Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: the Washington Post illustrates why the AR-15 is so lethal to the human body, supporting abortion rights wins elections, Russia detains a reporter, and other stories from California, politics, science, technology, and sports.

Leading Off

The Washington Post released a visual report this week illustrating how an AR-15 bullet creates especially lethal wounds to a human body. 

The image above is a screenshot from one of the 3D renderings included in this feature. The blue area is the wound created by a 9-mm handgun. The larger orange area is the wound made by an AR-15. 

I do not think it is easy for people to understand just how much more destructive an AR-15 is compared to a handgun unless a person has military experience, is a medical professional, or has witnessed an AR-15 massacre.

I found the images in the article, which are just 3D renderings, disturbing. But I think that feeling is necessary to understand better just how much more effective an AR-15 is at killing people.  

Washington Post Editor Sally Buzbee wrote a letter to readers explaining why the paper chose to publish this feature: 

“The catastrophic damage the bullets from AR-15s cause inside human bodies is rarely made public in detail. News organizations do not generally publish graphic autopsy or crime scene photos because the images could be viewed as dehumanizing, exploitative and traumatizing, or could inflict further pain on the families of victims. As a result, the damage AR-15 fire can do to a human body — a great deal more than handguns — is not widely understood.

When we set out to chronicle the story of the AR-15 in America, we searched for ways to illustrate that effect on bodies in an unflinching but respectful manner. We recognize that this presentation may disturb readers, but we determined the information it contains is critical to the public’s knowledge.

Two principles shaped our approach: to show the impact on a body with precision and to share our findings through visualizations that meet our ethical standards. To accomplish that, we decided it was essential to document and depict actual mortal wounds to actual victims, using animated illustrations that show the entrance and exit wounds in human figures.”

The Washington Post’s N. Kirkpatrick, Atthar Mirza, and Manuel Canales explain what the feature includes: 

“The first part of this report is a 3D animation that shows the trajectory of two different hypothetical gunshots to the chest — one from an AR-15 and another from a typical handgun — to explain the greater severity of the damage caused by the AR-15.

The second part depicts the entrance and exit wounds of two actual victims — Noah Pozner, 6, and Peter Wang, 15 — killed in school shootings when they were struck by multiple bullets.

This account is based on a review of nearly 100 autopsy reports from several AR-15 shootings as well as court testimony and interviews with trauma surgeons, ballistics experts and a medical examiner.”

The families of Pozner (killed at Sandy Hook Elementary) and Wang (killed at Stoneman Douglas High School) consented to the use of their children’s representations in the piece. While they declined an opportunity to see the images in advance or to participate in an interview for the report, the Wang family submitted a statement explaining why they provided their consent to the Washington Post:

“Peter’s parents want people to know the truth,” said Lin Chen, their niece and Peter’s cousin. “They want people to know about Peter. They want people to remember him.”

James Fallows also discusses this Washington Post feature in an article that draws upon his over 40 years of experience writing about the AR-15. 

He explores the weapon’s history, how civilians came to own more of them, and why debating the AR-15 issue matters: 

“The AR-15 matters because more of them are in U.S. civilian hands than any other rifle. No one knows the exact number. But within this country, estimates of the AR-15 total start at around 20 million. In the rest of the world they are rare except among government forces, criminal gangs, or some regulated hobbyist or security groups.

The AR-15 matters because it has been used in the majority of recent U.S. mass shootings—which are most of the world’s mass shootings. Here is an illustration from the recent WaPo coverage:

The AR-15 matters because it frightens law enforcement agents. The police in Uvalde did not attack the school murderer because they were “afraid” of his AR-15.

The AR-15 matters because of the particular damage it is able to inflict, as the Washington Post feature illustrates…”

We all should know the truth. We need to see it. And I hope we continue to work every day to hold those who refuse to vote for bans against these weapons of war accountable. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Abortion Wins Elections

New York Magazine’s Rebecca Traister makes a case for Democrats making abortion rights a centerpiece of their 2024 campaigns. 

For decades, Democrats have allowed Roe v. Wade to do the work, hoping to avoid the issue in campaigns and focusing on “choice” when forced to take a position. Republicans, of course, were much more aggressive about the issue and created a bench of radically conservative lawyers ready to become judges and justices. Those efforts culminated in the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe last year with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. 

Traister notes that Democrats, as a result, do not have much muscle memory about discussing these vital issues in legislatures or on the campaign trail. But voters are pushing them about this issue, a trend I suspect will accelerate when more people and families experience the tragic impact of abortion bans on the health and lives of women and people who can become pregnant. As Traister explains:

“But Dobbs also catalyzed a revolution in the politics of abortion. And now it’s not just some loud activists and marginalized lady pols telling Democrats to move quickly and assertively to figure out how to make abortion available again across the country: It’s voters. Voters who just saved the Democratic Party during a midterm year in which inflation and gas prices should have meant a drubbing for the incumbent president’s party but instead resulted in a historic success for Democrats, who retained control of all their state legislatures, flipped Republican chambers in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and, at the federal level, gained a Senate seat and kept House losses to the single digits.

