TCB Nov. 27, 2019 — Disinformation Nation

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019 triad-city-beat.com

FREE

PAGE 6

INSIDE THIS WEEK: TRIAD CIT Y BITES

+ OUR 2019 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE!

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Po-boys to ponder The garlic oyster po-boy at Liuzza’s in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood is the answer to everything.

This is not a

by Brian Clarey fancy sandwich, and this is not a fancy place. The room looks every bit like it was designed in the 1940s, which it was. And the po-boy is really just an excellent version of an excellent sandwich served capably in many places both fine and not so fine in that city by the bend in the Mississippi.

But this one is loaded with garlic.

Oysters and garlic go together like caviar and vodka, like rice and beans, like a cool, overcast day in Mid-City and a walk through the St. Louis Cemetery No. 3, where the tombs, some larger than the nearby apartments, grip concrete paths in this city of the dead.

They got James Gallier, the architect who helped develop the city’s style, and EJ Bellocq, the photographer who chronicled the working women of the Storyville District in the early 1900s. And there’s Dooky Chase, who had lain alone since 2016 until his wife Leah joined him earlier this year.

They would have understood about this

sandwich.

It’s the oysters and the garlic, sure, and the perfect baguette and the way the oyster grease laced with garlic just sort of permeates, but it’s also eating it at a table in the window of Liuzza’s after walking over from the apartment, and maybe you’ve got tickets to the Saints game tomorrow in your pocket, and sitting across the table from you is the lady whose pale, blue eyes have always reminded you of the fragile Louisiana sky.

It’s also the gumbo, because Liuzza’s has the best in town. But everybody has gumbo. And nobody has a sandwich like this.

The garlic oyster po-boy is singular, like the city in which it’s made. It’s the kind of sandwich that makes you shake your head in wonder while you eat it. It’s the kind of sandwich that, once you’ve had it, you almost wish you hadn’t just so you could experience it anew once again. It’s the kind of sandwich that’s gone before you even know it, but you still think about it for days afterward, wondering when you’ll once again get your hands on one of those sandwiches.

The sandwich poses many questions, yes. And it answers only with itself, which is more than enough.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I think they’re connecting the Holocaust to what ICE is doing now. They don’t want that to happen again.

—Megan Squire, pg. 10

BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sayaka Matsuoka

KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

robert@triad-city-beat.com SALES

sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

gayla@triad-city-beat.com

SPECIAL SECTION EDITOR Nikki Miller-Ka niksnacksblog@gmail.com

2

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 COVER: Disinformation Nation — bots, trolls and sock puppets have STAFF WRITER Savi Ettinger savi@triad-city-beat.com taken over the internet. Elections have consequences, but so do ART algorithms.

CONTRIBUTORS

Carolyn de Berry, Matt Jones

TCB IN A FLASH @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2018 Beat Media Inc.

COVER ILLUSTRATION: Jon Merrell

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

NOVEMBER 29 & 30

The Idiot Box Presents: Special event on Friday Nov.29th

Jake the Snake Roberts OTHER EVENT:

Improv comedy

bring non perishable food donation and admission is free 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. Saturday, November 30th

503 N Greene St, Greensboro

ibxcomedy.com

3

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

CITY LIFE Nov 28-Dec 1, 2019

by Savi Ettinger

THURSDAY Nov. 28

Up Front

2019 Greensboro Gobbler 5K & Dog Jog @ Center City Park (GSO), 9 a.m.

Black Friday Stout Release @ Incendiary Brewing Company (W-S), 12 p.m.

Incendiary Brewing asks guests to exchange the shopping bags on Black Friday for a glass of dark beer. The special stout release also marks the release of eight different dark beers on tap for the day. Find the event on Facebook.

News

Silent Disco @ the Ramkat (W-S), 9 p.m.

Opinion

This Thanksgiving Day race encourages both walkers and runners to join in a 5k journey, or a shorter mile-long fun run.

Sign up for a spot to run, or watch the people in the 19th annual run through Greensboro’s downtown. Find the event on Facebook.

Friendsgiving Potluck @ North Star LGBTQ Center (W-S), 5 p.m.

North Star opens their doors to anyone without Thanksgiving plans. Come with yams, green bean casserole or your favorite holiday dish and join the potluck feast.

Find the event on Facebook.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

FRIDAY Nov. 29

4

Craftsmen’s Christmas Classic @ Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 9 a.m.

This weekend-long arts and crafts show promises a chance to find the perfect gift for almost anyone. Browse the works of hundreds of artists, all specializing in a wide array of creations. Learn more at greensborocoliseum.com.

The Really Really Free Market @ Christ United Methodist Church Glenwood (GSO), 10 a.m.

This market goes against the hustle and money-spending of Black Friday by hosting donated wares for free. The goods, donated by those no longer needing them, can be taken without any form of payment while promoting reducing, reusing, and recycling. Find the event on Facebook.

Plug in your headphones and let everything else fade away in your own personal dance party, amongst everyone else’s dance parties. DJ SK, DJ Bruno D and Fame the DJ all spin tunes straight to the audience’s headsets. Find the event on Facebook.

Elevated Weirdo Rock Paper Scissors Tournament @ Monstercade (W-S), 8 p.m.

Come ready not to only rock out but to potentially rock-paper-scissors your way to the championship spot in a tournament.

Dogwood Tales and TV Sunset provide the soundtrack for the night of battling.

Find the event on Facebook.

SUNDAY Dec. 1

Camel City Craft Fair @ Foothills Brewing Tasting Room (W-S), 12 p.m.

This winter bazaar hosts their fourth year of an opportunity to shop local. Browse handmade goods, vintage antiques and culinary crafts from more than 75 creators.

Find the event on Facebook.

5B @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 2 p.m.

SATURDAY Nov. 30

Greenspurro Holiday Market @ Crooked Tail Cat Café (GSO), 12 p.m.

Both cat lovers and holiday shoppers alike can enjoy this select market of goods made by artists and craftspeople inside of Greensboro’s cat café. Sip some wine or a “meowmosa” while you shop. Find the event on Facebook.

Companyon @ Wise Man Brewing (WS), 8 p.m.

Head to Wise Man for a free concert by Companyon, a band that recently moved to the Carolinas. They bring out the most catchy qualities of pop music to the brewery. Find the event on Facebook.

A Motown Christmas @ the Carolina Theatre (GSO), 8 p.m.

This show combines vocalizing skills with Motown classics and holiday cheer. Performances include members of the Temptations, the Capitols and the Miracles. Learn more at carolinatheatre.com.

