newsweek - 02 14 2020

02.14.2020

Is the Cold War Back? / Kobe’s Life Lessons

EXTRAORDINAIRE.YOUTH IS BACK.

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22PandemicThe Coronavirus outbreak shows how unprepared we are for biological threats. Is there anything we can do?

BY MARGARET HAMBURG

AND MARK SMOLINSKI

34Is the Cold War Back?While the press and the public focus on Iran, the U.S. military prepares for war with Russia.

BY WILLIAM M. ARKINFor more headlines, go to NEWSWEEK.COM

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DEPARTMENTS

In Focus

06 Melbourne, Australia

Cross Court

08 London No To Brexit

Ayahualtempa, Mexico

Young Vigilante

Elazig, Turkey Rescue Squad

Periscope

10 Advice From Kobe The Late, Great Laker

On Business and Life

16 The Trouble With Capitalism?

Blame Money Guys Like Me

18 Unfriendly Skies ICE and United,

Delta and American

20 Talking Points Mark Zuckerberg,

Jared Kushner and more

Culture

42 Post-Grammy Listening List

Artists To Watch In 2020

46 Uncharted Fave Subways

48 Parting Shot Stephanie Beatriz

GETTING AROUND

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Following an “unprecedented peace offensive [which] had drawn only ridicule from Hanoi,” President Lyndon Johnson announced

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LONDON

B Y

JORDAN HARBINGER

@jordanharbinger


Life and Business

According to Kobe

After his basketball career ended in 2016, Kobe Bryant stayed hard at work creating his second

act. Here’s what he learned along the way

INTERVIEW

“Well, that’s it, it’s all over,

it’s finished!” —Nigel Farage » P. 20

I l l u s t r a t i o n b y A L E X F I N E

a lot has been said since kobe bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died in

a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, on Jan-uary 26. The legendary 18-time All-Star basketball player was a version of the Bryant the world knew well, of course. We also knew about his Oscar, his interest in creating children’s books and his other work from his company, Granity Stu-dios, a multimedia company focused on new ways to tell stories revolving around sports. We didn’t know as much about how he took the same passions he brought to the game of

basketball and applied them in his new life as an entrepreneur and CEO.

Lucky for us, in a podcast episode that aired last September, Newsweek contributor Jordan Harbin-ger sat down with him and talked all about Kobe 2.0—from the motivational lessons he learned from then-assistant Los Angeles Lakers coach Tex Win-

ter to studying how another super-star, Taylor Swift, stays at the top of the heap. (For the full broadcast, go to JordanHarbinger.com, Episode 249.)

Here are edited excerpts, and high-lights, of that conversation:

Periscope


INTERVIEW

“Mistakes? You got to go, you’ve got to

move forward. All right, cool. That’s

done. Let’s go.”

Kobe on… Basketball and StorytellingThe disciplines are completely differ-ent, but the structure is the same in terms of the process. The process of writing or crafting the story or novel or film is the same process [as] how you craft the game, how you build game from day to day. It’s the same kind of blueprint, although you’re building two completely different homes. I enjoy the process of cre-ation. It’s no different than basket-ball. I enjoyed playing. And I got very lucky that when I stepped away from the game of basketball: I found some-thing that I love equally.

Creating Something NewI never used others for competitive fuel. I would only do that for that extra, like, 2 percent at the end; the other 98 percent came from within, just from the love of playing and the love of figuring things out. So that’s what I do here; it’s the love of creating something. And I’m really excited because I feel like we’re cre-ating something new. The world does not have stories like [we’re creating], sports fantasy stories. So I become very excited about getting those out into the market.

The ‘Fire’I knew I wanted to win five, six, seven championships—that was my goal. No matter [what people] threw at me, my [own] expectations were higher. You can’t control that passion; you need to keep those flames burning. There’s nothing you can do about it. You don’t really have much of a choice: You wake up in the morning, and you go. Even if you tried to dial it back, it’ll just build up and up. When you go on vacation, you say, I’m going to take my mind off of it. I’m not going to think about it. You can do that for a couple

of days, maybe three. Then when you get back to it, all of a sudden it’s like things just pour out of you.

Attention to DetailWe try to handle things with great care. When you handle things with great care, you have no choice but to look at every single detail. In the books that we create, in the films that we create, we look over every scene, comb through every line. We go through everything. You don’t want to break the magic. I did the same thing in basketball as we do here. You’ve got to obsess over every little thing. When parents pick up a book, try to decide what book they want to buy for their children, or a kid picks up a book, we want them to [know] that somebody put a lot of thought and care into it. Generally, in the children’s book space, you just make books as cheaply as you can make and then try them out.

Obsessive HiringI have great people who know what the hell they’re doing. I didn’t go to film school. I don’t know produc-tion schedules or SAG [Screen Actors Guild] rules. I don’t know that stuff. But I have people who do. You trust them to do the best that they can with lighting and things of that nature. My direction is always: Do not break the magic. We don’t com-promise that.

Everything comes from this world. Everything has purpose, and every-thing must be to the best of your abil-ity. My job is really to make sure that, when you work here, you’re tasked with challenging yourself to do the best job you can, and that means you have to be honest. Be brave. Look in the mirror and say, “I can do better.” It’s got to be tough working for some-body who wants every percent out of everything, but also go, “Oh, I’ve got to tell him that this is the wrong deci-sion.” So you have to build trust with your team so that they can look you in the face and go, “You know what? I see where your head’s at, but that is a bad idea.”

The people we have here are all obsessives. I don’t have to say [go] over every detail until it’s right. That’s already in them. So when they come here, [it’s like]: Oh, thank God I can work in the company that’s going to obsess over every single detail.

[This approach] comes from one of our past coaches, Tex Winter. When we used to watch game film, he was pretty brutal on us as players. But he always said, “I’m not criticizing the person, I’m criticizing the act. So remove yourself from that, remove the ego from this process, just focus on the act. The goal is to help us all become better.”

The challenging part is continuing to find those people.


KOBE’S WORLDLower left: Kobe and

his wife, Vanessa, with daughters Gianna (top) and Natalia.

Clockwise from top: Coaching in South

Korea; backing down Michael Jordan, back

in the day; and rocking out with Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift, Role ModelI think it’s important to listen to people who do great things. Taylor’s been at the top of her game for a very, very long time. How and why? How did she write? How did she get into that mental space to be able to create things over and over and over? It’s a lot of pressure for her to follow up a No. 1 album with a better album.

I don’t care if you like her music or you don’t like her music. Look at what she’s doing. It’s unbelievable to be able to pull that off over and over and over and over. So I’ll look at things like that to try to learn from them as much as

I can. She’s a sweet kid. I mean, she was a sweetheart to my girls before she even blew up and became Taylor Swift, so that’s why I like her. If she needs anything from me, I’m always there. But you can’t have that level of consistent success and not be a killer. It’s impossible.

Setting ExamplesYou can’t talk your children into work-ing hard. That’s one thing that drives me crazy—[when] parents come up to me on the street, or when I’m at the sports academy [the Mamba Sports Academy, Bryant’s joint-venture

training facility], and say, OK, how can I get my kid to work hard? What do I need to tell them? Can you talk to my kid? I say, Listen, it’s not some-thing that you can talk through. It’s a behavioral thing; you have to get up every day and do the work. Consis-tently do the work.

My kids’ volleyball, basketball, schoolwork—they work every day, and that’s how you instill it in them, where it becomes a behavioral thing and it doesn’t matter what they decide to do [as adults]. Like if Gianna decides to not play basketball when she grows up, it’s fine, but she understands the dis-cipline that it takes to work at some-thing every single day. So whether she wants to be a writer, a director, a doc-tor, a lawyer, she’ll have those charac-teristics. It’s a behavior.

