By Artur Davis, on Tue May 21, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET No, the Obama Administration’s disaster of a week is not Watergate. Not unless Barack Obama is found scheming with his aides about how to pay “hush money” to witnesses. Not unless the foraging of journalists’ phone logs included eavesdropping with wiretaps. No unless revelations surface that Obama ordered a federal agency to shut down a criminal investigation, or that he skimmed campaign funds to build his own private network of thieves and vandals.
But this appalling seven days need not be Watergate to be something lethal and destructive of the public trust, a cascade of events that has hardened and validated the worst characterizations of this White House. The axiom on the political right that Obama’s presidency threatens constitutional freedom could seem overwrought when it was confined to insurance mandates and gun background checks. But from now on, the brief has just gotten appallingly straightforward: it sweeps in elements that are at the core of the First Amendment, in the form of the IRS digging into filers with the wrong politics, and into groups with an unapproved ideological agenda. The case that liberties are being violated—pirating the links between certain reporters and their sources for over two months, and in such an indiscriminate manner that close to a 100 working reporters might have been compromised—no longer seems to the media the stuff of right-wing paranoia.
 The supposedly partisan charge that the Obama Administration was covering up details in the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi takes on more plausible colors when a diplomat describes the way he was beaten down by political appointees for asking hard questions. And the vague but toxic insinuation that high level negligence contributed to their deaths now has chilling specific details: one official’s account of a special operations rescue team being bluntly shut down when it was poised to strike, another’s description of an inter-office climate that minimized safety concerns about the American consulate as unseemly griping.
Obama has maddened his adversaries by only repeating his routine for handling public storms: indignation that his White House’s motives are questioned, and an implication that parts of the executive branch, in this case the IRS, are an island beyond his ability to influence. For his political acolytes, the effect is good righteous theater. Never mind the inconvenience that the IRS’ presidentially appointed leadership knew of political targeting, failed to stop it, and may have implicitly blessed it. Forget that the ugliness of his subordinates’ response to Benghazi is a picture supplied by members of his own government, not by his opponents but by professionals, people who until these events were trusted comrades of the appointees who ended up sacking or maligning them.
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Artur Davis: Obama’s Scandalous Seven Days in May
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue May 21, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET How POPS changed my life.
I am referring to Privately Owned Public Spaces, not those cupcakes on a stick that they sell at Starbucks. Those are just weird. Though they are only 170 calories and they’re darn cute. But I digress.
Public space changed my life the first time in ’99, when I met my husband on a street corner. Now it’s changing my business life—who knew that all one has to do is go out in public? I guess on some level I did.
As with most things in my crazy-sexy-cool life, I came upon the POPS serendipitously. [Disclaimer: Please note that my characterization of my life may be highly exaggerated given that I have an eight-year-old son, a pile of bills to pay, and an anxiety disorder. But at least on Tuesdays, I have a crazy-sexy-cool life.]
I was trying to find retail space in New York City for a potential Matchmaker Café site that would fit into my budget. My budget was a maximum of $0. A girl can dream. I came across the empty space in Lincoln Center, next to the Apple store, that used to be Ollie’s, and I noticed that it was empty and locked. I was walking down that block on a frigid winter Tuesday because it is the same block where my husband and I met on the street, incidentally. For those of you who believe in fate, this fact is significant.
 I did a quick survey of the premises, knowing that the space had been a public space and having a gut feeling that it wasn’t supposed to be closed. I had no understanding of POPS or their legalities, but something seemed fishy. Thanks to the handy “Open to Public” POPS sign and to the magic of Google, I had the email address of Professor Jerold Kayden, within minutes. He literally wrote the book on the POPS. And within a few more minutes, he emailed me back!