For World AIDS Day, the Triad Health Project screens a film about the experiences of those working and living within America’s first HIV/AIDS ward. Join for a panel discussion following the film. Find the event on Facebook.

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play @ Triad Stage (GSO), 7:30 p.m.

Triad Stage’s newest production turns a classic Christmas film into a play and a radio show. The live performances of It’s a Wonderful Life run through Dec. 22. Learn more at triadstage.org.

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019 Up Front News

Opinion

Culture

Shot in the Triad

Puzzles

5

Trolls, conspiracy theorists, hoaxers and Trump have twisted Facebook, YouTube and the news to toxic levels — and it’s only getting worse

By Daniel Walters

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

The Disinformation Nation

6

It may be getting harder and harder to figure out the truth, but at least this much is clear: It’s a good time to be a liar.

We’ve spent three years arguing if fake news swung the 2016 election — debating whether the hordes of Russian bots, hoax Facebook pages and inflammatory, dishonest tweets tipped the democratic balance to elect Donald Trump as president.

Yet in those same years, we’ve learned that the stakes in the fight against truth, in a muddy world of social media platforms, go beyond politics.

In Brazil, public health workers were attacked after far-right activists lied on YouTube that they were spreading the Zika virus. In Myanmar, government soldiers used fake Facebook accounts to drive an ethnic cleansing, full of incendiary claims and false stories about Muslim minorities raping Buddhist women. Gunmen radicalized by false white-supremacist conspiracies on internet forums like 4chan and 8chan shot up a synagogue in California, a Walmart in Texas and mosques in New Zealand.

Elections have consequences. So do algorithms.

So now, heading into the 2020 election, experts are warning that trolls, hoaxers and dishonest politicians are arming themselves with a whole new arsenal of weapons of mass deception. New technology is making it easier to hoax audio and video, while advances in artificial intelligence are making it all the more difficult to weed out computer-automated “bot” accounts.

And there’s a deeper risk, beyond figuring out the inaccuracy of any one article.

The deluge of misinformation — full of Trump tweets, deepfakes, InfoWars videos, Russian bots, 4chan trolls, that Washington Post correction, those out-of-

spread, more competitive, and eager publishers found the power of the 19th Century version of clickbait. The New York-based Sun put out a series of entirely fictional stories that purported that “man-bats” and other exotic creatures were scurrying around on the moon.

Soviet-born British TV producer Peter Pomerantsev, author of This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, argues that when tech rips open the floodgates of communication, the bad guys always find a way to exploit it. Dictators quickly harnessed the power of radio. Joseph McCarthy, as a US senator in the ’50s, used television to spread his anti-Communist conspiracy theories.

Yet for decades, the internet was heralded as a new frontier that allowed “citizen journalists” to take on the stodgy media elite. In 1998, the Drudge Report, a right-wing news-aggregating website, broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal when Newsweek got cold feet. In 2004, when Dan Rather and 60 Minutes put out a 1973 memo purporting to show that President George W. Bush had received special treatment while in the Texas Air National Guard, Drudge elevated the conservative bloggers who persuasively argued the memo was a fake written in Microsoft Word.

An “Army of Davids” — as some bloggers dubbed context memes and your great aunt’s latest questionable themselves — swarmed to debunk flawed media acFacebook post — has become so overwhelming that counts, trying to counter bias wherever they saw it. The some of us may simply give up trying to make sense of gatekeepers were being overthrown, the drawbridge had it all. been flung open and the villagers could storm the castle.

A lie doesn’t need to be believed. It just needs to creBut the villagers had their own standards for newsate enough doubt that the truth becomes polluted. With worthiness. Drudge also sent his readers to darker enough pollution, it’s impossible to see what’s right in corners, where sketchy websites claimed Barack Obama front of you. wasn’t an American citizen and Bill Clinton had a secret “When you’re flooded with so much love child. Drudge even provided fuel for bullshit,” New York Times media colum- An advancement in “Pizzagate,” the conspiracy that drove a nist Charlie Warzel says, separating fact communications North Carolina man in 2016 to fire an ARfrom fiction becomes so difficult that technology hands liars 15 inside a pizzeria, because the internet “the task of trying to do it becomes, the means to lie louder told him that they were harboring child sex you know, tiresome, so you just stop.” slaves. and spread those lies It’s the sort of thing your college Conspiracy theorists used to spread their philosophy professor might call an further. gospel through books, newsletters, public“epistemic crisis.” We don’t know what access television shows, and by standing on to believe. Truth is hazy. Reality itself becomes irrelstreetcorners handing out fliers. But the web gave every evant. It’s a phenomenon that has already happened in community a niche — no matter how fringe — and places like Russia and the Philippines — and experts say allowed them to spread their message in only a few keythat in the past few years, the United States has sudstrokes. On the internet, the corkboard is infinite and denly found itself on the same path. the spool of yarn used to connect pictures of shadowy “And that, to me, is one of the scariest things to think figures never runs out. about,” Warzel says. “It feels like we’ve come incredibly The internet, Warzel says, handed fringe figures like far since 2015.”

Alex Jones of InfoWars a powerful new megaphone.

“He was one of the early pioneers of internet radio THE WEB OF CONSPIRACY and video,” Warzel says. “It was a way to get around the History has a pattern. notion that it was hard to sell advertising around some An advancement in communications technology of his kooky ideas.” hands liars the means to lie louder and spread those lies An audience of millions repeatedly tuned into Jones’ further. Look at the 1830s, when the invention of the red-faced rants about 9/11 being an inside job, Obama steam printing press and other paper-making technolochemtrails turning frogs gay and the Sandy Hook shootgies produced the rise of the “penny press.” Newspaings being faked. Drudge repeatedly linked to him. pers became cheaper, more independent, more wideSocial media sites only accelerated the spread of mis-

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Biden, America gets to watch, once again, how powerful Trump’s misinformation machine is.

A September Monmouth University poll shows that only 40 percent of Republicans believe that Trump mentioned an investigation into Joe Biden during his call with Ukrainian president, ignoring both the rough transcript of the call and Trump’s own words. Indeed, in March, a Quinnipiac University poll found that twothirds of Republicans believe Trump is honest.

Some of that’s simple partisan psychology. Whether you voted for Trump because of immigration, judges, abortion or tax rates, your mind needs to continually justify your vote. You wouldn’t vote for a liar. You voted for Trump, so Trump must not be a liar. Besides, have you seen those wild claims the Democrats are making?

“At this stage it’s less about defending Trump,” writes columnist Peter Wehner in the New York Times, quoting a conservative psychologist friend. “They are defending their own defense of Trump.”