Also, it’s [about] observing you [work hard]—not just me, my wife too. It’s her commitment to the children and making sure that they’re on point, [on] schedule, [doing their] school-work. Everything is sharp, everything is there, every single day, [like] seeing me get up, train and work hard.

Your Inner VoiceIt’s [about] how you negotiate with yourself. That’s the biggest thing—the mental side. But what does that really mean? [I’m talking about] the thoughts that happen in your mind when you’re going through a compet-itive situation or you’re facing a tight deadline. You still don’t have the idea yet. What happens inside? Do you talk yourself out of it? Do you say, “OK, it won’t be a big deal [if I don’t] do it” or

“I don’t have to get up on a Tuesday morning and go in and hit the track? What does this one day really mean in the long scheme of things anyway?”

When you have those conversations with yourself, are you able to negotiate your way out of that little voice telling

Periscope


INTERVIEW

“You can’t have that level of consistent

success and not be a killer. It’s impossible.”

you it’s not that important, or does that little voice get the best of you? That’s what separates people [who are] going to do great things versus people who don’t, or people that do great things but in an inconsistent way.

[Take] my basketball team [Bryant coached his daughter Gianna’s team]. For example, I have the girls run lines. I had a parent who’s encouraging his daughter: “Come on, you can do it, you can do it, dig deep, dig deep.” After practice, I go to him and say, You know when she’s doing those line drills, don’t say anything, because there’s a conversation that’s happening inside of her head. She’s talking to her-self, trying to pump herself up. She’s already having those conversations. So for an outside voice to come in to give her guidance—and give her the push to keep going—actually interrupts her process. Just let her be, let her figure it out herself, because as they go through life, we’re not going to be here all the

time. Kids have to be able to navigate those things themselves.

Mistakes and Letting GoWe don’t want missteps, but they’ll happen. It’s fine. We all make the same mistakes. Oprah told me that she’s made a lot of the same mistakes that I’ve made [when she] first started her studio. Walt Disney built Disney, and [people think] everything was perfect and he made every right decision. [But actually] he signed some really bad contracts. He was financially really struggling, and it’s OK.

There’s literally nothing I can do other than look at why I made a

decision and what factors fooled me into making the wrong decision. You try to process that for the next time, kind of read the tea leaves. That’s it. You’ve got to go, you’ve got to move for-ward. All right, cool. That’s done. Let’s go.

Owning Your Fear[After an injury], thinking: Damn, I’m done; I don’t know if I can come back from this or my career could be over. Then [I think]: What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I had those [fears]. But I think what I learned at an early age [was] you accept them versus fighting them. If you’re nervous or scared about a situation [don’t go],

“Nah, there’s nothing to be scared of.” [You go], “Oh shit [it’s there].” That’s fine. That’s OK. You give [the fear] a hug, embrace it. Then you ask, What are you going to do about it?

His Kids, Aging and MortalityWhen Bianca was born and Capri was born [the youngest of Bryant’s four daughters], it was an odd mix of pure happiness and fulfillment, but at the same time, a little sadness because I knew that my two older girls were going to age. Of course, you know they’re going to age, but [you start thinking] when Bianca and Coco are 6 and 4, Natalia is going to be 20, Gianna is going to be 17, and I’m like, Ah. It just puts things in perspective.

Time has no mercy. I wish I had a TiVo button to pause it for a second.

Newsweek contributor Jordan Harbinger is the host of THE JORDAN

HARBINGER SHOW, where he deconstructs the playbooks of the world’s most success-ful authors, entrepreneurs and artists.

POD TALKING Kobe and Jordan Harbinger discuss how his basketball skills informed his second act, among other things, on an episode of the podcast host’s self-titled show last September.

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Periscope


“The U.S. has gotten the redistribution part down,

Confessions of a Money Man

The problem isn’t capitalism. It’s capitalists like me

i am a capitalist because I remember socialism.

I was converted to capitalism by a few years at the University of Chicago and a few decades working interna-tionally and seeing socialism up close and personal. Until recently, I was confident that we need not worry about trying that experiment again because socialism had been tested and had failed. It looks like I was wrong. Socialism is on the rise. Don’t blame Bernie and Elizabeth. Blame ourselves. Here’s why.

The version of capitalism we have implemented is a flawed one. Capital-ism is based on the idea that enlight-ened self-interest and free markets produce the best possible alloca-tion of resources and opportunities. When socialist economies began to fail in the late ‘70s, capitalists fig-ured that if less socialist regulation was good, none at all would be even better. We’ve been working toward that end ever since. According to the Financial Times, 2018 had the lowest enforcement of antitrust regulation in almost a half-century. Even Adam Smith argued that capitalism needs rules. Without them, capitalism quickly dissolves into cronyism and eventually Russian-style kleptocracy.

We also rigged the system.Capitalism is a $30 trillion game

of Monopoly, with few winners and many losers. That’s okay. That’s the

nature of the game. But we’ve fixed it to make sure the same people win all the time. We’ve created a two-tier educational system that stymies upward mobility. We have taxation that lets capitalists pay too little for the public resources that led to their success. We’ve put in laws that protect industries and shield corporations from true competition. And we have played off one disadvantaged group against another. What we have now is a game where some players get extra rolls of the die and their own stack of Get Out of Jail Free cards.

We have been hypocrites about socialism. At its core, socialism is redistribution of wealth by the gov-ernment. As Karl Marx put it, “to each according to his needs.” The U.S. has gotten the redistribution part down, but in our

case we redistribute to each accord-ing to his voting clout—that is, we transfer wealth from urban areas to rural ones, to farmers, to older peo-ple and to industries with enormous lobbying budgets, like Big Pharma. All the while denying that’s what we’re doing. We’re increasingly being called out by have-nots who want a turn at the trough, like The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson who asks, “Boomers have socialism. Why not millennials?” If capitalists are against socialism, then we need to be against it all the time. If we are not really against it, then we need to stop demonizing people like Bernie Sanders and Eliz-abeth Warren.

We have refused to listen to crit-icism, especially around income inequality. Technically, everyone in America (and most people in the world) are much better off since the ascendancy of capitalism. But they don’t feel better off. It’s biology. Let’s say tomorrow morning I drive across

B Y

SAM HILL

OPINION

F E B R U A R Y 1 4 , 2 0 2 0


but in our case we redistribute to each according to his voting clout.”

the street to Randy’s house and drop off a million dollars and then head down to George’s and drop off 10 million. You’d think Randy would be pretty happy. But I doubt it. Instead, he’ll come over and ask why George got more. According to the journal Science, the brain is more respon-sive to relative wealth than absolute wealth. Rather than trying to under-stand why people are frustrated, we have, for the most part, dismissed complaints about the wealth gap as sour grapes, or in the case of con-gresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cor-tez, as childish naivete.

And throughout it all, we have been less than gracious. Instead of being modest about our good for-tune, we have often been boastful and

accused the less fortunate of bringing it on themselves through sloth, prof-ligacy or being unwilling to take risks.

Principled, fair capitalism remains the best and fairest system for every-one. It is far superior to socialism,

“democratic” or otherwise, particu-larly for the poor and disadvantaged. Socialism would reduce inequality in America not by lifting the poorest up, but by forcing everyone toward a miserable mediocrity. (Although prob-ably not billionaires. They’d move to Monte Carlo.) However, principled,

fair capitalism isn’t really on the menu. We have created a type of capitalism and a class of capitalists that are very hard to like. If we want to know why socialism is making a comeback, we need only look in the mirror.

Sam Hill is, among other things, a NEWSWEEK contributor, best-selling author and a consultant.

Periscope

F E B R U A R Y 1 4 , 2 0 2 0

IMMIGRATION

HOMECOMINGS A United jet (left) on the ground in Chicago. (Above) Deportees cover their faces after arriving in Guatemala City on November 21, 2019.

