It’s been a hot, desultory summer here in New York City, so, quite naturally, the dominant political controversy of the season has been topless women—in particular the handful, referred to as desnudas, who walk around Times Square clad in thong underwear, high heels, body paint, and nothing else.
Until recently, few paid much attention to the women, who comprise a small part of the carnival-esque atmosphere of the square. But in recent weeks the desnudas have aroused the ire of both Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill DeBlasio, two politicians who haven’t been able to agree on basically anything else. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s perfectly legal for women to go topless in New York. But deBlasio, a self-styled “progressive,” has made no secret of his desire to boot the desnudas out—even if it means uprooting the square’s pedestrian zone and replacing it with regular thoroughfares.
So, in an old-fashioned exercise in participatory journalism, the New York Post reporter Amber Jamieson, went undercover as a desnuda for a day.
Arriving at Times Square early in the day, the Australian-born journalist encountered Chris, a man who paints and keeps watch over the women in exchange for 30 percent of their tips.
Chris told me how it works: first the girls (Saira and Chris’ girlfriend, Amanda, 23) go into Sephora to use the free samples to do their makeup. Then, in the middle of Times Square, they throw on a robe and strip underneath it. Chris would paint our bodies using brushes, nipples first so they’re not exposed too long. His cousin, David, would mind my bag, take photos and be ready to pounce if anyone tried to touch me inappropriately.
How did it go? Aside from dealing with a handful of creeps, Jamieson seemed to enjoy the experience. In the end, she concluded that the city’s complaints about the topless women were “deeply sexist”:
The Naked Cowboy strolls around Times Square wearing only his Y-fronts, placing the hands of female tourists on his butt for a photo (I took one myself on my first trip to the city nine years ago), and he’s regarded as a charming, quintessential New York experience.
But women exercising their legal right to be topless and hustle for money in the world’s center of capitalism—surrounded by advertisements of sexy, half-dressed women—are apparently shameful and inappropriate.
Not everyone is pleased with Jamieson’s stunt. In Gothamist, Ben Yakas criticized the Post for eliding the experiences of the desnudas for whom the practice is a livelihood:
The big problem with the well-intentioned piece is that it's all about personalizing the desnudas experience for a Post readership who apparently aren't interested in the perspectives of the actual women who have been doing this for the last couple years. There are no interviews or quotes in this piece from the women who Jamieson walks around with all day, just as there have been almost no Post pieces featuring their voices at all during this controversy. There aren't even any real photos of the other women.
Whatever the ethics of the Post’s gambit, it seems likely to accomplish its primary goal: extending the life of this summer’s most bizarre controversies.
(Thoughts on this note? Email hello@theatlantic.com and we’ll post the best responses.)
Police killing in Texas: Authorities in Harris County have detained Shannon J. Miles in the “execution-style” murder of Deputy Sheriff Darren H. Goforth on Saturday. Though the motive for the shooting remains “unclear,” police believe Goforth was targeted because he was wearing a uniform. Miles has a lengthy criminal record including charges for resisting arrest, trespassing, and disorderly conduct with a firearm.
Iran sentences two for spying: A court in Iran has sentenced two people to 10 years in prison for spying for Israel and the U.S. but has not identified either of the convicted. It is unclear whether Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post correspondent detained last year and charged with spying, was affected.
A tragedy for Broadway: The musical theater world lost a major talent early Saturday morning, when actor Kyle Jean-Baptiste fell to his death from his mother’s fire escape in Brooklyn in what appears to be “accidental.” The 21-year-old Jean-Baptiste had been the youngest actor to portray Jean Valjean in the Broadway production of Les Miserables, and, more significantly, the first African American to do so. A recording from his first performance:
Neurologist, writer, pianist, swimmer, weightlifter, mountaineer, motorcycle traveler. This list of vocations characterizes the remarkable life of Dr. Oliver Sacks, who died of cancer today at the age of 82.
