KABADDI CRAZE ERIC IDLE
THE OTHER SPORT THE BRIGHT SIDE
THAT INDIA LOVES OF HIS LIFE
PAGE 16 | SPORTS
In the U.S.,
meritocracy
against itself
Ross Douthat
OPINION
A week ago, Elizabeth Bruenig of The
Washington Post wrote a column about
the dreadful feeling of being yanked
back, thanks to the allegations of
teenage sexual assault against Brett
Kavanaugh, into the cliques and cru-
elties of high school: “And there we
were, poring over the juvenile ephem-
era of a high schooler’s yearbook, trying
to understand what it meant, what it
means, with the same unsettled frustra-
tion of outsiders looking in on a clique’s
jokes.”
There is only one feeling as grim as
the one that she described, and it’s the
feeling of being yanked back into a
particular kind of
How college experience —
the elite kind, the
Ivy League hyper-meritocratic
resentments kind, the Ivy League
took over the kind, the kind that
Kavanaugh inspires people to
debate. write insufferable
columns like this one
in which sociological
observation becomes an excuse to
remind your readers that you went to
college “in New Haven” or “near Bos-
ton” or wherever Princeton is.
But here we are, with Brett Kava-
naugh’s college drinking and his social
place at Yale suddenly the terrain of
discussion and debate while we await
the F.B.I.’s reporting. And of course, like
any other Ivy-educated journalist, I
think I have something to contribute to
this awful, privilege-mongering discus-
sion.
In particular, the portrait of merit-
ocratic social life that’s being drawn,
usually by other elite-educated journal-
ists to explain who Kavanaugh was in
college — the prep school jock, drinking
with his buddies and starting bar fights
while his less-privileged classmates
looked on askance — is at once terribly
familiar and significantly incomplete.
A good place to start is with the recent
New York magazine account of Kava-
naugh’s freshman dorm room, appar-
ently a subterranean pit with vomit
stains in the bathroom whose other
occupants and the future Supreme
Court nominee barely spoke to one
another. The author, Lisa Miller, de-
scribes the general early-80s freshman
scene at Yale like this:
Many . . . that year describe the social
life on campus as extremely tribal and
DOUTHAT, PAGE 14
The New York Times publishes opinion
from a wide range of perspectives in
hopes of promoting constructive debate
about consequential questions.
Bradley Cooper took a big risk in making a “A Star Is Born,” the third remake of the
film. But he liked that the plot reflected his despair over what commerce can do to art.
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PAGE 18 | CULTURE
Incomplete and dilapidated housing near Umzimkhulu, South Africa. A whistle-blower who condemned corruption in the area is now in hiding, fearing that he may be assassinated.
The killers in Mandela’s party
UMZIMKHULU, SOUTH AFRICA
South African politicians
are targeting one another
as corruption flourishes
BY NORIMITSU ONISHI
AND SELAM GEBREKIDAN
Their fear faded as they raced back
home, the bottle of Johnnie Walker get-
ting lighter with each turn of the road.
Soon, Sindiso Magaqa was clapping and
bouncing behind the wheel of his be-
loved V-8 Mercedes-Benz, pulling into
familiar territory just before dark.
Minutes later, men closed in with as-
sault rifles. Mr. Magaqa reached for the
gun under his seat — too late. One of his
passengers saw flashes of light, dozens
of them, from the spray of bullets pock-
marking the doors.
The ambush was exactly what Mr.
Magaqa had feared. A few months be-
fore, a friend had been killed by gunmen
in his front yard. Then, as another friend
tried to open his front gate at night, a hit
man crept out of the dark, shooting him
dead. Next came Mr. Magaqa, 34. Struck
half a dozen times, he hung on for weeks
in a hospital before dying last year.
All of the assassination targets had
RYAN PFLUGER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018
one thing in common: They were mem-
bers of the African National Congress
who had spoken out against corruption
in the party that defined their lives.
“If you understand the Cosa Nostra,
you don’t only kill the person, but you
also send a strong message,” said
Thabiso Zulu, another A.N.C. whistle-
blower who, fearing for his life, is in hid-
ing.
“We broke the rule of omertà,” he add-
ed, saying that the party of Nelson Man-
dela had become like the Mafia.
Assassinations are rising sharply in
South Africa, threatening the stability of
hard-hit parts of the country and imper-
iling Mr. Mandela’s dream of a unified,
democratic nation.
But unlike much of the political vio-
lence that upended the country in the
1990s, the recent killings are not being
driven by vicious battles between rival
political parties. Quite the opposite: In
most cases, A.N.C. officials are killing
one another, hiring professional hit men
to eliminate fellow party members in an
all-or-nothing fight over money, turf and
power, A.N.C. officials say.
The party once inspired generations
of South Africans and captured the
imagination of millions around the
world — from impoverished corners of
Africa to wealthy American campuses.
But corruption and divisions have
flourished within the A.N.C. in recent
Bradley Cooper prefers
to not make this personal
After his debut as director,
he wrestles the celebrity
industrial complex
BY TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER
Bradley Cooper is not not happy to be on
the press tour for “A Star Is Born,” the
movie he specifically, exactingly, metic-
ulously, perfectionistically, obsessively
directed, co-wrote and stars in. In fact,
he’s very not not happy!
He worked so hard on this movie,
which is being released this week in
many markets. Every detail of it comes
from a true thing — something he’s
learned, something he’s seen, some-
thing he knows for sure. It’s such hard
work to try for something true and to get
it right, and maybe he’s succeeded.
What a huge bet this was. What a long
haul it’s been. What a full-on occupation
of the last four years — years in which
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The funeral for Sindiso Magaqa, who was a member of the African National Congress, in
Umzimkhulu. Since the start of 2016, 90 South African politicians have been killed.
years, stripping much of the party of its
ideals. After nearly 25 years in power,
party members have increasingly
turned to fighting, not over competing
visions for the nation, but over influen-
tial positions and the spoils that go with
them.
The death toll is climbing quickly.
About 90 politicians have been killed
he, after an Oscar nomination for
“American Sniper,” had his pick of just
about any role he wanted. Years in
which his heart was consumed by little
else. How could he not be excited for
people to see it?
“This is the joyous period,” he told me.
This is the third remake of the movie,
the story of the big male star who plucks
the little woman from obscurity and
watches her celebrity and relevance
rise above his, to tragic consequences.
Each one is slightly different, a reflec-
tion of the filmmaker himself — the way
different chefs can make a roast chicken
at different levels of transcendence.
Cooper liked that. He liked that there
was an opportunity to reflect himself in
there: his romantic view of creativity,
his despair of what commerce can do to
art. He liked that it was a love story
above all those things.
He created Jackson Maine in that im-
age: an earnest, rootsy, behatted rock
COOPER, PAGE 2
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52 PLACES TRAVELER
IN SWITZERLAND, KINDNESS
TOPS THE STUNNING VIEWS
PAGE 19 | TRAVEL
..
An empire
built on
gaming the
tax system
Father’s money flowed
into Trump’s businesses
with a big wink at the law
BY RUSS BUETTNER, SUSANNE CRAIG
AND DAVID BARSTOW
Donald J. Trump built a business empire
and won the presidency proclaiming
himself a self-made billionaire, and he
has long insisted that his father, the leg-
endary New York builder Fred C.
Trump, provided almost no financial
help. “I built what I built myself,” the
president has repeatedly said.
But an investigation by The New York
Times has revealed that Donald Trump
received the equivalent today of at least
$413 million from his father’s real estate
empire. What’s more, much of this
money came to Mr. Trump through dubi-
ous tax schemes he participated in dur-
ing the 1990s, including instances of out-
right fraud, The Times found.
In all, the president’s parents trans-
ferred well over $1 billion in wealth to
their children, which could have
produced a tax bill of at least $550 mil-
lion under the 55 percent tax rate on
gifts and inheritances that was in place
JOAO SILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES at the time. Helped by a variety of tax
dodges, the Trumps paid $52.2 million,
or about 5 percent, tax returns show.
The president declined requests over
several weeks to comment for this arti-
cle.
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Charles J.
Harder, provided a written statement.
“There was no fraud or tax evasion by
anyone. The facts upon which The
Times bases its false allegations are ex-
tremely inaccurate,” he said. “President
Trump had virtually no involvement
whatsoever with these matters,” he con-
tinued, saying the president had dele-
gated those tasks to relatives and tax
professionals. “The affairs were han-
dled by other Trump family members
who were not experts themselves and
therefore relied entirely upon the afore-
mentioned licensed professionals to en-
sure full compliance with the law.”
In a statement on behalf of the Trump
family, the president’s brother, Robert
Trump, said, “All appropriate gift and
estate tax returns were filed, and the re-
quired taxes were paid.”
Since Donald Trump first refused to
release his income tax returns, his cam-
paign and then his presidency have
been suffused with questions about the
THULI DLAMINI/SUNDAY TIMES, VIA GETTY IMAGES extent and sources of his wealth, ques-
tions that have only intensified with the
Russia investigation. The Times’s new
reporting reveals little about his recent
business dealings. But the investigation
since the start of 2016, more than twice — based on a vast trove of confidential
the annual rate in the 16 years before tax returns and financial records — of-
that, according to researchers at the fers the first comprehensive examina-
University of Cape Town and the Global tion of the inherited fortune and tax
Initiative Against Transnational Crime. TRUMP, PAGE 9
The murders have swelled into such a
national crisis that the police began re- ONLINE: THE TRUMP INHERITANCE
leasing data on political killings for the More details on Donald J. Trump and the
SOUTH AFRICA, PAGE 6 riches his father gave him. nytimes.com
Fifty Fathoms
COLLECTION
©Photograph: Laurent Ballesta/Gombessa Project
BEIJING · CANNES · DUBAI · GENEVA · HONG KONG · LAS VEGAS · LONDON · MACAU · MADRID
MANAMA · MOSCOW · MUNICH · NEW YORK · PARIS · SEOUL · SHANGHAI · SINGAPORE · TAIPEI · TOKYO · ZURICH

2 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018
page two
Bradley Cooper prefers this isn’t personal
COOPER, FROM PAGE 1
star whose weary, substance-compro-
mised heart can’t bear to see the star-
making machinery overtake a sincere,
poetic message — a character from an-
other time who is reminiscent of Neil
Young or John Fogerty or Cher-hus-
band-era Gregg Allman, but is none of
those guys exactly.
Could a musician like Jackson really
draw giant crowds in 2018 the way he
does in the movie? It doesn’t matter. It’s
taken on with such grand, Hollywood
sexiness that it’s easy, when you’re
watching it, to just round up.
Jackson is not so much jealous of Ally,
the character Lady Gaga plays, like in
previous incarnations of the movie, but
he bemoans how the industry strangles
her ability to say the kind of things she
did when he found her singing “La Vie
en Rose” in a drag bar.
Now, maybe you’ve guessed at all this
because you are one of the more than
nine million people who have seen the
trailer (or one of the people who has
seen the trailer nine million times). Yes,
the trailer, which was the closest thing
we’ll ever get to a trailer song of the
summer: two and a half minutes of such
electricity that it immediately became
the subject of actual think pieces and so-
cial media obsession and maybe a meme
or 12. If you haven’t watched it, let me
see if I can conjure some of it from mem-
ory.
Let’s see, let’s see: Sultry, longhaired,
slightly unwashed Bradley Cooper sing-
ing into a mic, “Maybe it’s time to let the
old ways die,” then walking off the festi-
val stage in his big, brown hat, and into a
car and drinking. More lyrics: “It takes
a lot to change a man; hell, it takes a lot
to try,” then tinnitus tones come in like
an alarm. Shirtless hearing test, Dave
Chappelle, nightclub, more shirtless
hearing test, more Dave Chappelle,
walking into what may be a recovery
meeting, following Ally onstage, a con-
versation about songwriting — She
doesn’t sing her own songs! She thinks
she’s ugly! He thinks she’s beautiful!
Falling-in-love quick takes, he tells
her to come onstage — No way, man —
and he says, “All you got to do is trust
me!” then she does and oh my God!
Songwriting, motorcycle, private jet,
single tear, Sam Elliott head grab, rock-
ing, face in hands, crescendo: “I’m off
the deep end, watch as I dive in, I’ll
never meet the ground!” Punch, sex,
blackout, him and her walk off the bus,
she puts the hat on, he puts his arm
around her.
If I remember correctly.
So yes, Cooper is very excited to fi-
nally reveal this labor of love, this Ever-
est of accomplishment. The things he’s
not so excited about — the things that
maybe if he had his way he wouldn’t do
— involve the ways a person is expected
and obligated to share it. Meaning, he’s
not really excited to sit down and ex-
plain the thing.
Which brings us to a hotel in the West
Village neighborhood of New York, a
corner booth, him fingering his Porsche
Carrera aviators on the table in front of
us, where he is willing to tell me a lot
about his movie, where he is willing to
share the same set of facts about its
making that he’s shared with many,
many, many other reporters, but he is
not willing to go much further. He does-
n’t like my questions about the particu-
lar inspiration for certain details in the
movie. He doesn’t like questions about
his personal life and how it might relate
to the big, sexy music movie I’d just
seen.
People want to know, I tell him. People
want a deeper sense of where the movie
came from. He wanted to show a piece of
himself in the movie. This is an exten-
sion of that, I told him.
“It’s different,” he said. “This is be-
cause you’re creating content.”
“But it’s your story,” I told him.
“But you’re doing it,” he said.
“I’m going to write your story,” I said.
“I won’t have any control, and it really
isn’t a collaboration.”
Sure it is. That’s why I’m asking ques-
tions.
“You have all the say,” he said. “It’s not
like you’re going to show it to me and
say, ‘Let’s work on this section.’ You
know what I mean?”
So he sat back and told me the same
things he told everyone else, and I took
notes and then spoke to some people
who know him. Here’s what I came up
with:
He grew up loved, in Philadelphia, in a
house full of Tom Waits and Bob Seger
and Billy Joel and Mario Lanza and Led
Zeppelin and Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky
and Prince. His father was a stockbro-
ker and his mother worked at an NBC
affiliate and then raised her family. He
had a bedroom full of Phillies and Eagles
banners and a ton of toys. He’d lie on his
stomach with the little army guys he
loved placed across his area rug, putting
objects beneath the rug and changing its
topography for their battles — his first
directing gig.
He always liked performing. He
played the upright bass, its neck stick-
ing out of the window of the family Cadil-
lac as he was driven to school. He was 12
when he saw “The Elephant Man” and
knew right then he wanted to act.
He was a good student. He graduated
from Georgetown University cum laude.
He went to the Actors Studio for his
Master of Fine Arts in acting and re-
ceived a special commendation as the
star question-asker of “Inside the Ac-
tors Studio” — of many actors whom
he’d go on to star alongside. It was there
that he met his beloved mentor, Eliza-
beth Kemp, who died in 2017 and to
Top left, Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper,” for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor. Top right, Mr. Cooper playing a chef in “Burnt.” Above, on the set
with Lady Gaga in “A Star Is Born,” his directorial debut. Below left, Mr. Cooper playing Joseph Merrick in the play “The Elephant Man,” which he performed on Broadway and in
London. Below right, Mr. Cooper with Ed Helms, center, and Zach Galifianakis, left, in “The Hangover,” his first blockbuster success.
whom “A Star Is Born” is dedicated. He
felt that once he met her, he was finally
able to relax, for the first time in his life.
He gave those classes everything he
had. It reminded her of something her
mentor, Elia Kazan, had once told her,
which was that he’d only wanted to work
with people who make their work the
most important thing in their lives.
He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 and
he got to learn under his directors: Todd
Phillips (“The Hangover” trilogy) and
Clint Eastwood (“American Sniper”)
and David O. Russell (who directed him
toward his other two Oscar nomina-
tions, for “American Hustle” and “Silver
Linings Playbook”). All the mundane
stuff about directing, he loved it. He got
to the point where he understood the
machinery. He was ready. People told
him to direct a pilot or a commercial to
get his feet wet, but he didn’t want to. He
needed skin in the game.
After the blockbuster success of “The
Hangover,” he never had to do a movie
he didn’t want to again. He took all the
work seriously. Directors saw him as
someone who worked in the tradition of
a 1970s actor, like Robert De Niro and Al
Pacino and John Cazale. But by the time
he finished “American Sniper,” he had
been feeling like he’d done enough ac-
ting. He loved it, he loves it. He still plans
to do it. But it was time to do more.
“I guess I felt like I wasn’t utilizing all
of myself,” he said.
He learned to understand his
characters through his dreams
and created rituals for them by
tapping into his subconscious.
But it wasn’t easy to get someone to
hand him a project. Some people told
him that he was an actor and nothing
else. Even in acting, people would just
try to cast him in roles that were exactly
like the ones he’d just played. People
don’t really know how to look at a per-
son. “Because you’re like, ‘I have these
big dreams, and I feel these things.’ Is
that all wrong? Like, shame on anybody
that’s going to tell you who you are. That
angers me. It’s like, someone’s going to
tell you who you are, what you’re capa-
ble of. Like, what?” Then he pitched “A
Star Is Born” to Warner Bros., and what-
ever happened in that room made the
Warner people hand over $38 million be-
fore marketing costs.
In 2011, “A Star Is Born” belonged to
Eastwood, who directed “American
Sniper.” Beyoncé was attached, but then
her first pregnancy reportedly delayed
filming and ultimately, there were too
KEITH BERNSTEIN/WARNER BROS. PICTURES, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES
many scheduling conflicts to proceed.
Eastwood talked to Cooper about the
role, but Cooper was hesitant. He was
36; he didn’t think he could play some-
one that weathered.
“I knew I would be acting my balls off
to try to be what that character was, be-
cause I was just too — I just hadn’t lived
enough, I just knew it,” he said.
On the last day of filming “The Hang-
over Part II,” in 2011, he flew home to
take care of his father, who was dying
from lung cancer. Cooper had been car-
ing for him in the year before leaving for
Thailand for filming, and now it looked
like it was the end. He went home, took
his father to an Eagles game, and two
weeks later, he held him in his arms
when he took his last breath. When he
told me that, his arms were in the forma-
tion they’d been in when his father last
lay in them. Right then, he looked down
where his father had been, and then
back up at me.
In that moment, everything changed
for him. “It’s a new reality,” he said. “Ev-
erything, everything. It’s not even one
thing, it’s a whole new world. And it was
instantaneous. It wasn’t like, months
later. It was like, his last exhale, and I
was holding him, and it was like, every-
thing changed.”
Instead of taking as many good roles
as he could find, he decided to apply an
even more stringent standard of perfec-
tion to his work than before. He signed
on to do “The Elephant Man” on Broad-
way and in London.
By 2015, he felt ready to play the role
in “A Star Is Born.” Now he looked in the
mirror and saw it. “Honestly,” he said. “I
could see it on my face. I just felt it.”
But Eastwood had moved on. Then
one evening, Cooper watched Annie
Lennox sing “I Put a Spell on You” on TV.
That night he had a dream about the
opening scene of the movie. The actual
beginning of the movie is not what he
dreamed, but he won’t tell me what it
was because maybe he’ll use it if he’s
ever allowed to make another movie.
Anyway, he pitched his “A Star Is Born”
to Warner Bros. the next day.
He wanted to make a version of the
movie in which the man isn’t jealous of
the woman. He wanted it to be closer to
the truth of the way things generally go
with people: They fall in love and begin
to heal, but eventually it becomes clear
that love cannot heal you completely.
He still needed to find his born star,
his Ally. He attended a celebration for
the opening of the Parker Institute for
Cancer Immunotherapy at Sean Park-
er’s house in Los Angeles — Cooper has
been involved in cancer benefits since
his father died — and that’s where he
saw Lady Gaga perform “La Vie en
Rose.”
“My mind was blown,” he said.
She was plutonium, he thought. She
would be the thing his movie had that no
other movie had. He called her agent
and asked for a meeting. He went to her
home in Malibu and there was a piano in
the living room.
“She was so open,” he said. He asked
her if they could sing a song, and he be-
gan to sing “Midnight Special.” They
downloaded the sheet music and sang it
together, with her on piano. After one
verse, she stopped him and began to
record a video on his phone.
He wanted to make a movie about a
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
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FRANK MASI/WARNER BROS.
man who wears his hat all the time ex-
cept for when he’s singing — usually
musicians wear their hats to sing but
take them off afterward. Not Jackson.
He’s vulnerable only on a stage. He
wanted to make a movie about a man
who had something to say and held him-
self and the people in his life to the rigors
of that ethic. “What he says in the bar is,
you know, ‘Talent’s everywhere, you
know, everybody’s talented at one thing
or another, but having something to say
and a way to say it, that’s a whole other
bag.’ I believe that, you know what I
mean?”
He learned to understand his charac-
ters through his dreams, particularly
the dream workshop he learned from
Kemp, his mentor. He created rituals for
his character by tapping into his subcon-
scious. In the movie, Jackson smashes
an OxyContin with his boot, an idea that
came out of just this method.
This is all great, I told him. It’s good
information. But now I had follow-up
questions, ones based on clues from the
movies and biographical information I
know from previous interviews — was
anything inspired by a specific relation-
ship? What was he thinking in that final
devastating scene?
These are the questions that annoy
him. Do I really want to know about his
love life? Do I really want to know what
specific thing he was thinking in that
scene? Do I really want to know about
his sobriety, and the events that led to it?
Uh, yes, I said. I suggested that peo-
ple like to know the artists behind the art
— my job hinges on this notion.
He thinks that’s silly. “Any time you do
anything, you have to find personal
..
things of yourself, but no, I mean, I felt
like I was him. I wasn’t, like, going, like,
back to a moment of my life in that
scene.”
The movie isn’t about him in that way,
he said. It’s just by him and of him.
There’s no one-to-one correlation of
events in his life to events in the movie.
There’s no one-to-one correlation of
emotion, either, and in the parts that are
specific, well, they’re for him to know.
He made the movie to contribute to hu-
manity, to speak to a viewer in the audi-
ence. He made it because creating art
helps us heal one another. “That’s the
whole point of creating art, trying to
somehow deal with the desperate reali-
ty of being alive, you know?”
O.K., I say. O.K. But what are we heal-
ing from? What was the wound? What
was your wound?
All he’ll say is this: “The wound was
just the wound of being a human being.”
Once again, I tried to draw the lines:
So time is breathing down your neck and
you realize you must do something
hugely ambitious? No, he says, not re-
ally. Or maybe there’s some catharsis in
acting out demons? Not exactly.
I have a story to write, I told him. I’m
not sure what to do. Coming back with a
good story is my thing, I said. He saw I
was dismayed, and again, I seemed nice,
so he tried to explain it. “It’s wonderful
that people want to ask me questions. I
just find that no matter how much time
we spend together, it’s only by spending
time and doing something with some-
body that you start to get to see how
they work and how they interact with
other people and who they are, you
know? You couldn’t get to know me in
this scenario just as much as I don’t
know who you are.”
I told him I was going to see the movie
again. He gave me his number and told
me to call him if I had any questions
about the movie or the songs in it. He
was nice, too. He just didn’t want to be
known the way I wanted to know him.
It was time to go. He took out his
phone and asked me to shut off my tape
recorder. He played me the “Midnight
Special” video with Lady Gaga. In it, his
voice is not yet as good as it would be-
come, but he was reaching far down into
his body for it. Later, Phillips, the direc-
tor, told me that about two years ago, he
was meeting with some Warner Bros.
executives and Cooper walked into the
office. He asked if anyone wanted to
hear him and Lady Gaga sing, and he sat
on the floor and played this very video to
show them how excited he was to cast
her. They watched him watch the video,
the way I did, seeing that he had become
an organ of his own movie — its heart
and its skin.
We watched the whole five minutes of
the video. His face was giddy while he
saw it for the thousandth time.
“A Star Is Born” is a portrait of self-
destruction. It’s a story of love between
two superstars and the codependence
that festers between them. It’s about be-
ing cruel to people you love. It’s about
the lure of the drunken haze and the way
people can enable you. Ally’s rise does-
n’t diminish Jackson’s star; he is the
agent of his own ruin.
I saw the movie again, and then I re-
read my transcript, and this time I un-
derstood. The movie is about all the
things above, but mostly it’s about the
way that commerce interferes with art
— how people who aren’t artists pretend
to know what art is, and how an artist
has to protect himself from what the ma-
chine asks of him. Meaning that, in its
own way, it’s also about this profile.
Maybe what he was saying was that
the movie tells me everything I need to
know about him and what he values and
who he trusts. It tells me what happened
to him in the past to make him reticent
about being open with someone who is
trying to make her own art out of his
story — so that she can heal her own
wound on her own terms, and, well, he’s
the director now. He told me all of this. I
just didn’t know how to hear it.
Here is his movie, Cooper was telling
me. Here is the out-of-the-past charac-
ter who is a shout-out to a time when an
artist could take himself seriously, like
the actors he so admired. Here is the al-
legory of the chokehold of marketing.
The not explaining himself to me is the
message. The not explaining to me is
who he is.
And yet. I can’t help but think that
there’s value to having been more forth-
coming. People read these kinds of
stories for the same reason they go to
the movies — because they’re curious
about how a person shows up in a per-
formance or a script or a shot. They read
these so that they can find themselves in
someone else’s story, and feel a little less
lonely in the world. Though it is consis-
tently pronounced dead, the celebrity
profile, when done well, is a real tool for
understanding ourselves and the world
we occupy. It accomplishes exactly what
it was that Cooper set out to do with the
movie. Some people are forthcoming.
Some aren’t. Look carefully, though. The
people who aren’t are telling their own
particular story with their reticence.
Like I said, coming back with the story is
our thing.
After we spoke, Cooper went to film
festivals in Venice and Toronto. He con-
tinued his press tour. He attended his
premiere. He doesn’t yet fully know if
his gamble worked; he doesn’t read re-
views. He watched those audiences (the
crying, the laughing, the seat-dancing),
and he took their questions about how
much he loves Lady Gaga and about
how hard it was to change his voice, but
they were all beside the point. His hat
was back on by then.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 3