B Y

CHANTAL DA SILVA

@chantaladasilva

Flying the Unfriendly SkiesU.S immigration authorities used commercial airlines like United, Delta and American to send deportees to Central America

the u.s. immigration and cus-toms Enforcement (ICE) agency

bought more than 1,200 tickets, some possibly at discounted rates, on sched-uled commercial flights by United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Airlines to deport people to Cen-tral America in just over a year, data obtained by Newsweek reveals. The airlines supplemented ICE’s chartered deportation flights, most of those via charter operators Swift Air and World Atlantic Airlines. Newsweek got the information via a Freedom of Infor-mation Act request.

The data from ICE shows commer-cial airlines were used for deporta-tions to Central America in at least 1,386 cases between January 1, 2019 and January 16, 2020. Of those flights,

and Copa did not respond to requests for comment.

The majority of the flights were used to deport Central American migrants and asylum seekers to Northern Triangle countries, with 605 flights bound for Honduras, 429 to Guatemala and 79 to El Salvador. About 150 of the flights were headed to San Jose, Costa Rica, while another 100 were bound for Belize City in Belize. Sixty-eight flights went to Pan-ama City in Panama and 16 carried passengers to Managua, Nicaragua.

A large share of flights originated in Texas, which saw a rise in asylum seekers and migrants arriving at its ports of entry over the past year. George Bush Intercontinental Airport

1,288 were on United, American and Delta, with United used for 677, Amer-ican for 345 and Delta for 266. The ICE data indicates the number of flights involved, but not the exact number of tickets bought.

Dozens of deportees were also flown aboard commercial flights oper-ated by Colombia’s Avi-anca and Panama’s Copa Airlines. Additionally ICE bought two tickets for deportees on AeroMexico and one on Alaska Airlines.

United Airlines referred Newsweek to ICE when contacted for comment. Avianca referred Newsweek to the Colombian government’s migration office. Alaska Airlines, AeroMexico


The majority of the

Central

in Houston was a departure point for 246 flights, and Valley International Airport in Harlingen for 204. Other airports, including New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, were also major departure points, with JFK used for nearly 280 flights.

The revelation comes as ICE contin-ues to face scrutiny over its enforce-ment of the Trump administration’s hardline stance on immigration, such as the family separation policy that saw thousands of migrant children separated from their families at the U.S.–Mexico border in 2018. Some airlines refused to cooperate with that practice. United and American released statements expressing their unwillingness to cooperate, while Delta also spoke out against it.

Condemning commercial airlines for continuing to allow ICE to use their flights for deportations, Jess Morales Rocketto, chair of immigra-

tion advocacy group Families Belong Together, said the companies should be “ashamed.”

Sara Nelson, president of the Asso-ciation of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents 50,000 flight atten-dants also criticized the companies.

“We believe commercial airlines should immediately deny use of commercial aircraft in any deporta-tion or transfer action, until or unless the administration can demonstrate with full transparency that each case

is treated in accordance with the law,” she added.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, a Delta spokesperson emphasized that the airline is not responsible for decid-ing who gets deported. “Ultimately, decisions on individuals’ immigra-tion status are made by immigration judges after often lengthy legal pro-cesses involving multiple opportu-nities for appeal,” the spokesperson said, adding “these are complex and emotional cases for all involved.”

In an email to Newsweek, Amer-ican Airlines confirmed that ICE uses its flights and noted that the U.S. government is able to purchase tickets from U.S. carriers, includ-ing American, at a discounted rate under the City Pair Program. The CPP was designed in 1980 to provide discounted air fare to federal gov-ernment travelers. American, United, Delta and Alaska are all participants in the CPP, as are Southwest, JetBlue, Hawaiian and Silver Airways. Under the program a flight from JFK or New York’s LaGuardia Airport to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, might cost as little as $177, much less than the aver-age fares listed online, some of which are more than $500.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, ICE spokesperson Danielle Bennett stressed “use of CPP is not unique to ICE. It is government wide.”

ICE’s use of the CPP does not sug-gest that airlines have a partnership with the agency. However, with air-lines having previously refused to cooperate with ICE on the family separation policy, Morales Rocketto argues that they could do the same for all deportations.

“ The American people already showed they will not tolerate big cor-porations ignoring our nation’s family values,” she says. “Now, we are sending these airlines that same message.”

F E B R U A R Y 1 4 , 2 0 2 0

Periscope

Talking Points“My goal for the next decade isn't to be liked but to be understood.”

— FACEBOOK CEO

MARK ZUCKERBERG “Black music

has never been

respected by the

Grammys to the point

that it should be.”

“TIMES CHANGE.

TRADITIONS EVOLVE.

IT’S WAY OVERDUE

FOR LONG-SUFFERING

#PUNXSUTAWNEYPHIL

TO BE RETIRED.”

— People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals

president Ingrid Newkirk

“ T H E E P I D E M I C I S A D E MO N, A N D W E CA N N O T L E T T H I S

D E MO N H I D E .”— c h i n e s e p r e s i d e n t x i j i n p i n g

“Well that’s it, it’s all over,

it’s finished!”— b r i t i s h p o l i t i c i a n n i g e l

fa r a g e o n b r e x i t

“THERE AREN’T ENOUGH WORDS

TO DESCRIBE OUR PAIN RIGHT NOW.”

“So it’s a big opportunity for the Palestinians, and

you know, they have a perfect track record of

blowing every opportunity they’ve had in their past.”

— jared kushner

NEWSMAKERS

Xi Jinping

Vanessa Bryant

Sean Combs

HOME &

HERDProviding sanctuary for more

than 20 years

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MARK

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T H E

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W E A R E T O

D E A L W I T H

BIOLOGICAL

THREATS

AK

I S A W A K E - U P C A L L

CONTAGIONAs 2019 drew to a close, a few

dozen people, mostly in the Chinese city of Wuhan, caught a

novel coronavirus and came down with pneumonia. In only a few

weeks, the outbreak has spread to at least 20 other nations and is now an international health crisis.



HEALTH

IN 2011,a novel virus,MEV-1, emerged from China and quick-ly spread throughout the world, killing 2.5 million people in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide.

That outbreak wasn’t actually real—it was the plot of the film Contagion, providing a Hollywood-style glimpse into the panic that surrounds a global pan-demic. At the moment, we’re in the midst of a very real outbreak spreading throughout the world from China. The real outbreak and the fictional one are re-lated in one important way: a virus made the “jump” into an unprepared world.

This new outbreak is both frightening and famil-iar. Looking back over many decades, recent viral outbreaks fit a pattern that is now well-recognized. It goes like this: A virus that lives in animals makes the jump to humans. Perhaps it happens in a live-animal market, such as the one in Wuhan, China, that au-thorities initially flagged as the source of the current outbreak, or perhaps it came from some other animal source. People start getting sick and passing the infec-tion around. Nobody pays attention for days, weeks or even months if the majority of cases are mild and go unnoticed, or they are assumed to be related to other known diseases circulating in the region.

Sometimes the public is unaware of a potential new threat because authorities are keeping quiet to avoid causing panic or retribution if they are wrong about early details. Then, suddenly, an outbreak is detected, the alarm sounds, the public takes notice and the world is enveloped in a global crisis.

The current crisis is caused by a coronavirus—a class of pathogens that includes the common cold, which means it’s a new version of an old foe. This particular virus, called 2019-nCoV, appears to spread from person to person fairly rapidly and is already having serious consequences for public health. While many of the confirmed cases are reportedly mild, this novel coronavirus is causing death and severe illness, especially for vulnerable groups like the elderly and those whose immune systems are compromised. And it is causing disruptions in travel, trade, economic activity and productivity. We need to take it very seriously, now. We don’t yet know much about the virus and the contours of the out-break it is causing—nor what it could become if it

mutates, which is a natural feature of coronaviruses. Beyond the many worries about this particular

outbreak is concern about the pattern of alarm and complacency that seems to characterize the world’s response to such events. It’s the same pattern we saw during the outbreak of SARS in 2002–3, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2012 and Ebola in 2014. Each time, the outbreak captured the attention of the public and politicians. And each time, as fears sub-sided, complacency set in.