Multiple factors, including a slate of ghoulish right-wing candidates, helped Democrats, but there is no question that abortion was the preeminent issue for voters. “Democrats should have gotten wiped out,” said the pollster Tom Bonier. “But they overperformed. When you look at where they overperformed, it’s in places where choice was most present in the election, either literally on the ballot, like Michigan and Kentucky, or effectively in terms of the perceived stakes and the extent to which the candidates were talking about abortion, like Pennsylvania.”

“I don’t think Democrats have fully processed that this country is now 10 to 15 percent more pro-choice than it was before Dobbs in state after state and national data,” said pollster Celinda Lake.

The Democrats, in other words, are the bewildered dog that has caught the bus. A motivated base has turned to them for leadership on abortion while they are staring down a Republican House majority, a Senate filibuster, and an obdurate Supreme Court. Upon hearing that I was writing about their party’s plan to tackle abortion post-Dobbs, more than one Democratic staffer, and at least one elected official, silently mouthed to me, “There is no plan.”

What Democrats have is incentive: One of their most urgent policy issues has just shown itself to be their most politically effective. And they are undergoing a generational turnover that has already started to reshape the party and its approach to the battle — a dawning, in the midst of cataclysm, of a new era of political possibility.”

As an example, Traister profiles Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the new Democratic leadership in that state. Michigan has moved towards the Democrats during the last couple of election cycles, and Whitmer and her colleagues have transformed the state’s politics while emphasizing their position on abortion. 

One of my political rules is that doing the right thing on behalf of your constituents should always be the preferred strategy. It is a huge bonus when doing the right thing is also politically popular. 

And I hope the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday provides another positive example of this dynamic. 

Russians Detain Wall Street Journal Reporter 

I learned about the Russian arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges after receiving an email sent to all college graduates from Bowdoin College President Clayton Rose. 

Gershkovich is a 2014 graduate of Bowdoin, where he wrote for the Bowdoin Orient, the student weekly newspaper, and helped to found the Bowdoin Review. He has also been active as a mentor for Bowdoin students interested in journalism, and the latest edition of Bowdoin Magazine that arrived at my home yesterday included a short message from him.  

The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw have published a profile about Gershkovich and his reporting in the country:

“Mr. Gershkovich, 31 years old, is the American son of Soviet-born Jewish exiles who had settled in New Jersey. He fell in love with Russia—its language, the people he chatted with for hours in regional capitals, the punk bands he hung out with at Moscow dive bars. Now, espionage charges leave him facing a possible prison sentence of up to 20 years.

His employer, colleagues and the Biden administration all deny Russia’s claim that he was spying on behalf of the U.S., and have called for his immediate release. Diplomats and legal experts see little hope Mr. Gershkovich, a reporter accredited by the Russian foreign ministry, will immediately be freed, given that espionage trials in Russia are conducted in secret and almost always end in a conviction.”

Puck’s Julia Ioffe shares what sources have told her about Gershkovich’s arrest and why Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have been directly involved. She writes:

“Another well-placed Moscow source pointed to the speed and harshness with which Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s mustachioed spokesman, commented on Gershkovich’s arrest. Usually, Peskov stalls for time and, when pressed about such cases, says that the president’s office has nothing to do with it, that it would be best to seek comment from the relevant agencies, like the courts. This time, however, Peskov said Gershkovich had been “caught red-handed.” It implied that the decision to arrest Gershkovich had been made at the very, very top, by Putin himself, who likely also approved of the messaging: Gershkovich is a spy, guilty before any opportunity to prove himself innocent.

Then there is the question of motive. Russia has already been “banking hostages,” as F.S.B. chronicler Andrei Soldatov has said. Just look at Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan, and other Americans who have been held in Russian jails. The goal is often to trade them for Russian spies arrested in Western countries—and there have been a lot of those of late. 

Which brings me to why this happened at all. The arrest of an American journalist in Russia has not happened since 1986, before the fall of the Soviet Union. Western journalists—who had to be accredited by the Russian foreign ministry to be in the country—were monitored and occasionally harassed, of course. Several were kicked out of the country. But none had ever been arrested, not even under Putin.”

I fear this ordeal will not be short for Gershkovich. My thoughts are with his family and friends and the people in the United States government and at the Wall Street Journal who will be working for his release. 