So, short story long, we had a phone meeting and I was told that yes, it’s true, that POPS is not allowed to be closed. But no, in fact, I could not make a Matchmaker Café in that space for free, even if it is benefitting the public, because that would be commercialization of the space. I was crushed. But he invited me to his conference at Harvard to learn more about public space and its uses. It was a free conference. And my old stomping grounds. So I went. It was a crazy snow storm but I put on my Dickie’s coveralls that have a Matchmaker Café patch on them and I got on the train.
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Nancy Slotnick: How POPS Changed my Life
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon May 20, 2013 at 12:15 PM ET With a vote for a hemp amendment to the Farm Bill possible THIS week, I urge you to contact your U.S. Senator NOW. Here’s a link with an easy way to contact them.
Great piece by The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim which demonstrates the strange bedfellows who are pushing for hemp legalization, and reveals how close we really are.
Kentucky’s two senators, Republicans Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, have been working to include a provision that would legalize industrial hemp into the farm bill, according to Senate and Kentucky sources, an effort that is likely to result in a floor vote on the issue this week.
Paul and McConnell had hoped to insert the measure into the farm bill as it was being considered by the Agriculture Committee, but a jurisdictional spat broke out, as often does in the Senate. McConnell, a member of the committee, approached Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) last Monday night about inserting the provision, according to Senate aides, and was told that the Judiciary Committee had jurisdiction and he would need a waiver from its chairman, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.). Hemp laws are the purview of the Drug Enforcement Administration, even though hemp is not a drug and has no psychoactive potential, no matter how much a person smokes.
McConnell faces reelection in 2014, and has been working so closely with Paul that some aides have begun to refer to the libertarian newcomer and tea party favorite as the “shadow minority leader” — a term that presumably expires if McConnell wins his race. McConnell brought Jesse Benton, a longtime aide of Rand Paul and Ron Paul, onto his campaign. With Rand Paul in his corner, there is little chance for a tea party candidate to successfully challenge McConnell, and Paul’s energized base may boost turnout in the general election. If McConnell’s effort on hemp is any guide, he’s taking nothing for granted.
McConnell approached Leahy to ask for the waiver, but was rejected, sources said. McConnell returned to Stabenow and again asked that she insert the provision, and Stabenow said no. She offered, instead, to allow a vote on an amendment, and said that she would introduce it on his behalf. (Minority leaders rarely appear at committee hearings in person.) McConnell declined the offer and by proxy voted against the farm bill in committee. Holly Harris, chief of staff to Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, a strong hemp advocate, said that her office had been told by Senate Republican leadership that Leahy had refused the waiver request, citing Judiciary Committee turf, confirming what several Senate sources told HuffPost.
Click here to read the full article.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon May 20, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET I just failed to prove I am not a bot trying and failing repeatedly to sign in to LinkedIn after forgetting my password yet again.
I typed about 15 random combination of made up words and failed each time to read these sign-in word forms correctly. 15! This was not something I took lightly.
Which means….I suppose, that I am a bot!
Which does explain a few things about me I’ve never understood like being drawn to HAL’s voice in 2001 A Space Odyssey when I was just a child.
 But doesn’t explain why I would be so eager to sign in to LinkedIn at this hour.
Maybe I’m a bot with a heart.
Or at least a bot with a networking gene that lives on despite my automaton ways.
It’s my own way of railing against the machine. I suppose. ; )
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon May 20, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Many people travel in search of a place. There is an idea among travelers, whether spoken or not, that one day they will come across a place so perfect they’ll lay down roots. Even among non-travelers there is an idea that there is somewhere that will feel the way home should. The people will like you, the scenery will inspire you, work won’t be work…in short, in the perfect place life will be perfect. The core of this idea is that a place can make us happy, not that we make a place happy. Couchsurfing in the Middle East showed me that it is up to us to make a place, a home, spending our energy making a life rather than trying to find one.