The longer we keep repeating this pattern, the more we’ll have to put up with preventable disrup-tive outbreaks and the more people will get sick and die as a result. The longer this cycle continues, the greater the likelihood that nature will deal us a very bad hand—a pathogen that possesses a catastroph-ic combination of lethality and transmissibility.

This is a risk we cannot afford to take.

The Known Unknownson the last day of 2019, 27 cases of pneumoniafrom an unknown cause were reported from China to the World Health Organization. Most of those stricken were said to have recently visited a large, live animal market in the city of Wuhan, which prompt-ed its swift closure on January 1. Unfortunately, the live “goods” being sold in the market were reportedly not tested when the market was emptied and the

SWIFT REACTIONChina has respondedto the outbreak with extreme measures. It has locked down entire cities, affecting tens of millions of people. Other countrieshave also put their owntravel bans in place. Right: medical workers arrive at Wuhan Red CrossHospital with a patient.

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animals were destroyed. By the time the virus was identified a week later, the case count had risen to 41 persons; the first death occurred two days later. A month later, more than 17,000 people were known to be infected and over 300 had died. Since the epi-center was in Wuhan, the vast majority of cases are in China, but sporadic cases have been confirmed in over 20 other countries. The World Health Orga-nization declared it a “public health emergency of international concern” on January 30.

The tools of modern genomics make it possible to identify a new pathogen and decode its genetic se-quence in a matter of days. At present, however, many unanswered questions remain. Where did this novel virus come from? How does it spread? How lethal is it? Can it spread from people without symptoms, and for how long? From a public health standpoint, we can’t yet rapidly identify potential cases at all sites where people seek health care to manage them, monitor their close contacts, and limit the ongoing spread. And we don’t have a vaccine that could pre-vent it going forward. As China and the global com-munity mobilize to respond to this unfolding threat, we have lots of unanswered questions—and lots of needs—concerning this novel coronavirus.

This outbreak is a wake-up call. It reminds us of our vulnerability to emerging and unexpected infectious disease threats. These include previously unknown organisms, such as HIV; new versions of old pathogens, like this coronavirus; and old patho-gens that reemerge in new forms, such as those that develop resistance to antibiotics. They can be microbes that show up in new locations because of climate change, changing agricultural practices, highly mobile and displaced populations, urbaniza-tion and crowding. In the modern world, a microbe can travel very far, very fast. A disease in a remote part of the world can be in your backyard tomor-row. All of that makes us increasingly vulnerable.

This novel coronavirus is a classic example of the emergence of new microbial threats and their spread. The vast majority of the new infectious dis-eases that have presented in recent decades have come from animals who host the microbes, and are said to be the “reservoirs.” The spillover event, if you will, can sometimes involve a set of animal res-ervoirs and potentially a set of insect “vectors,” like mosquitoes, ticks and fleas. But simply said, these so-called zoonotic pathogens live in animals or


are carried by insects and then “jump” to humans. When they jump, they can cause new diseases that we haven't had to deal with before, like 2019-nCoV. Unfortunately, we’re seeing the emergence of sever-al new zoonotic diseases each year—any of which may become the next pandemic.

Even though these outbreaks are in a sense pre-dictable, each one presents a unique puzzle to pub-lic health officials. The first serious coronavirus was SARS in 2002–3, which, like the current one, orig-inated in China and was thought to have spread to people from civet cats likely infected by bats. When SARS first struck, we also had many gaps in our understanding. Ultimately SARS resulted in over 8,000 cases in 29 countries, with a death toll of nearly 800. Toronto had a significant outbreak, and so did Hong Kong. But for reasons that are still mysterious, we didn't have a single known case in the U.S. The MERS outbreak in 2012, which began in Saudi Arabia and spread from camels (also with the help of bats), has surpassed the death toll from SARS and has been detected in 27 countries.

Since MERS, public health experts have won-dered when and where the next coronavirus was going to emerge. And now we have it: 2019-nCoV. .

Right now, people seem to take comfort from comparing the new coronavirus with the flu. In-fluenza is another disease that goes from animals to humans. Seasonal influenza typically kills 1/10th of one percent of the people who are infected, and more in those with increased risk. Yet we still have tens of thousands of people who die every year from flu because it's so pervasive—the death rate is low, but since so many people catch it, the result-ing death toll is high. Something like SARS or MERS might kill, say, 2 or 3 or even 10 percent of those who are infected, but, lucky for us, those viruses were not as transmissible as the flu. If they were, the results could have been devastating. The jury is still out on this new coronavirus.

We don’t yet know how easily 2019-nCoV can transmit from one person to another. We are not even fully certain of the modes of transmission. If this new virus mutates into something that spreads more easily around the world or is more virulent, we will see even more devastation and disruption. Or it could mutate to become less pathogenic and less infectious. It could “burn out” as we have seen with SARS. We just don't know. Having so many

VIRUS HANDLERSThe tools of moderngenomics make it possible to identify and sequence the genetic code of a new pathogen in a matter of days. Top: Scientists work in a lab in Tauizhou City, China, to developways of detecting the new virus. Left: health workers disinfect ambulance staff at a hospital in Wuhan.

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MAKING PROGRESSChina awoke to this outbreak with greater attention as a nation, having been through the

were more transparent in sharing news and the genetic sequence of this novel strain. However, no drugs, vaccines or other medical interventions are yet available Below: Health workers check on an elderly man who collapsed in the street in Wunan.

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unknowns makes everybody nervous, as it should. Already we see the enormous toll taken by this evolv-ing outbreak—on human life and health, but also on travel, trade, economies and our sense of trust and confidence in government and other institutions. The threat of a true pandemic is an existential risk.

Signs of Progresswe are no doubt inching towards progress. China awoke to this outbreak with greater attention as a nation, having been through this before with SARS. Chinese officials were more transparent in sharing news of 2019-CoV earlier in the outbreak than was the situation with SARS. Progress is also evident in how Chinese scientists openly shared the genetic sequence of this novel strain. This has en-abled new insights into the nature of this emerging organism and critical information to support efforts to rapidly develop diagnostics and medical counter-measures. As a result, several rapid diagnostics are already available to help with testing and screening.

But right now there are no drugs, vaccines or other medical interventions available to treat 2019-CoV infections (apart from alleviating symptoms). Research efforts are being initiated to try to devel-op and test experimental therapies, drawing on our knowledge of SARS and MERS. Vaccine development efforts are also underway, including the recent an-nouncement by the Coalition for Epidemic Pre-paredness Innovations (CEPI), an innovative part-nership between public, private, philanthropic and civil organizations, launched at Davos following Eb-ola, to develop vaccines to prevent future epidemics.

Chinese authorities have taken extreme mea-sures to control the outbreak, including travel bans, restrictions on large public gatherings, school and work closures. There has also been quarantine of entire cities, involving tens of millions of people. The consequences of potential panic, social unrest and disruption of needed supplies when a city is closed off will have to be evaluated in relation to the attempt to curb the extent of the spread.

China is not alone in its aggressive measures. Screening of travelers and outright travel bans are al-ready in place in other countries, and airlines are re-stricting routes. The U.S. recently announced it will forbid entry to persons who have traveled recently in China if they are not U.S. nationals or immediate family members of citizens. Such drastic measures


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must be undertaken with caution. Under conditions of uncer-tainty and fear, policies are not always based on the best possible sci-ence—yet are opportu-nities to better under-stand risk and explore innovations if we take

the time to be thoughtful and systematic.As cases spread to other countries, we are seeing

mobilization of response on a national and inter-national level. However, things aren’t nearly where they need to be. For one thing, many countries that are potentially vulnerable don't have adequate pub-lic health systems. Even those that are more sophis-ticated aren't as strong as they should be in terms of early detection and rapid response capabilities.