Elegance is an attitude
Simon Baker

OFFICIAL TIMEKEEPER

Record collection
 ..
4 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

World
Game show
After disasters, a mass burial every day in China is
PALU, INDONESIA
an ode to
Cemetery in Indonesia
becomes a focal point for
its president
a devastated city’s grief HONG KONG

BY FIRA ABDURACHMAN,
ADAM DEAN
AND RICHARD C. PADDOCK
Nathan, 17, had run to safety when a
powerful earthquake struck his high
school in Palu, on the Indonesian island
of Sulawesi. But he couldn’t resist going
back to rescue his motorbike.
He died when he was hit by falling de-
bris from the school’s Advent Church,
which also was his home. After the
earthquake on Friday, it took three days
for his uncle, the pastor, to find his body.
On the outskirts of Palu, Nathan’s
mother, Ling Ling, lay on the freshly
turned dirt of his grave and wailed. She
clutched at his headstone. Fistfuls of
brown earth slipped between her fin-
gers.
“I’m broken,” she cried at the Poboya
Indah cemetery as her husband tried to
console her. “I have no hope anymore.
Let me be the one to die. My life is use-
less.”
The cemetery on the eastern side of
Palu has become a focal point for the
city’s grief as it slowly tries to recover
from the magnitude-7.5 quake and the
devastating tsunami that it set off.
Officials said Wednesday that at least
1,400 people had died, including 120 for-
eigners. Others, still uncounted, lie in
the rubble of ruined buildings or were
swept away by the tsunami, which in
some places reached a height of more
than 20 feet. More than a million people
live in the area affected by the dual dis-
asters.
Nearly 6,400 personnel from an array
of government agencies — including the
military, the police, the national search-
and-rescue agency and the Energy and
Mineral Resources Department — were
involved in efforts to find survivors, re-
cover bodies and evacuate people from
the stricken area, officials said.
More help and equipment were on the
way, but the spokesman for Indonesia’s
disaster management agency, Sutopo
Purwo Nugroho, told reporters that
time was running out to find survivors.
“The team is racing against time be-
cause it’s already D-plus-four,” he said
on Tuesday, meaning four days since the
day the quake struck.
With bridges down and roads de-
stroyed, some heavily hit areas have
been hard to reach, making it difficult to
assess damage and provide assistance.
Rescuers and aid groups are particu-
larly concerned about the Donggala dis-
trict, north of Palu and closer to the
quake’s epicenter. It is home to about
280,000 people and has been largely cut
off.
Photos and videos from the area show
extensive destruction, including a large
boat that was washed ashore by the
tsunami and is now perched between
two houses in the village of Wani II.
Evacuees boarding a military flight at the airport in Palu, Indonesia. About 20 flights a day were bringing supplies and police officers to Palu and leaving with residents.
vivors dwindled, family members
turned to the heartbreak of burying
those whose bodies had been found.
On Tuesday, four trucks loaded with
the dead headed up the hill to the
Poboya Indah cemetery, in what has be-
come a daily ritual. Fifty-four bodies
were buried by morning, and more
trucks were on their way. The day be-
fore, 153 were buried there.
Workers using heavy equipment dug
a swimming-pool-size hole and placed
the bodies in rows. Many were in body
bags and others were wrapped in car-
pets, including some with an incongru-
ous cartoon-character design.
“We’re going to hold a mass burial ev-
ery day,” said Firman, an army officer
who was overseeing the operation. Like
many Indonesians, he uses one name.
Fosmawati, 54, was there to bury her
husband, Mujiono, 56, in the mass grave.
Ling Ling wailing on the grave of her freshly buried son, Nathan, who died in the quake She found his body at the Nasanapura
after being hit with falling debris. “I’m broken. I have no hope anymore,” she said. Hospital. “I recognized my husband
from his clothes,” she said.
At the time of the earthquake, he was
“The damaged road is the main chal- is a fuel shortage. The community is in working at a chicken farm in Petobo, one
lenge to getting supplies into the areas despair so they are stopping the aid of two neighborhoods that were de-
that need them,” said Margarettha Sire- along the route. The route is full of peo- stroyed when the earthquake turned the
gar, emergency response director for ple really in need of help.” soft, saturated soil beneath them into
World Vision in Indonesia. “Plus, there As hope for rescuing trapped sur- jelly. About 2,500 homes around Palu
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM DEAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
were destroyed that way, officials said.
Ms. Fosmawati said she understood
that the urgency of the disaster meant
Mr. Mujiono would have no imam to pre-
side at his funeral and pray for him.
“It’s too complicated for him to have
his own burial,” she said. “There is no
imam for praying or people to carry the
dead body. This is a quake situation.”
In the valley below the cemetery, at
Palu’s airport, military cargo planes ar-
rived in a steady stream and left with
evacuees.
A flight officer said about 20 flights a
day were arriving. One brought 250 po-
lice officers to help reduce looting in the
city and keep order. It also delivered
more than a thousand yellow body bags.
Seated on the tarmac were groups of
residents hoping to get out of Palu. As
one group waited in the shade of the
damaged terminal, a piece of debris fell
from the roof. The crowd panicked and
stampeded before regrouping in a more
open area.
Fira Abdurachman and Adam Dean re-
ported from Palu, Indonesia, and Rich-
ard Paddock from Mamuju, Indonesia.
Muktita Suhartono contributed report-
ing from Jakarta.
TV program aims to stir
interest in Xi’s ideology
among younger generation
BY JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
The Chinese game show begins like
many others, with flashing lights, a he-
roic soundtrack and rapturous applause
from a studio audience.
But on this show, one topic domi-
nates: President Xi Jinping, the man,
the leader, the Communist Party chief.
Contestants face a daunting array of
questions about his favorite books, the
meaning of his speeches, and his forma-
tive years in a rural village.
The five-part show, “Studying Xi in
the New Era,” airing on Chinese state
television this week, aims to inspire in-
terest in Mr. Xi’s life and ideas among a
younger generation. It is the latest sign
of the predominance of Mr. Xi, China’s
most powerful leader in decades, in the
daily life of citizens.
The show — which does not appear to
offer cash or other prizes — poses a se-
ries of multiple-choice questions, many
of them focused on Mr. Xi. There is also a
smattering of questions about figures
like Marx, Mao and Deng Xiaoping.
But the show often feels like an ode to
Mr. Xi, whom the party has elevated to a
status on par with Mao. Mr. Xi’s words
dominate propaganda posters across
China, and the party routinely promotes
his nationalistic ideology, known as Xi
Jinping Thought, in schools, newspa-
pers and across government offices.
Over the summer, critics in Beijing
questioned the adulatory promotion and
Mr. Xi’s sweeping control over the gov-
ernment. But the game show is another
sign that Mr. Xi is not going away — and
that party leaders see him as a transfor-
mative figure in Chinese history.
Contestants on “Studying Xi in
the New Era” seemed well
rehearsed and appeared to have
memorized parts of his speeches.
Jane Duckett, a professor of politics at
the University of Glasgow, said the
game show is an extension of the news
media’s intense focus on Mr. Xi in recent
years. She said the show appeared to be
an attempt “to situate Xi and his ideas in
historical Marxist context,” lending le-
gitimacy to his agenda.
In one segment, a contestant says
that Mr. Xi’s ideology “brims with vigor.”
Another describes his leadership as “in-
finitely powerful.”
At another moment, a moderator
plays a clip of a speech and asks what
Mr. Xi meant when he said that the pro-
fundity of Marxism could be traced to
one sentence.
Tang Xuwang, a graduate student in

Message from British rail companies: We’re so, so sorry
BRITAIN DISPATCH
SWINDON, ENGLAND
BY DAVID SEGAL
Andrew Couch spends much of his
workday apologizing, usually on Twit-
ter, and this turns out to be more compli-
cated than it sounds. Simply typing “I’m
sorry” over and over again won’t do.
“You can’t repeat yourself,” said Mr.
Couch, part of the social media team for
the Great Western Railway, one of the
United Kingdom’s largest train compa-
nies. “Sometimes you say, ‘I’m sorry
we’ve done this.’ Or ‘Apologies for this.’
Or ‘I’m sorry that this happened.’ You’ve
got to understand the situation and you
need to mix it up.”
This is the Age of Sorry for nearly ev-
ery train company in Britain.
In May, Network Rail, which owns the
country’s entire rail infrastructure, un-
veiled its twice-a-year revision to daily
timetables. Because of new connections
and services, there were some four mil-
lion changes, about seven times the usu-
al number. The result was a shambles.
Naturally, Network Rail apologized.
Train companies like Great Western,
which are granted franchise rights to
run lines, are still coping with the after-
math, made worse by a continuing and
tricky upgrade to larger and spiffier
trains.
There have been tens of thousands of
delays and cancellations, enraging just
as many passengers. The anger, in turn,
has prodded train companies to a seem-
ingly endless cascade of apologies.
A running total of online train com-
pany regrets is available on a website
Sorryfortheinconvenience.co.uk, creat-
ed by Omid Kashan, a fed-up commuter
and web designer. It tallies up apologies
from the Twitter accounts of 25 British
rail companies. All together, they have
tweeted “sorry” more than 417,000
times since the start of the year.
Great Western is one of the sorriest
train lines of them all.
Its six-member social media team is
split between Plymouth and the compa-
ny’s headquarters in Swindon, a town
that has been synonymous with trains
since the early 19th century, when Great
Western manufactured locomotives and
rail cars here, and built houses for its
workers.
The Great Western team has issued
30,000 apologies since the start of the
year, an average of 110 per day. (Only
one company, the Northern, apologizes
more.) Customers pepper the Great
Western Twitter feed, @GWRHelp,
about 1,000 times every 24 hours.
Train companies have tweeted
417,000 apologies this year.
“Missing my London connection
again!” wrote Holly Rush not too long
ago. “Well done u bunch of idiots.”
Compliments regularly pop up, too,
but those are outnumbered by gripes
about doors that won’t open, inexplica-
ble odors, reservation mix-ups and
more. People routinely post photo-
graphs of crowded trains, or trash that
has been left by other passengers.
Many add withering hashtags, like
#whenwillwelearn, #ripoffservice and
#thisisnotgoodenough.
Through it all, the social media staff
patiently offers guidance, explanations
— and apologies.
“When you type, it’s difficult to make
it sound like you’re not being patroniz-
ing or sarcastic,” said Joanna Linzinger,
who manages the team. “So we have to
try really hard to make our sorries
sound like they’re coming from a warm
person rather than a keyboard.”
Apologies are one of Britain’s great
linguistic specialties, and have been at
least since the days of Shakespeare’s
time. “Pardon” appears in the canon
over 300 times, said Barry Edelstein, ar-
tistic director of The Old Globe in San
Diego. At the end of “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream,” an apology is offered di-
rectly to the audience.
“Puck explains that the whole story
was a dream, so if it was offensive, no
harm done,” Mr. Edelstein explained.
“This was a common trope in Shake-
speare’s period: the actors apologizing
for how bad the play was. It’s all done
with great irony, of course.”
Which gets to one truth about British
apologies: Their abundance isn’t al-
ways an indicator of courtesy. “Sorry” is
sometimes a reflex — people here say it
to inanimate objects that they bump into
— and the word is put to a wider variety
of uses than in the United States.
“In a lot of instances — like when
someone holds a door for you — it’s used
instead of ‘thank you,’ which I think re-
flects a kind of unease with strangers,”
said Lynne Murphy, author of “The
Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Rela-
tionship Between American and British
English.” “You’re sorry because you’re
self-conscious about the fact that some-
one noticed you and has done something
for you.”
Great Western was created by Parlia-
ment in 1833, with Isambard Kingdom
Brunel as chief engineer. He would
transform Swindon, a modest market
town — the name is said to derive from
the Old English for “pig farm” — into an
industrial center, as well as a key transit
junction between London and Bristol.
The works closed long ago, and today
Great Western is essentially a rail serv-
ice company with about 6,000 employ-
ees. The ones who work on the trains do
not get specific instructions on the fine
art of apologizing.
Instead, they go through an extensive
program called Great Experience Mak-
ers, which includes a daylong crash
course in empathy.
At a recent session, Kerry Cooney, a
trainee, told the class a story about get-
ting stuck at a station on a Great West-
ern train from Reading. “The first an-
nouncement by the crew was, ‘I’m really
sorry ladies and gentlemen, but we can’t
find the driver,’” she said.
Another announcement soon clari-
fied. The driver wasn’t missing. He was
Timetables recently changed for Britain’s train system, creating a lot of delays. Now
employees of the rail companies get lessons on how to empathize.
stuck on another Great Western train.
To land his job on the social media
team, Mr. Couch had to demonstrate,
among other skills, a capacity to endure
abuse, and throughout a recent 4 p.m. to
midnight shift, he was unflappable.
His office is on the second floor of a
modern building, with space for about 10
cubicles and a view of the entrance of an
underground parking garage. With a
bottle of Coke and a bag of paprika-fla-
vored potato chips beside his keyboard,
he worked through one question and
complaint after another.
A woman named Ali wanted someone
to hush passengers in the quiet car of
her train. Searching through a staff di-
rectory, Mr. Couch instantly found the
cellphone number of the manager on
that train and called. The manager did-
n’t pick up.
It was the first “sorry” of the night. A
passenger named James Edwards
fumed that he was stuck between
Worcester Shrub Hill and Pershore.
“You are an utter disgrace to the indus-
ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
try and public service,” he tweeted.
Mr. Couch did a quick bit of research,
explained what was wrong with the
train and apologized.
More tweets piled up. “Congratula-
tions you incompetent clowns,” wrote
@jammyjamiejames. “Train arrived 2
mins late from Marlow Branch. 17:28 to
Maidenhead had already departed.”
This one didn’t take any research.
“Sorry to hear this,” Mr. Couch wrote.
“The connections can’t always wait as
this can cause a knock on impact on later
services.”
There was outrage about reserved
seats that had not been reserved and de-
mands for refunds.
One of them was from a woman who
grumbled that she had been delayed
twice in a week on Great Western trains.
Mr. Couch asked what kind of ticket she
had.
“If it’s a daily, she might get compen-
sation,” he said, before he started to type
an apology. “See? It’s not all doom and
gloom.”
Marxism at the University of South
China, chimes in with the correct an-
swer: “To seek liberation for the human
race.”
University professors specializing in
the ideology of Mr. Xi and of other Com-
munist leaders act as judges and com-
mentators.
The show, which airs in prime time on
Hunan Television, one of China’s most
popular channels, was developed with
the advice of Communist Party officials
in Hunan Province. The state media de-
scribes the show as a response to Mr.
Xi’s call for “a thorough study session
among the whole party.”
Quizzes are an established part of po-
litical indoctrination classes for officials
and students in China, and often partici-
pants are given the answers beforehand
so that the tests become exercises in
memorization.
While there were some wrong an-
swers in “Studying Xi in the New Era,”
for the most part the contestants
seemed well rehearsed and appeared to
have memorized important lines from
Mr. Xi’s speeches.
“Studying Xi in the New Era,” follows
the debut of another ideology-themed
show, “Marx Got It Right,” in the spring
as part of an effort to better explain
Marxist ideals to Chinese millennials.
Party leaders have expressed con-
cern that young Chinese are too far re-
moved from the ideals of Communist
revolution, and officials have expanded
ideological education to try to counter
Western influences.
“Studying Xi in the New Era” uses a
variety of stunts seemingly aimed at a
younger audience.
A robot asks questions. Animations of
spaceships and galaxies appear in the
background. A Chinese-speaking car-
toon version of Marx delivers mini-lec-
tures.
“They want to show that the party is
close to the people,” said Jean-Pierre
Cabestan, a political science professor
at Hong Kong Baptist University. “But
it’s very difficult to convince the youth.”
Zoe Mou contributed research from Bei-
jing.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 5

6 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018
world
The bullet-riddled car of Sindiso Magaqa, who was killed last year, and his cousin Ntlantla Dlamini, right, in Umzimkhulu, South Africa.
South African politicians are killing one another
SOUTH AFRICA, FROM PAGE 1
first time this year, while the new presi-
dent, Cyril Ramaphosa, has lamented
that the assassinations are tarnishing
Mr. Mandela’s dream.
But Mr. Ramaphosa is struggling to
unite his fractious party before elections
next year and has done little to stem the
violence. His administration has even
resisted official demands to provide po-
lice protection for two A.N.C. whistle-
blowers in the case surrounding Mr. Ma-
gaqa’s murder, baffling some anticor-
ruption officials.
The recent assassinations cover a
wide range of personal and political
feuds. Some victims were A.N.C. offi-
cials who became targets after exposing
or denouncing corruption within the
party. Others fell in internal battles for
lucrative posts. In rural areas — where
the party has a near-total grip on the
economy, jobs and government con-
tracts — the conflict is particularly in-
tense, with officials constantly looking
over their shoulders.
Mr. Magaqa’s province, KwaZulu-Na-
tal, is the deadliest. Here, 80 A.N.C. offi-
cials were killed between 2011 and 2017,
the party says. Even relatively low-level
ward councilors have bodyguards, and
many politicians carry guns them-
selves.
“It was better before we attained de-
mocracy, because we knew the enemy
— that the enemy was the regime, the
unjust regime,” said Mluleki Ndobe, the
mayor of the district where Mr. Magaqa
and five other A.N.C. politicians have
been assassinated in the past year.
“Now, you don’t know who is the ene-
my,” he said.
More than any other, the death of Mr.
Magaqa, the most prominent politician
assassinated so far, has focused atten-
tion on the deadly scramble within the
party that helped bring democracy to
South Africa.
A rising star in the A.N.C. who had be-
come a national figure, Mr. Magaqa re-
turned to local politics in his hometown,
Umzimkhulu. After accusing party offi-
cials of pocketing millions in the failed
refurbishment of a historic building, he
and two allies were killed in rapid suc-
cession.
Many others have suffered similar
fates. Last month in Pretoria, South Af-
rica’s administrative capital, an A.N.C.
councilor who had called for an inquiry
into government housing was gunned
down while driving her car with her
three children. A few months earlier, a
party official in a neighboring ward was
shot dead near his home after exposing
the shoddy quality of public housing.
In Mpumalanga, the province of Dep-
uty President David Mabuza, an A.N.C.
City Council speaker was gunned down
in front of his son outside his home after
U.S. ends diplomatic visas for foreign same-sex partners
WASHINGTON
A policy shift draws
sharp criticism from
gay rights advocates
BY EDWARD WONG
AND MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
The Trump administration will no long-
er issue family visas to same-sex do-
mestic partners of foreign diplomats or
employees of international organiza-
tions who work in the United States,
State Department officials have said.
The shift drew sharp criticism from
gay rights advocates, including those
who work for the United Nations and
could be affected. It also applies to peo-
ple working in the United States for the
World Bank, NATO and other groups.
The changes took effect on Monday.
United Nations employees were notified
in a memo last month that only married
same-sex partners seeking to accompa-
ny newly arrived officials to the United
States would be eligible for a G-4 visa.
Under the new State Department
Visiting the grave of Mr. Magaqa. A rising star in the A.N.C., he had accused party officials of pocketing millions in the failed refurbishment of a historic building.
exposing corruption in the construction
of a soccer stadium.
Here in KwaZulu-Natal, an A.N.C.
councilor critical of corruption was shot
to death last year while escorting a
friend to her car. In March, an A.N.C.
municipal manager known to be tough
“Politicians have become like a
political mafia. It is the very
antithesis of democracy because
people fear to speak out.”
on corruption was gunned down behind
a police station by two hit men. And last
month, in a rare arrest, an A.N.C. coun-
cilor and the son of an A.N.C. deputy
mayor were charged in the killing of an
A.N.C. official who had led protests
against corruption.
But few other political figures have
rules, foreign couples will need to
present proof of marriage to obtain the
diplomatic family visas. But only a small
number of the United Nations’s 193
member states have legalized same-sex
marriage. If necessary, the State De-
partment officials said, legal work-
arounds could be discussed on a case-
by-case basis for couples who are
barred from marrying in their home
countries.
The visas are issued to family mem-
bers and dependents of diplomats and
employees of international organiza-
tions, and had been given to domestic
same-sex partners as well as formally
married couples during the Obama ad-
ministration.
Same-sex domestic partners of diplo-
mats and workers who already have a G
family visa must submit proof of mar-
riage by the end of the year to qualify for
a renewal.
If a couple cannot submit proof of
marriage, the partner will have to leave
the United States within 30 days of the
year-end deadline, the United Nations
memo said.
The G category of visas is issued to al-
most all foreign diplomats, government
officials and employees working for in-
JOAO SILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES
been arrested in such killings, adding to
a widening sense of lawlessness.
“The politicians have become like a
political mafia,” said Mary de Haas, an
expert on political killings who taught at
the University of KwaZulu-Natal. “It is
the very antithesis of democracy be-
cause people fear to speak out.”
For good reason. After Mr. Magaqa’s
death, Mr. Zulu, the whistle-blower now
in hiding, loudly condemned corruption
in Umzimkhulu. The impoverished mu-
nicipal government spent a large chunk
of its budget to refurbish a historic build-
ing called the Memorial Hall. But after
five years and more than $2 million in
public money, the project was a sinkhole
of dubious spending, with little to show
for it.
For breaking the code of silence, Mr.
Zulu, 36, and another party official are
now in grave danger, according to a 47-
page report released in August by the
ternational organizations in the United
States, as well as their dependents.
State Department officials, who
briefed journalists on Tuesday on condi-
tion of anonymity, said the rule change
affected about 105 families of foreign en-
voys and employees in the United States
— 55 with international organizations
and the rest at embassies and other dip-
lomatic missions.
Critics called the new policy discrimi-
natory, warning that many foreigners
would not come to the United States to
work if their partners were unable to ob-
tain a diplomatic visa to accompany
them.
Alfonso Nam, the president of U.N.
Globe, a gay rights advocacy organiza-
tion for United Nations employees, said
the policy would raise concerns among
future United Nations employees, par-
ticularly those from countries hostile to
gay, lesbian and transgender people.
“For same-sex couples serving the
U.N., the U.S. is usually a desired desti-
nation for work,” Mr. Nam said. “It’s a
place where you are able to bring your
legal partner and get a visa.”
“Whether that will continue to remain
the same is to be seen,” he added.
Fabrice Houdart, who works for the
President Cyril Ramaphosa is struggling to unite the African National Congress and has done little to stem the violence in his party.
public protector’s office, a government
authority that investigates corruption.
The two whistle-blowers, the report
said, fear that “they may be assassi-
nated at any time.”
The public protector’s office urged the
national police to provide security for
the whistle-blowers and reprimanded
Mr. Ramaphosa’s police minister for be-
ing “grossly negligent” in failing to do
so. But the police minister rejected the
report and moved to challenge it in
court.
The public protector had a message
for Mr. Ramaphosa as well: The presi-
dent should “take urgent and appropri-
ate steps” to protect the whistle-blow-
ers. But Mr. Ramaphosa has not re-
sponded. Khusela Diko, his spokeswom-
an, said the president is consulting his
police minister.
The government’s inaction reflects
the A.N.C.’s inability — or unwillingness
Office of the High Commissioner for Hu-
man Rights at the United Nations, said
he attended a wedding in Washington
last week of a French couple that rushed
to marry for fear of being split up by the
new policy.
“In the past, people who would obtain
a job at the headquarters of the World
Bank, the I.M.F. and the U.N. would
make the decision to give up their rela-
tionship,” said Mr. Houdart, who for-
merly led a gay rights group at the
World Bank. He said the new policy
“doesn’t recognize the fact that
L.G.B.T.I. people remain a persecuted
people around the world.”
The policy change was first raised in
an internal State Department memo
dated July 20, according to an Aug. 2 re-
port by The Washington Blade.
According to the United Nations
memo, which was dated Sept. 13, the
State Department has not issued G-4
family visas to heterosexual domestic
partners since 2009. But they do not face
obstacles to marriage in many foreign
nations in the way same-sex domestic
partners do.
Samantha Power, a Harvard profes-
sor and former United States ambassa-
dor to the United Nations, wrote on Twit-
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
JOAO SILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES
— to stop the internal warfare because it
could expose the extent of corruption
and criminality in its ranks, current and
former party officials say.
“These allegiances go all the way to
the top of the party,” said Makhosi
Khoza, a former A.N.C. politician who
works at OUTA, a group fighting graft.
“That’s why the A.N.C. is not interested
in this, no matter how many murders
there are.”
For decades before the end of apart-
heid, different factions under the
A.N.C.’s umbrella — communists, free
marketeers, trade unionists, agents in
exile — competed with one another,
sometimes violently, as they fought
white rule.
But the recent increase in killings in-
side the A.N.C. is a potent reminder of
how far the party has strayed from cre-
ating, in the ashes of apartheid, a poli-
tical order based on the rule of law.
ter on Saturday that the new policy was
“needlessly cruel & bigoted,” and noted
that only 12 percent of United Nations
member states permit same-sex mar-
riage.
Ms. Power’s comments followed a
tweet on Friday from the account of the
independent news organization Pass-
Blue that revealed concerns within the
United Nations.
Couples will need to prove
they’re married to obtain the
diplomatic visas, but few nations
have same-sex marriage.
State Department officials said on
Tuesday that the change seeks to make
the visa process consistent with internal
policies for American employees with
same-sex partners. As of Monday, all
couples in the department must be mar-
ried to receive family benefits, including
diplomatic passports and diplomatic im-
munity.
In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4
that same-sex marriage was a nation-
wide right, which has led to changes in
workplace policies on family benefits.
..
RAJESH JANTILAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
The public protector’s investigation
into the Memorial Hall has frozen the
renovation. Umzimkhulu’s mayor,
Mphuthumi Mpabanga, called the
project a “dream” that would change
“the lives of the people.” But it has little
resonance for many in Umzimkhulu, a
vast municipality with pockets of ex-
treme poverty.
In 2016, 31 politicians were assassi-
nated, double the number from the year
before, according to the tally by re-
searchers. Of that total, 24 were killed in
Mr. Magaqa’s province.
With the backing of regional A.N.C.
power brokers, Mr. Magaqa became a
councilor in Umzimkhulu and zeroed in
on the troubled renovation of the Memo-
rial Hall. Over time, he challenged lead-
ers of the dominant A.N.C. faction and
appeared to be persuading the council
speaker.
Then the killings started.
First came the warning: Three bullets
pierced the storefront office where the
council speaker worked. A few weeks
later, the speaker, Khaya Thobela, was
sprinkling holy water in a religious rite
in his front yard — and was gunned
down where he stood.
A month later, the councilor expected
to replace him, Mduduzi Shibase, was
assassinated after opening the gate to
his home. He had strongly supported
Mr. Magaqa’s call for a forensic audit of
the Memorial Hall.
On July 13, 2017, Mr. Magaqa had
spent the day in a far corner of Umz-
imkhulu with some allies, but he was in a
rush to head back home as night ap-
proached. The twin killings had shaken
him.
“ ‘Let’s go, we’re not safe,”’ he said, re-
called Nontsikelelo Mafa, a councilor
and close ally.
As always, Mr. Magaqa drove his
Mercedes himself and hid his gun under
the driver’s seat. His bodyguard and an-
other A.N.C. politician in the car also
carried guns.
Talk of the killings soon gave way to
more pleasant topics during the 45-mile
drive. The car stereo played house mu-
sic, blasting the Distruction Boyz’s
“Omunye,” an instant hit about a party.
The group was planning a party that
evening, too, for Ms. Mafa’s 27th birth-
day. By the time they got back, the music
had Mr. Magaqa jumping in his seat.
They pulled over at a hangout by the
main road.
A red BMW had been waiting.
Mr. Magaqa spotted the hit men first.
“Don’t move,” he told the passengers
in the back seat. Ms. Mafa saw two men
with assault rifles approaching and Mr.
Magaqa reaching for his gun.
Then, the flashes of light.
Mr. Magaqa died about eight weeks
later. The hit men weren’t caught.
Foreign couples who marry in the
United States would qualify the employ-
ee’s partner for a diplomatic family visa,
the State Department officials said.
Additionally, if other nations offer vi-
sas to same-sex domestic partners as-
signed to American embassies and mis-
sions abroad, the United States could re-
ciprocate for those countries’ citizens,
the officials said.
In recent years, the United States has
posted several openly gay people to im-
portant ambassadorships. The most re-
cent is Richard Grenell, the current am-
bassador to Germany, who was con-
firmed by the Senate in April. Mr.
Grenell’s longtime partner, Matthew
Lashey, accompanied him to Germany.
Former President Barack Obama ap-
pointed the veteran diplomat Ted Osius
to Vietnam, where he lived with his
spouse, Clayton Bond, a State Depart-
ment employee at the time.
The two have since resigned and live
in Ho Chi Minh City with their two young
children.
A State Department directive issued
in 2010 stated that United States mis-
sions should ask foreign nations to pro-
vide visas to all same-sex partners of
American diplomats.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION + THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 7