It’s the same principle that drove feminists to attempt to justify President Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades.

Trump has a legion of staffers and supporters willing to lie for him. He ordered his press secretary to lie about his inauguration crowd size. He pressed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to defend his inaccurate statements about Hurricane Dorian.

“I have no obligation to be honest to the media,” former Trump aide Corey Lewandowski told Congress in September, speaking under oath. “Because they’re just as dishonest as anybody else.”

And today, Trump has a loyal media apparatus willing to run interference for his falsehoods. The moment a negative story about Trump goes up, Fox News, the Federalist and a horde of Trump Twitter acolytes fire back with a mix of spin, falsehoods and irrelevancies.

The speed of that response, Miller says, makes it impossible for the truth to get a foothold.

“It prevents the ability for the facts to make it out at all,” Miller says. “People are hearing the alternate story at the same time they are hearing the story.”

So on the right, Trump’s Ukrainian scandal quickly became a story about the motivations of the anonymous whistleblower, the dishonesty of House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff and the purported corruption of Biden and his son.

The Robert Mueller-led special counsel’s investigation into whether Trump’s team colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election turned into a story about the malfeasance of the “deep state,” about Trump-hating FBI agents concocting a scheme to undo the American’s actual election.

And for those seeking clarity, the firehose of factually shaky information on Twitter from all sides didn’t help matters. It wasn’t just from Trump fans.

Self-proclaimed members of the anti-Trump #Resistance rack up hundreds of thousands of followers hawking anti-Trump conspiracies and assurances that Trump’s downfall was always imminent.

It’s made social media stars of guys like Ed and Brian Krassenstein — who put out a children’s book featuring a muscled, shirtless Mueller — and former British member of Parliament Louise Mensch.

“My sources say the death penalty, for espionage, being considered for [former Trump campaign manager] @StevenKBannon,” Mensch tweeted in 2017, just a

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

information. It’s easier than ever for a single comment, world. particular an untrue one, to go viral. In ancient times, “There are people who just want to watch the world the opinions of quacks were largely quarantined to a burn,” Marantz says. “And that’s a phrase I returned to newspaper’s page of letters to the editor. again and again.”

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman and racist The motivations vary. In Macedonia, Warzel says, Twitter randos with names like “@WhiteGenocideTM” there are clickfarms filled with teenagers pumping out are all simmering in the same stew together. Both, after hoax news stories for fake publications, buying Faceall, get retweeted by the president. book likes, all as a way to make money.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study pub“It’s essentially just like a lemonade stand for them,” lished last year took a look at over a decade of Twitter he says. But there are also foreign governments trying posts and found that tweets about false news went viral to influence global trends, politicians trying to game six times faster than tweets about true news. In the end, power, and true believers who spread falsehoods belies are often more sensational, tapping into human cause they think it’s the truth. emotions of shock, fear and disgust.

“To some degree, it doesn’t matter as long as there’s It wasn’t just that humans were more likely to share power to be gained and money to be made,” Warzel these kinds of stories. It was that Facebook, Twitter and says.

YouTube developed algorithms to elevate certain types And you don’t get much more powerful than the of content into your social media feed. It usually didn’t leader of the free world. matter if they were true — social media sites didn’t want to become the truth police. It mattered that the ART OF THE LIE stories drew people in.

Politicians are known to lie. It’s what they do.

Presidents lie, whether about WMD or keeping your “The way they keep people clicking and sharing and healthcare or not having sexual relations with this or commenting is prioritizing things that get your heart that woman. But there used to be limits. pumping,” says Andrew Marantz, author of Antisocial: “There were unwritten rules or norms about spin,” Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the Jeb Bush’s former campaign spokesman, Tim Miller, American Conversation. “It’s like stocking a huge grocery tells the Inlander. “You exaggerated for your candidate. store, but all of the visible aisles are Oreos and rat You used hyperbole. You tried to muddy the waters.” poison.”

But there were unspoken, unwritten lines, implicit Hell, YouTube actually started rewarding conspiracy walls that mainstream candidates didn’t try to breach. theories above popular content. YouTube used to have But then came Trump. what they internally called the “Gangnam Style” prob“Trump has been the Kool-Aid Man lem, where YouTube’s autoplaying recommendation engine would eventually An MIT study published who bashed through the wall,” Miller says. And the GOP drank the Koolsend every viewer to the 2012 South Aid. Korean pop hit. In response, YouTube last year found that Misinformation comes in a hundred changed their algorithm in 2015, turn- tweets about false ways from a hundred different sources. ing down the recommendation dial for news went viral six And yet Trump is somehow all of merely popular videos and cranking them. up the preference for videos that led times faster than Trump is America’s top troll. Other people down rabbit holes. Conspiracytweets about true primary contenders nitpicked Sen. Ted theory videos flourished.

Cruz’s policy record — Trump called Simultaneously, the internet had news. him “Lyin’ Ted,” insulted his wife’s handed brand-new weapons to prankappearance and suggested Cruz’s dad helped assassinate sters, vandals and assholes — “trolls” who could use JFK. misinformation and harassment to make life hellish Trump is America’s chief conspiracy theorist, buildfor chosen targets. Image boards like 4chan combined ing his political brand on the lie that Barack Obama anonymity and a near-total absence of moderation to wasn’t born in the United States. become a frothing hive of racists, trolls and trolls preEveryone expected Trump to claim the election was tending to be racists. rigged if he lost — but Trump one-upped the cynics.

The boards delighted in pulling hoaxes — creatHe claimed the election was rigged when he won, falsely ing fake Jewish Twitter accounts to sow discord in the charging that thousands of illegal votes had been cast in Jewish community, publishing coupons claiming black the election. people were getting free coffee at Starbucks, and atTrump is America’s preeminent liar. At the Toronto tempting to trick journalists into identifying mass shootStar, fact-checker Daniel Dale has tallied over 5,200 ers as the wrong person. false statements from the president since his inauguraSometimes the hoaxes became reality. A 4chan tion, dealing with everything from tariff policy to payoffs scheme to trick mainstream media outlets into reporting to a porn star. that the “OK” hand gesture was a white-supremacist “I was flabbergasted by the frequency and the trivialsign resulted in white supremacists actually adopting the ity of many of them,” Dale told the Los Angeles Times. signal.