One of the reasons a global public health emer-gency has been declared is to raise awareness and help less prepared countries deal with this spread-ing outbreak. If this novel coronavirus were to spread to a country lacking the infrastructure to detect cases and track contacts, as is being done in more heavily resourced countries, it would endan-ger not only that nation but the health security of us all. In fact, the most recent analysis of the Glob-al Health Security Index revealed that no country anywhere is fully prepared for a pandemic.

The Promise of Preparednesswhen a crisis strikes, we wake up—briefly.Then we hit the snooze button. For example, fol-lowing the SARS outbreak, the WHO updated a sys-tem of international health regulations to ensure a minimum set of capabilities for countries around the world for rapid detection, response and pre-paredness for infectious disease threats that may be of global concern. Many countries made com-mitments, including having an identified person responsible for coordinating these efforts in each country. When the Ebola outbreak occurred, how-ever, most countries’ public health systems were still woefully unprepared.

Now that we’re in the midst of a crisis—while we’re wide awake—it’s a good time to reconsider how we think about our response to disease out-breaks. The first thing we need to do is reframe the

FAMILIAR PATTERNA virus that lives inanimals makes the jump tohumans, people pass theinfection around, plane travel spreads diseasefar and wide, and a crisis erupts. Left: a butcher'sstall in Shanghai. Bottom: crew members disinfecta Thai Airways airplane.

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issue not as an isolated emergency response but as an ongoing effort to prevent outbreaks from hap-pening in the first place.

When it comes to an outbreak of an infectious disease, speed is of the essence. Speed of detection, of reporting and of response are all crucial so that the global community can be as prepared as possible to address the threat, and limit or prevent spread. Any delay in detecting a novel threat translates into greater spread, illness, social and work disruption and additional lives lost.

Success will require a continuum of leadership, ca-pabilities, collaboration and accountability—from lo-cal to global. Transparency begins with the reporting of unusual illness or clusters of disease, generally first by health care workers, village health volunteers, or an informed public. Once an unusual cluster of illness or suspected outbreak is detected, the cause of the illness must be quickly determined to guide a rapid and effective response. Health authorities at the local, regional and national levels all have a responsibility to share information more broadly.

In under-resourced countries, early efforts should include an emphasis on risk communication, early detection, access to health care, isolation infrastruc-ture and contact tracing. Much of what needs to be done involves applying age-old fundamentals of pub-lic health, while advances in science and technology enable us to bring new and more powerful tools to these efforts. This allows for scientists and technicians to develop diagnostics to track the outbreak and for drug and vaccine manufacturers to initiate more targeted efforts to develop medical countermeasures.

We also have the opportunity to apply more so-phisticated approaches to disease detection and sur-veillance. Outbreaks where people show no symp-toms of illness but are still capable of spreading the disease are the hardest to control. That makes it even more important to catch those early cases. In some countries, farmers and workers in the live animal markets who have the highest contact with potential new pathogens are connected to innovative, commu-nity-led surveillance systems to report symptoms of illness or to report a sick or dead animal.

In the U.S., we have a system called Flu Near You where people report symptoms of flu every Monday to give us a better idea of how much illness is cir-culating in a community. Flu Near You is currently being adapted to add questions about coronavi-

ruses to alert the population and get them to start reporting anything they see. Other innovations in self-reporting, social media, machine learning and artificial intelligence are providing opportunities to find outbreaks faster so that we can stop a threat anywhere from becoming a threat everywhere.

Ending pandemics is in our future. We are far from realizing the full power of collaborative forc-es necessary to prevent the global spread of a new virus. We have, however, made incredible progress in identifying critical factors for the emergence of new diseases and in helping build capacity to identify and respond to outbreaks more rapidly in disease ‘hotspots.” Unless we start socializing a greater understanding of where diseases are likely to pop up and why they're happening, we'll con-tinue to have outbreaks, we'll continue to respond to crises. And we’ll wonder why the public is sur-prised every time.

Margaret Hamburg, MD, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is Chair of the Board of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science and author of germs go global: why emerging infectious diseases are a threat toamerica. Mark Smolinski, MD, MPH is President of EndingPandemics.org, science advisor for Contagion and a former Epidemic Intelligence Officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DOCTOR'S ORDERSStopping pandemics will require more sophisticated approaches to detectionand surveillance of novelpathogens than thoseused now. Community-based programs designed

to unusual patterns of illness, which provide earlyclues of new pathogens,are expected to play an important role. Right:a taxi driver in Wuhanwears protective clothes.

T H E CURRENT CRISIS I S

C A U S E D B Y A C O R O N AV I R U S —

A C L A S S O F PA T H O G E N S T H A T

I N C L U D E S T H E C O M M O N C O L D ,

W H I C H M E A N S I T ’ S A N E W

V E R S I O N O F AN OLD FOE.


COLD WI S T H E

While the press and the public focus on Iran, the U.S. military prepares for war with Russia

WAR B A C K ?

by W I L L I A M M . A R K I N


during the height of tensions with iran last year, the United States conducted an unprecedent-ed series of war games. Over five months, from May until the end of September, 93 separate military exercises were held, with forces operating contin-uously in, above and around 29 countries.

The games, which practiced everything from ground platoon tactics to cyber warfare, weren’t held in the Mideast and weren’t directed at Tehran. They were directed against Moscow—and consti-tuted the most intense, uninterrupted set of drills since the end of the Cold War.

The activity was the culmination of a buildup that began after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014. Though American armed forces were fighting several “hot wars” and engaged in crisis de-ployments in response to both Iran and North Korea, the shift to practicing “high end” warfare tasks dom-inated. The focus was also undeniably anti-Russia, with the number of European games 10 times the number of China-related drills held at the same time.

“In the shadow of the deteriorating European se-curity environment, the size and scope of NATO and Russian military exercises have increased significant-ly—even dramatically,” a NATO parliamentary com-mittee reported in October. The committee worried that NATO doesn’t possess sufficient ground troops in Eastern Europe to deter Russian interference or attack. It also pointed to Moscow’s own high-profile war games, many involving scenarios that include the use of nuclear weapons in a European war.

While the conventional view is one of Russian

advantage, the new figures show that the United States and its European partners far outstrip Mos-cow. These “persistent heel-to-toe” operations, as the military calls them, where one exercise begins as an-other ends, emphasize rapid aircraft deployments and dispersal to forward bases. Much of the empha-sis last year was on fighter aircraft and bomber scat-terings, showcasing Western geographic advantages while also demonstrating combined air operations refined in two decades of Middle East fighting.

These operations and exercises, then-NATO Commander Army General Curtis Scaparrotti told Congress last spring, were meant to “introduce op-erational unpredictability to our adversaries.” The question is: at what cost? That is, are we provoking the very thing NATO hopes to avoid—a new Cold War? Or more concretely, in putting the two sides on a path where escalating military exercises and the intermingling of forces increases tensions while also providing more opportunities for miscalculation.

The risk is that the two sides are on a path where escalating military exercises and the intermingling of

—while also providing more opportunities


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‘100,000 Tons of International Diplomacy’from the day former national security advisorJohn Bolton stepped to the microphone last May to announce that B-52 bombers and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln were being rushed to the Middle East because of “troubling and escalatory indications” from Iran, Europe was already on pace to break all records regarding military activity.

The Lincoln was in the Mediterranean Sea and was operating with the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, the first time two carrier strike groups had conducted dual operations in the Trump ad-ministration. On the day of Bolton’s announcement, Lincoln-based F/A-18F Super Hornet fighters flew 700-mile bombing runs to targets in Romania. The next day, Super Hornets flew again, this time 1,000-mile missions from the Ionian Sea west of Greece and traversing Eastern Europe to Lithuania.