world

Nizhny
Kaunas Novgorod Izhevsk Krasnoyarsk
Ryazan +2 +3 Omsk Novosibirsk
+3
Berlin +6 +4 Orenburg +4 +2
Regina Warsaw Barnaul
Kelowna Winnipeg Frankfurt +6 Kiev Saratov +15
+4 +5 Paris +8 Vienna +29 +11 Donetsk +11 +6 Khabarovsk
+14 Montreal +16 Budapest Odessa +19 Makhachkala Zhezqazghan
Portland Minneapolis Toronto +5 +8 Geneva Harbin +5
+11 Boise Billings
+11 Milwaukee Nice +25 +30
Eugene +31 +23
+6 Boston
Madrid +13
+16 Rome Tirana +18 Krasnodar
+43 Urumqi Chifeng +7
Omaha +3 Detroit +9 +41 Bishkek
+36 +22 Shenyeng
+14 Salt Lake Denver
City
+31 Chicago
+21 New York +49 Barcelona +47 Naples
+49 Istanbul Yerevan Baku Ashgabat
+13 Ankara +59 +40 +29 Samarkand
+51 Baotou +18 Pyongyang Sendai
Sacramento +32 St. Louis+15 Philadelphia +20 Seville +28
+40 +25 Beijing +13 +12
+40 Las Vegas +26 Tulsa +38 Nashville +30 Athens +36 +43
+36 Algiers Tunis Catania +44 Damascus Mosul Tehran Mashhad +49 Xian Xuzhou Seoul Osaka Tokyo
+25 +39 Washington +35 +45
Los Angeles Phoenix +32 Atlanta +37
Tangier
+51
+54 +6 +60 +24 Baghdad Isfahan
Kabul
+53 +30 +33 Nanjing+7 +26 +24
+38 +29 El Paso Dallas +34 Tripoli Benghazi Jerusalem Kandahar Lahore Wanzhou +28
+46 +71 +26 +49 +35 Quetta+42Delhi Kathmandu Chengdu +34
Mexicali +49 +30 Jacksonville
Marrakesh +68 +69 AlexandriaCairo Kuwait City Shiraz Shanghai
+26 Houston
+61 +39 +74 +28 +31 Changsha +23
+35
Culiacan Monterrey Miami
+34 Medina+22 +43 Dubai +46 Karachi
+53
Jaipur Patna Guiyang
+24 Zhangzhou
Luxor Doha Dhaka
+87 +49 Cancun +78 Santo Riyadh
+27 +36 +31 +29 Abu +47 +88 +60 +81 +141 Mandalay+4 Guangzhou +40
Taipei
Guadalajara Havana Domingo Jidda
+37
Dhabi Ahmedabad
Kolkata +53 Hanoi +58
+80 Mexico City +134 +84 +171 Nouakchott +52 +74 Jabalpur +88 Naypyidaw +87 Hong Kong +52
+24 San Pedro Sula Kingston San Juan +62 Asmara Salalah Mumbai +69 +135 Da Nang +35
Manila
+88 +94 +169 Dakar Khartoum +7 Taiz +68 +134 Hyderabad Rangoon +78
+129
San Salvador ManaguaMaracaibo
+192 Niamey +26 +84 +106
Bangalore Chennai +114 Phnom Penh
+206 +172 Cartagena +89 Caracas +38 Zaria Ndjamena Bangkok +139 Bacolod
+16 Conakry
+45 Djibouti +50 +60 +143 Ho Chi Minh City +151
San Jose +137 +152 Accra +94 Abuja +81 Madurai
+11 Panama City Barquisimeto Georgetown Monrovia +144 Lagos Addis Ababa +131
+147 Zamboanga
+88
+150
+229 +110 Abidjan +114 +90 Bangui +8
Kuala Lumpur +170 GeneralSantos
Port Harcourt Medan +202 Kota Kinabalu
Belém +134 +155 Mogadishu +216 +160
+239 +171 Douala Kisangani Kampala +145 +183 Singapore
Samarinda
Guayaquil +118 +26 +200
Kinshasa +151
São Luis Pontianak +268 Biak
Manaus Fortaleza Mombasa
+62 +225 +233 +155 Mbuji-Mayi +215 Ujungpandang +140
+206 Teresina Pointe-Noire +94 Jakarta Lae
+119 João Pessoa
+107 +219 Dar es Salaam
+157 Surabaya +106 +131
Porto Velho Palmas +208 +85
Luanda Lubumbashi +136 Port Moresby
+168 +137 Salvador
+117
+143
Brasília
+30 +62 Lilongwe Darwin
Santa Ana Benguela Lusaka +35 +158
+141 +62 +54 +68 Nampula Cairns
Santa Cruz Belo Horizonte Harare +87 Antananarivo
+34 +48
+129 Gaborone
+38 +7 Townsville
Rio de Janeiro +78
Jujuy Asuncion Windhoek +84 Pretoria
+85 +76 +67 Matola
+34 +67 São Paulo
Johannesburg +84 Brisbane
Cordoba +39 +31Durban +5
+27 Porto Alegre
+20 Port Elizabeth+5
Mendoza Perth
Santiago +27 Buenos Aires +14
+38 Adelaide
+47 +7 Extra days at or above 32 degrees Celsius +5 Albury
+27
By the end of the century, compared to a 1950-70 average

+10 40 100 days

Note: Locations with fewer than three 32-degree days per year on average throughout
the entire analysis period are not shown. Neither are selected other regions where
day-to-day variation in maximum temperature is underestimated by the model.

Hotter days, and more of them

BY NADJA POPOVICH
AND BLACKI MIGLIOZZI
As the world warms because of human-
induced climate change, most of us can
expect to see more days when tempera-
tures hit 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees
Fahrenheit) or higher. The map above,
based on an analysis by the Climate Im-
pact Lab, shows how the number of
these very hot days could change across
the world by the end of the century, com-
pared with a 1950-to-1970 average for
each location.
Already-hot tropical regions can ex-
pect even more heat in the future. Jakar-
ta, Indonesia, could expect five months
of 32-degree weather on average in
1960. By the end of this century, such
heat may last for most of the year. New
Delhi, home to nearly 22 million people,
could go from just under six months of
32-degree heat in 1960 to up to eight
months by the end of the century.
Large relative increases in heat will
be felt in more moderate climates. Ma-
drid, which averaged 33 days of at least
32-degree heat in 1960, could see such
very hot days double or triple by the end
of the century.
The world is likely to feel this extra
heat even if countries take action to re-
duce greenhouse gas emissions, accord-
ing to the analysis, conducted for The
New York Times by the Climate Impact
Lab, a group of climate scientists, econo-
mists and data analysts from the
Rhodium Group, the University of Chi-
cago, Rutgers University and the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley. If coun-
tries continue emitting at historically
high rates, the future could look even
hotter.
The projection shown here assumes
countries will curb greenhouse gas
emissions roughly in line with the origi-
nal Paris Agreement pledges (although
most countries do not appear on track to
meet those pledges).
How different cities and regions expe-
rience an increase in 32-degree days de-
pends in part on how well adapted to
heat they already are, said Kelly Mc-
Cusker, a climate scientist at the
Rhodium Group.
In North America, more frequent hot
days will be less disruptive in Phoenix,
where residents are used to blistering
temperatures, than in Montreal, where
an estimated 40 percent of households
don’t have air-conditioning.
But how much hotter it gets matters,
too. In Phoenix, more 32-degree days
will most likely also mean more days in
the high 30s and above. (This summer,
temperatures in the city soared to 46 de-
grees.) In Montreal, such scorching heat
will probably remain rare, even as days
in the low 30s become more common.
Worldwide, high temperatures have
been found to increase the risk of illness
and death, especially among older peo-
ple, infants and people with chronic
medical conditions. Lower-income pop-
ulations, which more often lack access
to air-conditioning and other adaptive
technologies, are also more likely to suf-
fer the effects of extreme heat. In the
United States, so are people of color.
Outdoor workers are particularly vul-
nerable to more frequent hot days, but
excessive heat has consequences for in-
door factory workers, too, especially in
developing countries, where work
spaces are less likely to be cooled.
An increase in 32-degree days will
also be more painful in humid regions
than in dry ones.
“A very important factor for how hu-
mans experience heat is how humid it
is,” Dr. McCusker said. “If it’s also hu-
mid, humans can’t physiologically evap-
orate sweat as easily, and we can’t cool
METHODOLOGY Temperature observations
down our bodies effectively.”
for each location are averaged over an
The data presented here reflects tem-
area of about 625 square kilometers (240
peratures alone and does not account
square miles) and may not match single
for humidity, which can make even less-
weather-station records. In the charts
extreme temperatures dangerous.
below, the count of days at or above 90
High heat also affects food production
degrees reflects a 21-year rolling average
(including lowering crop yields and
for each year. The time series is based on
dairy production) and can increase de-
data for 1960-2000. The 2001-20 period
mand for electricity. More frequent 32-
relies on a combination of historical data
degree days could also worsen drought
and projections. After 2020, the data uses
and fire conditions in certain regions.
a mixed climate model that captures a
“More very hot days worldwide bring
broad range of extreme temperature re-
direct and dangerous impacts on people
sponses. The “likely” future range re-
and the systems on which we depend,”
flects outcomes with 66 percent probabil-
said Cynthia Rosenzweig, head of the
ity of occurrence in the RCP 4.5 scenario.
Climate Impacts Group at the NASA
A more detailed FAQ and methodology
Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
from the Climate Impact Lab are online.
“Food, water, energy, transportation
and ecosystems will be affected both in
cities and the country. High-tempera- ONLINE: SWEATING IT OUT
ture health effects will strike the most Find your hometown and explore in
vulnerable.” more detail at nytimes.com/hometown-heat

Very hot days have increased across the world. Here’s how much hotter it could get. Avg. number of days at or above 32˚C Likely range

Khartoum, Sudan Bangkok Jakarta, Indonesia Jidda, Saudi Arabia Port-au-Prince, Haiti Mumbai, India Managua, Nicaragua Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Dakar, Senegal Karachi, Pakistan
350 days
+26 days
2017 +143 +52
250 +157 +137 +134 +172
+147 +192 +88 days

150

50

1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089

Dhaka, Bangladesh Abidjan, Ivory Coast Havana Lagos, Nigeria Singapore Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Accra, Ghana Baghdad Phoenix Cairo
350 days

250

+141 days +134 +84 +114 +31

+144 +26
150 +200 +29 +34

50

1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089

Kinshasa, D.R.C Miami Marrakech, Morocco Monterrey, Mexico Houston Bangalore, India Rio de Janeiro Hanoi, Vietnam Tehran Kabul, Afghanistan
350 days

250

150
+78 +40 +49 +35 +50 +85 +35
+155 days +87 +53
50

1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089

Damascus, Syria Beirut, Lebanon Santiago, Chile Los Angeles Atlanta Madrid Osaka, Japan Beijing Taipei, Taiwan Shanghai
350 days

250

150 +60 days +70 +47 +38 +46 +49 +26 +43
+52 +23
50

1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089

Athens Rome Washington São Paulo, Brazil Daegu, South Korea Belgrade, Serbia Ankara, Turkey Hong Kong Perth, Australia Johannesburg
350 days

250

150
+39
+44 days +35
+47 +37 +18 +34 +36
+14 +31
50

1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089 1960 2089
Source: Climate Impact Lab THE NEW YORK TIMES
 ..
8 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

world

An inside look into nominee’s high school clique

1983 letter reflects how
classmates and friends
celebrated binge drinking
BY KATE KELLY
AND DAVID ENRICH

The beachfront property was rented,

the guests were invited and an ever-or-
ganized Brett M. Kavanaugh had some
advice for the seven Georgetown Pre-
paratory School classmates who would
be joining him for the weeklong esca-
pade.
In a 1983 letter, a copy of which was
reviewed by The New York Times, the
young Judge Kavanaugh warned his
friends of the danger of eviction from an
Ocean City, Md., condo. In a neatly writ-
ten postscript, he added: Whoever ar-
rived first at the condo should “warn the
neighbors that we’re loud, obnoxious
drunks with prolific pukers among us.
Advise them to go about 30 miles . . . ”
More than three decades later, the
elite, privileged high school world that
Judge Kavanaugh inhabited is the focus
of international attention. He has been
accused of sexual assault during his
time at Georgetown Prep — claims that
have delayed, and threatened to derail,
his confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Judge Kavanaugh denies the allega-
tions.
Recent interviews with more than a
dozen classmates and friends from that
time depict Judge Kavanaugh as a mem-
ber of a small clique of football players
who dominated Georgetown Prep’s
work-hard, play-hard culture. His circle
celebrated a culture of heavy drinking,
even by the standards of that era.
Now several members of that group
— still tightknit decades later — are
caught up in the controversy surround-
ing Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court
nomination.
With the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion’s background check into the judge
reopened, two of his closest high school
friends, Mark Judge and Patrick J.
Smyth, have been interviewed by F.B.I.
agents. Another, Tim Gaudette, was In June 1983, Brett M. Kavanaugh, now a nominee for the United States Supreme Court, wrote a two-page letter to seven friends about their coming Beach Week condo rental in Maryland. (Some names have been redacted.)
named in Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony
as the host of a July 1982 gathering,
around the time that Christine Blasey well on their way to reaching their goal They played basketball and board was the heartthrob of the bunch, class- blue-and-white cheerleader skirts and crew embarked on its annual trip to
Ford says she was assaulted. Mr. of polishing off 100 kegs during the aca- games. They also drank. mates said. They thought he looked like pranced around the field, a moment that Maryland’s coast for “Beach Week,”
Gaudette has hired a lawyer to repre- demic year — an achievement they later “It was part of the social life,” said To- the singer Rick Springfield. Judge Kava- was captured in the school’s yearbook. where the region’s high school students
sent him and was interviewed by the boasted about in their yearbook. bin Finizio, now a radiologist who was naugh, who didn’t have a car, often car- Timothy Don, who carpooled to would swim, drink and party.
F.B.I. on Tuesday, the lawyer said. Four Georgetown Prep classmates then the football team’s quarterback. pooled to school with Mr. Davis, now the school with Mr. Judge, said he would Judge Kavanaugh had arranged to
A different classmate, who was said they saw Judge Kavanaugh and his “In the late ’70s and early ’80s, if you president of a Colorado water-distribu- sometimes stop at a 7-Eleven on the way rent a condo in an Ocean City high-rise.
friendly with Judge Kavanaugh and re- friends partake in binge-drinking rituals look at the statistics, underage drinking tion company. home to buy a beer. “He was one of these The building had an outdoor swimming
quested anonymity to protect his busi- many weekends in which other was fairly prevalent. We look at it now Mr. Urgo — “Donny” — had been kids who you could wind up and set off pool and beach access.
ness interests, said he had reached out partygoers saw them inebriated, even and say, ‘Oh my God, that was crazy.’” friends with Judge Kavanaugh since like a top and watch him go spinning In the handwritten letter, Judge Kava-
to the F.B.I. because he believes the having difficulty standing. Three of Judge Kavanaugh — nicknamed childhood, biking around the neighbor- out,” Mr. Don said, recalling Mr. Judge’s naugh told his friends that he would be
judge misrepresented the extent of his those classmates signed a July letter, “Bart” after a Georgetown Prep teacher hood and trading baseball cards. After nervous laugh and how he would spon- on a family trip to Ireland when the lease
drinking during his Senate testimony along with more than 150 other alumni, garbled “Brett” — sometimes acted as a high school, he and Judge Kavanaugh taneously jump onto his friends’ shoul- started, so they would have to pick up
last week. that endorsed him for the Supreme restraining influence. One night, a remained close, cramming for the Mary- ders. the keys and settle the outstanding $398
Even the faculty adviser to George- Court. friend named Sean Feeley was out of land bar exam and attending Washing- In a 2005 memoir, “God and Man at bill. He reminded them to bring their
town Prep’s 1983 yearbook — a publica- Through his lawyers, Judge Kava- control. Judge Kavanaugh pulled him Georgetown Prep,” Mr. Judge said the own towels and bedding.
tion littered with debasing comments naugh declined to comment for this arti- aside and whispered three words: school was “positively swimming in al- “One of you has to grab the bull by the
about women and references to drunken cle, other than to say of his letter: “This “Come on, Sean.” Mr. Feeley today cred- Whoever arrives first should cohol, and my class partied with gusto — horns and take charge,” he instructed.
debauchery — has been wondering is a note I wrote to organize ‘Beach its Judge Kavanaugh with knowing how “warn the neighbors that we’re often right under the noses of our teach- “I think we are unanimous that any
whether he will hear from the F.B.I., a Week’ in the summer of 1983.” to calm classmates without them losing loud, obnoxious drunks with ers.” girls we can beg to stay there are wel-
family member said. Kerri Kupec, a White House spokes- face. Along with two classmates, he wrote comed with open . . . ”, he wrote, his ellip-
The judge has said that he attended woman, said: “It seems The New York Judge Kavanaugh and his friends had
prolific pukers among us.” an underground student newspaper, sis at the end leaving certain things un-
high school parties. “Sometimes I had Times is committed to embarrassing their own language and traditions. The Unknown Hoya, which documented said. He noted that the boys should kick
too many beers,” he testified, adding Judge Kavanaugh with three-decade- There was Mr. Garrett, nicknamed early ton Nationals baseball games together. the scene. They viewed the official stu- out anyone who didn’t belong: “The
that he has “cringed” at some of his be- old stories of adolescent drinking.” on as “Squee” because of his resem- Mr. Urgo now helps run his family’s ho- dent paper, The Little Hoya, as too stiff. danger of eviction is great and that
havior back then. But his public state- Judge Kavanaugh, an only child and blance to an upperclassman with a simi- tel business. The stapled-together pamphlet also would suck because of the money and
ments don’t fully capture the binge- sports fanatic, surrounded himself in lar last name. Judge Kavanaugh — a standout stu- printed a running tally of the number of because this week has big potential. (In-
drinking culture in which classmates high school with athletes. Among his When he drank, Mr. Garrett would dent, captain of the basketball team and kegs consumed at various house parties terpret as wish.)”
say he was a core participant. closest friends, classmates said, were stutter words that began with the letter a master of the quip, according to one as the seniors pursued their 100-keg am- Judge Kavanaugh signed the letter:
Parties, in the backyards of class- Mr. Judge, Christopher C. Garrett and F. It became such a joke that many foot- teacher — was especially close to Mr. bition. Three football players who “FFFFF, Bart.”
mates’ homes when their parents were Don Urgo Jr. Other members of the ball teammates, including Judge Kava- Judge, a fixture of the school’s party hosted parties accounted for 14 of the 38 In an interview, Tom Kane, a class-
away, would often attract hundreds of clique included Mr. Gaudette and De- naugh and Mr. Garrett himself, had scene. Dr. Blasey said that Mr. Judge kegs the class had finished at one point. mate and regular “Beach Week” partici-
students from nearby private schools, Lancey Davis. “FFFFF” references in their personal was in the room and jumped onto the The newspaper also jabbed at neigh- pant, dismissed the letter as “a couple of
his classmates recall. Five or 10 kegs “Academically, athletically and so- yearbook pages. Mr. Garrett, now a mid- bed during the alleged 1982 assault. boring schools, including the all-girls harmless jokes.” He added: “It sounds
would be procured and, if all went as cially, we all became literally almost like dle-school teacher in Georgia, some- Mr. Judge was widely perceived as a Holton-Arms, where Dr. Blasey was a like the script of ‘Revenge of the Nerds’
planned, drained by the end of the night. brothers,” Mr. Urgo said in an interview times hosted gatherings, including one goofball with a big mouth. “He was a student. The newspaper claimed that a really.” He said he couldn’t remember
One night during his senior year, ac- with The Times in July. He got to know when the Washington Redskins won the clown,” said Richard Holtz, a classmate public library card was “all it takes to details of the partying.
cording to classmates who witnessed it, Judge Kavanaugh as a fellow altar boy 1983 Super Bowl. Classmates said some and friend of Mr. Judge’s and Judge Kav- have a good time with any H.H. (Holton
Judge Kavanaugh triumphantly hoisted in elementary school. “We had a particu- seniors were too hung over to attend anaugh’s. Once, before a home football Hosebag),” using slang for a promiscu- Rebecca R. Ruiz and Steve Eder contrib-
an empty beer keg above his head, in lar esprit de corps, a zest for life, as a school the next day. game, Mr. Judge and some classmates ous woman. uted reporting. Kitty Bennett contribut-
recognition that he and his friends were group.” Another football player, Mr. Davis, chugged beers and then dressed up in In June 1983, Judge Kavanaugh’s ed research.