Having met and stayed with expats the world over, the people we met in Oman and UAE were different, they had made their lives there. Most of the young people we’ve met working abroad were abroad because they didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives. We even met one person who moved to Asia because they clicked on a facebook ad promoting teaching opportunities. There is no discounting the amount of work that everyone teaching abroad must do, from visas to physically moving across the planet, but, in general, most of the young expats I met were abroad not because they knew what they wanted to do, rather they were there because they didn’t know what they wanted to do. At their worst they were killing time, at their best they were hoping to find themselves. In the UAE and Oman though, the people we met were dynamic, seizing the opportunity to live in a rapidly changing place, who were making a life abroad.
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Matt & Erica Chua: How to Make a Life Abroad
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon May 20, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Time spent in the public sector as an accidental bureaucrat has made me a keen observer of how states and countries use tax incentives to attract and retain corporate investment and jobs. I have watched companies extract mind-boggling incentives from the taxpayer simply by either moving or threatening to move jobs across state and country borders. While tax incentives may be great for corporations they make little or no sense when viewed through a community lens. Corporate tax incentive deals are a terrible use of taxpayer dollars.
Communities everywhere have lost leverage to companies who now have all the buying power. Corporations have disaggregated their business models moving capabilities around the world like chess pieces. Companies are no longer dependent on a single location and force communities to bid against each other competing on who will offer the biggest tax breaks. Communities are treated like commodities. The pricing food fight is intense and all at the taxpayer’s expense. There is no net new value created when companies move activities and jobs from one community to another. Consider Captain Morgan & The Hobbit.
 My favorite example of bad tax incentive deals gone crazy is the movie industry. Community leaders and politicians fall all over themselves to bring movie productions to their localities. It must be about having pictures taken with movie stars because it isn’t about the economics of the deals the movie studios cut playing communities against each other. The going discount to attract movie production in the U.S. ranges from 30 to 40% of the total production costs in the form of tax credits that can be sold to local taxpayers. I have reviewed several of these deals and can’t begin to make economic sense out of them for anyone other than the movie studio.
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Saul Kaplan: Captain Morgan & The Hobbit
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri May 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Watching great flick, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Thank goodness we only have to go through high school once.
We need the 50 years after high school to work through all the illusions we leave high school with.
And also need 50 years to let go of the delusions we take from high school
High school is where we come to misunderstand ourselves and the world we live in–while simultaneously learning to navigate the world we so confidently misapprehend. And after the glorious misadventure of high school only slowly and inadequately begin to see life a little more clearly and a little less confidently.
And the wallflowers of high school, the quiet ones, may say the least…. but they feel the most and see things most deeply and clearly. And make the truest friends and best all around human beings.
Which are very cool traits.
After high school.
By Julie Rath, on Fri May 17, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET 
I found this handsome WWII navy pea coat at an antique store in the sleepy town of Winsted, CT, this weekend. Priced at $60, it was hard to walk away from the smart, sturdy-looking thing. It’s a size 36 (equivalent to a small) and in excellent shape. Check out the hand-stitched arm patch,
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Julie Rath: Rathie Spies: Vintage Military Pea Coat and Web Belts
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu May 16, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
It’s time.
Right now.
Right here.
The world, real and virtual, cannot abide another moment without it.
It’s time to retire the acronym LOL…and any emoticon …to signify “I’m joking.”
And replace it with an asterisk followed by a parenthetical:
(Hey now! Don’t jump to the wrong conclusion. I’m not serious. Really. This was intended as a light-hearted joke. If you read it literally and didn’t catch the humor you aren’t alone. It was admittedly an inartful and flawed attempt at either understatement, overstatement or irony. And I apologize for any confusion. Please try reading through once more knowing it is an attempt at humor and see if it seems funnier. If you got it the first time, please disregard.)
True, it’s not as brief as an ideal “humor warning” could be. But it’s not as lame as the outdated acronym LOL or creepy as the overly cute sideways smiley face coming from a middle-aged man.*
* (Hey now! Don’t jump to the wrong conclusion. I’m not serious. Really. This was intended as a light-hearted joke. If you read it literally and didn’t catch the humor you aren’t alone. It was admittedly an inartful and flawed attempt at either understatement, overstatement or irony. And I apologize for any confusion. Please try reading through once more knowing it is an attempt at humor and see if it seems funnier. If you got it the first time, please disregard.)