Born in Britain but a long-time resident of New York, Sacks is best known for his written meditations on the human brain and its peculiar defects. In his 1973 book Awakenings, later adapted into a film starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro, Sacks profiled a group of patients suffering from a rare form of encephalitis that had rendered them into a seemingly permanent catatonic state—only to be temporarily revived. Eleven years later, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat introduced readers to a variety of neurological maladies endured by his patients, whom Sacks depicted with humor, empathy, and grace.
But the fundamental reason that hallucinations -- whatever their cause or modality -- seem so real is that they deploy the very same systems in the brain that actual perceptions do. When one hallucinates voices, the auditory pathways are activated; when one hallucinates a face, the fusiform face area, normally used to perceive and identify faces in the environment, is stimulated.
For many more samples of the most notable writings from Sacks, head over to this reading list compiled by my colleague Adrienne. It includes a Fresh Air interview from 1987 in which Sacks talks to Terry Gross about the relationship between the body and the mind—especially among patients whose ability to connect the two is altered:
In May, Michael Roth described Sacks’ approach to his patients, whom he continued to treat despite literary fame and success.
Sacks, often drawing on his own suffering, doesn’t romanticize the horror that many of his patients have faced over the years. He just recognizes that “there is no prescribed path of recovery”; patients must create their own solutions to the challenges they face. Sacks has deep affinities with those poets and scientists who are at home with contingency, with the fact that our complex brains, and our complex lives, can come together in ways that we make meaningful through narrative reconstruction but that could never has been predicted in advance.
During his career, Sacks investigated his own mental health with the same rigor that he applied to his practice. In 2013, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, he published a moving account of the aging process in the New York Times. “I often feel that life is about to begin,” he wrote, “only to realize that it’s almost over.”
“I have no belief in (or desire for) any post-mortem existence, other than in the memories of friends and the hope that some of my books may still ‘speak’ to people after my death.”
Given his wide popularity and influence, this is a hope that Dr. Sacks will surely realize.
Vin Scully sits in his booth during the third inning between the Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs on Friday, Aug. 28, 2015. (Mark J. Terrill / AP)
Vin Scully, the longtime Los Angeles Dodgers announcer and perhaps the most beloved sports broadcaster in the U.S., announced last night that he’ll be returning to the booth for his 67th season next year:
The 87-year-old Scully made the announcement through comedian Jimmy Kimmel in the middle of the second inning of the team's 4-1 win against the Chicago Cubs on Friday night. Kimmel broke the news on the Dodger Stadium video boards using cue cards, one of the final one saying “(at least),” referencing that Scully could work beyond just next season. His last card read: “God bless us everyone.”
On the surface, the most impressive thing about Scully is his longevity. When the 21-year-old redhead from The Bronx broadcast his first Dodgers game in 1950, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Bob Feller were active. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle had not yet started their careers. Cy Young, a 19th century star whose name is synonymous with pitching greatness, was still alive. The Dodgers’ own Jackie Robinson had broken baseball’s color barrier just three years earlier—and the majority of the league’s 16 teams had still never employed a black player. No city west of the Mississippi River would have its own team for eight more years, when Scully accompanied Brooklyn’s Dodgers west to Los Angeles.
But Scully is more than just an announcer who happened to stick around for a long time.
He’s also probably the best baseball broadcaster to ever live, and a man whose influence is felt across the American sports landscape. Scully began his career in an era when the vast majority of baseball games were not televised, and his style—conversational rather than kinetic—was perfectly suited to the medium.
Baseball is a game of stillness, where slight, almost imperceptible shifts carry great consequences. A Scully broadcast includes the standard description of home runs, ground ball outs, and intentional walks. But you also learn that the glare of the afternoon sun caused the right fielder to misjudge a fly ball, or that the pitcher shook off the catcher’s sign three times before throwing a slider in the dirt.