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

Governor Gavin Newsom scored a victory over the oil industry as the legislature passed his proposal to allow the state’s Energy Commission to have more powers to receive gas price data and potentially cap the industry’s profits. While this legislation was not Newsom’s original plan announced after the price spikes last fall, he demonstrated a new cooperative strategy with legislators to get a proposal passed over the objection of one of the state’s most prominent industries. (Jeremy White, Politico)

All of the rain and snow could lead to the restoration of Tulare Lake, which at one point was the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi before dams and levees diverted its sources. (Andrew Freedman, Axios)

Introducing Bembidion Brownorum! 🪲

news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/27/rar…

— Jerry Brown (@JerryBrownGov) 7:55 PM ∙ Mar 27, 2023

Politics

The United States foreign policy establishment is having trouble discerning what the Biden Administration’s Ukraine strategy will be after the expected spring offensive against Russia. “It turns out that Washington’s foreign policy set has grown increasingly frustrated with the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy. What is it, exactly? On one hand, the administration has been consistent in its line on Ukraine: Ukraine must win, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, this must not turn into World War III, and we must defend and strengthen the rules-based (and American-designed) international order. But what does any of that really mean? What does winning in Ukraine even look like?” (Julia Ioffe, Puck)

Will the IRS finally create an easy-to-use, no-cost tax reporting service, or will the tax preparation industry’s lobbyists win again? (Don Moynihan, Can We Still Govern?)

Here’s the story behind the Florida school that banned a movie about Ruby Bridges based on the objection of one parent. (Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information)

Science

Durham University astronomers have discovered an ultramassive black hole about 30 billion times the mass of our Sun. (PA Media, The Guardian)

A new study from the Club of Rome says the world’s population will peak earlier and at a lower level than previously anticipated. That will have benefits for the environment but create pressures in aging societies. (Jonathan Watts, The Guardian)

Technology

A new study from Common Sense Media explores the impact of social media usage on teenage girls. While there are obvious downsides, the teenagers surveyed also noted how mindful use can have a positive impact. (Carolyn Jones, EdSource)

Here’s the secret list of VIPs getting special boosts on Twitter over other users. Yes, Elon Musk is among them. (Zoë Schiffer, Platformer)

One of my favorite technology reporters and podcasters, Kara Swisher, is the subject of a Vanity Fair profile. “Beyond On, Swisher, 60, also hosts Pivot, a twice-weekly podcast with brash NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway; is writing a memoir about her beat-reporting days covering the dawn of the web; is working on a fictional TV show with another veteran Silicon Valley journalist; is advising Post News, a social platform she hopes will be a Twitter competitor; and is raising four kids, two of whom are toddlers. “She has a coffee before bed every night, after midnight,” Semafor’s Ben Smith texts. “This seems somehow emblematic to me. (In a good way.)” (Charlotte Klein, Vanity Fair)

I was one of the people fooled by the AI-generated fake image of Pope Francis in a stunning white puffer jacket. Here’s the story behind the person who went unexpectedly viral. Figuring out what’s real on the internet is going to get much more difficult. (Chris Stokel-Walker, BuzzFeed)

Culture

X-Files creator Chris Carter says that the show is getting a reboot under the direction of Black Panther director Ryan Coogler. (Keiran Southern, The Times of London)

Students from Adolfo Camarillo High School in Camarillo, California, broke a Guinness World Record when they crafted a charcuterie board measuring 204.7 feet long. (Ben Hooper, UPI)

Greenland won’t be falling back, as the semi-independent territory will remain on Daylight Savings Time from now on. (Associated Press)

The change from cable television to streaming is disrupting how the media industry makes its money. That dynamic, and the possible challenges to writers that artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT create, could lead to a writer’s strike this summer. (Tim Goodman, Bastard Machine)

Who killed penmanship? And who are the people trying to revive the practice? (Isabella Paoletto, New York Times)

Sports

I’ve listened to Men in Blazers, the soccer podcast hosted by Roger Bennett and Michael Davies, since one of its first episodes in 2011. I finally got to see them live in San Francisco during their nationwide tour last December during the Men’s World Cup. Now, they are expanding their coverage (yes, I am excited about all of these developments), looking to support the growth of soccer fandom in the United States, and here get the Hollywood Reporter profile treatment to explain the journey. (Julian Sancton, Hollywood Reporter)

Here’s a quick primer explaining how some of baseball’s most popular advanced metrics work without using any math. Now you can know all about WAR, barrels, sprint speed, catcher blocking, swinging strike percentage, and called strike percentage. (Joe Posnanski, Esquire)

Caitlin Clark is doing amazing things on the basketball court in leading Iowa to the National Championship game. For example, this remarkable stat.

Caitlin Clark has 161 points and 52 assists in this NCAA Tournament.

Since 2000, it’s one of six instances of a player having 150 points and 50 assists in ANY 5-game span.

All six of those belong to Caitlin Clark.

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) 5:24 AM ∙ Apr 1, 2023

The Closer

I have a lot of respect for the understated way he chose to respond, given the context. 

Well, that’s certainly a statement.

— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellNY) 9:48 PM ∙ Mar 30, 2023

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:

“Baseball is like this intersection of life and math where you can predict anything except the moments that change everything.” (Eden, as portrayed by Jassey Kris, to Jim Brockmire, as portrayed by Hank Azaria, in the Brockmire television series episode “The Hall”)

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Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.