“Trump was simply making things up about everything, One particularly pernicious trolling tactic was to call 911 from a spoofed number and report a horrific crime, for no apparent reason, about the smallest things.” in hopes an armed SWAT team would descend on that And now, as House Democrats pursue an impeachlocation. ment inquiry into whether Trump inappropriately Marantz says he spent three years embedded in this pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe

7

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

8

few months after she’d written an op-ed about Russian uliani later deleted the tweet but refused to apologize. hacking for the New York Times. “I am pro-life and take “How could I have figured out that it was inaccuno pleasure in reporting this.” rate?” he told the New York Times.

In the meantime, the media outlets charged with sortIf an altered video that simple could get shared ing out the messy truth were being hammered from all millions of times, experts worried, what could a more sides. Republicans charged that journalists were clearly sophisticated hoax look like? biased against Trump — just look at all the negative In 2017, a Reddit user named “deepfakes,” using stories they wrote about him! — while Democrats Google’s open-source artificial intelligence software, slammed journalists for “false balance” for failing to call developed a technique to take footage of one face and Trump’s falsehoods outright lies. overlay it onto video footage of someone else. As is Millions of eyes watched every Trump story, ready to typical with new technologies, the internet immediately send a barrage of tweets attacking every misstep. harnessed it for both pornography and Nicolas Cage “You could get away with a lot more in the old days,” memes. The faces of pop stars were imposed on the Miller says. “If you had an error on A17 on the LA bodies of porn stars, while the face of the Face/Off actor Times, people weren’t going to see it.” was swapped onto footage of Gollum and Yoda.

The vast majority of media reporting on the RusAt the same time, another piece of a deceptive puzzle sia scandal was proved to be accurate by the Mueller is clicking into place. Audio-editing products like Adobe report. But some bombshells — like reports about forMax give editors the option to go beyond cutting and mer Trump attorney Michael Cohen visiting Prague, a splicing sentences, to editing individual sound fragTrump computer server communicating with a Russian ments to make it appear like a speaker said things they bank or WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange meeting repeatedly never said. Mix and match the sounds, and with a large with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort enough audio library of a politician, you could make — turned out to be irrelevant or entirely bogus. them say anything. Combine it with video? It doesn’t Each big mistake plays into Trump’s hands. And since take a Black Mirror scriptwriter to predict how the techmost national media outlets rely on anonymous sources, nologies can undermine confidence in the truth. it’s relatively easy for Trump aides to intentionally trick Just imagine that a week before the 2020 election, reporters into making a mistake. a video is leaked. It appears to be Trump, engaged in “In some cases, they’re actually trying to put out discriminal and/or sexually explicit acts. Trump denies it. information this way,” Miller says. “The Maybe the video is a deepfake hoax. Or media reports it, the White House dunks maybe it’s real, and Trump is just using If all news is fake the existence of deepfakes to deny it. Now on them for being incorrect.”

In this environment, where liars are imagine experts are divided on which is news, anything everywhere and the truth is almost too which. When you can’t believe your lying strange to be believed, journalists are con- can be true. Every- eyes or your lying ears, you’re left to trust stantly second-guessing themselves. your lying gut.

“It leads to exhaustion. It leads to burn- thing is a lie and Now, at least, government officials ing out,” Warzel says. “And then those and technology companies are aware of nothing is. mistakes are a breeding ground for more the chaos that these hoaxes could cause. potential misinformation.”

The House Intelligence Committee has In 2016, BuzzFeed reported that in the last three already held hearings on the issue. months before the election, 20 fake news stories from “The tech companies aren’t ready,” Adam Schiff, hoax sites — Clinton sold weapons to ISIS! The Pope the House Intelligence Committee chair, said on a Vox endorsed Trump! — received more engagement on podcast in June. “The government isn’t ready. We don’t Facebook than the top 20 stories on actual news sites. have the technologies yet to be able to detect more But Trump hijacked the phrase — “FAKE NEWS!” sophisticated fakes. And the public is not ready.”

— and twisted it into his own catchphrase, a way to In August, the Pentagon started talking to partners disparage any story he didn’t like. It was a joke, but the for their new Semantic Forensics program, intending sort of joke that everyone repeats until it burrows into to develop technologies “to help to identify, understand the national psyche. and deter adversary disinformation campaigns.”

If all news is fake news, anything can be true. EveryThe private sector’s pushing for similar measures. thing is a lie and nothing is. In the fight over truth, the Last month, Facebook, Microsoft and a slew of fog of war is thick. It’s the perfect environment for an research institutions announced they were joining forces enemy to attack. for the “Deepfake Detection Challenge,” a contest to “As the credibility of the mainstream media continues better understand the little clues that give even sophistito deteriorate, it’s only going to embolden bad faith accated deepfakes away. Deepfakes rarely blink in the right tors,” Miller says. way. The heads might have a strange tic. The eye color might be off.

DEEPFAKE IMPACT Facebook chipped in $10 million to the effort. But In the video footage back in May, Speaker of the those trying to create hoaxes are innovating, too, trying House Nancy Pelosi sounded drunk. Her words seemed to think of ways to outthink the detection system. artificially slow, like a drawling slur.

“Networks of bots are behaving more and more like “What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi?” Trump lawyer you and me,” Warzel says.

Rudy Giuliani tweeted. “Her speech pattern is bizarre.”

Ultimately, he says, it may come down to two differIn reality, the video itself had been doctored, slowed ent artificial-intelligence systems trying to outthink each down to make Pelosi sound like she was slurring. Giother.

“You basically have two sets of computers playing war games with each other,” Warzel says.

The fight isn’t just about technology. It’s about corporate policies. In the last two years, tech companies have tried to change their policies, ditching their laissez-faire libertarian approach to try their hand at benevolent censorship.

White supremacists and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones got banned from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. YouTube shifted viewers away from straight-up conspiracy theory videos in its recommendation stream — although liberals may be unhappy to learn they often landed at Fox News instead. Twitter banned the #Resistance-tweeting Krassenstein brothers in June, citing rules that prohibit “operating multiple fake accounts and purchasing account interactions.”

Right now, both major political parties are calling for regulation, including raising the prospect of forcing Facebook to shrink in size. But Republicans and Democrats want different things. While liberals complain about lax regulation allowing “Nazis” to run wild on the site, conservatives fret about overregulation, worried that conservatives could be censored for their political opinions.

But the lack of censorship is dangerous, too, argue some experts. Whitney Phillips, author of the forthcoming book You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Network Pollution, points to YouTube and Facebook’s recent announcement that since political statements were newsworthy, the sites would rarely take down posts from politicians, even if the posts broke the rules.

“At every turn, at every conceivable opportunity, despite how loud the chorus might get, these technology companies made a choice to protect their bottom line over protecting the democratic process,” Phillips says.