In 2006, judge’s demeanor and honesty were questioned

WASHINGTON
BY ADAM LIPTAK
When Brett M. Kavanaugh was prepar-
ing for his second confirmation hearing
for a seat on a federal appeals court in
2006, he got some unwelcome news. The
American Bar Association, which had
earlier given him its highest rating, had
reconsidered.
The revised rating, the group ex-
plained, was prompted by new concerns
about Mr. Kavanaugh’s demeanor and
veracity, foreshadowing some critiques
of his testimony last week before the
Senate Judiciary Committee in re-
sponse to accusations of sexual miscon-
duct.
The bar association’s new rating in
2006 — “qualified” instead of “well qual-
ified” — was still quite positive. It
meant, the committee explained, that
Mr. Kavanaugh had met its “very high
standards with respect to integrity, pro-
fessional competence and judicial tem-
perament.”
The revised rating was a minor blem-
ish on a glittering résumé, and it was dis-
counted by conservatives who viewed
the bar association as a liberal interest
group. The group’s concerns did not pre-
vent Mr. Kavanaugh from being con-
firmed that year to the United States
Court of Appeals for the District of Co-
lumbia Circuit. And when he was nomi-
nated for the Supreme Court this sum-
mer, the bar association unanimously
rated him “well qualified,” although
Robert M. Carlson, the association’s
president, called last week for “a thor-
ough F.B.I. investigation” before a Sen-
ate vote.
But the group’s 2006 statement, based
in large part on confidential interviews,
has received renewed attention in light
of recent questions about Judge Kava-
naugh’s temperament and truthfulness.
“The 2006 interviews raised a new
concern involving his potential for judi-
cial temperament,” Stephen L. Tober,
the chairman of the bar association’s
standing committee on the federal judi-
ciary, told the Judiciary Committee at
the time.
Mr. Tober summarized a handful of
unflattering comments from unnamed
judges and lawyers to support that con-
clusion. One judge called Mr. Kava-
naugh simultaneously unprepared and
sanctimonious. A lawyer said he had dis-
sembled in his handling of a case. A third
interviewee questioned Mr. Kava-
naugh’s “ability to be balanced and fair
should he assume a federal judgeship.”
In an interview this week, Mr. Tober
declined to elaborate on his 2006 state-
ment, citing confidentiality concerns,
and he said he did not have a copy of the
interview reports.
The 2006 statement was the outlier of
the four ratings the bar association gave
Judge Kavanaugh. When President
George W. Bush first nominated him to
the appeals court in 2003, he received
the same “well qualified” rating that he
received this year.
“Kavanaugh had stellar credentials, a
stellar intellect and his writing and
Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, center, with Senators Mitch McConnell, left, and Bill Frist.
In 2006, the American Bar Association revised downward its rating of Mr. Kavanaugh.
briefs were stellar in 2003,” said Pamela
A. Bresnahan, who helped conduct a
2003 review of Mr. Kavanaugh and was
the committee’s chairwoman until re-
cently. “But he was off the charts, by our
criteria, by the time 2018 rolled around.”
If there was a concern early on, she
said, it was that Mr. Kavanaugh was just
38 in 2003. “The biggest criticism was
that he wasn’t old enough,” she said. “He
didn’t have enough years at the bar.
That was the only rap on him.”
Republican senators trumpeted the
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
bar association’s “well qualified” rating
at his first confirmation hearing, in 2004.
The rating was “the gold standard,” said
Senator John Cornyn of Texas.
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama,
now the attorney general, said the rat-
ing counted even more given its source.
“The American Bar Association, which
is certainly a liberal political institution,
in my view, has rated you the highest
rating, ‘well qualified,’” Mr. Sessions
told Mr. Kavanaugh.
Some studies have indeed concluded
that the bar association tends to favor
the nominees of Democratic presidents.
Mr. Kavanaugh’s first nomination
stalled. The bar association committee
reaffirmed its “well qualified” rating in
2005, but then downgraded it in 2006.
Mr. Tober told the Judiciary Commit-
tee at the time that the downgrade was a
consequence of a deeper investigation.
The universe of people contacted had
widened, he said, from 55 to 91, and he
rejected the suggestion that politics or
changes in his committee’s personnel
were to blame. At least six members
who had been on the committee in 2005
changed their votes from “well quali-
fied” to “qualified,” he said.
The committee’s conclusions are hard
to evaluate, as Mr. Tober’s statement in-
cluded only a few scattered comments
from unnamed individuals.
“Mr. Kavanaugh did not handle the
case well as an advocate and dissembl-
ed,” one lawyer said. A judge called one
of Mr. Kavanaugh’s oral arguments “less
than adequate” and “sanctimonious.”
Another person interviewed said Mr.
Kavanaugh was “immovable and very
stubborn and frustrating to deal with on
some issues.”
The bar association’s representatives
provided a little more information in a
conference call in 2006 with senators
and their aides. In particular, they de-
scribed an interview of Mr. Kavanaugh
conducted by Marna S. Tucker and John
Payton.
Ms. Tucker, a Washington lawyer, de-
clined to comment, citing confidentiality
rules. Mr. Payton died in 2012.
His “ability to be balanced and
fair’’ were challenged.
In a transcript of the conference call,
Ms. Tucker raised concerns about docu-
ments concerning judicial nominations
stolen from the computer servers of
Democratic lawmakers and passed
along to Mr. Kavanaugh when he
worked in the White House Counsel’s
Office.
He has said he did not know the docu-
ments had been stolen.
Ms. Tucker said she was surprised by
Mr. Kavanaugh’s attitude when she
asked him about the matter.
“He did not express any concern that
the process had been compromised or
that there was the need for a White
House investigation,” she said. “We
were concerned about his lack of inter-
est in that particular matter, considering
we felt that the process for which he was
responsible had been tainted.”
At his 2006 confirmation hearing, Mr.
Kavanaugh embraced the bar associa-
tion’s evaluations, noting that he had
been evaluated three times.
“And each time,” he said, “there were
14 individual reviews conducted by
members of the committee. So there
have been a total of 42 separate reviews
conducted of me based on interviews
with lots of people and review of lots of
record. All 42 have found that I’m well
qualified or qualified to serve on the D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals. So I’m pleased
with that, and I’m proud of that.”
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Donald J. Trump with his father, Fred C. Trump, in the 1980s. As that decade ended,
Donald Trump’s big investments began to go bust. His father helped bail him out.
Trump ducked millions in taxes
TRUMP, FROM PAGE 1
dodges that guaranteed Mr. Trump a
gilded life.
PATTERN OF DECEPTION
The line between legal tax avoidance
and illegal tax evasion is often murky,
and there is no shortage of clever tax-
avoidance tricks that have been blessed
by either the courts or the Internal Rev-
enue Service itself; the wealthiest
Americans rarely pay anything close to
full freight. The Trumps’ tax maneuvers
met with little resistance from the I.R.S.,
The Times found.
But tax experts briefed on The
Times’s findings said the Trumps ap-
peared to have done more than exploit
legal loopholes. They said the conduct
described here represented a pattern of
deception and obfuscation that repeat-
edly prevented the I.R.S. from taxing
large transfers of wealth to Fred
Trump’s children.
MILLIONAIRE AT AGE 8
In Donald Trump’s version of how he got
rich, he was the master deal maker who
broke free from his father’s “tiny” real
estate operation in the New York bor-
oughs of Brooklyn and Queens and built
a $10 billion empire that would slap the
Trump name on hotels, high-rises, casi-
nos and golf courses the world over.
But The Times’s investigation makes
clear that in every era of Mr. Trump’s
life, his finances were deeply entwined
with, and dependent on, his father’s
wealth. By age 3, he was earning
$200,000 a year in today’s dollars from
his father’s empire. He was a millionaire
by age 8. In his 40s and 50s, he was re-
ceiving more than $5 million a year.
There was a clear pattern to this
largess: When his son began expensive
new projects, Fred Trump increased his
help. In the late 1970s, when Donald
Trump crossed the river into the glitter-
ing precincts of Manhattan — convert-
ing the old Commodore Hotel near
Grand Central Terminal into a Grand
Hyatt — his father opened a spigot of
loans. When he made his first forays into
Atlantic City casinos a few years later,
his father devised a plan to sharply in-
crease the flow of aid.
“SMALL LOAN” OF $60.7 MILLION
In Mr. Trump’s books and TV shows and
on the campaign trail, a central trope of
his self-mythology has been that, as he
began building his own empire, the only
financial help he got from his father was
a $1 million loan. Not only that: “I had to
pay him back with interest.”
In fact, The Times found, Fred Trump
lent his son at least $60.7 million, or $140
million in today’s dollars. Much of it was
never repaid, records show.
SAFETY NET FOR TRUMP’S BAD BETS
As the 1980s ended, Donald Trump’s big
bets began to go bust — Trump Shuttle,
the Plaza Hotel, the Atlantic City casi-
nos. But as he careened from one finan-
cial disaster to another, family partner-
ships and companies drastically in-
creased their payouts.
Between 1989 and 1992, four of the en-
tities that Fred Trump created paid his
son today’s equivalent of $8.3 million.
And when Donald Trump pleaded with
bankers for an emergency line of credit,
he used as collateral the stake his father
had given him in a group of apartment
buildings.
Tax records also reveal that at the
peak of Mr. Trump’s financial distress, in
1990, his father extracted an extraordi-
nary sum — nearly $50 million — from
his empire. While The Times could find
no evidence that Fred Trump made any
significant debt payments, charitable
donations or personal expenditures,
there are indications that he wanted
plenty of cash on hand to bail out his son
if need be.
That was what happened at Trump’s
Castle casino, where an $18.4 million
bond payment was due in December
1990. Fred Trump dispatched a trusted
bookkeeper to Atlantic City with checks
to buy $3.5 million in casino chips with-
out placing a bet. With this ruse — an il-
legal loan under New Jersey gaming
laws, resulting in a $65,000 civil penalty
— Donald Trump narrowly avoided de-
faulting on his bonds.
QUESTIONABLE TAX WRITE-OFF
By 1987, Donald Trump’s loan debt to his
father had grown to at least $11 million.
Had Fred Trump simply forgiven the
debt, his son would have owed millions
in income taxes. They found another so-
lution — one that appears to constitute
BERNARD GOTFRYD/GETTY IMAGES
Donald Trump in 1985. In all, Mr. Trump’s parents transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children and, using several tax dodges, avoided about $500 million in taxes.
A review of over 100,000 pages of records, above, including confidential tax returns,
shows the wealth the president reaped from his father. Below right, a portrait of Fred
Trump. He tried to bail out his son’s failing casino operation, above right, by buying $3.5
million in casino chips without placing a bet in 1990 — an illegal loan under New Jersey
gambling laws, resulting in a $65,000 civil penalty.
both an unreported multimillion-dollar
gift and an illegal tax write-off.
That December, records show, Fred
Trump spent $15.5 million to buy a 7.5
percent stake in Trump Palace, his son’s
condo tower rising on the Upper East
Side of Manhattan. Four years later, tax
returns and financial statements show,
Fred Trump sold that stake for just
$10,000. The buyer, other documents in-
dicate, was his son.
According to tax experts, with Trump
Palace condos selling briskly, selling
shares worth $15.5 million to your son
for a mere sliver of that would constitute
a multimillion-dollar gift under I.R.S.
rules.
But Fred Trump’s tax returns show no
such gift to Donald Trump. What they do
reveal is that he used the transaction to
declare an enormous tax write-off. That
appears to violate federal tax law that
prohibits deducting any loss from the
Donald Trump in 1962 with an unidentified woman. By age 3, he was being paid $200,000
a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
sale or exchange of property between
family members.
In all, Fred Trump dodged roughly $8
million in gift taxes and $5 million in in-
come taxes on the transaction.
MYTH OF A SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRE
All told, The Times documented 295 dis-
tinct streams of revenue Fred Trump
created over five decades to channel
wealth to his son.
But the partnership between Donald
Trump and his father was about more
than the pursuit, and the preservation,
of riches. They were also confederates
in a more ambitious project: creating
the myth of Donald J. Trump, Self-Made
Billionaire. If Fred Trump was the silent
partner, helping finance the accouter-
ments of wealth, it was Donald Trump
who spun them into a seductive narra-
tive.
Emblematic of this dynamic is Trump
Tower, the talisman of privilege that es-
tablished Donald Trump as a player in
New York. Fred Trump’s money helped
build it. His son recognized and ex-
ploited its iconic power as the primary
stage for both “The Apprentice” and his
presidential campaign.
BID TO CHANGE HIS FATHER’S WILL
In December 1990, Donald Trump sent
his father a document that left him both
angered and alarmed. It was a codicil
seeking to make a variety of changes to
Fred Trump’s will. Among them:
strengthening provisions that made
Donald Trump sole executor of his es-
tate. But amid Mr. Trump’s financial
shambles — it was the month of the $3.5
million Trump’s Castle rescue — Fred
Trump feared that the document poten-
tially put his life’s work at risk, that his
son might use the empire as collateral to
save his own failing businesses, accord-
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 9
Donald Trump holding a present in 1965. He describes himself as a self-made billion-
aire, but his father lent him at least $60.7 million to get started in business.
NEAL BOENZI/THE NEW YORK TIMES
ANGEL FRANCO/THE NEW YORK TIMES
DAVE SANDERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
ing to depositions given years later dur-
ing a family dispute.
Fred Trump rebuffed the maneuver,
refusing to sign the codicil. But the
episode prompted a family reckoning:
Fred Trump was aging and ailing. With-
out speedy intervention, he could die
leaving a vast estate — not just his real
estate empire, but also tens of millions of
dollars in cash — vulnerable to the 55
percent inheritance tax.
So with Donald Trump playing a cen-
tral role, the family formulated a plan
that included unorthodox tax strategies
that experts told The Times were legally
dubious and, in some cases, appeared to
be fraudulent.
DRAINING HIS FATHER’S EMPIRE
The first major component was creating
a company called All County Building
Supply & Maintenance. On paper, All
County was Fred Trump’s purchasing
world
agent, buying everything from boilers to
cleaning supplies. But All County was, in
fact, a company only on paper, records
and interviews show — a vehicle to si-
phon cash from Fred Trump’s empire by
simply marking up purchases already
made by his employees. Those millions
in markups, effectively untaxed gifts,
then flowed to All County’s owners —
Donald Trump, his siblings and a cousin.
Lee-ford Tritt, a leading expert in gift
and estate tax law at the University in
Florida, said the Trumps’ use of All
County was “highly suspicious” and
could constitute criminal tax fraud. “It
certainly looks like a disguised gift,” he
said.
All County also had an insidious
downside for Fred Trump’s tenants. He
used the padded invoices to justify
higher rent increases in rent-regulated
buildings, records show.
Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer,
disputed The Times’s reporting:
“Should The Times state or imply that
President Trump participated in fraud,
tax evasion or any other crime, it will be
exposing itself to substantial liability
and damages for defamation.”
ASSETS GROSSLY UNDERVALUED
With the cash flowing out of Fred
Trump’s empire, the Trumps began
transferring ownership of much of the
empire itself to Donald Trump and his
siblings. The vehicle they created to do
that was a kind of trust called a grantor-
retained annuity trust, or GRAT.
The purpose of a GRAT is to pass
wealth across generations without pay-
ing the 55 percent estate tax. The Trump
parents did have to pay gift taxes based
on one crucial number: the market val-
ue of Fred Trump’s empire. But The
Times found evidence that they dodged
hundreds of millions of dollars in gift
taxes by submitting tax returns that
grossly undervalued the assets placed
in two GRATs, one for each parent.
Fred Trump’s 1995 gift tax return
claimed that the 25 apartment com-
plexes and other properties in the trusts
were worth just $41.4 million. The im-
plausibility of this claim would be made
plain in 2004, when banks valued that
same real estate at nearly $900 million.
“They play around with valuations in
extreme ways,” said Mr. Tritt, the tax
law expert, who was briefed on The
Times’s findings. “There are dramatic
fluctuations depending on their pur-
pose.”
Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer,
said: “All estate matters were handled
by licensed attorneys, licensed C.P.A.’s
and licensed real estate appraisers who
followed all laws and rules strictly.”
IN FATHER’S ESTATE, A SON’S I.O.U.
When Fred Trump died in June 1999 at
the age of 93, the vast bulk of his empire
was nowhere to be found in his estate —
testament to the success of the tax strat-
egies devised by the Trumps in the early
1990s. The single largest item included
in his estate tax return was a $10.3 mil-
lion I.O.U. from Donald Trump, money
his son appears to have borrowed the
year before he died. As for the remnants
of empire left in Fred Trump’s estate, the
tax return cited appraisals that once
again grossly understated their market
values.
As their father’s executors, Donald,
Maryanne and Robert Trump were le-
gally responsible for the accuracy of his
estate tax return. They were obligated
not only to give the I.R.S. a complete ac-
counting of the value of his estate’s as-
sets, but also to disclose all the taxable
gifts he had made during his lifetime. If
they knew anything was wrong and
failed to reveal it, tax experts said, they
could be in violation of tax law.
Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer, de-
fended the tax returns filed by the
Trumps. “The returns and tax positions
that The Times now attacks were exam-
ined in real time by the relevant taxing
authorities,” he said. “These matters
have now been closed for more than a
decade.”
SALE LEFT MONEY ON THE TABLE
In 2003, once again in financial trouble,
Donald Trump began engineering the
sale of the empire Fred Trump had
hoped would never leave the family. The
sale, completed in 2004, brought him his
biggest payday ever from his father:
His cut was $177.3 million, or $236.2 mil-
lion in today’s dollars. But as it turned
out, banks at the time valued the empire
at hundreds of millions more than the
sale price. Donald Trump, master deal
maker, had sold low.

