How is George Zimmerman white and this guy isn't?

Nonwhite Hispanic

Katherine of Aragon's Revenge rolls on.

In Reality TV news, the Hollywood Reporter announces a major breakthrough for diversity:

ABC Names First Non-White 'Bachelor' 

The next Bachelor has been revealed, and he represents a milestone for the ABC reality show. 

Host Chris Harrison announced Monday night that former Bachelorette suitor Juan Pablo Galavis will star in the next edition of ABC's The Bachelor.

Nonwhite Hispanic's mom

An ABC spokesperson confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the fan favorite -- a 32-year-old former soccer player from Venezuela now living in Miami -- will become the first non-Caucasian Bachelor or Bachelorette in franchise history.

There have been a total of nine Bachelorettes; Juan Pablo is the 17th Bachelor in 18 seasons, as Brad Womack starred on the show twice. 

While the franchise has featured a handful minorities as suitors -- African-American Will Reese also appeared on Desiree Hartsock's season, which just wrapped Monday night -- ABC and producer Warner Horizon TV have previously been accused of violating racial discrimination laws. 

A group of Nashville residents led by Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson brought a class-action lawsuit last year, alleging that the roles of the Bachelor and Bachelorette on the hit reality series have failed to feature non-white cast members and that civil rights law "plainly prohibits whites from refusing to contract with African Americans because of their race." 

The defendants pointed to the First Amendment as a bar against such claims. In October, a federal judge agreed and threw out the lawsuit. 

White Hispanic

Juan Pablo had been one of 25 men competing for Desiree's hand during the most recent season of The Bachelorette. He is a single father to a 4-year-old girl named Camila.

A reader asks, "How is this guy white and George Zimmerman isn't?"

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Silicon Valley wants its own tame black President

With Barack Obama having Wall Street's back over the last five years (i.e., virtually no prosecutions for the events leading up to 2008), it's only natural that Silicon Valley leaders have been thinking about getting their own tame black President, too: namely, Cory Booker, a former Stanford football player, whose job as mayor of Newark makes it easy for him to hit the national broadcasts out of New York City. 

I haven't paid too much attention to Booker, but he seems like a more energetic and prepossessing personality than Obama, so the notion seems plausible that in a country with a large demand for black Presidents but a small supply of plausible ones, Booker would be worth investing money in.

Booker, a Democrat, is Plutocrat Friendly. In 2012 he even attacked the Obama campaign's attacks on Mitt Romney's private equity fortune, which the Romney campaign greatly appreciated.

A never-married 44-year-old, Booker is vaguely rumored either to have a white girlfriend in Brooklyn or to be gay. (Wikipedia has up a picture of him with his arm around Oprah's Friend Gayle, who is described as Booker's "long time friend" -- Oprah, by the way, is affiliated with Waywire). So it will be interesting to see what he does on the matrimonial front.

The NYT reports:

Mr. Booker personally has obtained money for the start-up, called Waywire, from influential investors, including Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. A year after its debut, Waywire has already endured a round of layoffs and had just 2,207 visitors in June, according to Compete, a Web-tracking service. The company says it is still under development. 

In June, I got more well over two orders of magnitude more unique visits.

Yet in a financial disclosure filed last month, Mr. Booker, 44, revealed that his stake in the company was worth $1 million to $5 million.

Woo-hoo! My 100% stake in iSteve must be worth a couple of orders of magnitude more than Booker's fractional stake, right? I mean, it's simple arithmetic. Oh ... except, I'm not Presidential Timber. Never mind.

Taken together, his other assets were worth no more than $730,000. 

That revelation, with just a week left in Mr. Booker’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate, shows how a few tech moguls and entrepreneurs, many of them also campaign donors, not only made a financial bet on the mayor’s political future but also provided the brainpower and financing to help create a company that could make him very rich. 

Waywire has also provided jobs for associates of Mr. Booker: the son of a top campaign supporter and his social media consultant, who is now on his Senate campaign staff. 

The company has a goal: making it easy to “collect, curate and share” videos from across the Web. But much about its operations and Mr. Booker’s role as chairman appears ill defined. 

Mr. Booker declined to answer questions about the details of Waywire’s finances, including what percentage of the company he currently owns. A spokesman said Mr. Booker had invested some of his own money in the company but refused to say how much. 

... The value of his shares could rise significantly, analysts say, should the company outrace competitors now puzzling over how to let users sift through the billions of Web video clips to find those that they want to watch. “Curation is the next big thing to happen to video,” said James L. McQuivey of Forrester Research.

Off topic, but I only vaguely get this whole "curation" mania. I don't recall dreaming when I was a little boy that I would grow up to be a museum curator. I was more into my Classic Comics about Frank "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Buck, a famous zookeeper who had many adventures capturing tigers and king cobras. Is "curation" like the urge to create a mix tape in order to try to inflict your musical tastes on others?