Facebook’s motto for its developers was “move fast and break things.” Phillips thinks they were successful.

“Yeah, they’ve broken democracy,” Phillips says.

“There’s no more simple way to describe it.”

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

Phillips wants to make it clear that it’s not just Facebook or Twitter’s fault. It’s not just the fault of Alex Jones or Donald Trump or 4chan. It’s your fault, too.

“A lot of the misinformation being spread is not the result of bad actors,” Phillips says. “It’s everyday people doing everyday things.”

She thinks of it in terms of an ecological metaphor, where pollution is the accumulation of a billion little actions from individuals. All of the tweeting, retweeting and Facebook posting adds up.

“We’re sort of at the whims of everyday folks, disinformation agents, algorithms, white supremacists, all jockeying to win the attention economy,” Phillips says. “The result is an air that is so clogged that we can barely breathe.”

In that environment, with so many different competing and contradictory claims, people “don’t even necessarily trust there is such a thing as truth.”

But Phillips doesn’t necessarily agree that more information is the answer. Journalists like to say that sunlight is the best disinfectant. But Phillips argues that sometimes the sunlight simply heats up the petri dish and spreads the disease — especially when people are liable to believe a hoax is true because a journalist says it isn’t.

• Wait before reposting. You won’t need to apologize for forwarding untrue information if you never share it to begin with.

• Don’t share something just because it comes from a friend. Double-check the source to make sure the reporting is from a respectable publication and that they’re not just summarizing the reaction on social media. Better yet, wait until a second publication independently confirms the reports.

• Read the actual story first. Follow links to make sure the links actually back up the news stories. Biased news sources are infamous for making sensational claims in their headlines that the underlying material doesn’t support.

• Mute #Resistance Twitter stars like Seth Abramson and Eric Garland and ignore far-right websites like Gateway Pundit, Breitbart and (increasingly) the Federalist. Just because they tell you what you want to hear doesn’t mean they’re giving you a straight story.

Available in Print $21.99 Audio $5.99 Online $5.99

The author is available for book signings and speaking engagements

powerbeyondthegrave.com

Opinion

— DANIEL WALTERS

This story offers much insight into the most important aspect of America’s society today, the family. It is somewhat of a healing force that anyone can use that will help them find the path where it all started.

News

• Be cautious about sharing bogus stories just to point how stupid or wrong they are. That’s an easy way to inadvertently spread a falsehood.

“Power Beyond the Grave” is a true story that can benefit anyone who reads it.

Up Front

A version of this article first appeared in the Inlander, a weekly based in Spokane, Washington.

How to Avoid Spreading Misinformation

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

“The truth can contribute to pollution as much as falsehood can,” Phillips says. “It is easy to feel like you are pushing back against a story when you are saying, ‘This story’s terrible.’ But the algorithm doesn’t care about your righteous indignation.

The algorithm cares that you’re engaging with content.”

She urges journalists and everyday people to shift the lens, focusing less on the liars and more on how lies and ideologies have impacted communities.

Warzel, meanwhile, also urges social media users to slow down. Be wary about clicking that retweet button. If a story seems too perfect, doubt it. If a crazy news story doesn’t come from an established media outlet, wait until at least one outlet covers it — ideally two.

Marantz, the expert on online trolls, says the long-term solution to the disinformation crisis is a deep and philosophical one that he’d explain at length with phrases like “reaffirming our commitment to epistemic depth.” But for now, the simpler way to react to disinformation is to rely a little bit more on the old gatekeepers.

“If you read the New York Times or the BBC or the alt-weekly in your town or the New Yorker, you’re going to be better informed than if you read Facebook,” Marantz says.

Not because they’re perfect — there’s a billion reasons to complain about mainstream journalists, he says — but because, for all their flaws, right now they’re the best we’ve got.

“It’s the best short-term solution,” he says, “as opposed to just living a world where no one knows anything.”

Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

9

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

10

OPINION

CITIZEN GREEN

EDITORIAL

activists face off against police, bystanders Politics at Thanksgiving? Jewish anti-ICE The stacked black coffins with premacist organization that advocates for a white ethnoAbsolutely yellow lettering — “Never again is state in the footprint of the old Confederacy, mingled in We’ve all heard it before: No politics at Thanksgiving.

Those of us with strong political opinions and large families often come under this piece of social instruction around this time of year, when Trumpers and the #Resistance often share table space.

Granted, it can get pretty uncomfortable when you’re trying to explain marginal tax brackets to your cousin, or convince your grandfather that people on public assistance don’t eat steak every night, or describe to a great-aunt the nuances of the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

But we’re here to say: Do it! Wade right in there and start swinging with facts.

In case you haven’t noticed, the world is on fire — literally! The blazes ripping through southern Australia have pretty much wiped out the koalas.

Here in the United States, Congress has put in motion for just the third time in history the mechanism to remove a sitting president — though that’s only because Nixon resigned.

We need dialogue more than ever right now, and not just in the echo chambers of our own camps.

Instead of avoiding political discussion, prep for it.

Bookmark reputable news articles on your phone and keep a tab open on Snopes. Have pointed questions for the relatives with which you most often disagree, something like: How come all the people smearing the testimony against Trump won’t testify themselves?

It’s clear that the country is sharply divided, and that basic facts are not getting through to many, many regular Americans, who are, after all, the ultimate custodians of this republic. And it’s nigh time we hashed it all out.

Be ready to burst stereotypes, call out racism, gently correct gender-loaded language. Prepare yourself to do a lot of listening, and be ready with the pushback.

But try not to be such a dick about it. It is Thanksgiving.

We need dialogue more than ever right now, and not just in the echo chambers of our own camps.

now” and “ICE out of Alamance” a nearby park with a group of locals gathering to observe — along with dozens of people sitthe standoff. In addition to being racist, the League is also ting in the middle of Maple Street antisemitic. League founder and leader Michael Hill has in Graham on Sunday afternoon described Jewish presence as a “pestilence” while insisting, clearly outlined the aims of Never “There must be no Jew influence in our new nation state.”

Again Action, a group comprised I joined Megan Squire, a professor at Elon University,

by Jordan Green of American Jews who organized behind a metal fence at the edge of the park, and all of us this past summer to respond to migrant detentions at the waited for the inevitable arrests. border and ICE deportations.

Among the locals standing with us on the sidelines, the “Today many of us have come here as Jews linked with most vocal were taking a hard, angry stance against the our immigrant brethren,” the group tweeted. “This is not protesters, while any who might have been sympathetic or an abstract sentiment. As we know too well, the forces of neutral were keeping quiet. white supremacy are against them and against us.”

