October 23, 2017

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Entertainment October 23, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: The Philosophy of the 'Saw' Movies, How Thanos May Be Defeated in 'Avengers: Infinity War' and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Franchise Analysis of the Day:

With the sequel Jigsaw out this Friday, Wisecrack explores the philosophy of the Saw movies:

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Fan Theory of the Day:

Cracked takes a guess that Thanos will wind up defeating himself in Avengers: Infinity War in this video about the villain’s big weakness:

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Reworked Movie of the Day:

Is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice better with sports commentators talking over the superhero fight? See Auralnauts’s new video below:

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Musical Number Redo of the Day:

Here’s a great alternative version of the opening musical number from La La Land by foreign language school students in China (via Filmbrain):

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Vintage Image of the Day:

The very tall author-turned-filmmaker Michael Crichton, who was born on this day in 1942, towers over stars Michael Douglas and Genevieve Bujold while directing a scene for Coma in 1977:

Filmmaker in Focus:

Fandor answers the question of who is Spike Jonze in this video highlighting his work as an actor, director, Oscar-winning screenwriter, skateboarder and more:

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Filmmaking Lesson of the Day:

In the first part of a new series, video essayist Patrick Willems uses a Wallace and Gromit short to show how to make a perfect action scene:

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Cosplay of the Day:

Cosplayers go bowling in this Mineralblu video of a New York Comic Con after party featuring fans of It, Deadpool and more:

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Alternative Poster of the Day:

Speaking of It, here’s one of the latest entries in artist Matt Talbot’s 31 horror posters project for this month:

My poster for today’s #31DaysOfHorror is IT! The 2017 version. Which I loved. #31daysofhalloween#ITpic.twitter.com/Oxz4ZDSSpY

— Matt Talbot (@mattrobot) October 20, 2017

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 25th anniversary of the limited release of Quentin Tarantino’s feature debut, Reservoir Dogs. Watch the original trailer for the classic crime film below.

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Sports October 23, 2017

Iditarod Names Four-Time Champ Dallas Seavey In Dog Doping Scandal

In a March 15, 2016, file photo, Dallas Seavey poses with his lead dogs Reef, left, and Tide after finishing the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska. Seavey denies he administered banned drugs to his dogs in this year’s race, and has withdrawn from the 2018 race in protest.

Mark Thiessen/AP

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Mark Thiessen/AP

Alaska’s Iditarod race committee has identified four-time champion Dallas Seavey as the musher whose dogs tested positive for a banned opioid pain reliever in this year’s race. Seavey is denying the charge and has withdrawn from the 2018 dog sled race in protest.

Last week, the Iditarod Trail Committee announced that at the March finish in Nome this year, four dogs from a single team had tested positive for the drug tramadol. The committee initially declined to name the musher involved.

However, competitors kept up pressure to release the name of the accused musher. On Monday, the Iditarod Official Finishers Club released a statement signed by 83 current and former competitors calling for the musher to be named within 72 hours, according to The Associated Press.

Seavey, now 30, came in second in this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race behind his father, 57-year-old Mitch Seavey.

In a YouTube video, a visibly agitated Dallas Seavey denied any wrongdoing and fired back at the race organizers, saying he had been cooperating with them to clear things up.

“I did nothing wrong,” Seavey said in the video.

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“I have never knowingly broken any race rule. I have never given any banned substance to my dogs,” he said, adding that he fully expects to be banned but that he doesn’t care “if I never make another cent” from the sport, which he said “is my life.”

He said he spent several months trying to explain how his dogs showed positive for the drug, but instead was “thrown under the bus.”

“I believe this was given to my dogs maliciously,” he said. “That’s one of the options. I think that is the most likely option. There are numerous ways that could have been done.”

As we wrote in last week’s story:

“… the board said it was revising the rules on doping by shifting the burden of proof from race officials to the mushers.

“In future, mushers will be held accountable for a positive test unless they can prove the drugs were administered the drug outside their control. Previously, the rule could be interpreted so that race officials would need to prove the doping was intentional, AP says.”

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Business October 23, 2017

Fresh Headache For Murdochs: Bill O'Reilly Got Raise After Secret Payout

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly paid $32 million to a colleague to settle sexual harassment allegations.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Hollywood Reporter

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Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Hollywood Reporter

Bill O’Reilly wants you to know it’s all lies, driven by ideology, personal animus and professional jealousy.