Mr. Booker has made a national reputation in seven years as the chief executive of Newark, New Jersey’s largest city and one of the country’s poorest. But his involvement in founding, financing and promoting a private business highlights the significance of his other constituency in the tech industry, which is seeking a bigger voice in national policy in Washington. ...

This spring, the widow of Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs, and the power couple Marc Andreessen and Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen held a fund-raiser for him.
And as a social media enthusiast, with more than 30,000 Twitter posts, Mr. Booker has cast himself as an ambassador between the high-tech world and his beleaguered city. His aides noted that he had leveraged his relationships to Newark’s benefit, including a pledge of $100 million to the city’s schools from Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder. 

... Ms. Ross suggested in an interview that she saw in Mr. Booker a kindred social media spirit. She said she has wondered how the civil rights movement might have been different had the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had access to Twitter. 

... There is no question, however, that Mr. Booker’s star power has brought attention: Mr. Booker impressed an audience at the South by Southwest conference in March in Austin, Tex., in which he touted Waywire as a way to empower the politically disenfranchised. Other celebrity connections have helped the company: Waywire has put Andrew Zucker, 14, the son of Jeff Zucker, president of CNN, on its advisory board and given him stock options.

Andrew Zucker is politically disenfranchised because he won't be able to vote for four more years, so it's only right and fitting that he get some stock options.

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Fiat Citizenship

From my new column in Taki's Magazine:

In the immigration debate, the conventional wisdom is that the solution to millions of “undocumented workers” is for the government to print up documents for them. ... 

Unfortunately, while people can learn from painful experiences, we’re not very good at drawing analogies. It ought to be readily apparent that Marco Rubio’s push to print up documents for millions of undocumented illegal aliens and tens of millions of new immigrants is similar to the discredited Juan Peron / Salvador Allende / Robert Mugabe school of economic management by printing up more money.

Read the whole thing there.

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Zuckerberg's big immigration speech

The Daily Mail reports:

'Immigrants will be the job creators of tomorrow': Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg goes public with backing of immigration reform 

Made his remarks at San Francisco screening of documentary by activist and journalist Jose Antonio Vargas 

Disputed the notion that Silicon Valley leaders are just trying to secure more H1B visas for high-tech workers 

He said U.S. needs to embrace immigrants if it is to get ahead economically 

He has been teaching entrepreneurship classes and is saddened by limited further education opportunities for his students without documentation 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke out publicly for the first time on Monday in favor of immigration reform, an issue he's been working on behind the scenes for several months. 

The 29-year-old billionaire made his remarks in San Francisco at the debut screening of 'Documented,' an autobiographical documentary by activist and journalist Jose Antonio Vargas.

Jose Antonio Vargas is the first Mexican illegal alien the media has been able to discover in many years of trying with adequate journalistic / self-publicizing talent. Not surprisingly, he's gay. More surprisingly, the Establishment couldn't even find an actual Mexican. Vargas is Filipino.

Wearing his trademark hoodie and sneakers, Zuckerberg disputed the notion that he and other Silicon Valley leaders are just trying to secure more H1B visas for high-tech workers. 

'This is something that we believe is really important for the future of our country - and for us to do what's right,' Zuckerberg told several hundred attendees, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. 

Zuckerberg and his former Harvard University roommate Joe Green recently founded the organization Fwd.us to advocate for a pathway to citizenship for nearly 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

... The Facebook Inc. founder said he first became aware of the need to change the immigration system while volunteering to teach a class on entrepreneurship at a Menlo Park school. Many of the students had been brought into the U.S. illegally.

'No matter where they were born, (these students) are going to be tomorrow's entrepreneurs and people creating jobs in this country,' he told the audience. 

Granted, their legal uncles and great-uncles who have been living in California for generations haven't done much in Silicon Valley, but everything is going to change right now. After all, what do I, Mark Zuckerberg, personally want more than more competition? If only they were legalized, Mexican illegal aliens will kick my ass in the tech marketplace, and what do I like more than losing money?

Of Jewish extraction, Zuckerberg's interest in immigration stems from the fact that his own great-grandparents arrived as immigrants via Ellis Island, to America, coupled with his experience teaching entrepreneurship at an after-school program. ... 

'My great-grandparents came through Ellis Island.  

'My grandfathers were a mailman and a police officer.  

'My parents are doctors. I started a company.  

'None of this could have happened without a welcoming immigration policy, a great education system and the world’s leading scientific community that created the internet.' 

See, I'm not making this up about Ellis Island Schmaltz.

At the top of the Fwd.us website it explains in bite-sized facts just why immigration is important to the future of America and reminds users that: '40 per cent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children'

Fortune 500 firms? Where were they immigrants from? Aberdeen?

and that '57% of engineering grad students are immigrants. Many will have to leave if we don’t pass comprehensive immigration reform.'