10 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018
Business
Raoul Pal, a co-founder of Real Vision, right, interviewing Michael Novogratz, a billionaire investor, in New York. Real Vision’s videos dive deeply into arcane areas of finance.
A hedge fund how-to guide
Financial video service
sells inspiration, advice
and strategies of insiders
BY LANDON THOMAS JR.
Kieran O’Dea rises at 5 a.m. to begin his
daily routine, shuffling to his desk to eye
his portfolio: a cluster of biotechnology
stocks and a bet that Tesla will go bust.
Then he pulls up the latest video on
Real Vision, the start-up financial video
service that promotes the trading ideas
and insights of hedge fund managers
large and small. On this morning, the
play is buying beaten-down Chinese
stocks. He studies the clip carefully, as
he has done with all 1,200 videos shown
on Real Vision since it went live in June
2014.
Mr. O’Dea, 29, is the chief investment
officer of Hedge Knight Capital, which
manages mostly family money in the
low seven figures. He is wearing swim
shorts and a wrinkled T-shirt; his feet
are bare and tan.
His office consists of an unmade bed,
two computer screens and a stunning
view of Long Island Sound, which
stretches northeast from New York City.
Mr. O’Dea may be master of his own
hedge fund, but he could not be more
disconnected from the Wall Street ma-
chine. No sell-side research clogs his in-
box. He does not own a Bloomberg ter-
minal. And there is no TV tuned to
CNBC, the financial news hub ubiqui-
tous on trading floors.
“I hardly watch it — and I don’t have
access to any of that other stuff, either,”
Mr. O’Dea said. “I get all my market ac-
cess from Twitter and Real Vision.”
Real Vision offers a way to skip the
traditional hedge fund path: slog away
at an investment bank or a mutual fund,
then settle down in Manhattan or Green-
wich, Conn. For a modest fee, Real Vi-
sion will connect investors to a network
of elite Wall Street analysts, traders and
hedge fund managers, making it easier
for novices like Mr. O’Dea to jump the
line.
Raoul Pal, a former hedge fund execu-
tive who also worked at Goldman Sachs
and runs an investment strategy serv-
ice called Global Macro Investor, co-
founded Real Vision. Since then, 20,000
people have signed up, paying $180 a
year to hear directly from financial in-
siders.
It is a vibrant community with an av-
erage age of 38, which distinguishes it
from CNBC and its more mature audi-
ence. Mixing the Netflix payment model
with a cozy interview style, Real Vision
offers to help upstart investors decode
the mysteries of today’s markets. It fea-
tures those insiders presenting their
views in lengthy, explanatory videos:
How to short China, the long-term op-
portunities in emerging markets and
the best way to play Bitcoin, among oth-
ers.
A nearly hourlong interview with the
billionaire Mark Cuban is among the
free videos on the site. And last week,
Stanley F. Druckenmiller, an industry
star, gave a long interview warning of a
debt bubble in the market.
Real Vision also celebrates the hedge
fund life — the outsize trades, houses
and swagger — and tempts aspirants
like Mr. O’Dea into thinking that they,
too, might join the club.
It is a world that Mr. Pal, who earlier
in his career pitched ideas to luminaries
like Paul Tudor Jones and George Soros,
knows well. He said he was motivated to
Kieran O’Dea, 29, uses what he has learned from Real Vision to run a hedge fund from his home on Long Island, N.Y.
start Real Vision after watching CNBC’s
coverage of the financial crisis and
thinking there was an opening for deep
dives into finance’s most arcane areas.
“The media was too busy treating fi-
nance as entertainment and sound
bites,” he said. “If you are going to cheer-
lead while this thing is going up, you
have to warn them of the risks. It is a
moral obligation.”
There’s still an element of theater to
Real Vision. Recently, Mr. Pal inter-
viewed Michael Novogratz, a billionaire
investor specializing in cryptocurren-
cies, in his office. During the discussion
on the ups and downs of Bitcoin, Mr.
Novogratz wore pink jeans that
matched his sneakers and took a seat in
front of an original leather jumpsuit
worn by the motorcycle daredevil Evel
Knievel, standing in a glass case under
neon lights.
Mr. Pal had flown in from his home in
the Cayman Islands, and he displayed
an untucked shirt, sneakers without
socks and a stubble beard. It could well
have been a scene from “Billions,” the
television show about the machinations
and appetites of hedge fund titans.
“I used to think that these guys were
gods,” Mr. O’Dea said. “But if you spend
enough time watching them, you can fig-
ure out what they are up to.”
And if his formative experience was
being a world-ranked video game player
— in both World of Warcraft and Smite,
he said — not a striving investment
banker, so what? Mr. O’Dea watched the
best gamers as he honed his craft once
before. How hard could it be?
“It has been my total school — I mean,
I had no idea what a bear market or a
bull market was when I started,” Mr.
O’Dea said. “It was like watching people
play video games.”
Currently, 9,790 hedge funds are ply-
ing their trade, according to HFR, an in-
dustry tracker. With so many options,
the pressure to perform has never been
greater.
The last time hedge funds collectively
beat the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock in-
dex was 2008. So far this year, Hedge
Knight is up 37 percent, Mr. O’Dea said,
soundly beating the index’s 9 percent in-
crease and thrashing the near-flat re-
turn the fund’s peer group has delivered.
Mr. O’Dea’s grandfather Leonard E.
Baum was Hedge Knight’s main finan-
cial backer until his death. Propped up
against Mr. O’Dea’s window is a faded
photograph of Mr. Baum, a mathemati-
cian who put in place the trading frame-
work that James H. Simons, the founder
of Renaissance Technologies, employed
to make his $84 billion Medallion Fund
one of the world’s most successful hedge
funds. Sitting in a lawn chair, Mr. Baum
has his toddler grandson in a tight hug.
“I figured if these guys
are doing it, I can too.”
If his grandfather was Mr. O’Dea’s
main source of capital, Real Vision is his
source of inspiration.
Part of the service’s allure is the
glimpse it gives of life in the bubble. One
interviewee holds forth by his swim-
ming pool in St. Barts; another contem-
plates his career while strolling through
his cavernous horse barn.
Mr. O’Dea’s favorite video — one that
he has watched countless times —
marked Real Vision’s beginning in 2014:
an hourlong interview with Mark Hart,
a hedge fund manager in Dallas.
In the video, Mr. Hart wears his hair
slicked back and spins tales of accumu-
lating art, becoming an expert in Brazil-
ian jujitsu and living in the moment —
what he refers to as “chasing flow.”
“I wanted to be that guy,” Mr. O’Dea
recalled.
He made a pilgrimage to Texas to
meet Mr. Hart, and they bonded over
biotechnology companies. Mr. O’Dea
was curious about the science of dis-
ease: His grandfather suffered from
cone-rod dystrophy, a condition that
JEENAH MOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
JOE CARROTTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
erodes vision, and his younger brother
Brennan — the only other employee at
Hedge Knight — is afflicted with over a
half-dozen autoimmune illnesses. Bren-
nan O’Dea spends nine months a year in
a cabin in Idaho, studying biology and
scanning the market for cutting-edge
companies. He selected the 12 biotech
stocks in Hedge Knight’s portfolio.
Real Vision has plenty of believers.
“I have been a subscriber since they
were two months old,” said Chase Tay-
lor, 35, an Air Force officer whose dream
is to sell investment research to hedge
funds.
He has not worked in the industry, nor
did he go to business school. “I figured if
these guys are doing it, I can too,” he
said.
When Mr. Pal told subscribers in early
2017 that he was raising $7 million from
outside investors, 1,700 offered to invest.
He ultimately increased the sum to $10
million, and 50 subscribers became
shareholders, although neither Mr.
O’Dea nor Mr. Taylor is among them.
But Real Vision’s contributors can
also promote some of Wall Street’s edgi-
est trades, like betting on volatility or
loading up on emerging market bonds.
Take Mr. O’Dea’s fund: a dozen bio-
technology stocks, some with values be-
low $50 million, and a bet that Tesla goes
bankrupt. It is a very risky portfolio, es-
pecially for a manager with such limited
experience.
Real Vision is careful to present its
strategies as trading ideas — not recom-
mendations. At the end of each video, an
employee warns investors to weigh
their risk appetite before jumping in.
Ultimately, Mr. O’Dea’s contention
that in finance — as with video games —
you can ascend to an elite level by scruti-
nizing what the best players do remains
unproven.
Which does not mean he won’t give it
a shot.
“Now, I know what I am doing,” Mr.
O’Dea said. “And guess what: I am a 29-
year-old hedge fund manager.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Attack on Facebook
extends far beyond
SAN FRANCISCO
Connect tool that allows
for third-party logins
exposed thousands of sites
BY MIKE ISAAC
AND KATE CONGER
When Mark Zuckerberg introduced an
online tool called Facebook Connect in
2008, he hailed it as a kind of digital
passport to the rest of the internet. In
just a few clicks, users would be able to
log in to other apps and sites with their
Facebook passwords.
The tool was adopted by thousands of
other companies, from mom-and-pop
publishing companies to high-profile
tech outfits like Airbnb and Uber.
Now those companies could have
been exposed to the consequences of an
attack on Facebook’s computer sys-
tems. Last week, Facebook said the ac-
count entry keys of at least 50 million of
its users had been stolen in the largest
hacking attack in the company’s 14-year
history.
But the impact could be significantly
bigger since those stolen credentials
could have been used to gain access to
so many other sites. Companies that al-
low customers to log in with Facebook
Connect were scrambling to figure out
whether their own user accounts had
been compromised.
The attack and its fallout underscore
the lengths to which Facebook has ce-
mented itself as the identity of the inter-
net, and what happens when the securi-
ty systems of one company — trusted by
so many — fail.
“Just the sheer fact that this exists
will magnify the scale of any hack,” said
Jason Polakis, an assistant professor of
computer science at the University of Il-
linois at Chicago.
In Europe, where tough new data pri-
vacy regulations went into effect in May,
the authorities are preparing an investi-
gation of the Facebook breach. Ireland’s
Data Protection Commission, which is
responsible for overseeing Facebook in
the region, said it was gathering infor-
mation and establishing the scope of its
inquiry.
Tinder, the dating app, has found no
evidence that accounts have been
breached, based on the “limited infor-
mation Facebook has provided,” Justine
Sacco, a spokeswoman for Tinder and
its parent company, the Match Group,
said in a statement. Tinder, as well as
other Match Group apps, rely on Face-
book Connect as a method of logging in.
Ms. Sacco added that Facebook could
do more to help by providing a specific
list of users hit by the attack.
Over the past decade, Facebook has
sold outside companies on Facebook
Connect with a simple proposition: Con-
nect to our platform, and we’ll make it
faster and easier for people to use your
apps.
The Connect tool was about achieving
ubiquity. Users would be more apt to
sign up for new apps and sites if doing so
was easier, Facebook argued. It also
brought an added measure of security,
since users wouldn’t need to create and
remember new passwords every time
they signed up for a new app.
But in July 2017, that measure of secu-
rity fell short. By exploiting three soft-
ware bugs, attackers forged “access to-
kens,” digital keys used to gain entry to a
user’s account. From there, the hackers
were able to do anything users could do
on their own Facebook accounts, includ-
ing logging in to third-party apps.
In a blog post this week, Facebook
said a continuing investigation of the
close to 50 million accounts that were
compromised “has so far found no evi-
dence that the attackers accessed any
apps using Facebook Login.”
But there are still questions about an
additional 40 million Facebook accounts
that may have been affected. Facebook
forced those 40 million users to log out
and reauthenticate their credentials. It
was unclear whether these accounts
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief of Facebook, which said the account entry keys of at least 50
million of its users had been stolen. Uber said it took precautionary measures as a result.
..
used Facebook to connect to outside
apps.
Citing “an abundance of caution,”
Facebook said it was building a tool to
help outside developers identify users
who were affected in the attack by pin-
pointing potentially compromised ac-
counts on their services.
In a conference call with reporters af-
ter Facebook announced the breach, the
company said it had not assessed the
scope of the attack, nor had it identified
who was responsible for it.
The Facebook breach is reminiscent
of a catastrophic attack on Yahoo that
was disclosed in 2016. Yahoo said attack-
ers had gotten access to the company’s
code and used it to forge 32 million ac-
cess tokens like those stolen from Face-
book.
Hackers often target large databases
of credentials, which can provide access
to other accounts if users created the
same password for multiple sites or
have logged in to third-party accounts
with their Facebook account.
After the attack Facebook called de-
velopers at other companies to explain
steps they can take to assess the dam-
age at their own organizations.
The security team at Uber, the ride-
hailing giant, is logging some users out
of their accounts to be cautious, said
Melanie Ensign, a spokeswoman for
Uber. It is asking them to log back in — a
preventive measure that would invali-
date older, stolen access tokens.
Uber reviewed its login data from the
past year and said that it had not found
any indications that Facebook creden-
tials were used improperly.
“But we still have to go through the in-
vestigation,” Ms. Ensign said. “For
those that are most at risk, we have
logged them out, so they’ll have to log
back in to the account.”
For a decade, Facebook has made
outside companies a proposition:
Connect to our platform, and
we’ll make it faster and easier for
people to use your apps.
Facebook faces fallout from regula-
tors both at home and abroad. Last Fri-
day, Senators Mark Warner of Virginia
and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut,
both Democrats, used the occasion to re-
new their calls for legislation reining in
large tech companies.
The European Union’s investigation
will be an early test of its new data-pro-
tection law, the General Data Protection
Regulation. The law allows Facebook to
be fined up to 4 percent of its global reve-
nue, though many consider such an out-
come unlikely.
“G.D.P.R. was designed to address the
big tech giants, who are enormous, have
huge resources and do very complicated
things with personal data,” said James
Castro-Edwards, the head of the data-
protection practice at the London law
firm Wedlake Bell. “This is the sort of
battle that G.D.P.R. was drafted to be
used in.”
As Facebook’s power has grown,
some outside companies have become
wary of relying on it too much.
While Tinder relied exclusively on the
Facebook login for several years, the
dating company last year introduced a
way for people to create new accounts
without using Facebook. Since then,
fewer than 25 percent of new users sign
up for Tinder using Facebook Connect.
Similarly, Netflix stopped allowing us-
ers to connect using their Facebook ac-
counts three years ago, and new
customers must create user names and
passwords when they sign up.
But for the thousands of other compa-
nies that rely on Facebook to serve
customers, it is unclear whether or not
they will know the extent of the damage.
“So many websites support Facebook
login, and it was vulnerable for so long
that it’s hard to give an idea of the scope
of this attack,” Mr. Polakis said.
Adam Satariano contributed reporting
from London.
MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Museums are popping up, annoying neighbors
BY DANIEL GRANT
Museums offer information, cultural
awareness, a high-toned meeting place
and personal enlightenment. But they
can also bring noise and traffic con-
gestion for the people who live or work
near them and can become a sinkhole
for public money.
In 2014, there were about 35,000 mu-
seums in the United States, double the
number in 1990, according to the Insti-
tute of Museum and Library Services in
Washington. And new ones continue to
open, from the Legacy Museum on slav-
ery and mass incarceration in Mont-
gomery, Ala., to the experiential
Spyscape in New York.
But neighbors of proposed sites are
pushing back out of concern over added
headaches and diminished views. And
city officials are becoming more resist-
ant, fearing financial responsibility if a
museum fails to reach its fund-raising
goals or visitors and memberships lag,
especially if the municipality issued
bonds to help pay for the building.
People generally view museums as an
improvement to a neighborhood, said
Laura B. Roberts, a museum consultant
in Cambridge, Mass.
“They are clean, well-maintained op-
erations that promise economic devel-
opment and add status to the neighbor-
hood,” she said.
But, she added, “the traffic and park-
ing, sometimes the noise, tend to be the
flash points, especially when a museum
might be sited in a residential neighbor-
hood.”
The backlash has been acute in Mount
Pleasant, S.C., a suburb of Charleston.
Developers of the proposed National
Medal of Honor Museum there are hop-
ing the Town Council will approve their
building plan, but several Council mem-
bers, as well as the mayor and some res-
idents, have raised concerns.
The museum is planned for Patriots
Point, a 350-acre park on Charleston
Harbor, where the Yorktown, a World
War II-era aircraft carrier, is docked.
But the original design, submitted by
the National Medal of Honor Museum
Foundation, was rejected in January for
exceeding the 50-foot height limit by 75
feet.
A redesign of the museum, with a
height of 80 feet but somewhat wider,
has been proposed by the foundation’s
chief executive, Joseph Daniels, but ini-
tial antagonisms have not dissipated.
Residents have also complained
about the design, said Mayor Will
Haynie of Mount Pleasant.
“The sentiment that I am hearing
from many citizens is that the current
design does not match the coastal city
they live in,” he said. “Nor does it re-
spect the skyline of Charleston Harbor.”
Some of the opposition stems from
lifelong residents who view Mount
Pleasant as “a small town,” said a Coun-
cil member, Guang Ming Whitley, an in-
tellectual property lawyer in Los Ange-
les who moved to Mount Pleasant with
her family three years ago. “The ship
has sailed on being a small town long
ago,” she said.
Mount Pleasant is the fourth-largest
city in the state, with a population of
86,668 in 2017, up from 47,609 in 2000, ac-
cording to Census Bureau estimates.
Ms. Whitley was concerned that if the
Medal of Honor Museum is granted a
height variance, other developers will
see it as a precedent for their own
projects.
“We need to narrowly craft the vari-
ance so that it only applies to the mu-
The down-and-dirty future of TV on your phone
GLENDALE, CALIF.
BY BROOKS BARNES
A young actor with a bushy goatee, cast
as a Satanist on a murder-mystery show
called “Solve,” sat facing a camera on a
stuffy, no-frills set in July. Six tenderfoot
crew members stood sweating in the
shadows nearby. One was staring at his
iPhone’s stopwatch.
“Now give me a take where you’re ex-
hausted,” the director, doubling as a
camera operator, told the actor. “You’ve
been up all night worshiping Satan in
this one. Ready? Action!”
It was no good. “Too long,” the iPhone
guy said glumly. “That was 22 seconds.”
Orders were given to redo the scene —
preferably in an 18-second take. Per-
haps try a “jittery” Satanist.
This is the down-and-dirty future of
television as practiced by Vertical Net-
works, a start-up founded by Elisabeth
Murdoch, the media entrepreneur
whose father is Rupert Murdoch. While
her father and brothers, Lachlan and
James, have been busy selling the fam-
ily’s old-line studios to the Walt Disney
Company, she has quietly built Vertical
into a major supplier of app-based video
series for mobile devices. The stories
are told in short bursts (20-second
scenes, episodes that last mere min-
utes) that rely on whiz-bang production
techniques (split screens, onscreen
text) and are filmed vertically instead of
horizontally: MTV for Generation Z.
“I wanted a front-row seat in seeing
this new world unfold,” Ms. Murdoch,
50, said in an email. “It’s harder than it
looks. Great mobile video is unforgiving,
labor-intensive and often counterintuit-
ive to produce.”
By relying on research, Vertical has
figured out how to engage teenage view-
The construction site of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, top, and a rendition of the museum, above. Several cities rejected plans for the museum.
seum and not everyone else,” she said.
But a bigger worry is that the mu-
seum would give up on the town entirely.
Mr. Daniels said the foundation’s board
was re-evaluating Mount Pleasant as
the site of the museum after facing
“headwinds.”
“If Mount Pleasant or Charleston
ers on Snapchat, for instance, even as
proven hit makers like WarnerMedia
and Viacom have been slow to gain trac-
tion. Vertical-produced hits on Snapchat
include “Phone Swap,” a dating show
that allows participants to snoop
through each other’s mobile devices and
attracts an average of 10 million viewers
per episode. “Solve,” which details a
crime inspired by real events and then
asks viewers to sort through potential
suspects, debuted in May and draws a
similar audience.
“It would be your ‘Law & Order’ if you
were 13,” said Adam Lederer, 27, the
showrunner for “Solve.”
Vertical, which counts Snap, the par-
ent of Snapchat, as a minority investor,
also makes shows for Facebook (“I
Have a Secret”) and YouTube (“Yes
Theory”). Vertical said its original con-
tent — including Brother, a digital maga-
zine for young men that publishes daily
on Snapchat and Facebook — attracts
wants to put forward a proposal, we
would certainly welcome it, but right
now our confidence in the mayor and in
Mount Pleasant itself is eroding,” he
said.
The struggles of opposing opinions
about the vision of a museum project are
not new for Mr. Daniels, who was presi-
JAKE MICHAELS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
more than 50 million monthly active
viewers. Ms. Murdoch’s start-up is prof-
itable, a spokeswoman said, with ad
sales contributing the bulk of its reve-
nue. Nike, Intel and Warner Bros. are
clients.
As the traditional TV business has fal-
tered, with younger audiences forgoing
cable connections and broadcasters
struggling to compete with Netflix, Hol-
lywood has started to get serious about
reaching the mobile masses. Disney is
paying $71.3 billion for vast swaths of
the Murdoch media empire to super-
charge its app-based streaming plans.
Ms. Murdoch declined to comment on
the sale.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks
Animation founder, said in August that
his new venture, WndrCo, had secured
$1 billion from investors that include
Universal, Sony and Paramount to cre-
ate high-quality, bite-size content in-
tended for mobile viewing.
dent and chief executive of the National
September 11 Memorial & Museum in
New York until 2016.
Plans for the museum, which opened
in 2014, were disrupted by bitter argu-
ments among relatives of those who
died, emergency medical workers, com-
munity members and political leaders.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Left, the set of Brother, Vertical Networks’
digital magazine for young men, which
publishes daily on Snapchat and Face-
book. Above, Elisabeth Murdoch, the
founder of Vertical, which she has quietly
built into a major supplier of app-based
video series for mobile devices.
Some conventional media companies,
including NBCUniversal and Condé
Nast, have found some success in this
realm. So far, however, the winners in
“mobile-first” original series have large-
ly been scrappy start-ups like Vertical.
“The biggest mistake Hollywood
makes is arrogance,” said Tom Wright,
who was Vertical’s chief executive until
recently. “It’s the classic ‘We will give
audiences what we want, and if they
don’t want it, well, it’s their fault for not
recognizing our brilliance.’”
While the Murdoch sons have mostly
spent their careers in the family fold,
Ms. Murdoch, who lives in London, has
been a serial entrepreneur. She spotted
the rise of reality TV, founding Shine
Group in 2001 and churning out local-
ized versions of shows like “Mas-
terChef” and “The Biggest Loser.” She
sold Shine 10 years later to her father’s
News Corporation for $770 million in to-
day’s dollars. Ms. Murdoch is also cred-
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 11
ROZETTE RAGO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
LUCAS MUSEUM OF NARRATIVE ART
Squabbles arose over issues large, like
financing and location, and small, in-
cluding whether the gift shop should sell
$40 key chains engraved with a quota-
tion from the poet Virgil, “No day shall
erase you from the memory of time.”
“We were engaging and talking with
stakeholders and hearing their input
ited with pushing her father to take a
chance on a show that would become
one of the biggest reality TV hits in his-
tory: “American Idol.”
With Vertical, Ms. Murdoch wanted to
experiment. Could the upstart studio
find novel ways to entertain 13-to-25-
year-old users of apps like Snapchat —
and spin off that content into traditional
television shows, books and other me-
dia?
She has reached a verdict after two
years of stops and starts. “It looks like
we can,” Ms. Murdoch said.
In August, Vertical adapted “Phone
Swap” for television, a first for any
Snapchat original series. (The social
network has released dozens of shows
this year.) Fifteen “Phone Swap”
episodes — lasting 30 minutes each,
compared with about four minutes on
Snapchat — ran on local Fox stations as
a test for a full-blown syndicated series.
The Fox Television Stations Group will
decide whether to order more “Phone
Swap” in mid-October, when it typically
makes decisions about its summer test
shows.
Vertical will also publish an advice
book based on its Brother e-magazine,
which specializes in audacious lifestyle
tips. An example from a recent edition:
“Fun fact! Eating snot also keeps bacte-
ria from sticking to your teeth!”
Irreverent content succeeds on
Snapchat, which has 188 million mostly
young users.
“If we’re not giving them three things
to look at simultaneously, we’re losing
them,” said Bailey Rosser, Vertical’s di-
rector of audience development. “Mo-
bile viewers are used to constant stimu-
lation. Consider how much visual info
your brain is processing at it scrolls
through a Facebook feed or scans your
home screen for app notifications.”
And use the word “you” as often as
business
with various groups for nine straight
years,” Mr. Daniels said.
Despite the animosity that can crop
up in the planning stages, there is no re-
sistance to museums in general, said
John Gerner, managing director of
Leisure Business Advisors, a consultant
in Richmond, Va., that conducts feasibil-
ity and economic impact studies of mu-
seums, parks and zoos. “Museums tend
to bring good feelings.”
But some residents, he added, believe
that museum developers “take advan-
tage of that good feeling” to obtain tax
breaks and public financing that shifts
the burden to them.
Museum developers are finding ways
to overcome local opposition, however.
The “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lu-
cas tried for several years in different
cities to find a home for the Lucas Mu-
seum of Narrative Art, tailoring the de-
sign for each site and pledging to fi-
nance the construction.
His first attempt, a planned Beaux-
Arts style building in San Francisco’s
Presidio Park, met staunch resistance.
After four years of pushback, he offered
to build the museum instead on undevel-
oped parkland in Chicago, between
Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan.
But he met objections from a local pres-
ervation group and scrapped those
plans.
Turning to Los Angeles with a new
rendering, he finally won City Council
approval for a five-story, 300,000-
square-foot building in Exposition Park.
Ground was broken in March for the mu-
seum, which was designed by Ma Yan-
song of MAD Architects in Beijing as a
sleek, spaceshiplike building with un-
derground parking and a roof garden.
The museum will feature Mr. Lucas’s
vast collection of 20th-century Ameri-
can book and magazine illustrations, in-
cluding works by Norman Rockwell and
Maxfield Parrish, as well as photo-
graphs and memorabilia from Mr. Lu-
cas’s movies.
Exposition Park already has a num-
ber of cultural and sports attractions, in-
cluding Los Angeles Memorial Colise-
um, home to the University of Southern
California football team; the California
Science Center, which houses the space
shuttle Endeavor; and the Natural His-
tory Museum of Los Angeles.
“Exposition Park is a magnet for the
region and accessible from all parts of
the city,” the museum said on its web-
site, citing its proximity to “more than
100 elementary and high schools, one of
the country’s leading universities as
well as three other world-class muse-
ums.”
Grouping museums together helps
reduce the disturbance to the surround-
ing community, experts say. And the
concept is starting to catch on.
For instance, the Cincinnati Museum
Center at Union Terminal, an Art Deco
train station, has several attractions, in-
cluding a history museum, a science
museum and a children’s museum, as
well as a giant-screen Omnimax The-
ater. And the Grout Museum District in
Waterloo, Iowa, has a veterans’ mu-
seum, a history and science museum, a
hands-on science “imaginarium” and
two historic houses.
“For people who are nervous about
the impact of a new museum in terms of
traffic and noise, putting a number of
them all in one place tends to contain the
problems and creates a zone of eco-
nomic and cultural activity,” said Lisa
Frehill, senior statistician at the Insti-
tute of Museum and Library Services in
Washington.
possible in mobile content, she advised.
“I’m serious!” she said, after a reporter
shot her a skeptical look. “This audience
is narcissistic.”
Ms. Rosser, who started her career at
Google, described herself as “old.” She is
30. She joined Vertical two years ago
and tracks the performance of the stu-
dio’s content across more than 100 vari-
ables to learn how viewers behave.
What do they like? What keeps them
most engaged?
Writers and producers use her data to
shape and reshape Vertical content.
Vertical, which is based in the Venice
area of Los Angeles and employs about
40 people, calls this practice “the art of
the math.”
Bright background colors attract
viewers and sustain interest over a five-
minute episode, the mobile equivalent of
an hour of traditional viewing. The early
“Phone Swap” data helped Vertical real-
ize that Snapchat viewers needed to see
a swapper panicking in the first 20 sec-
onds. Otherwise they would move on.
(HBO’s meandering “Westworld” this is
not.)
Some rival studios snipe that Vertical
has benefited from close ties to other
Murdoch-controlled businesses. The
“Phone Swap” spinoff ran on TV sta-
tions overseen by Ms. Murdoch’s father,
for instance.
Mr. Wright and Jesús Chavez, who
took over as chief executive last month,
dismissed that criticism as jealousy and
noted that they had several non-Fox
television projects in the works.
“We’ve been disproportionately suc-
cessful because we have built an amaz-
ing team that leans really heavily into
audience insights,” said Mr. Wright, who
will remain involved in the studio. “The
default is to lean into the expertise that
you already have — to do what you al-
ready know.”