Since The New York Times reported this weekend that he had agreed to a $32 million settlement to silence a longtime colleague’s accusations of sexual harassment back in January, O’Reilly has been brawling to defend his already deeply tarnished reputation.

O’Reilly’s former bosses at Fox News and parent company 21st Century — and especially for the Murdoch family that controls both — are fighting to contain fallout on multiple fronts. The Murdochs signed O’Reilly to a contract extension a month after their star host agreed to the secret payout — and despite knowing of at least four earlier instances in which he settled with women over sexual harassment dating back to 2004.

“Nobody pays $32 million to anybody for false accusations,” former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson told HLN.

“It’s shocking and it’s disturbing,” former Fox News host Megyn Kelly said on her new NBC Today show program.

All three Murdochs — Rupert and his sons Lachlan and James — have made pledges to reform the culture of Fox News. The late Roger Ailes, the propulsive force behind Fox News, was bought out as chairman last year after Carlson, Kelly and others accused him of sexual harassment. A host of network executives were forced out over the ensuing year for their ties to Ailes and perceptions they had enabled abusive behavior. The Murdochs paid O’Reilly $20 million to leave in the spring after several previously unknown settlements with women came to light. The network also forced out host Eric Bolling.

And yet Kelly devoted the opening minutes of her Monday morning show to an extended argument that Fox had not done enough.

On her show, Kelly just about set out a roadmap for prosecutors, arguing Fox had betrayed a pattern of hiding allegations through payments and threats, and retribution against those women who spoke up. “This has to stop,” Kelly said on NBC. “The abuse of women, the shaming them, the threatening, the retaliation, the silencing of them after the fact.”

O’Reilly’s spokesman, Mark Fabiani, sent a statement to NPR calling the Times‘ reporting a “diatribe … designed to embarrass Bill O’Reilly and to keep him from competing in the marketplace.” The statement also repeated O’Reilly’s frequent claim that no co-worker has ever filed a complaint against him with the network’s human resources or legal divisions. O’Reilly also released handwritten thank-you notes from Carlson and Kelly, and claimed he had helped them throughout their careers.

“Any fair-minded person can start to formulate a picture here,” O’Reilly said on former Fox News host Glenn Beck’s radio show Monday. “All I can hope for is that the American people will see that this is an attack on me for political purposes. It has done enormous damage to me and my family.”

Carlson and Kelly have both questioned the sincerity of the network’s past human resources and legal officials. Kelly also pointed to Fox’s chief publicity executive, Irena Briganti, as a corporate enforcer. (21st Century Fox issued a brief statement backing Briganti, saying she was a valued colleague who had the company’s full support.)

In a draft of a lawsuit, former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl alleged O’Reilly had sexually harassed her over an extended period, sent her gay pornography, and that they had a “nonconsensual sexual relationship.” That troubling phrase was not further defined. O’Reilly agreed within weeks to the $32 million settlement, the Times reported. Wiehl signed an affidavit attesting she had no complaints against either O’Reilly or Fox News.

Officials for 21st Century Fox released a statement hailing the changes at Fox News and saying it was not aware of the amount of money involved in the settlement. The Murdochs were aware, however, of the nature of Wiehl’s allegations when they re-signed O’Reilly to a new multi-year contract with a raise. The company said any network would have done the same given O’Reilly’s position. (He was the top rated figure in cable news for years before his departure.)

“I’ve never heard of two employees reaching their own agreement and then the employer turning a blind eye to how much it was settled for,” said employment lawyer Douglas Wigdor, who is representing 22 people suing Fox News for a variety of charges. He won a confidential settlement from O’Reilly last year for Fox News commentator Juliet Huddy after she alleged the host had sexually harassed her.

As the Times also reported, the general counsel for parent company 21st Century Fox, Gerson Zweifach, warned his colleagues that he might have to disclose the settlement between O’Reilly and Wiehl. He wrote in an email that federal prosecutors would view that development as relevant to their investigation. Prosecutors have asked questions about activities of the network’s former president, chief attorney, financial officer, and the current public relations chief, according to two people knowledgeable about the process. It appears intent on probing the extent of actions taken by Fox officials toward women who say Ailes sexually harassed them.