Zuckerberg also called for higher standards and accountability in schools and increased focus on learning about science, technology, engineering and maths.
Today's knowledge and ideas-based economy, the 28-year-old Harvard dropout wrote, is very different from the economy of the 20th century that was based on natural resources, industrial machines and labor.

So, let's legalize the illegals so they can start inventing lots of new high tech.

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Great art projects: The Modigliani Heads

As art techniques and technology developed over the centuries, the emphasis in art appreciation has shifted from celebrating the making of beautiful objects, which are now commonplace, to celebrating the conceiving of clever art projects. Admired art projects tend to comment upon art and/or be disturbing.

Of course, there is one type of unsettling art project that comments upon art that the art world is uncomfortable with, but that I find most interesting.

From a 1984 People article:

When the project began in July, it had the makings of a treasure hunt. That was when dredging started in the fosso reale ("royal ditch"), a junk-strewn canal in Livorno, Italy. Commissioned by the city council at a cost of $35,000, the dredge was sifting through seven feet of mud, in search of several sculpted stone heads. As legend told it, the heads had been deep-sixed 75 years ago by a hometown boy, the artist Amedeo Modigliani [1884-1920], in a fit of pique over his friends' criticism of the works. ... 

In her favor was the fact that only 26 Modigliani sculptures are known to exist. That is the more surprising because Modigliani, most readily recognized for his portraits of languid, long-nosed women, loved sculpting above all else. III health (he died in 1920 at 35 of tuberculosis and the effects of alcohol and hashish) forced him to trade his chisel for a brush. Thus the unearthing of additional sculptures would be a major event in the international art world. It would be especially important to Italy, which possesses few of his paintings and not one of his sculptures.  

Durbé's goal was to find the works in time for the 100th anniversary of Modigliani's birth this year. Many problems had to be solved. For instance, might the dredge's metal claws harm the sculptures? (The answer: rubber covering over the tips.) Work finally got underway on July 17. 

As hundreds looked on, the canal began to surrender an array of artifacts: several guns, a rocking horse, bicycles and fittings for a complete bathroom. At 9 a.m. on July 24 the first carving was found, then, eight hours later, a second. A third was retrieved August 9. Slightly smaller than the others, it measured 15 by 11 inches. When Durbé saw them, she wept.  

Art experts rushed to Livorno. Critic Cesare Brandi called the find "very important and certainly Modiglianis." Jean Leymarie, director of the noted French Academy in Rome, pronounced them "a resurrection." The sculptures, dubbed Modi 1, 2 and 3, were disinfected and cleaned. Numbers 1 and 2 were promptly added to the show Durbé had mounted in the Livorno museum for the Modigliani centenary. The works were reputedly insured for nearly $1.5 million. The city was euphoric.  

The joy, alas, was short-lived. Six weeks later the Italian weekly Panorama ran an article entitled The Livorno Hoax, in which three university students confessed to carving Modi 2 and throwing it into the canal. They said they made it in two afternoons, using a chisel, a screwdriver and a Black & Decker electric drill, copying the design from an illustration in Durbé's museum catalogue. They had chips of stone and photos to prove it. The boys claimed it was just a prank. "We thought, 'Why not help them find something?' " explained one. "It's not our fault so many people made a mistake."  

Durbé was incredulous. She called the students "puppets being manipulated by someone," perhaps the Mafia or a political group. The critics supported her. The boys disputed that notion in a three-hour television special during which they created yet another fake "masterpiece."  

Oh, well, the canal had yielded two other Modiglianis, right? Wrong. Last month a Livorno dockworker (and ex-art student) named Angelo Froglia revealed himself to be the perpetrator of Modis 1 and 3. His purpose: "To reveal the false values of art critics and mass media." Compounding the insult, Froglia not only had a videotape of himself at work on the carvings but also provided a recipe for faking a Modigliani head: Find an old paving stone. Chip it about a bit, then marinate in Livorno mud, scouring powder and hydrochloric acid. Cook the stone slowly on a hot grill. Throw it in the Livorno canal late at night. Leave stone—and art critics—to stew until ready.  

Feeling well roasted, the critics admitted they had been carried away by the euphoria in Livorno. "We love Modigliani too much," said one. "This led us to betray ourselves." In the end the embattled museum curator salvaged only one small consolation. Because of the controversy, the exhibit attracted more than 40,000 visitors during its 10-week run, earning the museum and the city a $35,000 profit over the cost of dredging. "I don't feel at all diminished by this affair," Durbé says bravely. "I fought for this and I would do it again." 

Actual Modigliani head

In fairness, a lone critic at the time vociferously doubted the dredged-up heads' authenticity and said that if they truly had been made by Modigliani, they were so bad that he was right to have thrown them in the canal.