12 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018
Opinion
The right-wing rot at the heart of the German state
Recent Thomas Meaney
events make Saskia Schäfer
clear that
extremists
have allies BERLIN Right-wing protests in Ger-
many these days are an unusual spec-
deep inside tacle: The police sometimes seem
the govern- more like uniformed extras than able
ment. keepers of public order.
This summer, scenes played out that
were nearly unimaginable a few years
before. In the eastern Saxon city of
Chemnitz, thousands of people joined a
right-wing protest spurred by suspi-
cions that an Iraqi and a Syrian had
killed a German man. Several pro-
testers gave the illegal “Heil Hitler”
salute and chanted, “We are fans,
Adolf Hitler hooligans,” while outnum-
bered police officers looked on. Packs
chased people of questionable skin
color through the streets with little
hindrance by the authorities.
Chancellor Angela Merkel de-
nounced what she referred to as a
citywide “hounding” and called for due
process of the accused, who were
charged with manslaughter. In re-
sponse, more protests were organized
by Pro Chemnitz, the latest of the
right-wing street
When it movements that
have sprung up
comes to across Germany.
far-right But the darkest
extremism, twist came when
German law Hans-Georg
enforcement Maassen, the head of
has made the Bundesamt für
little secret of Verfassungsschutz,
its priorities. the federal domestic
intelligence service
known as the B.F.V.,
responded. When a
short video circulated of men chasing
at least two young men in the city, Mr.
Maassen, supposedly the man with all
the information and himself a member
of Ms. Merkel’s party, dismissed the
interpretation that there were groups
“hounding” foreigners, in calculated
contradiction of the chancellor’s own
words. Speaking to the tabloid Bild, he
suggested — without professionally
reviewing the material — that the clip
may have been fabricated as a way to
divert attention from what he hastily
declared a murder of the German man.
Mr. Maassen’s overtly political com-
ments sent shock waves through Ger-
many’s quality press. The head of
intelligence had just publicly attacked
the chancellor in the pages, and with
the connivance, of Germany’s largest
tabloid, and appeared to be straining to
defend neo-Nazis. The message to the
far right could not have been clearer:
You have people on your side in the
heart of the state bureaucracy.
When it comes to far-right extrem-
ism, German law enforcement has
made little secret of its priorities.
While a paltry number of police offi-
cers responded in Chemnitz and to
similar incidents elsewhere, they were
Trump’s reckless cybersecurity strategy
The Josephine Wolff
administra-
tion’s new
policy of At first glance, it would be easy to
striking first confuse the Trump administration’s
new National Cyber Strategy with its
at online predecessors: the Obama administra-
attackers tion’s 2009 Cyberspace Policy Review
might invite and George W. Bush’s 2003 National
Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. All
cyberattacks, three documents emphasize strikingly
not deter similar goals: the importance of hard-
them. ening critical infrastructure, working
with the private sector, securing gov-
ernment networks and establishing
more robust partnerships for sharing
information about online threats.
Despite its similarities with previous
administrations’ plans, however, the
National Cyber Strategy represents an
abrupt and reckless shift in how the
United States government engages
with adversaries online. Instead of
continuing to focus on strengthening
defensive technologies and minimizing
the impact of security breaches, the
Trump administration plans to ramp
up offensive cyberoperations. The new
goal: deter adversaries through pre-
emptive cyberattacks and make other
nations fear our retaliatory powers.
The framework for this shift to an
offense-first strategy is found in three
recently announced pieces of policy.
The first, the National Cyber Strategy,
outlines a broad vision of how the
administration plans to approach
online issues and emphasizes the
importance of imposing “swift, costly
and transparent consequences” on
online attackers.
The second is the new Department
of Defense cyber strategy, a more
detailed plan for how the military will
approach cybersecurity. It outlines a
plan to “defend forward” by going
after threats “before they reach their
targets” and disrupting “malicious
cyber activity at its source.”
deployed en masse — and with state-
of-the-art gear — for a protest days
later in North Rhine-Westphalia,
where German environmental activ-
ists continue to defend a primeval
forest against a coal-mining project.
During the visit last month by the
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of
Turkey to Germany, two police offices
deployed to Berlin from Saxony were
discovered to have used the code name
“Uwe Böhnhardt,” the name of one of
the members of the terror cell the
National Socialist Underground, which
over the course of the 2000s murdered
10 Turkish-Germans and others, in the
most dramatic known example of
domestic right-wing terror since the
end of the war.
Should the right-wing ties with the
police really have come as a surprise?
For decades, the German security
services, and the B.F.V. in particular,
have been accused of operating sym-
pathetically — even symbiotically —
And the third is the classified Na-
tional Security Presidential Memoran-
dum 13, which makes it easier for the
military to launch offensive cyberoper-
ations by largely eliminating a lengthy
interagency approval process put in
place by the Obama administration.
The idea of using offensive cyber-
attacks for defensive purposes is not a
new one — discussions about the
potential risks and rewards of “hack-
ing back,” especially in the private
sector, go back more than five years.
But for the American government to
embrace this strategy is a sharp
change from the cautious, defense-
oriented approach of the past decade.
President Barack Obama was nota-
bly restrained in his authorization of
offensive cyber missions. When decid-
ing whether to use the Stuxnet worm
to compromise uranium enrichment
facilities in Iran in 2010 (his adminis-
tration’s most famous use of offensive
cyber capabilities), he reportedly
expressed repeated concerns about
the precedent it would set for other
countries. The Obama administration’s
forbearance and careful decision-
making around cyberattack authoriza-
tion aligns with the 2015 Department
of Defense cyber strategy, which iden-
tified controlling the escalation of
cyber conflicts as a key strategic goal.
That goal is conspicuously absent from
the Department of Defense’s new
strategy.
The Trump administration’s shift to
an offensive approach is designed to
escalate cyber conflicts, and that esca-
lation could be dangerous. Not only
will it detract resources and attention
from the more pressing issues of de-
fense and risk management, but it will
also encourage the government to act
recklessly in directing cyberattacks at
targets before they can be certain of
who those targets are and what they
are doing.
One of the advantages of the slow,
unwieldy approval processes put into
with elements of the far right. But with
the recent rise of Alternative for Ger-
many, the far-right, anti-immigrant
party that polls rank as the second-
most popular party in the country, this
symbiosis has taken on new urgency.
The B.F.V.’s precursor was founded
after World War II by the American
occupiers. It then became a magnet for
ex-Nazis and Gestapo members look-
ing for a second act. Its designated
purpose was to spy on and root out the
West German Communist Party. (The
party was finally banned in 1956,
based on materials turned up by the
B.F.V.) In the 1960s, Hubert Schrüb-
bers, the head of the agency, employed
former S.S. colleagues. By the 1970s,
employees of the B.F.V. who were
Social Democrats or lacked right-wing
credentials fell under suspicion. It was
hardly surprisingly that Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder’s attempt to ban the
far-right National Democratic Party of
Germany in the early 2000s failed
ILLUSTRATION BY JEFFREY HENSON SCALES, PHOTOGRAPHS BY BURAZIN/PHOTOGRAPHER’S CHOICE AND BILL HINTON/MOMENT, VIA GETTY IMAGES
place by previous administrations is
that they gave the government ample
time to ascertain who was behind a
cyberattack. That is not always easy to
do: Many adversaries route cyber-
attacks through compromised third-
party machines in other countries,
such as university computer systems.
Rushing to retaliate may make it more
likely that the United States will lash
out at the wrong target, which may
invite new attacks rather than deter
them.
It could also lead to more attacks
from existing adversaries like Russia
and North Korea, from whom we al-
ready face substantial online threats.
These countries have demonstrated
their considerable online capabilities in
cyberattacks directed at hospitals and
power companies.
If the United States pre-emptively
attacks their servers and online infra-
structure, it will only provoke greater
and more damaging shows of force.
And what these countries are capable
of will be every bit as terrifying and
when a court ruled against the ban
because much of the party’s right-wing
orientation had been shaped by the
state itself through paid informants.
Mr. Maassen himself has hardly
diminished the organization’s right-
wing reputation. This year, a defector
from Alternative for Germany accused
him of having advised the party’s
former co-leader on how to avoid
surveillance. Mr. Maassen was never
charged, but even the hint of such a
link is detrimental to the state’s legiti-
macy. A constellation of forces is now
relearning to cooperate: right-wing
street movements, right-wing news
outlets, a fully fledged political party
and a murky portion of the state bu-
reaucracy.
So in a sense, Horst Seehofer, Ger-
many’s interior minister and Mr.
Maassen’s sympathetic boss, is not
wrong when he calls Mr. Maassen a
“classic civil servant.”
Mr. Seehofer has proved Mr.
harmful as what we can do.
There is no evidence that pre-emp-
tive cyberattacks will serve as effec-
tive deterrents to our adversaries in
cyberspace. In fact, every time a coun-
try has initiated an unprompted cyber-
attack, it has invariably led to more
conflict and has encouraged retaliatory
breaches rather than deterring them.
Nearly every major publicly known
online intrusion that Russia or North
Korea has perpetrated against the
United States has had significant and
unpleasant consequences.
When North Korea compromised
Sony Pictures in 2014 and stole the
company’s data, it experienced a na-
tional disruption to its internet connec-
tivity the following month. More re-
cently, Russia has faced sanctions,
indictments identifying their key on-
line activities and personnel, and
possibly covert cyber operations as
punishment for a series of online intru-
sions and computer compromises.
While nobody knows where these
counterattacks originated, experts
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
JANA BAUCH/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
Maassen’s most important ally, raising Police officers
questions about the interior minister’s with a protester
own pandering or fealty to the far seeking to block
right. For Mr. Maassen’s professional coal mining in the
breach, Ms. Merkel’s fragile coalition Hambach Forest
agreed to remove him from his post as near Cologne,
head of German intelligence. Yet in- Germany.
stead of demoting him — or outright
firing him — the coalition effectively
promoted him. His new job as state
secretary came with a salary increase.
In reaction to the public outcry, he was
shuffled once again, this time to be-
come “special adviser” to Mr. Seehofer.
Mr. Seehofer is the fiercest critic of
Ms. Merkel within her governing
coalition. “Migration is the mother of
all problems,” he recently declared.
But Ms. Merkel needs his party, the
Christian Social Union, to form the
right flank of her government. He, in
turn, believes he needs to appeal to the
far more right-wing elements in his
own party, which faces a challenge in
MEANEY, PAGE 14
believe some of them came from the
United States. Under the new attack-
first policy, it’s likely that North Korea
or Russia will retaliate against the
United States in similar ways if threat-
ened. For the United States, this is an
especially risky approach given how
much of our infrastructure — from
energy distribution to financial sys-
tems to voting — is digitized and how
vulnerable that dependence on com-
puter networks makes us to cyber-
attacks.
A smart national cyber strategy
would focus on securing our computer
systems, data and networks by allocat-
ing more money for their protection
and by allocating more time and ener-
gy to regularly update, measure and
test their security. It would charge the
government with attacking its own
servers and systems domestically to
identify potential vulnerabilities before
foreign adversaries have a chance to
exploit them, rather than encouraging
officials to strike out at overseas tar-
gets. And it would reserve the use of
offensive cyber capabilities for situa-
tions that allow for careful considera-
tion of the possible unintended conse-
quences, narrow tailoring to a specific
mission and contained, targeted dam-
age.
Ironically, the new national cyber
strategy also charges the United
States government with enhancing
cyber stability “through norms of
responsible state behavior.” As the rest
of its policies make all too clear, this
administration has already committed
itself to irresponsible uses of cyber
force that may serve to destabilize
everyone’s online infrastructure, in-
cluding our own.
JOSEPHINE WOLFF is an assistant profes-
sor at the Rochester Institute of Tech-
nology and the author of “You’ll See
This Message When It Is Too Late: The
Legal and Economic Aftermath of
Cybersecurity Breaches.”
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
A.G. SULZBERGER, Publisher
DEAN BAQUET, Executive Editor
JOSEPH KAHN, Managing Editor
TOM BODKIN, Creative Director
SUZANNE DALEY, Associate Editor
JAMES BENNET, Editorial Page Editor
JAMES DAO, Deputy Editorial Page Editor
KATHLEEN KINGSBURY, Deputy Editorial Page Editor
DONALD TRUMP AND THE SELF-MADE SHAM
Now let’s see
your tax
returns, Mr.
President.
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 13
opinion
The American civil war, part II
MARK THOMPSON, Chief Executive Officer
STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON, President, International
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE DEMARTA, Senior V.P., Global Advertising
ACHILLES TSALTAS, V.P., International Conferences
CHARLOTTE GORDON, V.P., International Consumer Marketing
HELEN KONSTANTOPOULOS, V.P., International Circulation Thomas L. Friedman
HELENA PHUA, Executive V.P., Asia-Pacific
SUZANNE YVERNÈS, International Chief Financial Officer
I began my journalism career covering
a civil war in Lebanon. I never thought
I’d end my career covering a civil war
in America.
We may not be there yet, but if we
“I built what I built myself.” don’t turn around now, we will surely
get where we’re going — which was
This boast has long been at the core of the mythology best described by Senator Jeff Flake
of Donald Trump, Self-Made Billionaire. As the oft-told on Monday: “Tribalism is ruining us. It
story goes, young Mr. Trump accepted a modest $1 is tearing our country apart. It is no
million loan from his father, Fred, a moderately success- way for sane adults to act.”
ful real estate developer from Queens, and — through Sure, we’ve experienced bouts of
intense social strife since the American
smarts, hard work and sheer force of will — parlayed Civil War of 1861. I grew up with the
that loan into a multibillion-dollar global empire. assassination of Martin Luther King
It’s a classic American tale of ambition and self-deter- and raging street battles over civil
mination. Not Horatio Alger, exactly, but appealing, and rights and Vietnam. And yet this mo-
impressive, nonetheless. ment feels worse — much less violent,
blessedly, but much more broadly
Except that, like so much of what Mr. Trump has divisive. There is a deep breakdown
been selling the American public in recent years, this happening between us, between us and
origin story was a sham — a version of reality so elabo- our institutions and between us and
rately embellished that it qualifies as fan fiction more our president.
than biography. Also, as we’ve come to expect from Mr. We can’t find common ground on GABRIELLA DEMCZUK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
which to respectfully disagree; the Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has been an opponent of bipartisan governance.
Trump, the creation of this myth involved a big dose of other side is “the enemy.” We shout at
ethically sketchy, possibly even illegal activity. each other on television, unfollow each
As an in-depth investigation by The Times has re- other on Facebook and fire verbal skilled job and a low-wage, low-skilled System Collided With the New Politics nell boasted: “One of my proudest
vealed, Mr. Trump is only self-made if you don’t count mortars at each other on Twitter — job. And that has fractured the middle of Extremism.” In a tribal world it’s moments was when I looked Barack
the massive financial rewards he received from his and now everyone is on the digital class and left a lot of people behind. rule or die, compromise is a sin, ene- Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. Pres-
battlefield, not just politicians. The end of the Cold War has meant mies must be crushed and power must ident, you will not fill the Supreme
father’s business beginning as a toddler. (By age 3, little Across the land, before dinner par- that no foreign enemy cements us be held at all costs. Court vacancy.’ ”
Donald was reportedly pulling in an annual income of ties or block parties, the refrain “I hope together anymore, save for a brief It would be easy to blame both sides That was a turning point. That was
what today would be $200,000 a year.) These benefits none of them will be there” is uttered period after 9/11. And the G.O.P. has equally for this shift, noted Ornstein, cheating. What McConnell did broke
included not only the usual perks of hailing from a rich, with increasing frequency, referring no lost its way. but it is just not true. After the end of something very big. Now Democrats
well-connected family — the connections, the access to longer to people of another race or That’s why our generation’s civil war the Cold War, he said, “tribal politics will surely be tempted to do the same
religion — bad enough — but to people is so hard to bring to a truce. There are were introduced by Newt Gingrich when they get the power to do so, and
credit, the built-in safety net. For the Trumps, it also from a different political party. so many fronts. There’s the battle when he came to Congress 40 years that is how a great system of govern-
involved direct cash gifts and tens of millions in “loans” And nothing is sacred. Brett Kava- between those who feel the American ago,” and then perfected by Mitch ment, built on constitutional checks
that never charged interest or had to be repaid. Fred naugh defended himself the other day dream has slipped from their grasp McConnell during the Barack Obama and balances, strong institutions and
Trump even purchased several properties and business with the kind of nasty partisan attacks and those who can easily pass it on to presidency, when McConnell declared basic norms of decency, unravels.
ventures, putting ownership either fully or partly in the and ugly conspiracy theories that their kids. There’s the one between his intention to use his G.O.P. Senate My friend retired Marine Col. Mark
you’d expect only from a talk radio rural small-town caucus to make Obama fail as a strat- Mykleby stopped by for a chat after
names of his children, who reaped the profits. Over the
host — never from a would-be justice America Americans and egy for getting Republicans back in the Kavanaugh hearing last week, and
longer haul, Donald Trump received upward of what, in of the Supreme Court. Who can expect “globalized” city power. as we bemoaned this moment, he
today’s dollars, would be $413 million. fairness from him now?
is deeply slickers, who, the They did this even though that remarked: “When I walked out of the
Along the way, it seems that certain liberties were And this fracturing is all happening divided, with small-town folks are meant scuttling Obama’s health care Pentagon after 28 years in uniform, I
with a soaring stock market and falling each side sure, look down upon plan, which was based on Republican never thought I’d say this, but what is
taken with tax laws. The Times found that concocting
unemployment. Can you imagine what seeing the them. There’s the ideas, and even though that meant going on politically in America today is
elaborate schemes to avoid paying taxes on their fa-
it will be like when we face the next other as fight between the scuttling long-held G.O.P. principles — a far graver threat than any our nation
ther’s estate, including greatly understating the value of recession? “the enemy.” white working-class like fiscal discipline, a strong Atlantic faced during my career, including the
the family business, became an important pastime for This also feels worse than the divi- Americans who feel alliance, distrust of Russian intentions Soviet Union. And it’s because this
Fred’s children, with Donald taking an active role in the sions over Vietnam and civil rights that their identities and a balanced approach to immigra- threat is here and now, right at home,
effort. because there were three huge forces are being lost in an tion — to attract Trump’s base. and it’s coming from within us. I guess
holding us together back then that are increasingly minority-majority country Flake, the departing Arizona Repub- the irony of being a great nation is the
Everyone can understand the impulse to polish one’s
missing today: a growing middle class, and the Americans who embrace mul- lican, called this out this week: “We only power who can bring you down is
background in order to make a good impression. For the Cold War and a sane Republican ticulturalism. And there’s the struggle Republicans have given in to the terri- yourself.”
Mr. Trump, whose entire life has been about branding Party. between men who believe that their ble tribal impulse that first mistakes When I look at all the people today
and selling a certain type of gaudy glamour, this image- For much of the period after World gender still confers certain powers and our opponents for our enemies. And who are propelling their political ca-
polishing has been all the more vital to his success. And War II, most Americans were sure that privileges and the women challenging then we become seized with the con- reers and fattening their wallets by
they’d be in the middle class and that that. There are so many fields of dis- viction that we must destroy that dividing us, I cannot help but wonder:
he has pursued it with a shameless, at times giddy,
their kids would follow. Strong unions, pute. enemy.” Do these people go home at night to
abandon. a slower pace of technological change And not only have we lost the buf- The shift in the G.O.P. to tribalism some offshore island where none of
Veterans of New York news media still laugh to recall and only limited globalization meant fers and cushions we once had, but a culminated with McConnell denying this matters? Do these people really
how Mr. Trump would call them up, pretending to be a an average worker, with middle skills, generation of leaders has come along, Obama his constitutional right to ap- think their kids aren’t going to pay for
publicist named John Barron, or sometimes John Miller, could be middle class. There was led by Donald Trump, who have made point a Supreme Court justice with the venom they sell and spread? Don’t
something called a “high-wage, mid- fueling our divisions their business almost a year left in Obama’s term. As worry, I know the answer: They aren’t
in order to regale them with tales of Mr. Trump’s glam-
dle-skilled job.” model. NPR reported: “Supreme Court picks thinking and they aren’t going to stop
orous personal life — how many models he was dating, Also, the fact that the Soviets held a In essence, we’ve moved from “par- have often been controversial. There it.
which actresses were pursuing him, which celebrities nuclear gun to our heads meant we tisanship,” which still allowed for poli- have been contentious hearings and What stops it? When a majority of
he was hanging out with. As gross and tacky and bi- had to stick together to some degree. It tical compromises in the end, “to trib- floor debates and contested votes. But Americans, who are still center-left
zarre as this all seemed, it was aimed squarely at fos- made compromise in Washington a alism,” which does not, explained to ignore the nominee entirely, as if no and center-right, come together and
necessity, not a luxury, on many issues. political scientist Norman Ornstein, vacancy existed? There was no prece- vote only for lawmakers who have the
tering the image of Donald Trump as a master of the
But in the early 2000s, most high- co-author, with Thomas Mann, of the dent for such an action since the period courage to demand a stop to it — now,
universe who, as the cliché goes, women wanted and wage, middle-skilled jobs disappeared. book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: around the Civil War.” right now, not just when they’re leav-
men wanted to be. Now there is only a high-wage, high- How the American Constitutional In a speech in August 2016, McCon- ing office or on their death beds.
This mythos was burnished and expanded by Mr.
Trump’s years on “The Apprentice,” where he played
the role of an all-powerful, all-knowing business god
who could make or break the fortunes of those who
clamored for his favor. Occasionally he could be harsh
or even insulting, but it was always in the context of
delivering the tough love that the contestants so needed
to hear. And who was more qualified to deliver those
lessons than Donald Trump? As with all reality TV, it
was total bunk. But it promoted precisely the golden
image that Mr. Trump — with a multimillion-dollar
assist from his father — had carefully cultivated for his
entire life.
With this glimpse into the inner workings of the
Trump family finances, some of the grimier, ethically
suspect aspects of Mr. Trump’s mythmaking begin to
emerge — and with them, many questions about all that
we still do not know about the man and his business
empire. Seeing as how that empire and his role in build-
ing it are so central to who Mr. Trump claims to be —
the defining feature of his heroic narrative — the Amer-
ican public has a right to some answers. For starters,
now would be an excellent time for Mr. Trump to hand
over those tax returns on which he has thus far kept a
death grip.
In his 1987 memoir “The Art of the Deal,” Mr. Trump
famously offered his take on the origins of his success:
“I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always
think big themselves, but they can still get very excited
by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never
hurts. People want to believe that something is the
biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call
it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggera-
tion — and a very effective form of promotion.”
But increasingly, Mr. Trump’s willingness to bend the
truth — and the rules — in the service of his myth looks
less like innocent exaggeration than malicious decep-
tion, with a dollop of corruption tossed in for good
measure. It’s not the golden, glittering success story he
DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
has been peddling. It’s shaping up to be something far
darker. Protesters in a hallway tried to disrupt a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill last week.
 ..
14 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

opinion

Am I a lawn mower parent?

Jennifer Finney Boylan
Contributing Writer
The mother sat in my office. Her
daughter, my advisee, was failing three
of her four classes. Perhaps, the mom
suggested, a private tutor might be
hired, to help her child get back on
track.
“Perhaps,” I said, trying to be com-
passionate. But I also sneaked
another look at the daughter:
half asleep, clearly hung over
and quite possibly high.
What I wanted to say was, “My
suggestion would be that your
daughter actually start going to
all the classes she’s skipping, to
maybe also start doing the home-
work.” Instead I let the mom talk.
“The thing is,” she said, “she’s
really a good kid.” And it was at
this moment, I believe, that my
heart broke in half — for the
mom, for her child and for all of
us still trying to figure out the
best way to shepherd young
people into adulthood.
Some people would describe
that mom as a “bulldozer parent,”
engaging in a more aggressive
form of what we used to call
“helicoptering.” Others have
taken to calling them “lawn
mower parents” or “curling
parents,” after the sport in which
the path of a stone gliding on ice
is smoothed by an athlete armed
with a broom.
It’s easy to be contemptuous of such
family dynamics, and if you look on-
line, you’ll see plenty of articles con-
demning both the control-freak parents
as well as their over-coddled, under-
challenged children.
But as I listened to that mom, I did
feel more than a little bit of sympathy
for her. Because even though I’m a
college professor, I’m also a parent.
When she said her child was a good
kid, I knew she was also saying that in
spite of her daughter’s current predica-
ment, “I’m a good mother.”
This took place over 15 years ago.
One day, a few weeks earlier, my young
son had headed off down our driveway
to wait for the school bus, carrying in
one hand a book report project. It was
a complex mobile, a set of counterbal-
anced index cards attached to one
another with string, listing the title,
author, characters, setting and plot of
“A Wrinkle in Time.”
As he ran down our front stairs, the
thing fluttered out of his hand and fell,
somehow, behind a crack between the
steps and the front porch. Now the
book report was trapped behind the
concrete stairs, which could, of course,
not be moved, at least not before the
bus arrived.
My son looked at me in tears as we
heard the school bus approaching over
JEN WANG
the hill. “Go on, catch the bus,” I said.
“I’ll deal with it.”
Ten minutes later, I was in the front
yard with a shovel, slowly digging a
hole next to our foundation. Dirt rose
up in a pile. Ten minutes after that, I
had reached into the
We need to hole, grasped the
mobile and freed it.
let kids learn The next thing I
to be tough.
knew I was in the
But we also
car, driving to the
need to show school, where I
them love. placed it in my son’s
hands in home room.
“You’re welcome,”
I said, and felt, in that moment, like a
superhero. I should be wearing a cape,
I thought, an S upon my chest: Super-
mom.
But driving home, I wondered: Was
what I had just done an act of love?
That’s how I’d meant it. I’d jumped into
action and solved a problem. I’d done it
because I didn’t want a random act of
fate — the book report falling behind
the stone stairs — to wipe out all the
work that he’d done.
Critics of lawn mower parents,
though, would have suggested I let my
son suffer the consequences of his own
carelessness. Let the kid learn how to
dig his own hole with a shovel! A little
suffering, they’d say, would be good for
him.
That’s the undertone to a lot of
this criticism: Kids today have it
too easy! They don’t go through
what we went through, all the
misery that made us tough! With
their safe spaces and their trig-
ger warnings, they’ve been
essentially sealed off from con-
flict — and learning how to re-
spond to conflict is the most
important lesson a young person
can learn. They’d all be better
people if they cried a little more.
Like we did.
As the product of a repressive
private school, where I was
frequently taunted and on one
occasion beaten on suspicion of
In the U.S., meritocracy against itself
being queer, I know there are
DOUTHAT, FROM PAGE 1 struggling below. Then remember that many of the people who populate those
some things I don’t want my
isolating, with the elites and legacies many “people of color” at Ivy League schools, a great many of the people who
children to go through. Yes, that
hanging with each other, dominating schools are themselves children of complain about preppy creeps and rich
experience made me tough,
and creating ripples of inarticulate fear, affluence and privilege, and that with a jocks even as they try to imitate them, a
resilient and — in an odd way —
while the outsiders — the nerds and the very few exceptions everyone who goes great many of the people whose essays
forgiving. But I would still do
scholarship kids and the people of color to an Ivy League school is a nerd — on What Kavanaugh Represents are
anything to spare my children
— circled the outskirts seeking friendly Brett Kavanaugh very much included. populating elite-media websites these
that trauma. I would rather have
alliances. So when Miller depicts Kavanaugh as a days, are much more like the “elites and
them coddled than scarred.
So on the one hand, yes: When I went jock lording it over the dorks, she’s legacies” than their self-image permits
Does that make me a lawn
to Harvard 15 years later, the dynamic really describing one kind of nerd lord- them to admit.
mower parent? Is it always so wrong
on campus freshman year was similar. ing it over another kind, Bruenig’s high That knowledge should color how we
to stand between your child and harm?
The prep school kids arrived with pre- school nightmare recreating itself interpret the current frenzy of stories
Surely this is a far cry from the
forged friend groups, fake IDs, a patina among people who are all tools and about his character and world. I have
parent who, as recounted on a blog,
of sophistication and a heavy dose of grinds and weirdos by any reasonable said before that I think there’s a reason-
asked that a teacher blow on her
arrogance, and their social scene was an American standard — with all the dys- able case for withdrawing Kavanaugh’s
daughter’s lunch to make sure her food
intimidating fortress around which the function that such a hothouse world nomination, and his angry partisanship
wasn’t too hot. That’s silly, as is a lot of
rest of campus social life swirled and contains. and evasiveness under cross-examina-
the “curling” behavior I observe as a
eddied. I knew lots of kids with back- Also, note the parenthetical disclo- tion last week did not make me opti-
professor. Parents cannot be brooms.
Children are not stones thrown across
grounds like Brett Kavanaugh’s or even sure in the story, where Miller explains mistic about what his elevation will
more so (since, after all, he went to a how she got in touch mean for the country.
the ice.
Catholic school rather than one of the People need with Kavanaugh’s But people also need to recognize that
But I think we should be careful
old Protestant ones; grew up near D.C., freshman roommate the “profile” we’re being given of Kava-
when we start romanticizing “tough- to recognize
not New York; went to Beach Week Kit Winter and a naugh — a creature of privilege who
ness” — either our children’s or our
rather than the Hamptons . . . ), and I that the friend of his, Itamar drank a lot in college and sometimes
own. Suffering makes us strong, to be “profile”
was great friends with some of them Kubovy, who visited struck other people as a jerk — isn’t the
sure. But so does love. we’re being
individually while always feeling un- their unhappy dorm narrow profile of a rapist, and isn’t even
If I had to pick just one — suffering
comfortable, out of place, chip firmly given of room: “Editor’s note: the somewhat more expansive profile of
or love — I know what I’d choose.
planted on shoulder in the atmosphere Kavanaugh Winter, Kubovy, and I a particular kind of arrogant preppy. It’s
that they created all together. And my isn’t the went to high school a profile that fits many of the same
JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN is a professor of
friends who came from working-class or narrow together in New people attacking him today — and so
English at Barnard College and the
immigrant backgrounds generally Haven, and Winter’s part of what we’re watching is one
author of the novel “Long Black Veil.”
found their scene more alienating still.
profile family and mine were group of meritocrats returning to their
But now hit pause for a moment, of a rapist. friends.” That “high undergraduate resentments and trying
because if you read this and then go look school” was Hopkins, to pin on Georgetown Prep graduates
me up on Wikipedia (actually, please currently ranked as the vices that define our entire depress-
don’t) you’ll see that I also attended the second-best private high school in ing class.
something that could be reasonably Connecticut (fullest-possible disclo- If I had known Brett Kavanaugh
described as a prep school — so who am sure: mine is ranked No. 14). So the casually freshman year of college, I
I, exactly, to declare that there was story Miller is telling is about how a jock probably would have disliked him. But
some huge distance between myself and from the No. 5 private high school in across four years at Harvard I watched
the Kavanaugh types, or any other Maryland was a jerk to his roommate the freshman-fall patterns of the preppi-
preppy clique? who went to the No. 2 private high est students get imitated, adopted and
And with that question you’ve struck school in Connecticut, and who years reproduced by, well, most of us. And I
to the heart of the whole meritocratic later communicated the story to a re- often found that the worst people in that

Give the gift of the game, which depends on a reproduction

of privilege that pretends to be some-
thing else, something fair and open and
porter who also went to that same No. 2
high school, who then wrote it up as a
tale of social stratification for our times.
elite culture — including myself on my
worst days — weren’t the most privi-
leged kids but the hyper-ambitious ones

International Edition. all about hard work and just deserts. In

this game the people whose privilege is
particularly obvious, the boarding
To be clear, there are genuine work-
ing-class kids at Ivy League schools,
and nerds whose nerdery is too pure for
obsessed with vaulting over them.
So if his critics want to deny Brett
Kavanaugh the highest office in our
Order a special student gift subscription schoolers and New York toffs and Be- them to care about social networking, meritocracy on the grounds that he’s in
thesda country clubbers, play a cru- and minority or immigrant kids who denial or dishonest about the person he
and save 75% on the cover price. cially important role. It’s not just that come in with zero preparation for the was at 18 or 22 — well, I just hope that
their parents pay full freight and keep rarefied environment and find them- those critics will save some of that cup of
As the semester starts, give them the tools they need to think critically: the economics of tuition viable for ev- selves adrift and miserable. But a great condemnation for themselves.
eryone. It’s that the eliter-than-elite kids
Original journalism. Incisive opinions. Inspired coverage of our world. themselves help create a provisional
inside-the-Ivy hierarchy that lets all the
Buy a 12-month gift subscription to The New York Times other privileged kids, the ones who are
International Edition and save 75% on the cover price. merely upper-upper middle class, feel
Includes unlimited access to NYTimes.com and NYTimes apps. the spur of resentment and ambition
that keeps us running, keeps us compet-
ing, keeps us sharp and awful in all the
Give today at nytimes.com/returntoschool ways that meritocracy requires.
It’s basically the dynamic depicted in
David Fincher’s “The Social Network,”
which was somewhat factually iffy in its
portrait of Facebook’s founding but
totally true to the culture in which the
social-media giant was incubated — a
culture in which echt-preppies like the
Winklevii, Mark Zuckerberg's rivals,
exist so other slightly-less-privileged
kids can hate them, and work twice as
hard to beat them, and then tell them-
selves that they were underdogs all
along.
But a truer wisdom requires challeng-
ing this illusion. Go back to the Lisa
Miller story for New York magazine,
and the stratification it describes — the
preppies on top, the “nerds and the ERIN SCHAFF FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

scholarship kids and the people of color” Yale Law School students protesting on Capitol Hill last week.