“Put their asses in jail,” one bystander yelled.

Off the street, hundreds more people, many of them “Get out of the way, and we’ll take care of ’em,” another undocumented, gathered on the lawn of the Center for said.

Spiritual Living during the action co-hosted by Never A teenage boy standing behind us, quipped, “Mustard Again Action with Siembra NC and Down Home NC. gas would be nice, too.”

Although none of the social media pages publicizing the For reference, mustard gas is a chemical agent used in event and none of the speakers referenced the ConfedWar World I that is banned as a weapon of war under the eracy, Sheriff Terry Johnson had encircled the Confederate Geneva Protocol of 1925. monument with squad cars and posted uniformed officers Around this time, Squire had turned her phone to record atop the roofs of the Alamance County the bystanders, and one of the men gave Historical Courthouse and the Alamance her a startled look. “Hey,” he said, “why County Detention Center. Byron Tucker, are you videoing us?” the spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, “You guys are saying some pretty awful told me on Tuesday that “within” the prostuff,” she replied. “He was talking about test group “there were folks that we were mustard gas.” unsure of, and we chose to err on the side The same man pointed to a sign held of caution.” by one of the protesters.

The Graham Police Department de“What does it say about Jews?” he cided to not allow the immigrant protestasked. ers and Jewish allies to march, even on “Jews Against ICE,” Squire informed the sidewalk. Tucker told me he believes him. that the march would have been allowed He seemed caught off guard by the if protest organizers had applied for a information and paused for a moment.

– Never Again Action permit.

“Why are they against ICE?” he asked.

A drone buzzed overhead as Graham “I think they’re connecting the Holopolice officers held a line against the caust to what ICE is doing now,” Squire protesters and State Troopers milled about. told him. “They don’t want that to happen again.”

The Never Again Action account tweeted, “They As officers moved into the group of peaceful protesters threaten us with sound cannons; we respond with singing. blocking the street, frog-marching them to a van to await We’re praying with our feet and risking arrest in Alamance, transport to jail, the bystanders laughed and jeered.

NC. They’re monitoring us with drones; our ancestors are After nine voluntary arrests, the rest of the protesters watching over us.” retreated back into the yard at the Center for Spiritual LivA woman from Jewish Voice for Peace North Carolina ing and sang “Kumbaya.” told the group that many of her grandparents’ generation For reasons that would seem to defy any practical condid not make it out of Nazi Germany. “Today,” she said, sideration of public safety, two squads of sheriff’s deputies “we’re taking the direct action we wish more people had wearing helmets and protecting padding — or, riot gear, taken for our ancestors.” as its colloquially known — marched down Maple Street to A local man recording video on his phone up the street face off against the protesters, who continued to lawfully told an officer standing nearby: “If nobody else ain’t gonna assemble in the yard at the Center for Spiritual Living. do nothing about it, I reckon the people gonna do some(Tucker told me: “When they were moved back to private thing about it.” property everything was good.” He added, “We still had Getting no response from the officer, he continued with some people that were in the street because our folks had growing agitation: “They’re wanting to take this monument protective gear.”) down!”

“It’s about time,” the League of the South organizer An organizer with League of the South, a white suenthused. “This is great.”

‘The forces of white supremacy are against them and against us.’

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

Nik Snacks Sandwiches? The real king of fried chicken comes from a skillet

F

Up Front News Opinion

We can all agree that fried chicken is great. But does everyone realize that skillet-fried chicken is the best?

and eat chicken with love?”

Everyone has a special relationship to fried chicken.

Whether you’re cooking it or eating it, it evokes emotions and memories in all of us.

COURTESY PHOTO

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

and set aside.

Wash chicken pieces in cool water, pat dry with paper towels and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk egg, evaporated milk and water. Season with salt Lucky 32 Southern and pepper. Place flour in a Want to go?

Kitchen Skillet Fried separate bowl.

Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Chicken One piece at a time (starting with heaviest 1421 Westover Terrace, GSO, lucky32.com Serves 4 pieces) dip chicken into egg Smith Street Diner wash, squeeze, dip into 438 Battleground Ave., GSO, smithstreet3 – 3/12-pound cut-up flour and place gently in fryer chicken skillet. Do not overcrowd diner.com 1 1/4 cups oil skillet.

Sweet Potatoes, A Restaurant Salt and pepper, to taste Maintain temperature of 607 N. Trade St., WS, sweetpotatoes.ws 1 egg, lightly beaten 350. Use tongs and fork to 1 cup evaporated milk turn chicken often for 7-8 1 cup water minutes. Remove chicken 1/2 cup all-purpose flour from oil, pierce with fork and squeeze. Return chicken 4 tbsp minced garlic (optional) to skillet for approximately 7-8 minutes.

4 tbsp minced parsley (optional) Chicken is done when no longer hissing and juices run clear. Remove from oil and place on paper towels Heat oil in cast iron skillet to 350 degrees. The oil to drain. Immediately top with a sprinkle of garlic and should come about halfway up the sides of the skillet parsley mixture. (adjust amount to skillet size).

Combine garlic and parsley in a small mixing bowl Reprinted with permission.

Culture

ried chicken is hot.

As evidenced by last summer’s chickensandwich war between Chick-fil-A and Popeyes, the battle has elements of the Trojan War. Popeyes is the face that launched a million tweets

by Nikki Miller-Ka (adjusted for 2019 inflation).

Sparks of outrage, prohibitive lines around the block, connection to a murder, dozens of fights, Tik Tok videos — the modern-day history of fried chicken as we know it is changed. Fried chicken has become the great equalizer. Tradition has given way to style and it’s trendy again to eat fried bird. Even non-chicken eaters will look to a chicken-fried steak or a chicken-fried mushroom with comfort and joy.

What people don’t know is that the best fried chicken, on a sandwich or not, is skillet-fried chicken.

Oil, vegetable shortening or lard, the yard bird is best seasoned, floured and slowly lowered into hot oil that bubbles and sputters with delight as the chicken cooks.

Cast iron heats evenly, retains heat and actually imparts a miniscule amount of the iron to the food cooked in it. Roman enemies boiled in oil never had it so good.

In the Triad, we are lucky to have three longstanding restaurants where diners can find the golden truth every day of the week.

Sundays and Tuesdays are skillet-fried chicken nights at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Greensboro. Rendered lard is blessed with wings, legs and breasts. The crust has a light coating and the tender meat is juicy. Served with mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, collard greens and a hunk of cornbread, you can switch up the sides if you like, but Lucky knows best how its fried chicken should be served. And I agree.