There, the Navy strike fighters worked with ground spotters to practice bombing, less than 500 miles from Moscow. “We are showing the world that we…are capable of executing missions in our allies’ airspace on short notice,” said Navy Lieutenant Com-mander Stephen Gay, coordinator of the exercise.

U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon M. Huntsman Jr. was on the Lincoln during the operation. “Each of the carriers operating in the Mediterranean at this time represent 100,000 tons of international diplo-macy,” the former Utah Governor said.

Finished with its mock bombing of Russia, the Lincoln canceled a scheduled port call in Croatia and set sail for the Persian Gulf. By the time it steamed south through the Suez Canal and around the Arabi-an Peninsula to take up station off the Iranian coast, no fewer than seven separate NATO war games were held: Arrow and Bold Quest in Finland, Spring Storm in Estonia, Formidable Shield off the coast of Scot-land, Immediate Response in Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia, Stolen Cerberus VI in Greece and Erciyes in Turkey. And in those two weeks, a dozen Florida-based F-16C fighters arrived in the United Kingdom and the newest F-35 Lightning II jets deployed from Utah to northern Italy, the latter for the first time.

No European deployments were canceled or de-layed because of Iran, according to a senior Euro-pean Command official who was not authorized to speak on the record. And not only U.S. aircraft were operating close to Russian airspace. Starting in May, the air forces of nine different NATO nations

WAR GAMESPrevious page: A live-

forces increases tensions for MISCALCULATION.


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deployed to forward bases in the Baltic states, Po-land and Romania on “air policing” missions.

The exercises and deployments were taking place under a Pentagon program called the European De-terrence Initiative (EDI). Started after the Crimea crisis, EDI has built up a NATO presence in the Bal-tic and Poland, enhanced the air defense of the Bal-tics, southeastern Europe and Iceland and acceler-ated air deployments from the U.S. under “bomber assurance” and “theater security” programs.

Last March, the Trump administration request-ed $5.9 billion to fund EDI, a 10 percent reduction from the previous year—which some observers saw as a sign of Donald Trump’s personal softness on

Russia. Calling the Russian threat to Europe “real and growing,” Scaparrotti, the outgoing top officer for NATO, told Congress he was “not comfortable yet with the deterrent posture” on the continent.

“We’re looking at increased burden-sharing,” Penta-gon Deputy Comptroller Elaine A. McCusker told re-porters, echoing the president’s many statements that the rich European nations should contribute more towards their defense, lessening the American bill.

But the fine print showed that there was no real re-duction. The cut was actually the result of completed construction and other ”nonrecurring” costs that sta-bilized EDI at a steady level. And the amount dedicat-ed to exercises and training more than doubled from

BOTH SIDES NOW U.S. (this page) and Russian (facing page) forces in a variety of trainingexercises with partners across Europe last year: 1 The U.S. and Ukraineco-hosted multinational forces in Chabanka, Ukraine; 2 A Marineplatoon commander issuingan order in a Finnish trainingarea; 3 A drill on treatinginjured patients aboard the USS Carney, deployed to Spain; 4 U.S. Army

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the previous year, from $291 million to $609 million.On December 4, after a marathon eight months

in the Middle East, the USS Abraham Lincoln tran-sited the Strait of Hormuz to return home. The Iran crisis was still brewing and would further escalate with the killing of Iranian General Qassem Solei-mani a month later. The crisis deployments Bolton had announced included a total of six bombers in two groups, both of which had come and gone. A battalion-sized Marine Corps force had also left the region. Emergency ground deployments totaled fewer than 10,000 troops, the majority in Patriot anti-air and missile defense units. Air Force aircraft had augmented the Lincoln’s air wing on the scene.

Three squadrons of F-15E Strike Eagles, F-35A Light-ning IIs and F-22 Raptors, constituted the totality of the anti-Iran movements.

During the same time, nine American squadrons of fighter aircraft deployed to Europe for anti-Rus-sian war games, according to Pentagon documents. During the third week in June, when Iran shot down an American drone, exercise Anatolian Eagle was in full swing in Konya, Turkey. Though Turkey abuts Iran, the exercise, funded by the European Defense Initiative, had a wholly NATO European focus.

As two oil tankers were hit with limpet mines in the Persian Gulf, special operators from 10 nations were skulking about as a part of exercise Trojan

paratroopers training in Croatia, part of amultinational exercise; 5 Servicemen from theRussian Airborne Troopspreparing for militaryexercises at Severny

6 Russian Mi-8 helicopters in an exercise at

7 A serviceman from theRussian Southern Military District takes part in a shooting exercise; 8 A Russian patrol unit inexercises last month.

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GLOBAL TRAINING Top: A catapult on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Bottom, from left: A Russian serviceman during a shooting exercise; Marines unwinding after training operations in Finland; commanders from the U.S., U.K., Finland and Estonia getting awards for training service.

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Footprint 19, one that took place across Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and in the Black Sea. In north-ern waters, Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) brought together 50 ships and 40 aircraft of 18 NATO na-tions, plus Sweden and Finland. A total of seven NATO war games were underway, including Iron Wolf in Lithuania; Dragon 19 in Poland; and Swift response in Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Overall, more than 50,000 NATO and allied mil-itary personnel were in action against Russia. U.S. Air Force F-35 fighters deployed to both Finland and Norway for the first time. Joining them were Louisi-ana-based B-52 bombers that had forward deployed to England and flew mock bombing runs against Russia simultaneously over the Baltic and Black Sea regions.

Heel to toe, exercise Dynamic Mongoose com-menced in Norwegian Arctic waters with the comple-tion of BALTOPS. Exercise Sea Breeze also got under-way in the Black Sea to augment Dynamic Mongoose. While Ukraine was on everyone’s lips in Washington because of House impeachment hearings, a total of 32 ships and 24 aircraft from 19 countries were oper-ating in and around that Black Sea nation.

None of this took place without a Russian response. The very week of Bolton’s Iran announcement, a Hun-garian fighter operating in Lithuania intercepted a Russian Federation Air Force plane flying without a transponder signal. Russian sent its own bombers to fly along the western coast of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. At the end of May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow was concerned about NATO’s increased activities near its borders.

Russian news agency TASS reported that the number of Russian air intercepts had increased 10 times over the past three years. Meanwhile, NATO scrambles had increased 300 percent, according to classified U.S. Air Force documents. When a Russian Su-24 Fencer fighter-bomber dangerously buzzed a Spanish Navy ship operating in the Baltic, NATO issued a vigorous protest.

As the May exercise season started, Air Force Gener-al Tod Wolters took over command of NATO from Sca-parrotti. One of his first orders of business was to sit down with the Russian Chief of General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov to discuss “deconfliction” of military activity. Wolters told reporters just days before the

Spanish incident that American “deterrence” activity had tempered Russian behavior, that there had been a reduction in Russian “unprofessional behavior.”

The two generals met again in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on July 10th for what were more so-bering talks, according to military officers who were privy to the discussions. That same day, the Ukrainian Navy reported that a Russian destroyer intruded into the Sea Breeze restricted area during live-fire artil-lery drills, creating “an emergency situation.” When NATO radioed the destroyer with a warning, accord-ing to a Ukrainian Navy’s statement, the Russian ship

“pretended to be experiencing communications prob-lems.” Russia’s Black Sea fleet said Ukrainian claims were untrue. The Cold War was back.

William M. Arkin, the author of a half-dozen books on nuclear weapons, is currently writing ENDING

PERPETUAL WAR. His Twitter handle is @warkin.

Starting in May, the air forces of nine different NATO nations deployed to forward bases in the Baltic states,

Poland and Romania on “AIR POLICING” missions.