The right-wing rot in Germany

MEANEY, FROM PAGE 12
this month’s regional Bavarian election
from the Greens and, crucially, Alter-
native for Germany. Evidently, Mr.
Seehofer considers the disgraced Mr.
Maassen a valuable electoral asset for
keeping his conservative bona fides
intact.
The entire affair is only one in a
series of events that have marked a
change in the public perception of the
far right in Germany. Only two years
Morning delivery is subject to confirmation by the distributor. Smartphone and tablet apps ago, many right-wing politicians were
are not supported on all devices. Does not include Times Insider content, e-reader editions still reluctant to officially endorse
or digital versions of The New York Times Crossword. Other restrictions and taxes may apply. nationalist, anti-immigrant street
movements such as Pegida. Now it is
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normal for not only Alternative for
We reserve the right to withdraw this offer at any time.
Germany politicians to back them
officially, but even members of the
putative political center to make shows
of sympathy. Wolfgang Kubicki, vice
chairman of the liberal Free Democrat-
ic Party, was quick to attribute “the
roots of the riots” in Chemnitz to Ms.
Merkel’s policy of admitting refugees
and asylum seekers in 2015.
For decades, the right-wing ele-
ments in the German state never had
the opportunity to cooperate with a
major party that shares its views. Now
they do.
For hundreds of civil servants, the
rise of Alternative for Germany has
presented an opportunity to engage in
more right-wing political activities
than would have been possible only a
few years ago. A senior public prosecu-
tor in Berlin, a judge in Dresden, as
well as police officers and teachers
across the country: For all of them,
supporting the party serves as the
bridge between the functioning state
apparatus and the far right.
Very often, the party’s members
draw connections between their pro-
fession and what they take to be the
necessity of right-wing activism. They
spread rumors of the government’s
secret commands to prioritize anti-
right policies over the solving of
crimes committed by refugees or the
“left-green indoctrination of students”
in public schools. Their conspiracy
theories have not diminished with their
proximity to power. The future is a
dark one when a right-wing party
surges and finds sectors of the state
full of “classic civil servants.”
THOMAS MEANEY is a fellow at the Ameri-
can Council on Germany. SASKIA
SCHÄFER is an assistant professor at
Humboldt University in Berlin.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Fashion
LO U I S V U I T TO N
Presenting: Future shock
PARIS
BY VANESSA FRIEDMAN
So there we were, sitting in a purpose-
built plexi-walled tube, gazing out on
two black reflecting pools from which
silver and gold beams shot dramatically
toward the night sky. Around us, the his-
toric walls of the Palais du Louvre
glowed ghostly in the neon light.
Then — boom! The spring collections
ended, and Space Force arrived.
Not the Trump/Pence kind, the Louis
Vuitton-by-Nicolas-Ghesquière kind,
dressed up in little silk dresses with
maxi shoulder impact, printed with
splotches of robots and classical statu-
ary like rips in the space-time continu-
um. Through which later emerged . . .
sleeves. Enormous billowing sleeves or-
bited by their own rings of Saturn,
sleeves like padded astronaut gauntlets,
sleeves bristling tiny shards at the
shoulders.
Among all the sleeves were ground
control jackets and aviator trousers in
pale pastels (some almost perfectly an-
MIU MIU
drogynous), sparkling mesh overlays,
graphic rubberized cocoon coats and
metallic floral brocade. Also some egg-
like helmet/caps. They had a ticket to
ride.
Louis Vuitton is, as the brand founded
on trunks endlessly reminds us, about
travel. Fashion is, as all of us sitting in
the spring 2019 shows during autumn
2018 know, about the future. Put it to-
gether and you get: laser-focused wom-
en on an intergalactic tour to the halls of
power!
If they also occasionally looked like
clubbing extras from a 1980s sci-fi ad-
venture flick, that’s O.K.
“By the nature of fashion, the
future is the present.”
Fact is, it’s about time we started aim-
ing higher, instead of embracing the low-
est common denominator. There’s
enough of that going on without fashion
adding to the mix. Eyes to the stars
(which does not mean Cate Blanchett
and others in the Vuitton front row).
Ultimately, perhaps that was the most
lasting story of the shows: Not the con-
tinued embrace of the 1980s and ’90s
(yawn), or yet another return of boho
deluxe in patchwork and fringe (easy),
or the growing fascination with gender
(sometimes thought-provoking, some-
times trite), but rather the re-emer-
gence of design as a core value; the
clawing back up the slippery slope of
casual. The belief that a well-dressed
body can facilitate a well-dressed mind,
and that is something to which we
should all aspire at this moment.
As Miuccia Prada said after her Miu
Miu show: “It’s about what people are
discussing now: elegance, glamour, tai-
loring. Not sport.”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY VALERIO MEZZANOTTI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
That might be taking it a bit far. People
are discussing lots of things besides ele-
gance and tailoring but, on one level, she
was also right: There was barely a hood-
ie in sight. The sneakers that had shown
up as shameless market bids on so many
runways in New York had disappeared
by the time we got to Paris. It may seem
like a small thing, but it was striking.
Certainly they weren’t present at Miu
Miu. Instead, on a set filled with giant
puffy letters that spelled out the brand
name but were stacked around willy-
nilly like marshmallow mountains, Ms.
Prada gave us silk faille slips wrapped
around the body and secured with big
rosettes at the shoulder or hip, left half
undone to expose bra straps at the back
and the waistbands of tights. Rough-cut
denim bias dresses and sequined shells
paired with transparent skirts to show
the big pants and knee socks under-
neath. Cardigans cropped at the ribs and
full gray skirts. Tailored leather.
The collection questioned seduction,
in an intriguing way (designers are still
so skittish around sex it’s always kind of
a surprise). It was definitely not ath-
leisure, and that was intriguing, too.
“By the nature of fashion the future is
the present, and you always have to
project your present into a future you
hope will be the present when the time
comes,” Mr. Ghesquière said after the
Vuitton show, which sounds like some
sort of convoluted “Interstellar” hooey
until you think about it. Essentially, he
acknowledged fashion is all a wing and a
prayer; designers are crossing their fin-
gers and betting they get the mood right
six months down the line.
And what they are guessing, in this
case, is that we are about to get a little
more demanding: of our clothes as of
our selves and the world around us.
Maybe that really is a moonshot. But,
you know, it looked pretty good.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 15
Italians take a bow
PARIS
BY ELIZABETH PATON
Where Gucci goes, many brands follow.
Not just in terms of fur-lined slides but
literally. When the Italian brand decided
to swap its pole position in Milan Fash-
ion Week for a show in Paris this season,
lo! So did all sorts of its compatriots.
Tod’s threw a breakfast at the Ritz to
celebrate its inaugural Tod’s Factory
project, a new platform that will allow
the label to produce multiple capsule
collections per year with different cre-
ative partners, from designers to artists.
The first collaboration was with
Alessandro Dell’Acqua, creative direc-
tor of the Parisian luxury house Rochas
and the founder of the contemporary
line No. 21, who introduced the model
Edie Campbell as his campaign muse,
and nude loafer kitten heels with the
Tod’s signature pebble sole as well as
black PVC flats with velvet overlays as
part of his collection.
“The world is changing so fast,” Diego
Della Valle, Tod’s chief executive, said.
"We want to remain dedicated to offer-
ing high-quality Italian luxury products,
but we also know we need to move with
the times and find new clients. This un-
veiling in Paris is a first step in that di-
rection.” DANIEL JACKSON
From top, Edie coming head designer for women’s
Campbell in items footwear for Louis Vuitton (well, you
from the Tod’s x would, wouldn’t you?).
Alessandro Del- This season he called his namesake
l’Acqua capsule collection “Hello Shoes!” Though it
collection, a hand- would have been more accurate to say
bag from Elena “Hello PVC knee-high boots with draw-
Ghisellini and strings at the ankle and knee, color-
fringed shoe by blocked block-toe pumps and white slid-
Aquazzura. ers with gold flowers.”
“Long ago I adopted Paris as my city,”
Mr. Viti said. “But Italy will always re-
main a part of me, my shoes and my
identity.”
Next season who knows? Maybe
Alessandro Michele will decide Venice
is actually the place to be.
The handbag doyenne Elena Ghis-
ellini also was eager to broaden her hori-
zons. Showing a new collection inspired
by luxury resort hotels (totes in swim-
ming pool tones, with rope or sparkling
PVC handles; suede bucket bags with
Navajo straps), she said, “Lots of people
come to Milan for fashion week, but ev-
eryone comes to Paris.”
Of course, Aquazzura, the Florence-
based brand that hit headlines in May
for the satin slippers that the Duchess of
Sussex (a.k.a. Meghan Markle) wore to
her evening wedding celebration, knew
this already. In gilded reception rooms
overlooking Place Vendôme, the de-
signer Edgardo Osorio displayed snake-
skin stilettos in jungle green and mango
yellow, flat ocher suede tassel sandals
covered in baby shells, and jewel-tone
pumps finished with fringed petals and
encrusted diamanté accents.
And then there was Fabrizio Viti, the
Italian who has lived in Paris since be-
 ..
16 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Sports
Rugby meets red rover: India is kabaddi-crazy
company. Last year Star sold a five-year
MUMBAI, INDIA
sponsorship to Vivo, a Chinese technol-
ogy company, for $47 million — the
league’s first corporate tie-in.
Contact sport with roots The challenge for Star TV India “was
unique in the history of televised
in ancient Hindu poetry sports,” said Uday Shankar, the broad-
gains millions of viewers caster’s chief executive. “For a specta-
tor sport in its embryonic stages, we’ve
BY PERRY GARFINKEL had to invent vocabulary for commenta-
tors, find directors who’ve had parallel
For the uninitiated, kabaddi, the ancient experience, mostly from rugby, tweak
Indian game that is taking the world’s some rules to make it TV-friendly and
second-most populous country by even figure out what stats fans would
storm, looks far too simple to be a pro- want to track.”
fessional sport. Cumulative viewership for P.K.L.
A hybrid of rugby, touch football and matches rose from 217 million for the
the playground game known in England fourth season to 313 million the follow-
as British bulldog and in the United ing season, according to Partho Das-
States as red rover (“Red rover, red gupta, chief executive of the Broadcast
rover, let Tommy come over . . . ”), Audience Research Council India. The
kabaddi (pronounced kuh-bud-DEE) 2017 season finale was the best-rated
uses no balls, pucks, nets, goal posts, noncricket event on Indian TV, with 26.2
hoops, holes, rackets, clubs, sticks or million kabaddi viewers versus 55.6 mil-
bats. It is so unknown in the West that in lion cricket fans, Dasgupta said.
2017 an ESPN channel showcased what Shankar conceded that it will take
it termed “the finest in seldom seen several years before kabaddi begins to
sports,” including the 2016 Kabaddi be profitable programming.
World Cup Final. An exhibition match In May, though, as owners bid on play-
was played at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, ers for the sixth season, Screwvala was
but the sport did not catch on interna- ahead of the curve again, shelling out
tionally. about $140,000 for the 26-year-old Fazel
But those who take the time to exam- Atrachali, the Iranian defender who led
ine India’s homegrown game begin to the gold-winning Iranian team that beat
recognize a highly strategic endeavor India at the Asian Games in August. It’s
that demands speed, strength, timing, the highest amount ever paid for a non-
an understanding of geometric angles Indian player.
and the kind of fancy footwork that This may not seem like a lot compared
would have impressed Muhammad Ali to what cricketers and other major pro-
and Fred Astaire. fessional athletes earn in most coun-
Indians like that it’s the only competi- tries, but it’s a steep fee considering the
tion in the wide world of sports to re- average annual per capita income in In-
quire the player on offense to chant a dia is about $1,700.
word — “kabaddi,” derived from “kai- U Mumba also acquired Iran’s suc-
pidi,” meaning “to hold hands” in the ATUL LOKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
cessful Asian Games coach, Gholam-
Tamil language — in one uninterrupted Kabaddi has become a popular spectator sport in India, second only to cricket. Last year 313 million people watched Pro Kabaddi League matches on television. reza Mazandarani, the first foreign
breath for the 30 seconds of his run at coach in the P.K.L.
the defense. The sport takes its play- Of the 239 players selected to play for
book from the Mahabharata, the Hindu set to begin on Sunday. Its popularity as against seven — with such old associa- ers each line up on either side of a 13- with no holds barred, almost literally. P.K.L.’s 12 teams — each team consisting
epic poem that dates from as early as a spectator sport is now second only to tions in India that I was immediately by-10 meter (42.6-by-32.8 feet) hard The other team then sends out a player, of 18 to 24 players — 26 players come
the ninth century B.C., where it’s men- cricket, a British import that Indians taken in,” said Ronnie Screwvala, the In- rubber mat, separated by a midline. and on and on it goes for two fast-paced from outside India, including places like
tioned as a military formation called the worship with near religious fervor. Last dian multimedia entrepreneur who was There is something called a balk line be- 20-minute halves. South Korea, Iran, Bangladesh, Taiwan,
Chakravyuha. It has been enjoyed for year 313 million people watched P.K.L. the first person to acquire a team, U hind that, and a bonus line behind the Scoring gets complicated for the Kenya, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan,
hundreds of years as a rural game matches on TV, according to surveys. Mumba, when the league began in 2014. balk line. kabaddi neophyte. Oman, Nepal, Thailand, Mauritius and
played on India’s muddy fields. Given kabaddi’s recent gains, it “Indians have needed something they To earn a point, one team sends out a The game got a dressing up since its Malaysia.
Now, with the establishment in 2014 of should continue to penetrate the Indian can claim as only theirs.” solo “raider,” who must cross the center rural mud-field days when Star TV In- “This much foreign involvement in an
the Pro Kabaddi League (P.K.L.) and market and may eventually even garner The rules of the game and scoring are line, tag an opposing player on the de- dia, an Asian television service owned India-born sport bodes very well for the
television coverage, the sport has cap- attention in the West. not intuitive to a Western sports fan fense within 30 seconds, then cross back by 21st Century Fox, teamed up with the sport here at home,” Screwvala said. “In
tured Indians’ hearts, souls and TV re- “Kabaddi is a compelling, gladiator- watching it for the first several times. over the center line to his side before be- league, which is owned by Mashal business, open competition always
motes, and the league’s sixth season is like sport — one man heroically pit The basics: two teams of seven play- ing tackled. Players tackle each other Sports, an Indian sports management makes the good even better.”

NON SEQUITUR PEANUTS DOONESBURY CLASSIC 1991

GARFIELD CALVIN AND HOBBES

SUDOKU No. 0410

WIZARD of ID DILBERT
(c) PZZL.com Distributed by The New York Times syndicate
Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz

Solution No. 0310 KENKEN CROSSWORD | Edited by Will Shortz 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Fill the grid so
that every row,
column 3x3 box Fill the grids with digits so as not Across 32 Main connections, of a 65 Long nap? 14 15 16

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32 33 34 35 36 37 38
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puzzles: www.nytimes.com/ 47 Distort 1 High shots
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kenken.com 20 Seven-time All-Star 48 Swinger’s club 2 Overabundance
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the Toronto Blue Jays winning yacht of 1851 nickname
KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC.
Copyright © 2018 www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved. 21 Wind instrument 54 Bumbling 4 Choice A for 48 49 50 51 52

23 Heavy metal band 59 Occupy, as a table Hamlet

53 54 55 56 57 58
whose name is a 60 Ingredient in some 5 Flabbergasted feeling
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27 Notable times 17-, 23-, 32-, 43- and
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Solution to October 3 Puzzle some PUZZLE BY JOON PAHK
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I O T A E A V E AG R E E New Zealand often gentleness Virginia
D A H L T H E N E RE I D S 11 2014 movie musical 27 “My word!”
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22 Audit expert, for short 36 Stone-cold cinch
A H I S T E M U N R I P E 49 ___ acid here?!”
C A S S I O P E I A I D O L 24 “We deliver for you” 37 Gospel with the
E V I T A O M A R C O P S org. Prodigal Son parable 50 Institute 62 Indian lentil dish
S E N D S T O N Y K N E E 25 Off! ingredient 38 Put in a hold 51 Wipe away 63 Before this time
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Culture
Stepping out from history
ART REVIEW
Works from Indonesia,
Myanmar and Vietnam
plumb past and present
BY JASON FARAGO
Until recently — the 1990s, let’s say —
an American critic keeping tabs on new
art would concentrate on New York’s
museums and galleries; cast an occa-
sional, often dismissive eye on Western
Europe; and perhaps try to visit Los
Angeles now and again. No longer. By
the ’90s, the idea of a single avant-
garde was dead and buried, and in its
place arose a pluralist art ecosystem
that spans the planet. It makes larger
intellectual demands than ever, and
requires us to accept that we’ll never
see everything or understand it com-
pletely. In the new global art world,
even New Yorkers are provincials.
Perhaps nowhere benefited as much
from this shift to a pluralist art world
as Asia, where the 1990s saw an explo-
sion of biennials and triennials. The
Gwangju Biennale, Asia’s most impor-
tant such exhibition, began in 1995 in
South Korea, and was soon followed by
large-scale shows in Shanghai; Taipei,
Taiwan; Fukuoka and Yokohama,
Japan; Singapore; Jakarta, Indonesia;
and a half-dozen other Asian megaci-
ties — all of which introduced Asian
audiences to foreign art and pushed
their own region’s figures to the inter-
national forefront.
In these exhibitions, as well as in the
new museums and art schools that
arose around them, traditional styles of
painting, drawing, pottery or calligra-
phy fell by the wayside, and installa-
tion, video and performance served as
lingua francas.
The art in “After Darkness: South-
east Asian Art in the Wake of History,”
at the Asia Society in New York, is the
fruit of this global shift. The work
comes from Indonesia, Myanmar (or
Burma) and Vietnam, though with just
seven artists and one collective, it’s
small enough to avoid the curse of the
“regional show” and doesn’t force any
unity on a diverse lineup. Not every
work is a masterpiece, but all of them
plumb the roiling past and fractured
present of places that, with a combined
population of nearly 400 million, we
have no excuse to be clueless about.
The most internationally prominent
artist is Dinh Q. Le, who immigrated to
the United States as a child and re-
turned to Vietnam in 1993. His enlight-
ening project “Light and Belief” (2012)
A magnificent princess
OPERA REVIEW
Anna Netrebko excels
as the title character
in Verdi’s ‘Aida’
BY ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Last spring at the Metropolitan Opera,
the soprano Anna Netrebko took on
the title role of Puccini’s “Tosca” for
the first time. She claimed that touch-
stone part for her own, and put her
mark on the whole season.
Now Ms. Netrebko has done it again
at the Met, this time in the title role of
Verdi’s “Aida.” She is still fairly new to
this challenging part, which she intro-
duced at the Salzburg Festival in Aus-
tria a year ago. There was something
fresh and exploratory about her per-
formance on the first night. Yet it also
felt fully formed, dramatically deep.
And she sang magnificently.
Only one other member of the cast
matched her: the mezzo-soprano Anita
Rachvelishvili, who was a molten-
voiced, impetuous and, in crucial mo-
ments, affectingly vulnerable Amneris.
I’ve seen “Aida” more times than I can
unites 70 ink drawings and watercol-
ors, which the artist collected from
elder figures at work during the Viet-
nam War, with a long, lightly animated
video in which Mr. Le interviews these
older artists about the social role of art
before the biennial age.
“Uncle Ho highly regarded the arts,”
says one of these older painters, refer-
ring to the party leader Ho Chi Minh.
“The artist must also be a warrior,”
another recalls. Mr. Le’s video forces a
reconsideration of the proficient but
academic works on paper he has col-
lected: a woman in a conical straw hat,
say, or a soldier disguised amid dap-
pled trees. “Light and Belief” also,
rather brilliantly, reintroduces ignored
chapters of Vietnamese art — which
looks regressive to us now, but was
resolutely “modern” in the art schools
established by the French colonial
regime — to global institutions that
have little understanding of them.
The war locally termed the “Resist-
ance War Against America” also in-
forms the regretful art of the Vietnam-
ese collective known as the Propeller
count. But the crucial scene in Act II
when Amneris tries to discover
whether Aida, her slave (and actually
the daughter of the enemy king), might
be her secret rival in love for the Egyp-
tian warrior Radamès, felt newly in-
tense and unpredictable.
That Ms. Rachvelishvili was an out-
standing Amneris was no shock. Her
performances at the Met in recent
years in “Carmen” (her 2011 debut), “Il
Trovatore” and “Prince Igor” made her
potential in this repertoire clear. But
Ms. Netrebko, who started off as a lyric
soprano, has been more of a surprise as
she’s moved into challenging bel canto
repertory and weightier and more
dramatic roles. This Aida proved yet
again that she knows what she is doing.
Ms. Netrebko seemed at once a
young woman, in helpless love with the
enemy, and a captive princess, indig-
nant and agonized over what to do to
help her people. All this came through
in her great Act I aria, “Ritorna vinci-
tor,” when Aida, having lent her voice
to the throngs of Egyptians wishing
Radamès success in battle, is left alone
to confront the bitterness of her dilem-
ma: To pray for his safety is to curse
her countrymen.
At this stage of her career, Ms. Ne-
trebko’s voice abounds in richness,
depth and dusky colorings. Yet there
are still elements of the bloom and
sweetness from her days as a lyric. In
climactic outbursts, when she sum-
moned all her smoldering power, Ms.
Netrebko sent phrases slicing through
the brassy orchestra and into the
house. Yet in plaintive passages, the
melting warmth of her tone and the
supple way she shaped long lines held
you in thrall.
She sang with a subdued yet
penetrating beauty that recalled
the great Leontyne Price, who
once owned this role.
Her voice also retains aspects of the
slightly cool, focused tone characteris-
tic of the Russian style she was raised
in. This distinguishes her Verdi and
Puccini singing from the typical throb-
bing Italianate approach. In “O patria
mia,” Aida’s wrenching Act III aria,
Ms. Netrebko sang the music’s plain-
tive, long-spun phrases with a subdued
yet penetrating beauty that recalled
the great Leontyne Price, who once
owned this role.
The weak link in the cast was the
tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko, who
MARIA BARANOVA-SUZUKI
PERRY HU/ASIA SOCIETY
bellowed his way through the role of
Radamès. He certainly had steely
power when called for, whether pledg-
ing to rout Ethiopian foes or crying in
despair when, entombed alive as a
traitor, he discovers that Aida has
hidden herself with him. But his
coarse, wobbly singing had little sub-
tlety during lyrical passages.
The baritone Quinn Kelsey was
stalwart and virile-voiced as
Amonasro, Aida’s father. There were
solid performances from Ryan Speedo
Green as the Egyptian king and
Dmitry Belosselskiy as Ramfis, the
high priest. The conductor, Nicola
Luisotti, led a performance of bold
contrasts and rich colorings, though
marred by untidy execution.
After the gaudy, confused new pro-
duction of “Samson et Delila” that
opened the Met season, it was refresh-
ing to re-encounter the old-fashioned
grandeur of the 30-year-old Sonja
Frisell “Aida” production, with its
multitiered sets depicting sandy an-
cient walls and towering statues.
The Triumphal Scene, as usual, was
an endless parade of costumed super-
numeraries and live horses. But the
real triumphs were Ms. Rachvelishvili
and, especially, Ms. Netrebko. May she
keep surprising us.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 | 17
PERRY HU/ASIA SOCIETY
TYLER ROLLINS FINE ART
Clockwise from top: Dinh Q. Le’s “Scroll
#1 and Scroll #4, WTC From Four Per-
spectives,” left, and F. X. Harsono’s “The
Voices Are Controlled by the Powers”; a
still from Mr. Harsono’s “Writing in the
Rain”; “The Dream,” by the Propeller
Group; and Htein Lin’s “A Show of
Hands.”
Group. In a two-channel video, “The
Guerrillas of Cu Chi” (2012), we see a
1963 propaganda film set at the Cu Chi
tunnels, the underground passageways
outside Ho Chi Minh City used by the
Vietcong. (The soldiers there, an en-
thusiastic narrator declaims, “were
never afraid of hardships and always
found ways to kill Americans.”) Across
the gallery is a second, slow-motion
video, shot at the tunnels today; the
grounds above have been converted
into a shooting range for tourists, and
gleeful Americans spend $1 to fire
AK-47s while their friends capture the
fun on their phones.
“The Dream,” another work by the
Propeller Group, consists of a half-
complete Honda Dream motorcycle, of
the kind used to skip through Hanoi’s
wild traffic. But its wheels, engine, seat
and even pedals are missing; the body
stands denuded, an uncanny object
more sculpture than vehicle. The parts
were snatched, we see in an accompa-
nying video, by thieves in just a single
night. As in China, nominally commu-
nist Vietnam has embraced brakes-off
Anna Netrebko, left, as Aida with the mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili as Amneris.
turbocapitalism, and the old dream of
society has been picked clean.
The Burmese artists have an even
more direct engagement with local
political circumstances. Htein Lin, a
dissident from Yangon, turned to art
not while visiting some international
exhibition — Myanmar is among the
poorest countries in the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, and was
essentially closed to foreign influence
until the 2010s — but rather during a
six-year spell in prison. His ghostly
installation, “A Show of Hands,” fea-
tures hundreds of white plaster casts
of raised right hands, each one an
index of a political prisoner like him-
self. What makes the work more than
an easy ode to people power is the
associated video, in which we watch
Mr. Htein Lin cast the hands of monks,
journalists, poets and youth activists,
each of whom recounts past run-ins
with the military dictatorship with
surprising lightness.
F. X. Harsono, perhaps the most
prominent artist in contemporary
Indonesia, is represented by both
earlier sculptural installations that
took direct aim at the Suharto regime
and a more recent video. “The Voices
Are Controlled by the Powers,” from
1994, consists of more than a hundred
carefully arrayed wooden masks, but
they’ve been chopped in half; their
mouths are cut off and piled in the
center. From the title on, it’s about as
direct a protest as you can make with-
out just hoisting a placard.
“Writing in the Rain,” a performance
filmed in 2011, shows Mr. Harsono
writing his name in Chinese characters
on a pane of glass, only for his calligra-
phy to be wiped away by streams of
water; as the downpour continues, he
keeps it up, and the ink spills to the
floor. (The artist is ethnically Chinese,
a minority in Indonesia.) To a Western
critic like me, the gesture reads as an
obvious reboot of Marcel Broodthaers’s
noted 1969 film, “La Pluie,” in which he
hopelessly attempts to write poetry in
a rainstorm, but where that Belgian
provocateur proposed an art unfixed
from clear meaning, Mr. Harsono’s
political gesture could not be clearer, or
more locally focused.
It isn’t wrong to criticize art as blunt
as this, in which symbols function not
as elements in a complex, imaginative
system but in strict one-to-one corre-
spondence with political or social ills.
Yet what works in New York may not
work in Jakarta, and while we now
have to evaluate art at a global scale,
we also have to study the particular
circumstances in which “global” con-
temporary art took root in local cases.
In these three countries, an outward-
facing practice of “contemporary art”
marched in step with local movements
for change, engaged with free speech,
economic fairness and multiparty
democracy. If some artists in this show
seem to be speaking a bit too literally,
that may be because influencing local
audiences was a more urgent calling
than winning the approbation of far-off
Western institutions.
And part of reckoning with a global
art world is expanding one’s tolerance
for things we don’t understand. It
means more looking, more reading and
more sympathy, too — sympathy for
art that may not resemble what we
most like, and of which our mastery
can be only fragmentary. If, as the
Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei
has asserted, contemporary art is a
kind of freedom, then our need to
appreciate this art has only increased
now that Indonesia and Myanmar, as
well as Thailand, Malaysia and the
Philippines, are taking an antidemo-
cratic turn. That may be a more impor-
tant vocation than hunting in vain for a
single avant-garde in a world as large
as ours.
SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