Smith Street Diner has fried chicken night on Thursdays including extended hours for diners craving the cozy atmosphere alongside the greasy spoon’s menu.

A whole fried chicken, two sides (I highly recommend the rice and gravy and collard greens) with your choice of bread (cornbread, roll or a giant biscuit). Cut into quarters, the chicken has nooks and crannies and a crisp crust that begs for the skin to be peeled off and eaten separately.

Miss Ora’s Kitchen in Winston-Salem has skillet fried chicken Tuesday through Saturday. Not only can you get chicken by the piece, but tenders, livers, gizzards and wings are available every day too. It’s served with a fluffy sweet-potato biscuit (a small nod to its sister restaurant, Sweet Potatoes), but the secret is in the oil. Fried with pieces of pork fatback, not only does the chicken hum while it’s cooking, it sings when it’s done and you get to eat the crispy fatback as a prize.

“It’s cheap flavor,” says executive chef and owner Stephanie Tyson. “And you can eat it.”

When asked about the lure of the fried chicken frenzy of 2019, Tyson and partner Vivian Joiner of Miss Ora’s Kitchen both agree: It’s a personal thing.

“Why eat chicken with hate when you can come here

11

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

12

CULTURE From poison to pop, antique glass bottles hold mystery

by Sayaka Matsuoka

M

ost of the time we’re just trying to get rid of them.

We look the recycling dropoff locations closest to us and keep a box under our kitchen sink that we fill until it becomes too full to ignore.

But for many, glass bottles are quite valuable, sometimes going for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Tim Adams from Wilkesboro sits at a table near the entrance of the Farmers Curb Market in Greensboro on Sunday, waiting for interested buyers to stop and pick up one of the many glass bottles he’s brought from his collection.

“I started collecting when I was 13,” Adams says. “Mostly bitters, mostly alcohol, mineral waters. I would go through old houses in Wilkesboro and dig through old dumps.”

One of the most intriguing pieces at his booth is a dark amber colored bottle shaped like a fish. Designed and patented by William Harrison Ware in 1866, the bottle is a popular one among collectors because of its unique design and range of colors including clear, aqua, amber, yellow, cobalt blue and more. While some of the more common colors like amber could sell for about $75 a bottle, other, more rare pieces could sell for hundreds or more. In 2012, a glass fish bottle sold for $175,000.

“These had craftsman pride,” Adams says about the bitters bottle. “Everything was done with pride. Artisans would compete. The bottles were made with blown glass with a mold but after a certain point, everything began to be made by machines.”

Adams, who has close to 500 bottles in his collection, says that the three main things collectors look for when purchasing pieces are color, condition and location.

Jason Burnett, a collector making the rounds at the show, describes a milk bottle that he’s just bought. He’s been collecting for about a decade after bonding with his grandfather over the hobby.

“It’s something we did together,” Burnett says. And now, even after his grandfather has passed away, Burnett continues to hunt for pieces to add to his collection of about 50 bottles. He sticks to mostly bottles that have a tie to Salisbury where he’s from. The milk bottle that he’s just purchased is from the early ’40s or ’50s and is embossed with the town name.

“People like something close to them because they can associate with them,” says Bill Owen, a collector and vendor at the show. “You have a feeling of that area’s presence.”’

Owen has been collecting for more than 30 years and mostly dabbles in soda bottles because of their diversity. He goes to antique shops, shows and flea markets to hunt for his SAYAKA MATSUOKA Vendors and customers gather around a selection of pieces but talks about a time when enthusiasts antique bottles at the show in Greensboro. could dig bottles up out of the ground where old landfills used to be. These days, it’s rare that lines that distinguish them from one another. Cabaniss says collectors find pieces that way. the markings made it easier to tell them apart in the dark.

“It’s an enjoyable hobby because it’s endless in interest,” Others were shaped like coffins and even had tablets that says Owen. “Some people like milk bottles, others like soda matched the bottle shapes. She says the most desirable ones bottles, bitters, poison.” are usually ones shaped like skulls. These can cost thousands That last one is the category that Joan Cabaniss focuses of dollars. One of the most famous varieties, an English blueon. Settled at a table near the entrance of the show, Cabanglass coffin bottle, could go for about $100,000, according to iss wears a light green knit sweater and a skull bracelet on Cabaniss because of its rarity; fewer than four were made. her arm. She’s been called the Queen of Poison at events like On the other side of the show, Bob Jochums collects the this. She recalls going to an antique market in the late ’70s in opposite of poison bottles — medicine and cure bottles. A Hillsville, Va., where she spent all the cash she had brought on retired pharmacist, Jochums says he began collecting about 25 a set of glass bottles. years ago. While he initially collected medicine bottles, after “I saw a set of them with the sun shining through,” she says. a few years, he decided to hone in specifically on cure bottles “And I thought they to focus his collection. In order for a bottle to count as such, were the prettiest it has to be marked with the word “cure” or a variation of the thing I had ever seen.” word somewhere on the piece. The pieces on his display boast Since then, Cacures for a number of antiquated illnesses like polar cough baniss has amassed and dysentery. Most of his pieces date before 1910, when the almost 700 bottles in bodies of the bottles were blown into molds and the neck her collection, most and the mouths were finished by hand. He points out a visible of them American seam where the mold would come together on the body of poison bottles. the bottle and the point at which the seam would stop, near On the table in the bottom of the neck of the piece. After the 1910s, however, front of her, tiny glass Jochums points out that machines finished the whole bottle bottles of cobalt blue so the seam would extend all the way to the top. That’s how and amber sit with he knows the relative age of the pieces. faded labels that read He says that the in addition to the color, the age of the “carbolic acid” and bottles can peak people’s interests. “bichloride of mer“If you show most people a bottle, they’ll say it’s just an old cury.” bottle,” Jochums says. “But every once in a while, you’ll find Most of them measomeone that says, ‘Wow, that’s 130 years old and it hasn’t sure just a few inches been broken.’ And that’s pretty cool.” tall and have distinct ridges and decorative

by Savi Ettinger

T

Up Front News Opinion Culture

Trauma drives a great deal of the plot in the WInston-Salem Theatre Alliance preoduction of The Who’s Tommy.

psychosomatic symptoms that drive Tommy’s childhood, to discovering pinball, each plot moment is accidental.

Even after Tommy regains his senses, he attracts fans, unexpectedly becoming famous.

“It’s because we all interact with other humans, we’re always going to have that effect on each other,” Lawson said.

