Month: July 2017

The Lawyer, the Addict – The New York Times

One of the most comprehensive studies of lawyers and substance abuse was released just seven months after Peter died. That 2016 report, from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and the American Bar Association, analyzed the responses of 12,825 licensed, practicing attorneys across 19 states.

Over all, the results showed that about 21 percent of lawyers qualify as problem drinkers, while 28 percent struggle with mild or more serious depression and 19 percent struggle with anxiety. Only 3,419 lawyers answered questions about drug use, and that itself is telling, said Patrick Krill, the study’s lead author and also a lawyer. “It’s left to speculation what motivated 75 percent of attorneys to skip over the section on drug use as if it wasn’t there.”

In Mr. Krill’s opinion, they were afraid to answer.

Of the lawyers that did answer those questions, 5.6 percent used cocaine, crack and stimulants; 5.6 percent used opioids; 10.2 percent used marijuana and hash; and nearly 16 percent used sedatives. Eighty-five percent of all the lawyers surveyed had used alcohol in the previous year. (For comparison sake, about 65 percent of the general population drinks alcohol.)

Nearly 21 percent of the lawyers that said they had used drugs in the previous year reported “intermediate” concern about their drug use. Three percent had “severe” concerns.

The results can be interpreted two ways, said Mr. Krill, who is also a licensed drug and alcohol counselor and whose consulting firm, Krill Strategies, works with law firms on drug abuse and mental health issues. “One is that a significantly smaller percentage of attorneys in the study are using drugs as compared to alcohol. We don’t think that’s true.”

The Lawyer, the Addict – The New York Times

These haunting animal photos aim to make you reconsider a visit to the zoo – The Washington Post

Jo-Anne McArthur, a Canadian photographer and animal rights activist, does not deny that her new book could be called “one-sided.” That is sort of the point.

The images in “Captive” were taken at zoos across five continents, but they don’t include depictions of handlers bottle-feeding baby hippos, giving pandas ultrasounds or even cleaning cages. They’re taken from the perspective of the public, and, McArthur said, aim to show the animals as “individuals,” as opposed to representatives of their species. The photos are unusual and at times arresting, featuring solitary animals juxtaposed against gawking crowds, suburbia and the barriers that keep them enclosed.

The book comes off as quite anti-zoo, but McArthur says she hopes it will count as a contribution to an escalating public conversation about animals in captivity — one that has been highlighted by uproar over Sea World orcas and the killing of Harambe the gorilla, but that is also churning quietly among zoo managers.

What follows is a selection of photos from McArthur’s book, paired with her captions, and a Q and A about the book. All images were taken in 2016, when McArthur was on assignment in Europe for the Born Free Foundation, a wildlife advocacy organization.

These haunting animal photos aim to make you reconsider a visit to the zoo – The Washington Post

French moms aren’t superior parents—they just have it easier — Quartz

The world has long been plagued by the myth of French women. We can’t seem to get enough of what makes them so effortlessly beautiful, impossibly fashionable, and perfect in every way.

Reverence for la femme française is on high, now that France has elected a pro-female president who wants to engage the world, not insult it, to tackle climate change, not question its existence, and who sees women for who they are, not what they look like.

French moms aren’t superior parents—they just have it easier — Quartz

China’s Mistress-Dispellers | The New Yorker

Yu Ruojian was pleased to learn that his target ran a sex shop. Someone who worked in retail would be used to talking to strangers, and it would be easy, posing as a customer in such an intimate store, to bring the conversation around to personal matters. In March last year, he visited the store, in Wuxi, a city about seventy miles from Shanghai, where he lives. He told the proprietor, a gregarious woman in her forties whom I’ll call Wang, that he was looking for herbal remedies to help a friend whose marital relations were hampered by shyness. They chatted for half an hour before exchanging contact details. “I’ll be back to pester you soon enough,” Yu said as he left. “You’d better!” Wang responded, unaware that she’d walked into the first in a series of carefully laid traps.

A month earlier, Yu had heard from a woman in her fifties, the wife of a factory manager in Wuxi, who explained that her husband was having an affair with Wang. She had tolerated it for years, but now she’d found that he had spent more than two hundred thousand yuan—thirty thousand dollars—on her, savings that should have been going toward their old age and a house for their son.

China’s Mistress-Dispellers | The New Yorker

What Makes a Parent? – The New Yorker

The next day, Wednesday, a shipping company collected Hamilton’s belongings. She had what she thought would be her final photo shoot in New York: a portrait of Emma Forbes, a British TV presenter, for Hello! Gunn later sent her pictures of Abush having fun at the beach.

At one o’clock on Thursday, Hamilton was at home cleaning, expecting to leave for Fire Island in the evening, when she got a call from a woman who introduced herself as Nancy Chemtob. A New York family and matrimonial lawyer, Chemtob founded her own firm in her twenties; in the two and a half decades since, she has represented such clients as Bobby Flay, Star Jones, and Diandra Douglas, the ex-wife of Michael Douglas, in divorce proceedings. Her style is amused and unsentimental, and she has a strong Long Island accent. (Today, when Hamilton and Chemtob refer to each other, they use inexpert, mocking approximations of the other’s accent.)

Chemtob told Hamilton that she represented Kelly Gunn. Hamilton only half-registered what came next. Chemtob recalls telling Hamilton that Gunn had just asked a New York court to recognize her as one of Abush’s parents and award her joint legal and physical custody. As an interim measure, Gunn was seeking a restraining order that would stop Hamilton from taking him out of the country. Chemtob told Hamilton that, at 2:30 p.m., she must appear before a matrimonial judge on Centre Street. She should bring Abush’s American and British passports.

What Makes a Parent? – The New Yorker

Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? – Scientific American

The digital revolution is in full swing. How will it change our world? The amount of data we produce doubles every year. In other words: in 2016 we produced as much data as in the entire history of humankind through 2015. Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel. Soon, the things around us, possibly even our clothing, also will be connected with the Internet. It is estimated that in 10 years’ time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours. Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money.

Everything will become intelligent; soon we will not only have smart phones, but also smart homes, smart factories and smart cities. Should we also expect these developments to result in smart nations and a smarter planet?

Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? – Scientific American

‘Fauxcest’: The Disturbing Rise of Incest-Themed Porn

Utter the word “incest” and most people will shudder, ill at the thought of being intimate with a family member. The fantasy of incest isn’t socially acceptable; it’s one of the extreme taboos, which could help explain why titles such as Forbidden Family Affairs, Mother Son Secrets and My New White Step-Daddy are topping the porn sales charts. Fictional incest porn, better known as fauxcest, is on the rise—a dark, dirty desire that’s certainly not for everyone.

Over a century ago, Sigmund Freud suggested most people have unconscious incestuous urges that need to be repressed. Though most of Freud’s theories have been discredited, if recent data on porn viewing habits is any indicator, he may have been onto something. Leading adult content providers GameLink.com reported a 178 percent average increase in the consumption of “family role-play porn,” while 1 in 10 purchases made by young adults on the site were for fauxcest titles.

Feminist pornographer Jacky St. James has embraced the controversial genre, calling it one of her favorites to direct. “It’s the one taboo that can’t really be explored in real life safely. This will be forbidden no matter what you do,” she says. “Because of that there is this allure of the untouchable, and what’s untouchable to us is often the most appealing.”

‘Fauxcest’: The Disturbing Rise of Incest-Themed Porn