Culture H I G H , L O W + E V E R Y T H I N G I N B E T W E E N

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NEW UNDER THE SUN 1 Quinn XCII 2 Mac Miller

3 Khruangbin (Laura Lee, Mark Speer and Donald Ray “DJ” Johnson Jr.)

and Leon Bridges 4 Soccer Mommy 5 Alec Benjamin 6 Alanis Morissette

7 Meghan Trainor 8 Matt Berninger 9 Ghetto Sage (Noname, Saba, Smino)

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as in ecclesiastes, so with pop music: there’s nothing really new under the sun. At their

best, song-makers ape each other shamelessly (and sometimes litigiously), whether that means chord sequences, beats, melodic figures or even lyrical hooks. Bob Dylan copped Woody Guthrie down to his flow-and-fingerpicking, John Mellencamp did a fairly good Dylan impression and ad infinitum it goes. Oscar Wilde laid it down with pith and vinegar:

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that medi-ocrity can pay to greatness.”

Then again, one is ever astonished how every season reveals yet another tiny twist in pop music’s often repetitive journey. Amy Winehouse was not just a great singer, but a knowing, postmodern nod to soul icons past; Kendrick Lamar’s melding of jazz

textures and 21st-century beats was a welcome sur-prise; and Father John Misty mystified and delighted by brewing mind-bending

B Y

DAVID WEISS

OurPost- Grammy Must- ListensThere may not be a Lizzo in the bunch, but there’s plenty of good music to check out in the new year

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street-corner poetics—and that’s a compliment to both for restraint, or what used to pass for “cool.”

The Movie is Morissette-level ironic, except for the doleful ditty —“Walk-ing On a String”—that The Nation-al’s Matt Berninger conjured up for the occasion. The solemn duet with Phoebe Bridgers is roots chamber music at its elegant best, an acoustic bass and shimmery-organ anthem that out-earnests the film by miles. Owing debts to Lou Reed and Sonny & Cher on the same track is a sly doff of the postmodern cap to one’s varied forebears. What’s to come? Berninger’s forthcoming solo album, Serpentine Prison, co-produced by Memphis legend Booker T. Jones.

psychedelia that defied categoriza-tion and even understanding. Bless the Holy Father for that.

The year to come has plenty in store for those of us still amenable to pop’s humble charms. As Noel Coward said, it’s “extraordinary how potent cheap music is.” Remember that when you’re trying not to weep as, say, Josh Groban hits the big notes in “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

Is there a new Lizzo or Billie Eilish or even a Bon Iver in all this? Who knows? But these artists are worth lis-tening to, for sure. Let the needles drop:

not only because Sophie Allison’s nom de guerre is so tartly untrue-to-type. Her music is hardly of the tame, subur-ban variety (though it would sound fine in a millennial’s minivan). Alli-son is the kid Kurt Cobain and Sheryl Crow might have spawned in a par-allel universe. In “Circle The Drain,” she welds words of constant sorrow to music fairly well-attuned to the soporific pop-country scene she runs somewhat counter to. Soft melodic lilt and downbeat musings—as old as coal but nowhere near as toxic. Mommy, can we get ice cream?

is still a very sore spot for those rightly transfixed by his public and tragic quest for self-reve-lation. His new collection (Circles) is beautifully framed by his final col-laborator, eclectic composer and pro-ducer Jon Brion. Echoing Lou Reed’s

“Walk on the Wild Side” (acoustic bass and drawling vocal), “Circles” is the antipode of hip-hop’s braggy brash-ness, displaying a tender and blue-note wistfulness that is as affecting as it is velvet-to-the-ears. Music that feels felt, not just made—hats off to Mac Miller and Brion for an intimate ode to melancholy that cannot fail to stir.

Alanis Moris-sette was not only #MeToo’s first unofficial spokeswoman and proph-etess, her Jagged Little Pill album went 15-times platinum on the strength and freshness of her persona and sound (co-authored by producer Glen Bal-lard). When I heard a pre-release of that album, I thought the tracks were unmixed demos, such was their roughness and face-planting impact. “Reasons I Drink” is the first track from Morissette’s spring album release and is, expectedly, X-ray frank and wryly funny about a “sober” topic, but missing is the sweet/sour thrill of her voice unadorned by digital delay and—even worse—fighting the slick, expansive-sounding mix for primacy. Even still, the “Irony Maiden” has an unmistakable voice and an ironclad conscience still fighting, Broadway aside, to stay clean in a filthy world.

(“92,” his birth year), whose 2020 “Two 10s” is a spare and pop-funky run for Bruno Mars’ money. It has the same sly dance-ability—courtesy of a reggae-ish snare-and-cymbal dialog—and is a platform for Q’s falsetto crooning, à la Justin Timberlake. Add to that a hint of the aforementioned Mac Miller’s down-town diction and behind-the-beat flow, and it all clicks. Quinn XCII owes a debt to the Red Hot Chili Peppers—leanly-sculpted grooves and slurred,

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From left to right: Donald Ray “DJ” Johnson Jr., Laura Lee and Mark Speer of Khruangbin produce a gumbo of surf music and funk.

on the enduring charms of Texas twang, a new collaboration between neigh-bors Khruangbin and Leon Bridges—entitled Texas Sun—evinces echoes of “The Dock of the Bay”-era Otis Redding while staying true to its pan-fried rural roots. The usually instru-mental Houston trio Khruangbin (Thai for “flying engine”) is known for its genre-defying gumbo of soul, surf and funk, but here it toes the Amer-icana line pretty closely, with a ladle of pedal- steel guitar as a down-home finishing touch. Leon Bridges holds it all down with timbres warm and dynamics soft, the mark of a vocalist mindful of the art that conceals art. Sometimes they call that having soul, not a bad thing to be accused of in an age of robots and super-fakes.

and turn them into a triple-bill called Ghetto Sage—then prepare to smile at their collective efforts. Chi-cagoans Saba, Smino and Noname are the Peter, Paul & Mary of the dropped-beat era, and their first single “Håagen Dazs” is a hypnotic, Mellotron-flute backed gem. The flow is alternately hyperkinetic and casually conversational, the former courtesy of the rat-a-tat ravings of a lyrical speed demon (Saba, a veritable Uzi of rap poetics). But it is Noname who represents for her fellow XX’ers in G’d-up fashion—she is every bit as hard and profane as you wannabe, man or woman, and is dazzlingly dope. Take that, Offi-cer Ricky Ross. You ain’t self-made—you’re affiliated!

“All About That Bass” was difficult to turn off some six years ago when it first dropped. For slinky/sexy, in your face brat-i-tude and an inescapably bubbly hook, there were no rivals. Two-billion-plus YouTube views later, she’s fitting to drop another benign bunker-buster called “Blink.” One of 15 “self-love anthems” to come in 2020, it sounds like equal parts Kesha and Tony Robbins: “You better not blink/You don’t want to miss this,” Trainor spits with bravado and gumption to spare. The track skitters by at 176 beats per minute, a fast tempo for dance but a nice lively venue for her half-speed, self-empowerment affirmations.

Phoenix native Alec Benjamin sounds like he’s spent eons roaming around his capacious, poetic soul. His reports from the front hav-en’t the riotous fury of his idol, Emi-nem, but songs like “Mind Is a Prison” are wise and wizened for a lad of his age, yet gussied up by a lyrical and shapely pop palette. His new joint refers to a community of “Demons” squatting in his boyish head, though he really doesn’t sound so panicked by their presence, instead singing a spritely ode to the interlopers. Chalk that up to a confederate who “forgave me and gave me hope.” Love and com-munion win out again over isolation and despair, an apt message in an age of dark clouds and distant thunder.

Detroit native has pro-duced, composed and written about mu-sic in Los Angeles for decades, counting Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello among his sometime collaborators.