But probably best to not overuse.
By Artur Davis, on Thu May 16, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET It may be a middle aged man’s perspective, but I recall the 80s as much more vivid and alluring than Joe Weisberg, the creator of FX’s “The Americans” suggests. In this drama about a pair of Russian KGB operatives who masquerade as married American travel agents in the early Reagan years, (Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings, Matthew Rhys as Phillip Jennings) the decade is not so much MTV slick as gray in the stolid pattern of, say, the late fifties. And it is not just the deliberate pace, or the square personas of the FBI agents, or the fact that the show’s obligatory generational gap between parents and children is so sanitized that it seems to predate the furies of the seventies and sixties: the real source of drabness here is deeper, and rests on Weisberg’s characterization of the penultimate years of the Cold War as a sluggish collision between two exhausted warriors, who are stumbling around each other in a fog of confusion and blunder.
This imagining of the early 80s as one long slog without purpose works its way through every layer of the “Americans”. The Jennings are laboring through a marriage that was conceived as a cover, has run hot and cold over the years, and is complicated by the fact that ensnaring espionage targets in sex traps is part of their modus operandi. Noah Emmerich’s Stan Beeman, an FBI agent who strains a metaphor by living next door to the Jennings, is fumbling his way through mid-life angst: his own marriage is collapsing from too many years spent chasing criminals during irregular hours, and the affair he falls into with his Soviet informant (Annet Mahendru) seems born out of opportunism and the fatigue from keeping ambiguous moral lines straight. Both the Jennings and Beeman are true believers but they also resemble thrill-seekers, who chose daredevil careers to supply the vibrancy that would have been missing in their lives.
And if the characters are drifting through a moral haze, so are their respective superpowers. In Weisberg’s account, the Cold War is less ideological zeal than bureaucratized routine. The shadow boxing between the FBI and the KGB’s domestic American operations is driven by miscalculations and measured retributions for offenses that themselves were often accidental or hastily improvised. It is noticeable that almost all of the killing is either retaliatory or unplanned, and in its own way, brutal but strategically incompetent. The show is hardly clueless about Soviet cruelty, but in this narrative, it is less the dark soul of totalitarianism, more the emptiness of an amoral enterprise that runs on autopilot.
In other words, the 80s of the “Americans” is far from the idealized political landscape that most conservatives remember. Is Weisberg’s revisionism a sub rosa commentary that the dying throes of the Cold War were just histrionics between adversaries who needed the polarity of the east-west struggle to sustain their fix? To be sure, at moments, the series dabbles with a liberal-leaning perspective: when Elizabeth tries steering their adolescent, and blissfully apolitical, kids toward a leftist view of current events, Phillip later rebuffs her with a tart “This country doesn’t create socialists”, a hard to miss jab at the far right’s insinuations about a certain early 21st century president. The depiction of a black KGB operative named Gregory (Derek Luke) is provocative: he is a disillusioned American, a former 60s civil rights activist who dons a cover as a drug dealer, and in his tortured relationship with his country, there is a hint of a meme that regularly surfaces on the left—the insinuation that the 80s drug war was just the establishment’s counter-insurgency at misunderstood young black men.
Or, Weisberg may only be doing what the best television drama has been honing into a style since, well, the 80s: protagonists who struggle to resolve their ethical dilemmas, good deeds for the wrong reasons and vice versa, and the disconcerting appeal of corrupt figures who are simultaneously charming. Perhaps this familiar enough take only seems jarring when it is exported to the context of the epic global fight of the post WWII era. (and it is fair to conclude that Weisberg’s Russians are more nuanced than “Homeland’s” jihadists or the shadowy right wing conspirators lurking in “24″ or “Scandal”, or any given “NCIS” episode.)
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Artur Davis: “The Americans” — Bad History, Great TV?
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