So, the art world is really not all one big hoax. There actually are people who know what they are talking about, and most famous artists are quite skilled.

But, hoaxes and forgeries may well be the most interesting art projects going on in the art world in recent decades. But they appeal more to philosophers (e.g., the late Dennis Dutton) and to the People-reading public than to the big money art world, which find them distasteful and undermining. It's crucial to them for their rich clients not to worry much about whether their latest purchase is a genuine saint's relic artwork by a famous artist.

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Epstein: The Sports Gene(s)

Here's a level-headed sounding new book by a Sports Illustrated writer:

The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance

by David Epstein 

In high school, I wondered whether the Jamaican Americans who made our track team so successful might carry some special speed gene from their tiny island. In college, I ran against Kenyans, and wondered whether endurance genes might have traveled with them from East Africa. At the same time, I began to notice that a training group on my team could consist of five men who run next to one another, stride for stride, day after day, and nonetheless turn out five entirely different runners. How could this be? 

We all knew a star athlete in high school. The one who made it look so easy. He was the starting quarterback and shortstop; she was the all-state point guard and high-jumper. Naturals. Or were they? 

The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put on Earth to dominate their respective sports? Or are they simply normal people who overcame their biological limits through sheer force of will and obsessive training? 

The truth is far messier than a simple dichotomy between nature and nurture. In the decade since the sequencing of the human genome, researchers have slowly begun to uncover how the relationship between biological endowments and a competitor’s training environment affects athleticism. Sports scientists have gradually entered the era of modern genetic research. 

In this controversial and engaging exploration of athletic success, Sports Illustrated senior writer David Epstein tackles the great nature vs. nurture debate and traces how far science has come in solving this great riddle. He investigates the so-called 10,000-hour rule to uncover whether rigorous and consistent practice from a young age is the only route to athletic excellence. 

He cites Donald Thomas, a basketball player from the Bahamas, who took up high-jumping in early 2006 and won the World Championship in the summer of 2007. Still, for more complicated sports, the 10,000 hour rule seems reasonable. Of course, as Epstein emphasizes, 10,000 hours of practice is not sufficient. LeBron James is going to be better at you than basketball no matter how much you practice.

Along the way, Epstein dispels many of our perceptions about why top athletes excel. He shows why some skills that we assume are innate, like the bullet-fast reactions of a baseball or cricket batter, are not, and why other characteristics that we assume are entirely voluntary, like an athlete’s will to train, might in fact have important genetic components. 

This subject necessarily involves digging deep into sensitive topics like race and gender. Epstein explores controversial questions such as: 

Are black athletes genetically predetermined to dominate both sprinting and distance running, and are their abilities influenced by Africa’s geography? 

Are there genetic reasons to separate male and female athletes in competition? 

Should we test the genes of young children to determine if they are destined for stardom? 

Can genetic testing determine who is at risk of injury, brain damage, or even death on the field? 

Epstein claims there's a high correlation between football players getting brain damage and one allele of one gene. If true, it would make sense to have your son genetically tested before allowing him to play football.

Through on-the-ground reporting from below the equator and above the Arctic Circle, revealing conversations with leading scientists and Olympic champions, and interviews with athletes who have rare genetic mutations or physical traits, Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of athleticism.

Here's an interview with Epstein.

It sounds rather like Jon Entine's 2001 book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports And Why We're Afraid To Talk About It, but recast somewhat for the self-help genre.

He says that in a test of simple reaction times, slugger Albert Pujols, three-time National League MVP, only scored at the 66th percentile compared to Washington U. of St. Louis undergrads. I don't know exactly what to make of this, but I've always found Arthur Jensen's work on reaction times doesn't map all that well to what's observable in sports. Clearly, there must be some complicated wrinkles to fully understanding reaction times that I've never managed to get clear in my head.

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CNN: Here's a giant Marco McMillian story with no new news!

From CNN last month, the opening of an 18-page article:

Mysterious Mississippi murder stokes suspicions bred by an ugly past  

Beaten. Dragged. Burned. 

The words leave attorney Daryl Parks' lips like a barrage of gunfire in the sanctuary of Chapel Hill Missionary Baptist Church, where people have gathered not for prayer but for answers. 

Some wear "Justice for Marco" T-shirts. They are enraged over the investigation into the death of Marco McMillian, a young black gay mayoral candidate, whose broken body was discovered dumped downhill from a Mississippi River levee on February 26. 

Parks' words suggest the most heinous of murders. Here in the Mississippi Delta, they conjure even more: a chilling history of racial hatred.

Except that back in February a blood-covered young black man named Lawrence Reed, who was driving McMillian's stolen car, confessed to multiple witnesses that he had just murdered McMillian with his wallet chain.

They just can't admit defeat, can they?

What's next? A Michael Moore documentary about the Oberlin KKK rally?

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