Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

About Marc Herman

Marc Herman is a writer in Barcelona. He is the author of The Shores of Tripoli.

Human Rights Watch’s Take on Obama’s Drone Speech Is Worth Reading

drone-uav

Yesterday's presidential address on the set of security policies collectively called the War on Terror contained lots of clear statements—and yet no one seems to agree on what, if anything, they meant. Among the more detailed responses this morning was this statement from Human Rights Watch. The organization's investigators have on several occasions won access to the Guantanamo prison, and the group has one of the more consistent track records on researching the legal issues surrounding unmanned vehicles, the so-called "drone war." In its summary, the group flags a fine, but ... Read More

Do (Cheap) Mid-Century Schoolhouses Worsen Disasters Like the Moore Tornado?

moore-tornado

Over the past 24 hours, focus has turned to everything from Oklahoma's economy to its geology to its plains culture to explain why the devastated suburb of Moore didn't have "safe room" shelters in its buildings, including two destroyed elementary schools where at least seven children died. But what about the school structures themselves? "I'm told these schools were built in the 1960s," said Bill Coulbourne, a structural engineer with the American Society of Civil Engineers. Coulbourne oversaw teams assessing damage after Moore's previous tornado disaster in 1999. He was on-scene ... Read More

A Survivor of the Deadliest Tornado in U.S. History Tells Her Tale

tri-state-tornado

The ghoulish, ongoing tornado storm in the midwest comes a few days before the anniversary of the Joplin, Missouri, tornado disaster, which leveled 25 percent of the city and killed nearly 200 people on May 22, 2011. However, memories can prove short—even for events like Joplin and this week's mile-wide twisters. In 1925, the worst tornado disaster in history hit the upper Midwest. The Tri-State Tornado still holds records for spending the longest time on the ground, where it left a swath 219 miles long. It killed nearly 700 people. "You know, I can’t remember that it lightninged and ... Read More

What Can’t It Do? European Austerity Policies Now Giving the World Anti-Matter, Clones

dolly-sheep

Most people associate brain drain with developing nations. The idea being: a country that can't support its most talented minds will lose them to places that can. Most don't come back. That's now happening in southern Europe. Two cases just this week showed how the need to save five figures in salaries now could cost cash-strapped nations nine or 10 figures in valuable research down the line. Earlier this week we heard the ridiculous story of 30-year-old Diego Martinez Santos, a modest genius from Galicia, Spain, who has been doing research in Holland. Santos had just been voted "the most ... Read More

Who Was Benoit Gysemburgh?

gysem

When he died earlier this month at the sadly premature age of 59 (cancer), the French photojournalist had spent most of his life as a senior photographer with the famous magazine Paris Match. There, he created some of the last century's most iconic images—if you happen to be French. This close-up of an Israeli soldier fighting in the 1982 Lebanon war was among his most recognized. He covered the Rwandan genocide in a way that made it possible to look directly at such an event, and understand it slightly better, which is no easy thing to do. He is credited with tracking down and getting a ... Read More

Mao’s Granddaughter Is Filthy Rich. Who Cares?

mao-wife

Last week, Kong Dongmei, wife of an auction house boss and insurance magnate in China, appeared with her husband on a widely-followed list of the 500 richest people in China. Kong is the granddaughter of Mao Zedong, who you have to figure wasn't big on insurance company fortunes. Or private fortunes at all. Cue shouts of hypocrisy. Kong is worth five billion yuan or about $815 million. So she's not George Soros-type loaded. But China is not a wealthy country, taken on a per-citizen basis. World Bank statistics from 2011 say China's gross national income per capita is less than $5,000, and ... Read More

Study: If You’re a Narcissist, It’s Not Your Generation’s Fault. You’re Just a Narcissist.

millennials-cover

It's not shocking that a magazine called Time would be interested in the march of human generations. But the weekly's much-discussed cover story on the late-'80s to mid-'90s "millennials," Generation Me Me Me glossed past (as do the inevitable retorts) the possibility that the year of one's birth just isn't very important. A broad study three years ago, based on perhaps the largest available data sets measuring American youth, was skeptical that "generational" cohesion—of the sort we obsess over—exists at all. In 2010 psychologists Kali H. Trzesniewski of the University of Western ... Read More

Does It Matter That the CIA Script-Doctored ‘Zero Dark Thirty’?

zero-dark-thirty

Much ado today about Gawker's Freedom of Information Act-driven look at how the Zero Dark Thirty script got written. The Gawker item argues, persuasively, that the CIA script-doctored the movie. We're interested in this because, back in January, former CIA targeting officer (and recent David Letterman sparring partner) Nada Bakos gave Pacific Standard readers her assessment of whether the movie, and its version of post-9/11 intelligence work, differed from the reality. It did, an awful lot, she said. A first-person article like Nada's, and a Hollywood movie have different goals, of course. ... Read More

Should We Retire the Word ‘Sweatshop’?

sweatshop-bangladesh

The casualty count topped 600 in Bangladesh this morning, more than a week after a textile manufacturing complex collapsed outside Dhaka. After an initial spate of weirdly detached debate, some concrete thinking on the challenges of preventing such tragedies has started to bubble. Take this morning's Baltimore Sun: Last year, a fire in one Bangladeshi factory that killed 112 people prompted the Walt Disney Co., the world's largest licenser of branded merchandise manufactured abroad, to pull out of the country entirely in order to avoid negative publicity associated with its inhumane labor ... Read More

A Note on the Brush Fires in Camarillo

california-fire

I grew up not far from the part of Southern California that's burning out of control right now. Camarillo is about 20 miles away from my mom's place. Environmentally it's the same place, and with a good wind a fire like the current one will jump 20 miles faster than you can get from your living room to your car. A chaparral fire is something to see, if you haven't. I saw a fire catch a cow once. Sure, a cow's not such a fast creature. But they have self preservation instincts like anyone would. Cows used to graze on a sloping hill covered in live oaks above a vacant bit of meadow we called ... Read More