In addition, 21st Century Fox is fighting in the U.K. for regulatory approval of the takeover of the more than 60 percent of the European satellite television company Sky that it does not already control. The value of the deal stands currently at more than $15 billion. But the British culture minister has delayed and expanded the review process, due to the sexual abuse scandal, the network’s handling of the Seth Rich story, and incidents of illegality and bribery at the Murdochs’ newspapers in that country.

Regulators are now assessing more broadly the family’s leadership. The Murdochs rewarded O’Reilly with a new contract and a raise after learning of the Wiehl settlement. That suggests the Murdochs were willing to give O’Reilly a sixth chance on sexual harassment, just six months after ousting their chairman for the same transgression.

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Health October 23, 2017

Screening For Diabetes Is Working Better Than Thought

Screening for Type 2 diabetes involves a blood test, and if results are concerning a second test is recommended.

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Undiagnosed diabetes may not be as big of a public health problem as thought.

That’s the takeaway from a study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine that says that some previous efforts have likely overestimated the number of people with undiagnosed diabetes because they relied on a single positive test result.

By contrast, this new measure used the American Diabetes Association’s diagnostic criteria, which recommend that people with one positive fasting blood glucose or A1C test should have a second test to confirm a diagnosis in all but the most severe and obvious cases of Type 2 diabetes. That’s because there’s some inherent variability in the tests and because blood sugar levels fluctuate naturally because of exercise, illness and even the time of day.

If left untreated, Type 2 diabetes can contribute to kidney disease, nerve damage, high blood pressure and stroke.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has applied the less stringent standard to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the U.S. Census to come up with an estimate of 33.3 million people with diabetes in 2015, 7.2 million of whom, or almost 24 percent, were undiagnosed. When researchers in this study applied the stricter clinical diagnostic standard to the same data, they came up with an estimate of 25.5 million people with diabetes, with about 2.8 million, or about 11 percent, of them undiagnosed.

“This is good news,” says Elizabeth Selvin, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the lead author of the study. “We’re doing a good job with screening and diagnosis.”

But she says that doesn’t mean diabetes isn’t a public health problem, and a significant one at that; the study found the prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. population has risen from 5.5 percent in 1988-1994 to 10.8 percent in 2011-2014. The proportion of undiagnosed cases has dropped from 16.3 percent over the same period, the study found.

The difference in how the estimates are calculated is due to the difference between epidemiological studies, which track patterns and trends across an entire population, and clinical practice, which focuses on individual patients. If you’re just studying historical trends, using a single-test value isn’t such a big deal, says Selvin. “But if we are focused on the burden of undiagnosed diabetes, or the percentage of diabetes that’s undiagnosed, it becomes important,” she says. (A CDC spokeswoman says the agency doesn’t directly comment on studies that aren’t its own.)

The results suggest that public health efforts to promote screening should be focused more closely on the people who are most likely to have undiagnosed diabetes rather than the population as a whole. According to the study, that group includes people who are obese, a racial or ethnic minority, and who don’t have health insurance or get regular health care. While increased age is also a risk factor, the authors noted that there’s an undiagnosed group of overweight and obese younger adults with very high A1C levels who are likely not engaged with the health care system and are falling through the cracks.

“We’re not missing hordes of people, which isn’t to say we aren’t missing some people,” says Anne Peters, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. “We need to continue to reach out to the people who do need help.”

She says more and more programs are focused on preventing diabetes in the first place, focusing on people with risk factors such as obesity and high cholesterol. That can help people avoid the complications of full-blown diabetes, and the label of having a chronic disease, which have long-term psychological effects as well as consequences for buying life insurance and long-term care insurance, Peters says. (And health insurance, if current Affordable Care Act rules about pre-existing conditions should change.)

The study’s authors pointed out some limitations of their work. Among them: the data includes fasting glucose and A1C levels taken only at one point in time, and the results might differ if samples were taken later. And the diagnosis of diabetes depends on study participants’ self-reports, which may not be accurate.

Katherine Hobson is a freelance health and science writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. She’s on Twitter: @katherinehobson.

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