Culture

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The OculusNew York,

New YorkDesigned by Santiago Calatrava, the Oculus serves as a transit hub to the rebuilt World Trade Center, a mall and an arresting piece of architecture. Some compare its sculptural white curved pillars to bones of a ribcage.

Solna Centrum Metro StationStockholm, Sweden

The arresting red ceilings and green walls are meant to depict a forest under an evening sky. But artists Karl-Olov Björk and Anders Åberg also used its design to make a political statement, commenting on the environment, overlogging and dwindling rural populations in the 1970s.

Toledo Station

Naples, ItalyThe tiny, blue-and-white mosaic tiles in this Neopolitan station are meant to replicate water and light, bringing a natural feel to the industrial underground in the deepest station in the city.

Arts et Métiers Metro StationParis, France

Redesigned in 1994, copper walls and steampunk accents line the tunnels of this

design are dedicated to Jules Verne’s Nautilus.

São Bento Railway and Metro StationPorto, Portugal

Considerably older than many of its peers, this station was completed in 1916 and is built on the site of a former convent. The inside of the station is covered in 20,000 decorative white-and-blue azulejo tiles creating a mosaic narrative of Portugal’s history.

Universidad de Chile Metro Station

Santiago, ChileVisitors to this station in Chile’s capital cannot miss the huge mural entitled Memoria Visual de una Nación (Visual Memory of a Nation) by Mario Toral. The 12,917 square foot mural—installed in two parts in 1996 and 1999—covers all the walls and depicts the history of Chile.

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Warsaw, PolandDescending the escalator of this metro station is like entering a spaceship. The purple color scheme and futuristic architecture designed by

embraces the future by being completely accessible.

Formosa Boulevard

MRT StationKaohsiung, TaiwanFormosa Station—named for the pro-democracy rally widely seen as a watershed event on the island—is known for a colorful glass display called the

by Narcissus Quagliata

depicts the stages of life such as water, earth,

individual panels.

Wynyard Railway StationSydney, Australia

The sculpture by Chris Fox, Interloop, is the main attraction at this commuter station in New South Wales. Built from

escalators, the sculpture is meant to

Mayakovskaya StationMoscow, Russia

Named for the Square above it (and poet Vladimir

by Alexey Dushkin puts a twist on classical arches and columns by constructing them out of stainless steel. The station has function as well as form, hosting a mass assembly for Stalin in 1941 and serving as an air raid shelter during World War II.

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Subway Stations That Elevate the Daily CommuteRush hour isn’t known for its calm and beauty, but it doesn’t have to be an exercise in extreme patience either. Through stunning architecture and art installations, a trip through these spaces can be interesting, unique, even unsettling—and at the very least, far from mundane. From space-age designs to murals celebrating local history, artists and architects have transformed the simple subway, metro or tube station into contemplative and artistic spaces that may even encourage the use of mass transit. —Laura Powers

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I l l u s t r a t i o n b y B R I T T S P E N C E R

brooklyn nine-nine has had quite a broadcast journey. Canceled by Fox after five seasons and then picked up by NBC, the show,

and its legions of fans, have survived the test of time. “We didn’t take any of it for granted,” says Stephanie Beatriz, who has played Rosa Diaz since the begin-ning of the series. “We were really having fun and growing as actors,” Beatriz says. “I had only done theater up until that point, so I was so hungry to learn from all these brilliantly talented comedians and actors.” Learn she did, and over the course of the series, she and her character have become prominent examples of Latinx and LGBTQ representation: “You don’t see that on televi-sion very much, especially network television.” This year is proving particu-larly exciting for Beatriz, with season 8 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine premiering this month, followed by the film adaptation of the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights this summer. Before that, “I wouldn’t have called myself a singer,” she says, “but I guess I am now.”

Stephanie BeatrizWhat do you think has made the show last so long?The jokes are so good they seem to be translating to languages I don’t speak. I went to Japan and people were losing their shit about Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The short answer to your question is I don’t know.

Both yourself and Rosa Diaz are openly queer. Why was this an important part of your identity to bring to your character?I come from a very privileged position, and I have a platform where people are listening to what I have to say, so it’s not by mistake I’m so open about being bisexual. I am astounded that in my lifetime I’m getting to play a character who is queer on TV.

an acclaimed episode for the series, centering around #MeToo themes. How was it directing this episode?Obviously, I’m scared, but lots of directors have felt scared before the

harness that fear and take this step by step, day by day.

In the Heights. What was it like

Daphne [Rubin-Vega] was one of the

musical Rent], and I had her cover of Newsweek with Adam Pascal on the back of my bedroom door for forever.

with her. —H. Alan Scott

“I am astounded

that I’m getting to play a

character who is queer

on TV.”

PARTING SHOT

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I N M E M O R I A M

KOBEBRYANT

A U G U S T 2 3 , 1 9 7 8 – J A N U A R Y 2 6 , 2 0 2 0

A celebration of the life, legacy and immense talent of the Black Mamba: one of the greatest to ever grace the court.

COVER: Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images. Digital imaging by Eric HeintzBACK COVER: MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images

THE ENIGMA REMAINSKobe Bryant was taken from the basketball world on the cusp of his elder statesmanship. The game, and those who love it, will never forget.

NEWSWEEK KOBE BRYANT 11

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Kobe during the pre-game ceremony on January 11, 2006, as the

Lakers took on the Portland Trail Blazers. He would go on to score 41 that night.

When the basketball faithful are faced with world-shaking news of any kind, we tend to look to a few distinguished elders for their guidance. It’s one

of the great things about athletics: because retirements tend to be so long, several generations of these elders are in the public eye at a given time, offering varied perspectives and growing in wisdom even as they decline somewhat in athletic prowess. No matter what the news is, be it a trade, a protest, a scandalous draft pick or a draft pick steeped in scandal, fans of the sport can find a well-executed argument to sway them from one of these elders. That’s why looking to the usual sources—Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Walt Frazier et al.—for words that could help make sense of the passing of Kobe Bryant at age 41 on January 26, 2020, was both disappointing and understandable. For all their skill, experience and personal anecdotes about how the game ought to be played, they were as shocked and speechless as the rest of us, trying just as hard as fans to wrap their minds around an unimaginable tragedy. Not only had Kobe’s chance to join their ranks been violently taken away, but eight other people were lost along with him—among them Kobe’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna.

Kobe was for 20 years not only one of the most dominant players the NBA had ever seen but also one of the quietest. In a game where off-court style can be just as much of

a headline grabber as on-court performance, Kobe famously kept to himself. His February 2015 interview with Chuck Klosterman for GQ, in which he delved deep into his personal life, was both an aberration and a revelation. The still waters of the Black Mamba’s mind were even deeper than we had imagined, and the frank discussion of basketball and philosophy heralded his arrival as one of the newest of basketball’s revered elders.

What President Obama referred to as Kobe’s promising “Second Act” in his first memorial message was poised to rival any of the greatest in the game. He showed us that at the Oscars when, a new kind of trophy in hand, he promised he’d never “Shut up and dribble.” His passion, built through 20 years of fairytale success and intense drama in Hollywood, was to tell stories. According to Klosterman, his idea of the ideal modern story, one that would touch as many people as possible, was unique: “Bryant views branding as a modern form of ‘storytelling.’ I note that this comparison is only partially accurate, since branding is a form of storytelling with a conscious commercial purpose. ‘For some,’ he concedes. ‘But that’s not a universal thing. That’s like saying every wizard within Slytherin House is a villain.’ ”

For someone who spent a fair amount of time in his career contending with harsh critics painting him as just such a figure, Kobe was at least as self-aware as he was deemed aloof. He knew people thought he shot too much, noting

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Kobe takes on the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. In memory of one of the best to take the court there, the world’s most famous arena turned its outer lights purple and gold when the world learned of his passing.

LEGENDS LIVE

FOREVER

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NEVER PEDESTRIANharrysoflondon.com

newsweek - 02 14 2020

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