As with other broadcasters, Scully tells you what each player’s batting average is. But you’re also told that the center fielder’s father was a country doctor in Indiana, or that the shortstop toiled in the minor leagues for a full decade before earning his chance in the majors. It is these details that, whether you’re lying in bed with the radio on or stuck in traffic on the 405, turn each Scully broadcast into a vivid work of art.
More importantly, Scully also knows when to be silent. Consider one of his most famous broadcasts, that of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game on September 9, 1965. As the great left-handed pitcher struck out batter after batter in the later innings, Scully expertly conveyed the sense of excitement and wonder permeating Dodger Stadium. But when Koufax retired Harvey Kuenn to preserve the rare feat, Scully said nothing—the crowd’s reaction was all the color he needed. The remarkable conclusion to the 50-year-old game is preserved here:
As televised baseball spread in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, Scully was frequently assigned to the sport’s grandest events, and throughout his career he would cover 25 different World Series. These days are long gone—nowadays, Scully limits himself to Dodgers games on the West Coast. But to those fans lucky enough to listen to his broadcasts, it’s clear that the octogenarian isn’t coasting on his reputation. Scully knows the game’s contemporary players as well as the tens of thousands he’s described in the past, and is never caught unprepared. And in an age when announcers increasingly resort to forced folksiness or blatant homerism, Scully’s quiet professionalism remains as vital as ever.
Scully has intimated that 2016 will likely be his last season. He said last night, “I do feel in my bones … that will be enough.”
Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed are seen behind bars before hearing the verdict at a court in Cairo, Egypt on August 29, 2015. (Asmaa Waguih / Reuters)
An Egyptian court today sentenced three journalists from al Jazeera to at least three years in prison for “broadcasting false news,” a charge that human rights advocates claim is false. The verdict came as a surprise to the defendants and observers alike:
The journalists, Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste, had said they were expecting to be exonerated or sentenced to time already served. Egyptian officials have strongly suggested they were eager to be rid of the case, which had become a source of international embarrassment for the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, highlighting its sweeping crackdown on opponents as well as freedom of expression after the military takeover in 2013.
The two journalists who hold Egyptian citizenship—Fahmy and Mohamed—were remanded into custody while Greste, an Australian, had been deported in February.
The three were detained in December 2013 during a crackdown ordered by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who wrested control of Egypt from Mohamed Morsi that year and has ruled the country ever since. al-Sisi, who has sent thousands to prison for political reasons, has little tolerance for independent journalism. Earlier this month, Egypt passed an “anti-terrorism” law that imposes steep fines for anyone who strays from government statements in publishing.
Traditionally, international journalists have avoided punishment in Egypt, a country with virtually no history of press freedom. But al Jazeera aroused al-Sisi's ire with its critical coverage of the former general's coup against Morsi. The network is headquartered in and financed by Qatar, a Persian Gulf emirate whose government backed the Morsi regime. al Jazeera recently shut down a channel dedicated to covering Egypt, a move thought to be a reason behind Greste's release.
Mohamed Fahmy, who holds dual Egyptian/Canadian citizenship, has retained human rights attorney Amal Clooney as his lawyer. On Saturday, Clooney condemned the verdict, saying it “sends a dangerous message that there are judges in Egypt who will allow their courts to become instruments of political repression and propaganda.”
Two soldiers made history by graduating from Army Ranger School, the Dow Jones industrial average entered correction territory, a prominent Democrat came out in support of the Iran deal, and more ...
The militant group executes a Syrian antiquities expert, the social-networking site for philanderers is hacked, the Army private is found guilty of violating prison rules, and more…
Sunday’s crash of a Trigana Air flight in the remote Papua region is the third major aviation disaster endured by the Southeast Asian country in the last 12 months.
The Colorado Court of Appeals rules against a Christian baker; the yuan is devalued for a third straight day; and El Nino could provide the West with much-needed drought relief.
The former secretary of state turns over her private email server to the FBI; a massive explosion in the Chinese city of Tianjin kills seven people and injured hundreds of others; and the Navajo Nation vows legal action against the EPA over a spill.
