States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the 9 millimeter bullet.”
Dave Barry
By the Rio Grande
Tish Hinojosa
How Your Tax Dollars Are Spent
“In his State of the Union Address, President Obama promised that this year, for the first time ever, American taxpayers would be able to go online and see exactly how their federal tax dollars are spent. Just enter a few pieces of information about your taxes, and the taxpayer receipt will give you a breakdown of how your tax dollars are spent on priorities like education, veterans benefits, or health care.”