“So, be nice, and kind to one another.”

In the end, Tommy ends up with his core family again, after fans grow disillusioned and the spotlight shifts away.

He wears all white, like the 10-year old who steps out onto one side of the stage. From the opposite end, the toddler walks out.

Here, he sings to his family, but mostly he seems to sing to himself.

“Listening to you,” he sings, “I get the music.”

Puzzles

point to Tommy’s perspective. As the scenes shift to his thoughts, the microphones of other actors become muffled, muddied voices echoing to the audience like they would to Tommy himself. On the black backdrop, a projector flashes images — barbed wire, a cheering crowd, a hospital room. Each sets the scene, but still feels faint, paralleling Tommy’s own blindness.

Surrounding the projections, multiple pieces of plastic shine in the stage lights, held up by iridescent duct tape, shrouding the images in a faint glow.

They appear like the mirrors Tommy stares into through his adolescence and his twenties. It is only when the mirror shatters that Tommy begins to sense again.

Lawson sees the story as one of cause and unintentional effect. From the

JOSHUA POTTS

Shot in the Triad

he Pinball Wizard began as just Tommy.

In the newest production from the Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance, Tommy’s climb to his own identity plays out across the stage. The troupe’s performance of The Who’s Tommy shared the titular character’s coming-ofage journey through a classic rock opera.

Using the The Who’s 1969 album by the same name, the musical tells the struggles and victories of young Tommy Walker, who witnesses a murder as a toddler, and the psychosomatic symptoms that arise because of it.

After the shock of the gunshot wears off, the Walker parents look at each other, and then turn Tommy around, telling him how to handle everything.

They repeat the instructions, unaware that it will cause the boy to become blind, deaf and mute.

“You didn’t hear it. You didn’t see it,” they sing. “You won’t say nothing to no one.”

Director Jamie Lawson worked closely with the actors of the Theatre Alliance to set the tone. Though trauma drives a great deal of the plot, the focus lies on the upward swing of Tommy’s recovery.

“It is a great story of redemption,” Lawson said.

The height comes unexpectedly. Amid additional harm from a manipulative uncle and a bully of a cousin, Tommy finds himself in a rec hall, ignored by his cousin. Isolated from the noise and socialization, Tommy finds his hands on the sides of a pinball machine.

Here he becomes the “Pinball Wizard,” the teens sing as Tommy transforms into a spectacle. The game becomes a coping mechanism — an emotional-support arcade fixture. The scene is infectious, the dancers revving up the hype as the somewhat stiff child racks up high scores.

It acts as a victory song, an illustration of how people find their own pinball machines, their own ways to get through the hurdles in front of them. Lawson believes the universal nature of the need to process and express emotional stress makes Tommy’s unusual story accessible.

“What Tommy goes through — these are all situations we encounter today, unfortunately.” Lawson said. “Bullying, dysfunctional family life, this is what we still struggle with.”

The stage itself becomes an access

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

CULTURE W-S Theatre Alliance tackles The Who’s Tommy

13

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

Kemp Road East, Greensboro

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

Happy Thanksgiving from the tranquil shores of Lake Euphemia at Hamilton Lakes in Greensboro.

PIZZERIA

Puzzles

L’ITALIANO

14

Large 1-topping pizza

11

$

Monday – Thursday

Recycle this paper.

WE !

DELIVER

4-cheese pizza

10

99 Good through 12/5/19 $

99

Order online at pizzerialitaliano.net

CAROLYN DE BERRY

every Tuesday, all day

219 S Elm Street, Greensboro • 336-274-4810

Across

by Matt Jones

Saturday Nov. 30th

The Grand Ole Uproar

Wednesday Dec. 11th Andrew Kasab

Friday Dec. 13th

Up Front

CD Conspiracy

©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords

(editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

News

602 S Elam Ave • Greensboro

Answers from previous publication.

(336) 698-3888

Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

1 Fraud-monitoring agcy.

4 Deprive of weapons 9 Judge’s seat, in court 13 Boxer botherer 14 “London Warsaw New York” musician born in Poland 15 “Shepherd Moons” singer 16 2019 debaters, for short 17 “Gloves are off” 18 Unit of gold or silver?

19 Reattaches a tomato to a plant (but in a messy way)?

22 Grammy-winning bossa nova musician Gilberto 23 Source of some milk ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 24 Big expense in blockbuster films 25 Freudian topic 27 “___ one, think that ...”

30 Drum teacher’s session 32 Actor who’s all about the money?

35 “Horrors!”

36 Lennon partner 37 “Incoming golf ball!”

41 Autobiographies, two by two?

46 Light benders Answers from last issue 49 Part of the mnemonic HOMES 50 Wall-E’s love interest 12 Entered 51 Common Market abbr., once 13 “Fireside chat” monogram 52 Bedroom furniture wood 20 Depilatory brand with “short shorts” ads, once 54 Romanov royal of Russia 21 Window shopper, essentially 56 Roll call on a ship?

25 Tiny unit of work 62 “Person of the Year” awarder 26 Formerly Portuguese Indian territory 63 “The Many Loves of ___ Gillis” 28 Natural gas add-in 64 ___ Yun (performing arts company with 29 Step in the shower? ubiquitous ads) 31 Online financial services company 65 Strait of Hormuz country focused on student loans 66 Golf equipment 33 “House” actor Omar 67 Like mud or slime 34 American-born former queen of Jordan 68 “99 Luftballons” German singer 38 Winter footwear 69 Nine Inch Nails founder Reznor 39 Lovejoy on “The Simpsons,” e.g.

70 #1 concern?

40 Point opposite WNW 42 In a wild way 43 Emphatic words after “There!”

Down 44 Survival group?

1 Get out quick 45 Grateful Dead bassist Phil 2 Short-term earning opportunities 46 Gel in jellies 3 Inexpensive ‘80s keyboard manufacturer 47 Bring back on 4 Gaming company behind “Assassin’s 48 Val Kilmer, in “Top Gun” Creed” and “Just Dance” 53 Boxed soup and bouillon brand 5 1949 alliance 55 He was famous for fables 6 Professional org.

57 Pro wrestler John 7 Public uprisings 58 Orchestra’s tuning instrument 8 It has a round cover 59 Swede’s neighbor 9 Wally’s TV brother, with “the” 60 Cold-___ (zinc-based brand) 10 Hijinks 61 At ___ cost 11 “Us” actress Lupita

EVENTS

Nov 27-Dec 4, 2019

CROSSWORD ‘I Before E?’— which way is it? SUDOKU

15