18 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018
culture
“I think I am an optimist by day and a pessimist by nighttime,” said Eric Idle, above at the Grafton on Sunset hotel in West Hollywood, Calif.
For him, life’s a laugh with stories
Eric Idle’s memoir tells
about his rise, famous
friends and a certain troupe
BY SOPAN DEB
The fiftieth anniversary of Monty
Python, which debuted on the BBC in
1969, is coming soon, but don’t expect
Eric Idle, one of the comedy troupe’s
founding members, to celebrate.
“Absolutely not,” Mr. Idle said with a
laugh, when asked if the group had any
plans to commemorate a half-century
of dead parrots, cheese shops and silly
walks. “There’s no reason we actually
should.”
That doesn’t mean the Python spirit
isn’t still alive inside Mr. Idle. He was
on the phone from Los Angeles, where
he spent the previous weekend pen-
ning new music for the still-in-develop-
ment film based on his hit Broadway
musical, “Spamalot.” And if you’re
wondering, Mr. Idle said Tiffany Had-
dish had been offered the role of the
Lady of the Lake and that the script
had mostly been “solved.”
He’s about to take off on a book tour
for his own memoir, “Always Look on
the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiogra-
phy,” out this week. It’s named after
the song he composed that closes the
classic Python film “Life of Brian” and
has since become an anthem of its
own: commonly sung at soccer
matches and funerals.
Slow to arrive but worth the wait
BOOK REVIEW
Your Duck Is My Duck: Stories
By Deborah Eisenberg. 226 pp. Ecco/
HarperCollins Publishers. $26.99.
BY PARUL SEHGAL
In a classic Deborah Eisenberg short
story, “Holy Week,” a travel writer
visiting an unnamed country in Central
America complacently compiles adjec-
tives as he reviews a restaurant: “re-
laxed,” “intimate,” “romantic.”
This being Eisenberg, things take a
turn. A very different set of words are
required to actually summon the day;
let’s say, “anxiety,” “empire” and
“guns.” These might be the same
words we would compile to describe a
visit to the world of Eisenberg. You
might add “insomnia” to the list and,
for her dedicated readers, “patience.”
Eisenberg is a writer of legendary
exactitude, and slowness. The first
story she wrote, “Days,” took three
years to complete. She now averages a
story a year. Her new collection of six
As for any future Python projects,
Mr. Idle responded: “I think I’ve done
my bit. I’m interested in my life, what-
ever is left of it.”
The comedy ground has shifted
since Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Gra-
ham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael
Palin and Mr. Idle united in the 1960s,
in part because of Monty Python.
Countless comedians have counted the
troupe as an influence. Now, the com-
edy world is larger and more diverse.
This didn’t escape the notice of the
BBC’s comedy commissioner, Shane
Allen, who raised the ire of multiple
Pythons when he said recently, “If
you’re going to assemble a team now,
it’s not going to be six Oxbridge white
blokes,” referring to Monty Python.
“It’s going to be a diverse range of
people who reflect the modern world.”
Mr. Gilliam responded vehemently,
saying, “I no longer want to be a white
male, I don’t want to be blamed for
everything wrong in the world.” Mr.
Cleese accused Mr. Allen of “social
engineering.”
In a wide-ranging conversation —
condensed and edited for clarity and
length — Mr. Idle gave an update on
“Spamalot,” his reaction to Mr. Allen’s
comments and what he thought of
Hannah Gadsby’s show.
This is a good time to ask about the
“Spamalot” film and how it’s going so
far.
It’s always hard to tell. The film busi-
ness is such an idiotic business. It’s
stories, “Your Duck Is My Duck,” is her
first book of new material since 2006.
She is always worth the wait. The
new book is cannily constructed, and
so instantly absorbing that it feels like
an abduction. The stories themselves
are simple and calmly recounted — a
writer is taken up by wealthy patrons
and bears witness to their disastrous
marriage, a man attends his uncle’s
funeral, another takes up a dog-walk-
ing gig.
But the sentences are wild, full of
breakneck swerves; leaps in time,
space and point of view; all kinds of
syntactic fireworks. The title story
begins: “Way back — oh, not all that
long ago, actually, just a couple of
years, but back before I’d gotten a
glimpse of the gears and levers and
pulleys that dredge the future up from
the earth’s core to its surface — I was
going to a lot of parties.” It’s a beauti-
fully seasoned sentence — well stuffed,
tart and unexpected — but it also
suggests Eisenberg’s preoccupying
theme: how power conceals itself.
“The wars in the East were hidden
behind a thicket of language: patrio-
tism, democracy, loyalty, freedom — the
chaos and confusion as usual. Fox
bought it from me and John Du Prez
about three years ago. We have been
working on it. We have the wonderful
Casey Nicholaw directing it and we
have interest from lots of wonderful
stars and actors. So we’re hoping to
shoot it next year. I can tell you we’re
very excited.
What is it like walking down the
street for you nowadays? Do people
walk up to you and say, “Nudge,
nudge”?
It’s kind of weird because Python just
gets bigger and bigger. There’s a lot of
Python respect, probably too much.
We’ll take it. At my age, you’ll take
anything really.
Nothing is more identified with you
than the song “Always Look on the
Bright Side of Life,” which is, of
course, the title of your memoir. Will
you have it played at your funeral?
I don’t know. I won’t be there.
Are you a person who always looks at
the bright side?
I think I am an optimist by day and a
pessimist by nighttime. I am an opti-
mist basically coming from a pes-
simistic background.
When you say a pessimistic back-
ground, what do you mean?
Losing a father. Going to boarding
school for 12 years. It was pretty grim
and not very much fun. And then sud-
DIANA MICHENER
Deborah Eisenberg.
words bounced around, changing
purpose, as if they were made out of
some funny plastic,” she wrote in her
best-known story, “Twilight of the
Superheroes,” set on Sept. 11 and in-
cluded as the title story of her 2006
collection. “What did they actually
denly, I got to Cambridge and every-
thing changed. I met Cleese. I met
them all within about two years of
getting up to Cambridge. It was odd.
All the Pythons had met by about 1965,
one way or another, even though it
would be another four years before we
did Python.
In those grim times, when your father
died and during boarding school,
were you an optimist?
Humor is like a form of grim pes-
simism. They were saying when they
were beating you, “This is for your
own good.” Really? Why don’t I hit you
then?
You were often writing by yourself in
Python.
Deliberately so because I can’t stand
talking to people before lunch. I don’t
think anybody civilized does.
I know you wrote with Cleese on the
most recent tour the two of you did.
Do you ever think about how the old
sketches might have looked if you
were paired up with the other Py-
thons?
Occasionally, I did write with John. We
wrote “Bruces” together. There’s one
about this guy trying to climb the twin
peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro because he
has double vision. We did have some
good times. I also wrote with Michael
Palin, and we’d always just get obliter-
ated and have too much red wine.
Graham and I tried, but Graham would
refer to? It seemed that they all might
refer to money.”
The stories in the new book take
place in the present day, many of them
in New York. The subways are a mess.
The news — “like a magical substance
in a fairy tale — was producing perpet-
ually increasing awfulness from rock-
bottom bad.” One story begins with an
epigraph by Donald J. Trump: “I know
words. I have the best words.”
At the best of times, Eisenberg’s
characters are a frantic sort. Here we
meet them in full, majestic swivet. “I’m
hurtling through time, strapped to an
explosive device, my life,” the narrator
of the title story tells her therapist.
“Plus, it’s beginning to look like a
photo finish — me first, or the world.”
Each story is spikily distinct, but
themes echo and chime. Many of the
plots hinge on a death. Character types
reappear. Beautiful, disappointed
women cruelly visit their sorrows on
their daughters; elderly women and
recent college graduates strike up
unlikely friendships.
“Yes, I had nightmares — children
do,” the narrator in an old story, “All
Around Atlantis,” recalls. “After all, it
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
never say anything, so it was hard to
get him to start something.
Have you had a chance to see Hannah
Gadsby’s “Nanette”?
I saw her.
Obviously, that’s been a fairly divisive
special.
I didn’t see the special. I saw her on-
stage here at Largo.
What did you think?
I imagine the special was pretty much
what she did, right? I thought it was
very brave, very bold and in your face,
and ultimately divisive. I didn’t feel
particularly included, in fact rather
pointedly excluded.
[After a follow-up request for clarifi-
cation, Mr. Idle said in an email, “I
think my thought was usually comedy
heals and includes all. She, for per-
fectly understandable reasons, ex-
cludes large sectors of her audience
and is quite happy to do that. That’s
her point. Brave. Admirable. But not
comfortable if you are a man. Why
should it be?”]
I heard that in the scene when Han
Solo and Leia arrive on Cloud City in
“The Empire Strikes Back,” they’re
drunk, and it’s because of you. Is that
true?
We had a party the night before. We
stayed up too late. We were having too
much fun. Carrie Fisher had rented my
house, and she was staying there. We
takes some time to get used to being
alive. And how else, except in the
clarity of dreams, are you supposed to
see the world all around you that’s
hidden by the light of day?” The am-
biguous gift of Eisenberg’s characters
is that they never become fully accli-
mated to our planet, to its beauty or
horror. (Or mundanity, for that matter.
Even the smallest activity remains
monstrously difficult: “I began to
unpack, but there was the issue of
putting things wherever.”)
In the early work, her characters
existed in a state of elegant alienation,
a kind of anomie one review described
uncharitably (but indelibly) as a 1980s
“cocaine-and-radicchio brand of trendi-
ness.” The later work is about emerg-
ing from isolation and complacency,
about larger questions of what it
means to live an ethical life — and, as
Eisenberg has said, whether such a
thing is even possible for an American.
These stories emerge from the ashes of
the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan,
out of despoliation and environmental
plunder.
The title of the book comes from a
Zen riddle. A Zen master, his disciple
..
EMILY BERL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
went to bed, and they went to work. It
turns out when they filmed the scene,
they were still a little high. So yes, I’m
proud of that moment.
Do you see Terry Jones at all? [Mr.
Jones announced last year that he
had dementia.]
I saw him last year at a Python meet-
ing. It’s been getting progressively
worse. It’s a dark world that they go
into. It’s very sad. You see them, but
they’re not really them. I miss him like
crazy.
A couple of your Monty Python col-
leagues weren’t happy with Shane
Allen’s comment. What did you think?
I thought it was silly, but then he wrote
an article about it in The Guardian. He
explained what he actually meant.
Of course, the British press are
monkeys. They’ll do anything to create
trouble. He was talking about the
difference in time, and the BBC now
has to be aware that times have
changed, and indeed they must. He got
hammered for a bit of abuse from
John. I know Terry Gilliam wrote
something very funny, which I advised
him very strongly not to publish if he
wanted anybody to see his movie.
The fact is times have, of course,
changed. We were characterized as
being like Oxbridge, privileged people.
I didn’t come from any kind of privi-
leged background. We poured our way
into the BBC through a back door and
refused to leave.
and a duck are trapped in a bottle. The
master’s lesson, as recounted a bit
drunkenly by the host of a dinner
party, is: “It’s not my duck, it’s not my
bottle, it’s not my problem.” Many of
the characters exist on the precipice of
this realization — they are queasy
about their good fortune, heartsick at
the way “money moves across the
globe at the speed of thought, at the
speed of poison in water, but when will
these people” — refugees — ”be al-
lowed outside the wire enclosures?”
Always they are unsure what to do: “I
was exhausted, though still wide
awake, as I was so often — wide awake
and thinking about things I couldn’t do
anything about. Couldn’t do anything
about. Couldn’t do anything about.”
On the face of it, “Your Duck Is My
Duck” could be regarded as a political-
ly mild book for Eisenberg. The world
intrudes only at the margins — tumult
is hinted at in unnamed countries,
glimpses of unspecified migrants. But
these are stories of painful awakenings
and refusals of innocence. This book
offers no palliatives to its characters or
to its readers — no plan of action. But
it is a compass.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
travel
Where kindness trumps the stunning views
THE 52 PLACES TRAVELER
BY JADA YUAN
If you’re going to lose a laptop on the
streets of a European city in the middle
of a downpour, let it be in Lucerne,
Switzerland.
I’m not quite sure how one of the big-
gest crises of my yearlong 52 Places trip
happened. But I do remember the feel-
ing of coming back to my hotel from a
lovely dinner on the banks of the Reuss
River — where I’d been writing an arti-
cle on said laptop — only to realize that
the bag containing my most important,
most expensive piece of electronic
equipment was gone.
Rain was coming down in sheets. I re-
traced my steps, frantic and drenched,
but came up empty. I could go to the po-
lice in the morning, my hotel reception-
ist told me, but more likely, I’d be lucky.
Swiss people were very honest, she said.
If they find something, they usually give
it back.
I was skeptical. But sure enough, I
woke to an early-morning message in
my Twitter inbox. Had I lost something?
Within 10 minutes, a Lucerne resident
named Anton Meier had shown up at my
hotel by bike, bag in hand. “I saved it
from the rain and from thieves,” he said.
While I gave him a reward, he seemed
far more interested in hearing how my
travels had been going and in recom-
mending his favorite spots in his pictur-
esque, alpine hometown.
And was there anything not to recom-
mend, other than the high prices? I felt
as if I’d been granted a genie’s wish to
build my own wonderland of natural
treasures. I rode on boats or cable cars
nearly every day, enjoying vistas so
beautiful they looked as if they had al-
ready been Photoshopped. What sticks
with me most, though, is the pervasive
Swiss sense of hospitality and human
kindness in Lucerne, from passers-by,
fellow tourists and good people like Mr.
Meier — all of whom went out of their
way to help a solo traveler avert disaster
and feel a little less alone.
EXPLORING THE STARFISH
Lake Lucerne, or Vierwaldstättersee, as
it’s known in German, looks like a four-
legged starfish on a map: sharp tendrils
of water twisting through narrow val-
leys in every direction. In person, the ef-
Famed fish market is moving
BY KATIE LOCKHART
The potent combination of fish and
bleach hit me as I walked into the inner
section of the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo
just after 11 a.m. The market’s famed
tuna auction had long since ended, and
the chefs had gone home with the day’s
best catches. Shopkeepers were check-
ing inventory as forklifts whizzed
passed streams of tourists hoping to get
a final look.
For more than 80 years, 900 licensed
wholesalers at Tsukiji’s inner market
have sold 3,100 tons of fruits, vegetables
and, most famously, fish per day to To-
kyo’s residents. On Sept. 15, the last
group of tourists lined up in the wee
hours of the morning to secure one of 120
coveted spots to witness the final tuna
sold at auction; Sept. 29 was the last day
for visitors before the facility closes to
make room for the 2020 Olympics.
The outer market — a maze of 600
vendors pedaling dried food, tea, sou-
venirs and more — is owned privately,
not by the Tokyo Metro Government,
and will remain in its current space for
tourists to explore. Guided tours of the
outer market with companies like Ur-
ban Adventures and Arigato Japan
Food Tours will start up again at the end
of October.
But the bulk of the action will move to
Toyosu Market, about 1.4 miles from
Tsukiji; it is scheduled to open on Oct. 11,
with tuna auctions starting the same
day. (Tourists will not be allowed to en-
ter the market until an as-yet-undeter-
Shopping for fish at the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. Visitors will not be permitted in the wholesale area in the market’s new location.
fect is even more unreal, as if a Holly-
wood effects studio had made a diorama
of a perfect, tree-covered mountain
range and then spilled a Blue Hawaiian
cocktail all over it.
Most international tourists pop
through Lucerne’s medieval city center
on their way to racking up adventures
all over the country: Interlaken! Bern!
The Matterhorn! I arrived and was im-
mediately overwhelmed with Lucerne
alone. A short walk along the lake to the
city’s renowned Swiss Museum of
Transport on a rainy afternoon took me
at least an hour and a half, over which I
took probably 300 photos.
And I hadn’t even gotten to the moun-
tains.
Logistics made far more sense, once I
gave myself over to the best organized
and most helpful tourism department I
have encountered in all my many
months of travel. The ladies behind the
counter steered me to a three-day Tell-
Pass, which for 210 Swiss francs (about
$216), gave me unlimited transportation
on boats, trains, buses and cable cars in
Central Switzerland — and helped with
my general sense of sticker shock. Con-
sidering that most mountains cost $100
to get to, and get up and down — and
even beer in Switzerland can set you
back $10 — it was an unequivocal steal,
even for someone moving at the quite
reasonable pace of one mountain a day. I
made it up four, for a saving of some
$200.
THE FRIENDS YOU MEET
All I’d heard coming to Lucerne was that
I needed to go to the top of Mount Pila-
tus, the area’s signature peak, which ac-
cording to legend was once home to a
dragon with healing powers and may or
may not contain the grave of Pontius Pi-
late. All I’d been hearing from the tour-
ism office during my first few, very rainy
days, though, was that the summit
would be shrouded in clouds and not
worth my money and effort.
Eager to get out of the city, I finally
took my chances on the lower-elevation
Mount Rigi, which was hardly a down-
grade; it promised a glorious morning
boat ride to Europe’s oldest mountain
railway and a hiking trail lined with
wildflowers. On the way up, I had spot-
ted an intergenerational trio of traveling
American women who seemed to be
having a ton of fun. I tried out my go-to
pickup line for making friends on moun-
mined date late in October.) Unlike at
Tsukiji Market, visitors will not be per-
mitted to enter the wholesale or inter-
mediate wholesale spaces.
The move also means tourists who
want to watch the world’s most prized
fish change hands will no longer require
a 2 a.m. wake-up call. At the new Toyosu
Market, visitors will filter into a desig-
nated standing room area that sits
above the auction floor and watch from
behind glass. “The tuna auction will still
start at 4:30 a.m. and last for about an
“I am anxious about going
to Toyosu. So many things
are still undecided.”
hour. Visitors will no longer need to sign
up beforehand anymore; just be there
on time to score a good view,” said Lau-
ren Shannon, the general manager of
Arigato Japan Food Tours.
Approximately 530 fish wholesalers
will be moving in the coming weeks. For
many, though, the move is still a mys-
tery.
“I am anxious about going to Toyosu.
So many things are still undecided,”
Oyama Akihiro, a fish vendor, said. “The
Tokyo government is less interested in
the details of how to move the market
and more concerned with the Olympic
Games.”
Many vendors and chefs are predict-
ing various problems during the transi-
tion. “The flow of the market will not
Views of and around Lucerne, Switzerland, clockwise from top left: Bürgenstock Hotel at Bürgenstock Resort, where all 102 rooms
have lake views; a night view of Lucerne from a boat; the top of Rigi Kulm lookout on Mount Rigi; the approach to Vitznau by boat.
tain summits: “Hey, would you like me
to take your picture for you?”
Within minutes we were bounding off
to a lookout point, making plans to get a
beer at a ski lodge cafe and debating
whether or not we felt sorry for the cows
grazing on the slopes with bells ding-
work because a 15-minute walk sepa-
rates the fish market and the vegetable
market. And the price of the fish will in-
crease for sure because buyers need to
pay more for new systems and their
stalls,” said Naoyuki Yanagihara, a chef
and vice president of Kinsaryu Yanagi-
hara School of Traditional Japanese Cui-
sine. “There is also only one road to
Toyosu from the Ginza area so there will
be a big traffic jam every day.” (Ginza,
one of Tokyo’s most expensive districts
and an upscale shopping area, is home
to many high-end restaurants.)
Mr. Akihro agreed that logistics will
be an issue. “There are only two gates in
the new market to move product in and
out. There are 12 here at Tsukiji, so that
is another big worry,” he said.
Shinohara Masao, a second-genera-
tion fish stall owner echoed this senti-
ment. “I do not want to go to the new
market because it is inconvenient to get
to and my customers won’t come. Mak-
ing enough money to live is a major con-
cern.”
As for what the empty Tsukiji market
space will become, that, too, is a mys-
tery.
There have been talks about whether
it will be turned into a bus terminal for
the Olympics and later be converted into
a sporting arena with retail shops. There
are also rumors that the market could be
moved back to Tsukiji in 2025 with the
addition of a food theme park. A spokes-
man for the Tokyo Metropolitan Central
Wholesale Market said that decision has
not been made.
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
donging on their necks, as if being fol-
lowed by Will Ferrell in that Blue Öyster
Cult “Saturday Night Live” sketch.
One member of the group, Minnie
Nguyen, who goes by Nhi, told me she’d
gone up to Mount Titlis the day before —
another mountain I had wanted to see
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but had vetoed because of bad weather.
She couldn’t see a thing, she said, but
how incredibly glorious it was to walk
out on a suspension bridge in a canyon
in the middle of a cloud: “It was like fly-
ing in an airplane without any win-
dows!”
COMMUNING WITH DRAGONS
It took me another two days to get to
Mount Titlis, the area’s only publicly ac-
cessible glacier, at an altitude of 9,900
feet. And while the views were as spec-
tacular as promised, the experience felt
like going through a tourism obstacle
course. You step off a rotating cable car
into a blue-lit ice cave, walk across the
suspension bridge, go up and down “the
Ice Flyer” (a ski lift) and go home —
more engineering than nature. To a
snowboarder, the winter wonderland of
mild sledding slopes didn’t appeal. But
for families, it’s perfect. I nearly cried
watching two young boys from Goa
touch snow for the first time.
Spurred on by Ms. Nguyen’s “rain or
no rain” sunny attitude, I also headed to
Mount Pilatus on an iffy weather day, as-
cending via the world’s steepest cog-
wheel railway (48 percent gradient). It
really did look like the realm of dragons,
with views of 73 neighboring peaks from
barren cliffs at the top of the world. On a
platform, a trio of musicians played
wooden alphorn wind instruments,
which stretched the length of two peo-
ple, stacked one on the other, and echoed
to the top of every lookout.
SURFING ON AIR
Had Ms. Nguyen and Erika Brown, an-
other member of that group of travelers,
not raved about paragliding, it wouldn’t
have crossed my mind to go. “It was ex-
pensive, but worth every penny,” Ms.
Brown had told me, and the sentiment
stuck.
I called up their instructor, Zacharias
Konstandakis of Paragliding Lucerne,
and booked a flight (170 to 240 Swiss
francs ($176 to $248), depending on du-
ration, plus 30 francs for pictures and
video).
Mr. Konstandakis is from Crete and
has been paragliding for 30 years, I
learned as he drove me through a lush
farming valley to the village of Eng-
elberg at the base of Mount Titlis —
worth seeing, even if you don’t leave the
ground. After we rode the cable car up,
he strapped us together with a tandem
harness, gave me two simple instruc-
tions — “run, run, run” and “don’t sit” —
and then somehow, without having a
chance to get terrified, I was surfing on
air high over herds of sheep and clusters
of mountain cottages, in front of a
glacier, with a dozen other paragliders
twirling around beside us.
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20 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION