Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2023-02-27 Time
2023-02-27 Time
27 / MARCH 6, 2023
by
ANDREW R. CHOW
& BILLY PERRIGO
(humans)
time.com
VOL. 201, NOS. 7–8 | 2023
CONTENTS
5 32 42 61
The Brief ‘You Are Being The Patriot Time Off
Punished’ Veteran and Rhodes scholar
23 In the first days of the war, Wes Moore is Maryland’s
The View Russian troops locked an entire new governor, and perhaps
Democrats’ new hope
Ukrainian village in a school
basement for nearly a month By Molly Ball
By Svitlana Oslavska
50 56
Machine Yearning The Feminist △
In their rush to get in on AI, And the Law Maryland Governor
tech companies are making Spain’s embattled Minister Wes Moore in
the same mistakes they of Equality confronts Baltimore on Jan. 9
did with social media unintended consequences Photograph
By Andrew R. Chow and Billy Perrigo By Lisa Abend by Jared Soares
for TIME
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Impact Awards
At TIME’s second annual TIME100
Impact Awards in Dubai, the
honorees were actor Idris Elba
and model Sabrina Dhowre Elba,
philanthropist Jeffrey Katzenberg,
rain-forest-preservation activist
Farwiza Farhan, and Mozambique’s
first female cabinet minister, Graça
Looking for a Machel. TIME CEO Jessica Sibley
specific cover? spoke during the ceremony about
the power of influence, and the
host, journalist Raya Abirached, led
a moment of silence for victims of
the Syria and Turkey earthquakes.
Read more at time.com/impact
SETTING THE TA L K T O U S
RECORD STRAIGHT
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3
A C C E L E R AT E YO U R B U S I N E S S T O
N E T Z E R O , N AT U R E P O S I T I V E
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I
N TURKEY—LOCATED BETWEEN SEVERAL PLATE
boundaries and directly on two main fault zones—
earthquakes are a fact of life.
But the two that hit the country’s southern
reaches on Feb. 6 brought a level of destruction that num-
bers can only suggest—a 7.8-magnitude quake, followed
nine hours later by a temblor registering 7.5. The death toll
nine days later stood at 41,000, including thousands killed
across the nearby border in northern Syria.
“These are the kinds of quakes we’d expect to see
10 or 20 years apart,” says Cuneyt Tuzun, an earthquake
engineer based in Izmir, Turkey. “They happened within
a few hours of each other.”
They also happened in a country that, despite every
warning, had not prepared. Ten years after a 1999 earth-
quake in the northern city of Izmit killed over 17,000 peo-
ple, the Turkish government answered the outrage over
shoddy construction, pledging new building standards
and a plan to strengthen existing structures, and desig-
nating hundreds of open urban spaces as evacuation safe
zones. The measures were crucial, in a rapidly urbanizing
nation where millions reside in the multistory concrete
apartment buildings that carpet Turkish cities.
Yet, on Feb. 6, more than 5,600 buildings collapsed across
southeastern Turkey. Within days, Turkish officials issued
over 100 arrest warrants for contractors allegedly connected
to the collapse of buildings that were not up to code. But ex- △
perts tell TIME the requirements for earthquake-readiness Mesut Hancer Erdogan, has been increasingly seen
improvements often went unenforced. holds his deceased as corrupt, according to annual rank-
15-year-old ings by Transparency International.
AS RECENTLY AS LAST NOVEMBER, following a daughter Irmak’s The party faces a challenge from a
5.9-magnitude earthquake, Turkey’s Union of Engineers hand on Feb. 7 united opposition in March elections
and Architects released a statement saying the nation “has that analysts say the catastrophe will
failed in terms of what needs to be done before the earth- loom large over.
quake.” The union added that site supervision “continues The country’s southeast—where
to be seen as a procedure on paper only,” and civil engi- the earthquakes occurred—has long
neers warned that the country’s infrastructure was incapa- lagged in income in comparison with
ble of handling a large earthquake. the western region, according to a
H. Kit Miyamoto, a structural engineer at Miyamoto In- study by the Centre for Economic
ternational, went to Turkey to help assess the latest dam- Policy Research, also making the
age. He says that in 1997, Turkey passed a code that re- area more vulnerable to insufficient
quired buildings to be constructed using ductile concrete,
a material that is more flexible in the event of an earth-
quake, but he estimates that only 1 in 10 buildings in the
country meets the standard. Black
Sea GEORGIA
Engineers can reinforce older buildings through retro-
fitting, a process that is more cost-effective than con-
7.5-
structing a building from scratch. But Miyamoto, who has magnitude
worked with the World Bank to retrofit schools in Turkey, quake
says it is difficult to force private buildings to do so.
“It costs on average 10% to 15% of the replacement 7.8-
magnitude
cost,” says Miyamoto. “You could retrofit eight build- quake
ings for the price of [building] one,” he adds, “but seismic
retrofitting does not add market value.” CYPRUS SYRIA IRAQ
“The construction industry is a big source of money,” LEBANON
explains Tuzun, the earthquake engineer, alluding to poli-
Mediterranean
tics. Turkey, which has been governed for 20 years by the Sea
Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip
The Brief is reported by Sanya Mansoor, Olivia B. Waxman, and Julia Zorthian
WORLD
especially in territory
To prevent a tragedy like this not under government to purchase trauma part of the International
from happening again, stakeholders control. Rescuers need supplies for the injured Red Cross and Red
will need to follow through on com- supplies to provide relief and to continue to Crescent. It is providing
pliance. Irfanoglu says that as the re- to survivors left home- provide emergency mobile kitchens and
gion recovers, this experience might less by the earthquake. aid to patients. temporary shelters.
make towns more aware of the im-
portance of proper building prac- DOCTORS WITHOUT SAVE THE INTERNATIONAL
tices. “There is an undeniable field BORDERS CHILDREN RESCUE COMMITTEE
of evidence of what works,” he says. Medical teams are on A nonprofit coordinat- The U.S.-based aid
Tuzun adds that engineers know the ground providing ing with local partners group has been work-
the infrastructure changes that immediate emergency to distribute goods to ing on the ground with
are necessary to prevent build- support in northwest- children and families. Syrian refugees for
ing collapses at this scale, espe- ern Syria, as well as An emergency team years. It is sending
cially in an area where earthquakes blankets and relief is also on the ground emergency supplies for
are inevitable. Now they must be kits for survivors. providing medical care. children and families.
implemented.
“Nature is warning us,” Tuzun
says. “If we take the proper action,
we will have less loss in the future.”
7
8 TIME February 27/March 6, 2023
1 1 2
The Feb. 6 earthquakes Survivors huddle in a relief
2 reduced entire blocks tent in Hatay province on
of buildings in Hatay, Feb. 7. The damage displaced
3 4 5 Turkey, to smoking millions of people across
piles of rubble Syria and Turkey
3 4 5
Miners joined the rescue Responders from the Israeli In northwest Syria, residents
efforts. Sinan Durdu, center, Defense Forces and a Turkish in the town of Jindayris
pictured on Feb. 9, saved rescue team transport a work together to extract an
a teenager trapped under 14-year-old girl to safety in injured girl from a collapsed
26 ft. of rubble southern Turkey on Feb. 9 structure on Feb. 6
C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: B U R A K K A R A — G E T T Y I M A G E S ; B U L E N T K I L I C — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; R A M I A L S AY E D —
A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; R O N E N Z V U L U N — R E U T E R S ; E S R A H A C I O G L U K A R A K AYA — A N A D O L U A G E N C Y/G E T T Y I M A G E S 9
THE BRIEF NEWS
Champion Chiefs
Kansas City Chiefs players celebrate their Super Bowl LVII win on Feb. 12 under an explosion of red and gold confetti
inside State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. After Kansas City fell behind in the first half, Chiefs quarterback Patrick
Mahomes led his team to a 38-35 win over the Philadelphia Eagles in one of the highest-scoring Super Bowls ever.
THE BULLETIN
fied in China in 1996. Across the U.S., ther, wild birds make for a nearly better suited to attack human cells, it
some 58 million birds have died or impossible-to-track disease vector, could cause trouble.
had to be killed because of infection, moving too fast for researchers to
with similar die-offs in poultry farms count the infected. WHAT TO DO “Treat the virus with re-
in Europe and Japan—one of the main spect,” says Gino Lorenzoni, an avian-
reasons that eggs have been so ex- MUTATING STRAINS In health expert at Penn State. If you
pensive lately. The good news: there humans, cases have been ep chickens, put them where
is no record of any human getting in- fairly rare, and there are wild animals can’t touch them
fected with bird flu from eating eggs only a handful of recorded and wear full protective gear
or poultry products. instances of H5N1 being when handling them. If you
spread from one human have pets, be vigilant about
WILD BIRDS Experts aren’t sure why to another. As we’ve seen stopping them from picking
the current bird flu has spread so with SARS-CoV-2, how- up any bird carcasses or ex-
far, so fast, but do have one theory: ever, viruses can evolve to crement. And if a seagull tries
while avian flus infect mainly domes- sidestep biological obsta- to steal your sandwich, maybe
tic poultry, the recent outbreaks have cles. Unusually for H5N1, th t it. —HALEY WEISS
10 TIME February 27/March 6, 2023
HEALTH
1. Listen to music
BY ANGELA HAUPT
4. Focus on your
movements
3. Do a puzzle
11
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THE BRIEF NEWS
U F O S : P E T E R Z AY— A N A D O L U A G E N C Y/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; B A C H A R A C H : S H U T T E R S T O C K ; J A M E S :
G A R Y A . VA S Q U E Z— U S A T O D AY S P O R T S/ R E U T E R S ; H A L E Y: T H E O W A R G O — G E T T Y I M A G E S
or not they’re worth engaging with,” says Ian Williams, sure that the U.S. can simultaneously
deputy director of the Center for Strategic and Interna- track these flying objects alongside
tional Studies’ Missile Defense Project. more traditional threats and under-
It’s probably not aliens, experts say. The White House stand how best to respond to them.
and intelligence officials have echoed this point. “Uniden- So far, he worries that the Ameri-
tified flying object” in this case means just that—an object can response has been disproportion-
that is flying and has not been identified. They could, how- ate compared with China’s balloon—
ever, pose a danger, at least to civilian aviation. While the which Beijing claims was doing
Chinese balloon was at 60,000 ft. of altitude—well above civilian research. “China wins that
the ceiling for passenger planes—the other objects were
‘We need fight a little bit,” he says. “Look at the
flying much lower, closer to the 20,000–40,000 ft. that a better cost imposed on us and what we had to
commercial aircraft reach. sense of spend to defend against that; it’s very
Since the U.S. shot down the Chinese balloon off lopsided.”
South Carolina—and admitted to at least three previous what these It’s likely that all sorts of objects
similar incursions into the country in recent years— things are.’ have been floating through U.S. air-
it has recalibrated its skyward surveillance systems. —IAN WILLIAMS,
space, but shooting them down was
Experts say NORAD was previously focusing on spotting MISSILE-DEFENSE not a priority. “We chose to tolerate
fast-moving objects that generated a lot of heat—think EXPERT them,” Ellison says. □
16 Time February 27/March 6, 2023
MILESTONES
SCORED
DIED
BACHARACH
HITS IN BRIEF
17
THE BRIEF NEWS
ald Trump Jr., among the MAGA fig- ple armchair next to a fuzzy ottoman and a single flower.
ures who have joined him in unfounded A small crowd of mostly Brazilian American fans paid
narratives about election fraud in Bra- up to $50 to see him. Videos taken from the audience show
zil. Eduardo has spoken at American ‘He is him draped in the Brazilian flag and being serenaded, sur-
political events like the Conservative hiding rounded by people praying over him.
Political Action Conference and has
been a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago,
behind a “I just want to say thank you so much for everything.
In America we’re so grateful for you,” said Jimmy Levy, a
posting photos of himself with Trump, U.S. tourist former American Idol contestant who has become popular
Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner. visa.’ with the MAGA crowd, performing hits like “God Against
Experts say that’s not the only rea- —ANNA ESKAMANI,
the Government” at antivaccine rallies and other right-
son Bolsonaro may have sought ref- FLORIDA STATE wing events. “Everyone who is a patriot in America is
uge in Florida. “There is a very strong REPRESENTATIVE standing with the patriots in Brazil.”
19
THE BRIEF Q&A
Leadership Series,
serve racism. Please explain that. presented in
partnership with Rolex, courage. In other words, recognize something
One of the most prevailing examples that I think profiles members of the is the right thing to do, but it’s also the danger-
particularly are affecting young people are stan- TIME100 community—
the world’s most ous thing to do. But you decide to do it anyway.
dardized tests. Many young people believe that influential people. I would encourage young people to strive to be
their test score is indicative of whether they are For video conversations
and more, visit
that. There’s going to be positives and negatives,
smart or not smart. What those young people time.com/leaders challenges and rewards, to being antiracist. □
21
MUNICIPAL BONDS.
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The benefits and risks of municipal bonds.
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including possible loss of principal. Income may be subject to state, local or federal alternative minimum tax. When interest rates rise, bond
prices fall, and when interest rates fall, bond prices rise. If sold or called prior to maturity the amount received may be less than the amount
paid, and the yield received may be less than the yield calculated at purchase. Past performance is not guarantee of future results.
A CENTURY OF IMPACT
THE POWER OF
A TIME COVERBY D.W. PINE
INSIDE
23
That frame came into being another and flying drones—958 of them, to be
half-century before my childhood artis- exact. And since most people now see
tic endeavors, when, in TIME co-founder TIME’s cover digitally, add animation
Briton Hadden’s New York City office, a and motion graphics to the visual mix.
friend of his named Philip Kobbe took The cover of TIME has often been
out a red crayon and drew a thick line called the most important real estate in
around the cover of a 1926 copy of the journalism—making some of the world’s
magazine. These days, we’re often told best photographers and artists its archi-
that to be creative we need to think out- tects. Andy Warhol did five TIME cov-
side the box. But as 5,223 issues (and ers from 1965 to 1986; Roy Lichtenstein
counting) have shown over TIME’s past produced two cover images within three
100 years, creativity can flourish inside weeks of each other in 1968. In 1965
MAN OF THE YEAR the lines. Thank you, Mrs. Matousek. and 1976, respectively, Marc Chagall
and Robert Rauschenberg produced
What I love about TIME is its author- self-portraits to accompany cover stories
ity to cover any topic: from health to about their work.
sports, climate to tech- They fit in well with
nology, business to the renowned com-
culture, world leaders pany of artists, photog-
to society to the Presi- raphers, and thinkers
dent. And that same who produced covers:
variety holds true in Jacob Lawrence, Ben
how the 8-by-10.5-in. Shahn, Robert Vickrey,
space that is the cover Alex Katz, Romare
is approached visually. Bearden, Christo,
Since the charcoal Charles Schulz, Al
portrait and hand- Hirschfeld, Milton
drawn line work of Glaser, Jodi Bieber,
the first cover—dated James Nachtwey,
March 3, 1923—nearly Richard Avedon, Diana
every medium out there Walker, Ai Weiwei,
has been used to cre- Titus Kaphar, Mick-
ate a TIME cover. The alene Thomas, Olafur
first three decades were Eliasson, Beeple,
dominated by litho- Shepard Fairey, and JR,
APPEARANCES BY graphs, gouache, char- Pine’s art from kindergarten, and the list goes on.
RICHARD NIXON lovingly preserved
coal, black-and-white In 1978, the
portrait photography, magazine donated
and watercolors. The 1950s and ’60s fea- 800 works of original cover art to the
tured a little more experimentation: col- National Portrait Gallery, which has
lages, wax sculptures, bold typography, preserved and digitized that history. The
pencil sketches, acrylics, casein, info- collection now includes more than 2,000
graphics, wood sculptures, felt-tip mark- pieces. These covers are noteworthy
ers, nickel-coated plaster, tempera, pas- on their merits, but several among
tels, papier-mâché, cut paper, metal, clay, them turned out not simply to record
oil painting, bronze casting, crayon, and news, but also to make it. TIME covers
landscape photography were the primary have affected government policy and
forms. The 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s brought individual actions, challenged public
with them silk-screen printing, marble, opinion, and launched careers.
slate, photo collage, political cartoons, These pages include just a few stories
news photography, and color portraiture. of that influence, and we’ll be sharing
The past quarter-century has featured more in the magazine and on time.com as
artists working with 3D rendering, sand, our official March 3 birthday approaches.
quilting, quilling, stained glass, typo- May past be prologue, and the space in-
graphic portraiture, photo-illustration, side TIME’s red border remain an essen-
interactive design, 360-degree photogra- tial canvas for another 100 years.
phy, matchsticks, Mylar, augmented real-
ity, illustrated graphics, optical illusions, Pine is TIME’s creative director
The View is reported by Mariah Espada, Simmone Shah, and Julia Zorthian
100 YEARS OF TIME
Revisiting some of our most influential covers, with the people who lived that history.
Stay tuned for more of this series on time.com and in upcoming issues 5
COVERS CREATED
BY ANDY WARHOL
The First Issue column. From the first, this was news
with attitude: “Never did a man em-
March 3, 1923 ploy the office of Speaker,” TIME de-
clared of Cannon, “with less regard
By Nancy Gibbs for its theoretical impartiality.”
The choice of Cannon for the cover
HENRY LUCE AND BRITON spoke to Luce and Hadden’s con-
Hadden and their scrappy team viction that people don’t just make
of 20-somethings piled into a cab news, they make history, destiny as
to barrel across town to the print- personality, and so that week and
ing plant on the last Tuesday in every week to come for decades, it
February 1923. There they spent would almost always be a person or
the final hours cutting, pasting, persons on the cover of TIME. Can-
and fine-tuning the first issue of non had made plenty of news and his-
the magazine that would come to tory in his 46 years in Congress, eight WORDS AND
PICTURES
define the American Century. It as Speaker. A staunch conservative
L U C E , H A D D E N : T H E L I F E P I C T U R E C O L L E C T I O N /S H U T T E R S T O C K
was a skinny issue, stripped-down stories slotted into and fierce disciplinarian, he wielded
22 sections, designed for an age of information over- total control over who sat on what
load, to be read in an hour—its unique value proposi- committees and which bills would
tion signaled in its very name. ever make it to a vote. “Sometimes in
The most important fact of this first cover is not the politics one must duel with skunks,”
charcoal portrait or filigree border—it would be four he once said, “but no one should
years before a designer proposed the iconic red one. be fool enough to allow skunks to
It was the name TIME (chosen over Facts), and even choose the weapons.”
more, The Weekly News-Magazine. No such thing had
existed before—no such artful, even arrogant, arrange- Gibbs, the first woman to be editor-in-
ment of all the world’s news into tidy categories. The chief of TIME, is the Edward R. Murrow
“cover story” about the coming retirement of legend- Professor of Practice of Press, Politics
ary GOP lawmaker “Uncle Joe” Cannon ran less than a and Public Policy at Harvard
THE VIEW OPENER
Portrait of a Leader
April 20, 1959
The World Is Now My Home
By the Dalai Lama
warmheartedness. We are social animals; our survival constant love and support. When
depends on others. As human beings we thrive on af- I look at this cover from 1959, I am
fection, which is one reason why all religious tradi- grateful that I have been able to
tions stress compassion. People with little or no inter- lead a meaningful life dedicated to
est in religion are also human beings and for them, too, helping others.
26 Time February 27/March 6, 2023
Applications are now open. In 2023, TIME will once again recognize
100 businesses making an extraordinary impact around the world.
A P P LY N O W : T I M E 1 0 0 COS .CO M
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THE VIEW ESSAY Watch When Truth Isn’t Truth: The Rudy Giuliani Story, a new four-part series
from TIME Studios, beginning Feb. 19 on MSNBC and streaming on Peacock
He viewed them as political enemies who had supported the pipeline of weapons and supplies.
Hillary Clinton in 2016, hurting his feelings and engaging They are just trying to please Trump,
his unquenchable thirst for revenge. exactly as Giuliani does. And whether
Trump also hated the Ukrainian government because they realize it or not, they are making
Putin did. Some have said that Putin has compromising it easier for Putin and his gang to steal
information on Trump, I never saw evidence of that. everything they can from Ukraine.
Rather, I think the Russian leader had a lot in common with
Trump’s father Fred. Both men were authoritarian lead- Parnas is a businessman and a former
ers who valued ruthlessness and considered it the only way associate of Giuliani’s, serving a sen-
to succeed. I first met Fred when I was selling condos in tence for fraud and campaign-finance
Brooklyn as a kid, and he and Putin struck me the same way. violations
29
N I G E R I A : T E M I L A D E A D E L A J A — R E U T E R S ; G R E E N E : J I M W AT S O N — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S
30
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene at the State of the Union address
P H O T O G R A P H B Y O L H A M E N I A I L O — C O U R T E S Y T H E R E C KO N I N G P R O J E C T
SPECIAL REPORT
A year into the invasion, certain places in “Military, military,” the soldier repeated, ignor-
Ukraine—the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, the south- ing the explanation. The soldiers looked Asian,
ern city of Mariupol—are known for what Rus- their Russian was broken, and Valeriy later learned
sian forces did to the civilians there. To the list that they were from Tuva, a region in the far east
add the tiny village of Yahidne, which lay in the of Russia, one of the country’s poorest.
north of the country, directly in the path of the “Married?” a soldier asked Lilia.
advancing army. As soon as the artillery barrages 1 “No,” she lied.
began, the informal village leader, a man named Lilia and “Age?”
Valeriy Polhui, made a bomb shelter out of his cel- Svitlana, back “32. Are you going to kill us?”
lar. When Svitlana Baranova and Lilia Bludsha, a in Yahidne six “Yes.”
travel agent and an engineer at Chernobyl, pulled months after Then they locked them back in Valeriy’s cellar.
into the village in a car struck by shrapnel, its wind- emerging from The next day, March 5, the Russians opened the
shield shattered, Valeriy took them in too. the basement cellar door and said:
There was fighting all around the village. Svit- “Get out. We’re taking you to the school
lana and Lilia called their families to say that it basement.”
was too dangerous to leave Yahidne and that they
would stay there a while longer. On March 3 the 2 It was a gray, cold morning.
military vehicles entered the village in a long col- Valeriy Polhui The village is bordered on one end by a pine for-
umn. Valeriy hurried everyone—the nine members was told by a est and on the other by the Kyiv-Chernihiv high-
of his extended family and the two guests—into his Russian officer, way. There are five streets, and Valeriy could see
makeshift bomb shelter. “You’ll be people being frog-marched to the school from
From inside, they could hear heavy machinery responsible each, slowly, family by family. Behind each family
for everyone.”
driving into his yard, stomping, and gunfire. But was a soldier pointing a machine gun at them. The
that evening nobody discovered their hiding spot, Russians made the sick and elderly come. Their
thanks to Valeriy’s smart thinking: he hung a lock families moved them in wheelbarrows.
on the door to make it look as if it had been shut On the 500 meters that separate his house from
from the outside. The Russians pulled at the door the school, Valeriy counted 80 units of equipment:
and walked away. But the next day they broke the
lock. Valeriy shouted:
“Don’t shoot, there are children here!” Yahidne Russian
Everything froze for a second, as if the person Chernobyl
advances
and control
on the other side of the door hadn’t expected to March 22,
hear a voice. Then the command came for every- 2022
one to come out, one by one. Valeriy went first. The
next command to him was to lie down on the snow. Kyiv
The Russians took their phones and searched their UKRAINE
contacts. If they saw the word Kyiv they asked for
more details, as if this word in and of itself was a
threat. They searched the house, found a uniform,
and decided that Valeriy was in the military. He
explained that he wasn’t. He spoke in Russian, but
the soldier didn’t understand him.
36 Time February 27/March 6, 2023
3 4
armored personnel carriers, tanks, mortars. Sol- Valeriy, his family, and Svitlana and Lilia were
diers with red armbands were bustling about, haul- already in the basement, sharing the largest room
ing ammunition. By Lisova Street a dead body lay with 150 other people. Later they calculated
on the ground. Anatoliy Yaniuk had been shot in there was about half a square meter per person:
the head on March 3. He was 30 years old. The 170 square meters, 367 people (including more
Russians had executed him when he refused to lie than 70 children). They sat on the bench or on
down on the ground in front of them. “I am on my 3 the floor, resting their heads on their neighbors’
own land, and I will not lay down in front of you.” A reunion shoulders, not knowing if they would live to see
Those were his last words, neighbors who saw the meal hosted by the next morning.
execution told his mother. Valeriy’s family
The school is a two-story white brick building in Yahidne on As the dAys went on people handled their fear
on the edge of the village, in front of the forest. Aug. 27, 2022 differently. Some sat in a stupor, hugging their
That morning chalkboards in the classrooms still pet dogs. Others ran around looking for water and
had the academic assignments for Feb. 23 written wondering how to survive.
on them. Armed soldiers scurried about military Olha decided she could stay sane by keeping her
vehicles between the swings. 4 diary. Today the words are hard to make out—she
As they were herded into the basement, the Russian troops wrote in the dark; flashlights were turned on only
people of Yahidne saw a fellow villager, Anatoliy killed one when absolutely necessary. Olha used her index
Shevchenko, off to the side, blindfolded, his hands of Mykhailo finger to measure the width of the lines so that she
tied. Despite the cold he was sitting on the concrete Shevchenko’s wouldn’t write over things.
parapet in a light sweater, with visible bruises on sons; the other Day one—We tried to talk to the soldiers.
1, 3 : N ATA L I YA G U M E N Y U K — T H E R E C K O N I N G P R O J E C T; 2, 4: A N D R I I B A S H T O V Y I — T H E R E C K O N I N G P R O J E C T
his body. The two soldiers next to him were bran- is missing Day two—They took away everyone’s cell
dishing their machine guns. phones.
Olha Meniailo, an agronomist who was being Day three—We started boiling water.
forced into the cellar with her husband, son, She stuck to the bare facts: she knew the diary
daughter-in-law, and their 4-month-old son, no- could be seized and didn’t want anyone to know
ticed some of the military looked more experi- her innermost thoughts.
enced and some were boys in their teens. She felt During the day, people sat in the basement on
sorry for the latter because they were just “kids.” chairs, benches, and the floor. They slept sitting
“Why did you come here?” she asked the Rus- up. They used bulletin boards to make a platform
sian soldiers. for the children to lie on. The only way to stretch
“We came to free you from the Nazis,” they your legs in those cramped conditions was to stand
repeated. up. Svitlana and Lilia would take turns lying on two
“There are no Nazis here,” said Olha. “You only chairs, while the other lay on the floor underneath.
‘freed’ us from our homes.” The Russians had claimed that they sent the
The largest room of the basement once housed villagers into the basement for their “protection,”
the school gym, but now it reminded her of im- but it was clear they were human shields. The Rus-
ages of hell from ancient religious icons. “A can- sian military made their headquarters on the two
dle flickers here and there,” she would remember floors above.
later, “and in the dim light there are people next At first the captives were in such a state of shock
to each other with doomed expressions on their that they didn’t even think much about food. Then
faces. It’s suffocating.” they ate what they were able to bring from home.
37
SPECIAL REPORT
conversations with dead relatives. Revealed fam- photographed on the people in the basement had no idea what
ily secrets. Then they died, sitting in a chair. May 12, 2022 was happening on the front, in Ukraine, in Kyiv,
By March 12, several corpses had accumulated. even in the local capital of Chernihiv. “We’ve cap-
The Russian soldiers finally gave permission for tured all your cities,” the soldiers told them. But
them to be buried. the people thought, If Russians had captured all the
People in villages take their funerals very se- Ukrainian cities, why were they still in Yahidne?
riously. They spend decades planning what A commander was supposed to go to Russia.
clothes they will be buried in, preparing embroi- He promised to bring back medicine. But he re-
dered towels that their relatives should hang on turned in two days.
the cross. Now people were being buried with- “People are asking about pills,” Valeriy said.
out a coffin and without a cross. They were “Did you bring them?”
39
SPECIAL REPORT
Yahidne. Many locals would follow. The Russians atrocities across Ukraine it was planned, deliber-
had mined some homes. People covered their win- ate, intentional.
dows in plastic to keep out the rain, got into buses, Now comes the reckoning.
and went to relatives’ homes or temporary shelters.
The most important thing was to get as far away as Oslavska is a journalist based in Ukraine.
possible, find heat, comfort, and security. This story is published in partnership with The
That April in Yahidne, the only people working Reckoning Project, which brings together the
in the gardens were deminers. power of storytelling and legal accountability to
When people returned, they began to repair fight disinformation and impunity in Ukraine
41
POLITICS
W HER E W ES MOOR E C
OM ES FROM
Wes’s mother Joy moved him and his two was on the Constitution. “I am proud to be an
sisters to the East Bronx to live with her Ja- American,” the teenager declared, “because I
maican parents, a retired minister and understand just what my ancestors had to go
elementary-school teacher. While Joy worked through in order for me to be called American.”
as a freelance writer and took odd jobs, the He won the statewide contest.
family pooled their resources to send Moore Moore stayed at Valley Forge after finish-
to the tony Riverdale Country School, hop- ing high school, accepting a commission in the
ing he could escape the neighborhood’s influ- Army and earning an associate’s degree at the
ence. But the neighborhood proved more pow- school’s junior college. His mother moved back
erful. “We grew up in a very challenging time to the Baltimore suburbs for her job at a foun-
in New York City,” says Moore’s childhood best dation for at-risk youth. Moore began spending
friend, Justin Brandon, the only other Black boy time in the city and felt at home, he says. But he
in their third-grade class. “It was the birth of didn’t have a Baltimore address until he trans-
the hip-hop era, but also the crack epidemic, ferred to Johns Hopkins his junior year. That’s
the Central Park Five—in retrospect, you real- not necessarily the impression you’d get from
ize you were exposed to a lot.” The Other Wes Moore, which describes the two
A popular, mischievous kid, Moore started boys as growing up “at the same time, on the
goofing off and hanging out with the wrong same streets, with the same name.”
crowd. In middle school, he was caught writing In the book, Moore details his family’s vari-
graffiti and detained, but police let him off with ous moves and accurately describes his birth-
a warning. He went right back to tagging, skip- place as being “right on the border of Mary-
ping school, and getting middling grades. When land and Washington, D.C.” But the fact that
Riverdale finally threatened to suspend him, his that border is some 30 miles from the Baltimore
family mortgaged their house to send him away city limits—perhaps even farther, in psychic
to military school. It was a nerve-racking deci- terms, from the West Baltimore projects oc-
sion for his mother, who’d never even let her cupied by his name twin—would be lost on a
children play with toy guns, but she didn’t know reader unfamiliar with the region’s geography.
what else to do. “I lost my husband to tragedy,” After the book became a best seller, numerous
Joy Moore tells me. “I was going to do whatever interviewers introduced Moore as being from
I had to do not to lose my kids to the streets— Baltimore as he nodded along without argu-
or to mediocrity.” ment. A blurb on some editions of the book
Moore initially resisted Valley Forge Military identified him as being born in Baltimore; the publisher now says this
Academy outside Philadelphia, trying and fail- was an error Moore tried to correct.
ing to run away from campus. But once he com- During Moore’s gubernatorial campaign, an anonymous dossier
mitted to it, the school changed his life. He still highlighting these not-quite-discrepancies landed in the email inboxes
counts earning the “cap shield” that marks the of prominent Maryland Democrats, calling Moore and his story “com-
passage from plebe to cadet pletely fraudulent.” Moore’s campaign returned fire,
as “the hardest thing that I’ve tracing the dossier to a rival campaign and filing an
done,” he tells me. “It was ‘ T H E RE WAS election-board complaint. His loyalists see a sinister
the first thing that I know I parallel with Obama: a successful Black man forced
accomplished on my own— NO D OU BT to produce his birth certificate to quiet a chorus of
the first thing that I accom- T H AT othering dog whistles.
plished not because it was a When I press Moore on his elisions, he grows ani-
giveaway or because some- P OL I TIC S mated. There’s a larger point, he says, that his critics are
one felt bad for me or what- WAS G OI NG intentionally missing when they try to paint him as a son
ever. I earned that.” The feel- of privilege playacting as an inner-city kid. “When you
ing of accomplishment was T O COME ask people, ‘Where are you from?’ it’s an easy answer
intoxicating, he says, and he A F T E R H I M .’ oftentimes,” he tells me. “It’s not for me. I moved around
has spent the rest of his life —CONDOLEEZZA RICE,
a lot when I was a kid—not because of choice, because of
chasing it. FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE tragedy. I watched my father die in front of me, and my
Moore was on the foot- mother then is coming up in a home that she did not feel
ball, basketball, track, and safe in.” His family’s economic precarity, and the danger
wrestling teams, served as student body presi- of the Bronx streets, were real; if his family succeeded in going to great
dent, and edited the school newspaper. Bran- lengths to protect him from them, while the other Wes Moore lacked access
don recalls taking a bus from New York to see to similar resources, that’s sort of the point. The other Moore also showed
his friend compete in an oratory competition leadership potential, rising through the ranks of street-corner drug deal-
in suburban Philadelphia and being stunned ers and excelling in a job-training program. But he was in and out of jail,
by his command of the room. Moore’s speech fathered multiple children as a teenager, and ran out of second chances.
46 Time February 27/March 6, 2023
reform. “Wes is one of those people who just
have a gravitational pull, this energy you can
feel,” says Bronin, currently the mayor of Hart-
ford, Conn., “relentless optimism mixed with
an intense sense of purpose.”
Colin Powell’s memoir My American Jour-
ney, the story of a Jamaican American from the
Bronx who rises through the military to achieve
political success, was Moore’s touchstone. Com-
paring it with The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
Moore writes that Powell’s determined opti-
mism resonated more with him than Malcolm’s
revolutionary rage. Moore sympathizes with the
A RHODES SCHOLAR, long line of Black thinkers who’ve demanded “resistance to the American
MOORE PLAYED
FOOTBALL FOR JOHNS
system,” he writes, but Powell “embraced the progress this nation made
HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, and the military’s role in helping that change to come about.”
FROM WHICH HE Moore’s books can read like Oprah for the do-gooder set, full of feel-
GRADUATED IN 2001
good parables about “changemakers.” He’s a curious storyteller with a
restless earnestness—albeit one that never threatens to unsettle the power
structure. Moore is self-aware about his natural glibness, and cites the
“code-switching bonus” that gives him access to different worlds, from
South African townships to corporate boardrooms, poverty-stricken
neighborhoods to Islamist training camps. “The key to answering ques-
tions meant to get at who you are,” he writes, “was to first consider who
the questioner wanted you to be.”
MOORE DURING
HIS YEARLONG In 2005, Moore voluntarily deployed to Afghanistan with the 82nd
DEPLOYMENT Airborne Division. Returning to the U.S. after his yearlong deployment,
IN AFGHANISTAN
WITH THE 82ND
he spent a year as a White House Fellow at the State Department, where
AIRBORNE DIVISION his boss, Condoleezza Rice, remembers him as passionate, levelheaded,
and nonideological. “I didn’t ever talk to him about it, but I would have
been surprised if he didn’t have political ambitions, because he had the
Real, too, Moore says, was the sense of be- right package,” Rice tells me. “There was no doubt that politics was going
longing he found in Baltimore when he began to come after him if he didn’t come after politics.”
spending time there as a teen, hanging out with Moore spent a couple of years on Wall Street, learning numbers and
his sister and her school friends on breaks from budgets, but found the business world unfulfilling and quit Citibank at the
Valley Forge. He interned twice for then mayor height of the financial crisis. The gamble paid off. His books vaulted Moore
Kurt Schmoke, an early mentor who pushed into a career hosting shows on Winfrey’s OWN and giving paid speeches.
him to apply for the Rhodes. “I finally get to In 2017, he became CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, a New York–
a place that accepts me, flaws and all,” he says. based nonprofit that aims to channel the resources of the city’s wealthi-
“That became home, and it will always be home. est into alleviating poverty. Colleagues there say Moore transformed the
So if people want to try to manipulate or attack organization’s mission. He created a policy department and a “power
my trauma for their political gain, then they can fund” dedicated to funding organizations run by people of color. He also
have that. But Baltimore as home is something broadened the organization into other cities, including a pilot project in
that I am proud of.” Baltimore, where his family continued to live. On the day I met with him
on the Eastern Shore, Moore wore socks with lettering on the side read-
The quesTion of home has always preoccu- ing, THIS MEETING IS BuLLSH-T—a gift, he told me, from a Robin Hood
pied Moore: what it means to be from a place; colleague paying tribute to his preference for action over deliberation.
what we owe to the places we’re from, be it city, In his four years as CEO, Moore raised $650 million for the organization.
state, country, or planet. The Other Wes Moore In his role at Robin Hood, Moore testified before the Maryland gen-
and his subsequent memoir, The Work, reveal a eral assembly in support of a plan to improve the state’s education sys-
searcher’s soul—a man transformed by the early tem, forging a bond with the state’s first Black house speaker, Adrienne
realization that perhaps his life could matter Jones, who became an early supporter and now will be a crucial ally to
when so many others would not. his governorship. Moore also pushed New York under then Governor
Luke Bronin, a fellow Rhodes scholar who Andrew Cuomo to expand the state’s child tax credit, lobbying hard to
COURTESY WES MOORE
shared a house with Moore at Oxford, remem- get the proposal included in Cuomo’s State of the State speech. “They
bers the two of them sitting on the steps of the didn’t use it, and I was frustrated,” Moore recalls. “And I remember hav-
Bodleian Library at 1 a.m., discussing every- ing a conversation with one of my former colleagues, and they’re like,
thing from the 9/11 attacks to criminal-justice ‘We worked for six months to try to get them to include a line in the
47
POLITICS
THE AI ARMS
RACE IS
CHANGING
EVERYTHING
Tech companies are betting big on AI.
Are they making the same old mistakes?
BY ANDREW R. CHOW
AND BILLY PERRIGO
to virtually any query, and Dall-E, CEO Satya Nadella said Feb. 7, throw- That conservatism stemmed in part
which allows you to conjure any image ing down the gauntlet at Google’s door. from the unpredictability of the neural
you dream up. In January, ChatGPT “We’re going to move, and move fast.” network, the computing paradigm that
reached 100 million monthly users, a Wall Street has responded with modern AI is based on, which is inspired
faster rate of adoption than Instagram similar fervor, with analysts upgrading by the human brain. Instead of the tra-
or TikTok. Hundreds of similarly aston- the stocks of companies that mention ditional approach to computer pro-
ishing generative AIs are clamoring for AI in their plans and punishing those gramming, which relies on precise sets
adoption, from Midjourney to Stable with shaky AI-product rollouts. While of instructions yielding predictable re-
Diffusion to GitHub’s Copilot, which the technology is real, a financial bub- sults, neural networks effectively teach
allows you to turn simple instructions ble is expanding around it rapidly, with themselves to spot patterns in data. The
into computer code. investors betting big that generative AI more data and computing power these
Proponents believe this is just the be- could be as market-shaking as Microsoft networks are fed, the more capable they
ginning: that generative AI will reori- Windows 95 or the first iPhone. tend to become.
ent the way we work and engage with But this frantic gold rush could In the early 2010s, Silicon Valley
the world, unlock creativity and sci- also prove catastrophic. As companies woke up to the idea that neural net-
entific discoveries, and allow human- hurry to improve the tech and profit works were a far more promising route
ity to achieve previously unimaginable from the boom, research about keep- to powerful AI than old-school pro-
feats. Forecasters at PwC predict that AI ing these tools safe is taking a back seat. gramming. But the early AIs were pain-
could boost the global economy by over In a winner-takes-all battle for power, fully susceptible to parroting the biases
$15 trillion by 2030. Big Tech and their venture-capitalist in their training data: spitting out mis-
This frenzy appeared to catch off backers risk repeating past mistakes, information and hate speech. When
guard even the tech companies that including social media’s cardinal sin: Microsoft unveiled its chatbot Tay in
have invested billions of dollars in AI— prioritizing growth over safety. While 2016, it took less than 24 hours for it to
and has spurred an intense arms race there are many potentially utopian as- tweet “Hitler was right I hate the jews”
in Silicon Valley. In a matter of weeks, pects of these new technologies, even and that feminists should “all die and
Microsoft and Alphabet-owned Google tools designed for good can have un- burn in hell.” OpenAI’s 2020 predeces-
have shifted their entire corporate strat- foreseen and devastating consequences. sor to ChatGPT exhibited similar levels
egies in order to seize control of what This is the story of how the gold rush of racism and misogyny.
they believe will become a new infra- began—and what history tells us about The AI boom really began to take
structure layer of the economy. Micro- what could happen next. off around 2020, turbocharged by sev-
soft is investing $10 billion in OpenAI, eral crucial breakthroughs in neural-
creator of ChatGPT and Dall-E, and an- IN FACT, GENERATIVE AI knows the network design, the growing availabil-
nounced plans to integrate generative problems of social media all too well. ity of data, and the willingness of tech
AI into its Office software and search AI-research labs have kept versions of companies to pay for gargantuan levels
engine, Bing. Google declared a “code these tools behind closed doors for sev- of computing power. But the weak spots
red” corporate emergency in response to eral years, while they studied their po- remained, and the history of embarrass-
the success of ChatGPT and rushed its tential dangers, from misinformation ing AI stumbles made many companies,
own search-oriented chatbot, Bard, to and hate speech to the unwitting cre- including Google, Meta, and OpenAI,
market. “A race starts today,” Microsoft ation of snowballing geopolitical crises. mostly reluctant to publicly release
2021 MAY
Google announces SEPTEMBER FEBRUARY
LaMDA, its own OpenAI publishes Microsoft previews
chatbot, but Dall-E 2 for new Bing search
doesn’t release it public use NOVEMBER
publicly
AUGUST 2023 engine with ChatGPT
Startup Meta JANUARY integration
Stability AI publishes Microsoft
releases Galactica, its
plows
text-to-image own chatbot,
but kills it $10 billion
tool Stable
2022 APRIL Diffusion after intense into OpenAI
FEBRUARY
OpenAI reveals publicly criticism of
NOVEMBER Google announces
Dall-E 2 but doesn’t false answers
OpenAI releases Bard, conversational-AI-
make it widely
ChatGPT publicly assisted search
accessible
53
TECHNOLOGY
it: by slowly warping our news feeds to each individual chat costs the com- capabilities as the AI arms race heats up.
optimize for engagement, keeping us pany “single-digit cents,” according “When it comes to very power-
scrolling through viral content inter- to its CEO. The company’s ability to ful technologies—and obviously AI is
spersed with targeted online advertis- weather huge losses right now, thanks going to be one of the most powerful
ing. True social connection has become partly to Microsoft’s largesse, gives it a ever—we need to be careful,” Demis
increasingly sparse on our feeds. At the huge competitive advantage. Hassabis, CEO of Google-owned AI lab
same time, our societies have been left In February, OpenAI brought in a DeepMind, told TIME late last year.
to deal with the second-order impli- $20 monthly charge for a subscription “Not everybody is thinking about those
cations: a gutted news business, a rise tier of the chatbot. Google already pri- things. It’s like experimentalists, many
in misinformation, and a skyrocketing oritizes paid ads in search results. It’s of whom don’t realize they’re holding
teen mental-health crisis. not much of a leap to imagine it doing dangerous material.”
It’s not hard to see AI’s integration the same with AI-generated results. If Even if computer scientists succeed
into Big Tech products going down the humans come to rely on AIs for infor- in making sure the AIs don’t wipe us out,
same road. Alphabet and Microsoft are mation, it will be increasingly difficult their increasing centrality to the global
most interested in how AI will make to tell what is factual, what is an ad, and economy could make the Big Tech com-
their search engines more valuable, and what is completely made up. panies that control it vastly more power-
have shown demos of Google and Bing As profit takes precedence over ful. They could become not just the rich-
in which the first results users see are safety, some technologists and phi- est corporations in the world—charging
AI-created. But Margaret Mitchell, chief losophers warn of existential risk. whatever they want for commercial use
ethics scientist at the AI-development The explicit goal of many of these AI of this critical infrastructure—but also
platform Hugging Face, argues that companies—including geopolitical actors to
search engines are the “absolute worst OpenAI—is to create rival nation-states.
way” to use generative AI, because an Artificial General The leaders of
it gets things wrong so often. Mitch-
ell says the actual strengths of AIs like
Intelligence, or AGI,
that can think and
‘YOU HAD THIS OpenAI and Deep-
Mind have hinted that
ChatGPT—assisting with creativity, ide- learn more efficiently GENERATIVE they’d like the wealth
ation, and menial tasks—are being side-
lined in favor of shoehorning the tech-
than humans. If future
AIs gain the ability to
PANDORA’S BOX and power emanating
from AI to be some-
nology into moneymaking machines for rapidly improve them- THAT OPENED. how redistributed.
tech giants.
If search engines successfully inte-
selves without human
guidance or interven- IT PUT EVERYTHING The Big Tech execu-
tives who control the
grate AI, that subtle shift could deci- tion, they could po- ON OVERDRIVE.’ purse strings, on the
mate the many businesses that rely on tentially wipe out hu- other hand, are primar-
search, either for ad traffic or business manity. An oft-cited —Nathan Benaich, ily accountable to their
investor and co-author of
referrals. Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, has thought experiment is the 2022 State of AI Report shareholders.
said the new AI-oriented Bing search that of an AI that, fol- Of course, many Sil-
engine will drive more traffic, and there- lowing a command to icon Valley technolo-
fore revenue, to publishers and adver- maximize the number gies that promised to
tisers. But like the brewing pushback of paper clips it can produce, makes it- change the world haven’t. We’re not
against AI-generated art, many in the self into a world-dominating superin- all living in the metaverse. Crypto bros
media now fear a future where tech gi- telligence that harvests all the carbon who goaded nonadopters to “have fun
ants’ chatbots cannibalize content from at its disposal, including from all life on staying poor” are nursing their losses or
news sites, providing nothing in return. earth. In a 2022 survey of AI research- even languishing behind prison bars.
The question of how AI companies ers, nearly half of the respondents said The streets of cities around the world
will monetize their projects also looms that there was a 10% or greater chance are littered with the detritus of failed
large. For now, most are free to use, be- that AI could lead to such a catastrophe. e-scooter startups.
cause their creators are following the Inside the most cutting-edge AI But while AI has been subject to a
Silicon Valley playbook of charging lit- labs, a few technicians are working to similar level of breathless hype, the dif-
tle or nothing for products to crowd out ensure that AIs, if they eventually sur- ference is that the technology behind
competition, subsidized by huge in- pass human intelligence, are “aligned” AI is already useful to consumers and
vestments from venture-capital firms. with human values. They are designing getting better at a breakneck pace: AI’s
While unsuccessful companies adopt- benevolent gods, not spiteful ones. But computational power is doubling every
ing this strategy slowly bleed money, only around 80 to 120 researchers in the six to 10 months, researchers say. It is
the winners often end up with vise- world are working full time on AI align- exactly this immense power that makes
like grips on markets they can control ment, according to an estimate shared the current moment so electrifying—
as they see fit. Right now, ChatGPT is with TIME by Conjecture, an AI-safety and so dangerous. —With reporting
ad-less and free to use. It’s also burn- organization. Meanwhile, thousands by LesLie DicksTein and mariah
ing a hole in OpenAI’s pocketbook: of engineers are working on expanding espaDa/new York □
54 Time February 27/March 6, 2023
COVER STORE
ENJOY T I ME AT H O M E
S H OP S OM E O F T I M E ’S
MO S T IC O NI C C OV ER A R T.
TIMECOVERSTORE.COM
WORLD
erupted around some of her ministry’s sexual aggression. Now, in a country began petitioning courts to have their
reforms, the government’s agenda— in which, according to government fig- sentences revised. As of publication,
and perhaps its very stability—are now ures, 1 in every 2 women has suffered nearly 500 had their jail time short-
under threat. Is the crisis a sign of un- some kind of sexual violence, sexual ag- ened, and more than 40 who had al-
bridgeable divisions between the pro- gression covers everything from work- ready fulfilled the new sentences had
gressive, feminist Spain that Montero place harassment to aggravated rape. been released.
envisions and a conservative, patriar- “It’s a good example of a reform that Some critics have blamed the flaws
chal reality that remains entrenched? emerged from the street,” Montero, on what Díez Ripollés characterizes as
Or is it a lesson in the perils of applying who was among those marching in the its “pronounced ideological posture
ideology to society at large? protests, says. “Sexual violence is enor- linked to feminist currents of thought.”
mously normalized and invisible in our Predictably, some of the outcry has
Montero has been imagining a more society: unwanted touching on public come from Montero’s opponents; one
progressive future for Spain since her transportation, rape, harassment in the far-right MP not only called her a “rap-
teens, when she first became politically workplace. All of these need to be un- ist liberator” on the floor of parliament
active. A member of Podemos since its derstood as violences that can destroy but also made scathing remarks about
2014 founding, she rose quickly through women’s lives and that demand a re- Montero’s personal life—she is the do-
the party, and under her leadership the sponse on the part of the state.” mestic partner of Podemos founder and
Equality Ministry has helped convert Many welcome the law, which also former leader Pablo Iglesias—that were
many of its feminist ideals into law. created a fund for survivors of sexual so misogynistic, they were condemned
The reforms she has spearheaded violence and established crisis centers by all other parties.
have elicited both ecstatic praise and throughout Spain. “It’s a good and im- “This is what happens when the fem-
harsh criticism from different sec- portant piece of legislation that guaran- inist movement advances,” Montero
tors of Spanish society. But none has tees the rights of women and is already says of the verbal attacks. “It’s a contin-
generated as much controversy as the raising social consciousness,” says Uni- uous strategy of harassment and tear-
government’s new law, nicknamed versity of Cádiz law professor María ing you down, of scrutinizing your pri-
Solo sí es sí (Only yes means yes), which Acale Sánchez. But soon after Solo sí es sí vate life with the intention, in the end,
went into effect last fall. The law does came into effect, it became clear that it to make it so it’s no longer worth it for
away with distinctions in the penal code was provoking one major, and appar- the women who are temporarily at the
that categorized sexual-assault offenses ently unintended, repercussion: some forefront to continue.”
based on whether violence and intimida- previously convicted offenders were But even some of those who share
tion were employed, and instead puts the having their sentences reduced. Montero’s objectives have questioned
question of consent firmly at its center. “They created a single penal frame- the penal provisions of the law. Some
The reform is a direct response to work where before there had been two,” “antipunitive” feminists have regretted
the notorious 2016 “La Manada” case, explains José Luis Díez Ripollés, profes- that the focus on sentences has main-
in which a woman was gang-raped by sor of criminal law at the University of tained punishment as a solution, rather
five men during the San Fermin festi- Malaga. “So if before, sexual aggres- than social improvements and better
val in Pamplona. Although the perpe- sion with penetration had been pun- education. Others, like Marisa Soleto,
trators, who referred to themselves as ished with six to 12 years and sexual director of the women’s organization
“the wolf pack,” filmed the attacks, two abuse with penetration with four to 10 Fundación Mujeres, suggest that the
lower courts found them guilty only of years, now all those crimes were subject government failed to prepare for what
the lesser crime of sexual abuse since, to four to 12 years.” the law really meant. “Perhaps some
in the courts’ argument, there were no In Spain, as in many countries, of those responsible are too ambitious
signs the men had coerced the victim. changes in sentencing guidelines can and have wanted to run further with the
(Spanish law defined “sexual aggres- be applied retroactively, and it wasn’t legal text of their reforms than was re-
sion,” which carried heavier punish- long before convicted sex offenders ally possible at this moment in Spain.”
ments, as requiring the use of violence For her part, Montero says complica-
and intimidation.) Later, Spain’s Su- tions are to be expected with such a pro-
preme Court would reverse those ver- found change. “Like all paradigm shifts,
dicts and sentence the men to 15 years
in prison for rape. But by then, a pro-
‘I think we may be especially in the Penal Code, there’s
going to be a period of transition. And
test movement had brought hundreds
of thousands to the streets to denounce waging a political that is what we are living now. The ma-
jority of courts are applying the law cor-
both the sexist culture that had pro- rectly and [maintaining] the sentences,
duced the crime, and a patriarchal ju- war over how to but there are some that are not.”
dicial system that did not take violence In November, she was more explicit,
against women seriously.
Solo sí es sí does away with the old
understand feminism.’ telling the Spanish press that “ma-
chismo” could be inducing some judges
distinction between sexual abuse and —MARISA SOLETO, FUNDACIÓN MUJERES to “apply the law incorrectly.” In a coun-
58 Time February 27/March 6, 2023
△
try where 56% of judges are women, the Protesters demonstrate in says Encarní Bonilla, spokesperson for
accusations have infuriated some mag- Madrid against the “La Manada” Chrysallis, a trans organization, which
istrates and exacerbated the tension. gang-rape verdict in April 2018 has watched with dismay similar efforts
“We consider those words incorrect,” to weaken a law that allows people to
says Concepción Roig, a magistrate and “We fought because our credibility and declare their own genders.
a spokesperson for the progressive asso- the gravity of the crimes don’t depend But others suggest Montero may be
ciation Judges for Democracy. The real- on whether there are marks on your more entranced with ideology than is
ity, she says, is that differences in courts’ body ... We fought for a different way of good for a politician—or for Spanish
interpretations—nearly 40% of the sen- judging sexual crimes, where the focus is feminism. “I think we may be waging
tences reviewed have been lowered—are not on the victim and whether she fought a political war over how to understand
a regular part of the judicial process. And back or kept her legs closed tightly.” feminism around the decisions that the
while some of the reviewed cases do leave Amid the impasse between the Ministry of Equality is making,” says
room for judicial interpretation, others Equality and Justice ministries, calls Soleto. “The organizations we work
do not. In the case of attempted but un- for Montero’s resignation—heard since with are always reminding them that
consummated rape, for example, “a judge Solo sí es sí was passed—have become women have other kinds of real needs.”
has no choice but to lower the sentence,” louder. With elections due this year On Feb. 9, Montero’s ministry re-
says Roig. “The law obliges it.” and other parties exploring joining sponded to some of those needs by im-
forces to pass the proposed revision, it plementing a new protocol that gives
A few dAys after Montero told TIME is not inconceivable that she will decide police the ability to inform women if
that her ministry had no intention of to step down. What that would mean their partners have a history of domes-
revising the law, Spain’s Justice Min- for the governing coalition is unclear, tic violence. And in any case, she em-
ister Pilar Llop, a member of the So- but at a press conference on Feb. 10, braces the notion that she is driven by
PA B L O B L A Z Q U E Z D O M I N G U E Z— G E T T Y I M A G E S
cialist Party, proposed doing just that. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez felt com- ideology. “Politics is ideology,” she says
Her revision—while maintaining con- pelled to say “all the Ministers have my with characteristic passion. “Thinking
sent as the determining factor in sexual trust, including the Minister of Equal- about how we want our society to be is
crimes—would restore violence and in- ity,” and assure the public that the gov- a fundamentally ideological question.
timidation as considerations and raise erning coalition “is not going to break.” Confronted with a form of organizing
the sentences accordingly. Montero’s supporters appreciate society that is unjust, that generates
Montero objects. “We feminists her tenacity. “We believe the Minister inequality, that causes suffering: What
didn’t fight for a name change,” she has been very courageous and has held are we going to do?” —With reporting by
told the radio station SER on Feb. 9. her ground, despite all the pressure,” Simmone Shah/new York
59
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KING
OF THE
WORLD
BY ELIANA DOCKTERMAN
After weathering a
decade of skepticism,
James Cameron
revels in the success
of the Avatar sequel
WELCOME TO THE ERA REBECCA MAKKAI’S ENIGMATIC NOVEL A NEW FILM FILLS IN THE GAPS
OF THE COZY MYSTERY TAKES US BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL IN EMILY BRONTË’S LIFE
J
ames Cameron wanted a vegan set
on Avatar: The Way of Water. Anything
less would be hypocritical. The sci-fi
epic, which reportedly cost more than
$350 million, centers on aliens fending
off invading humans who have depleted earth’s
resources. “We couldn’t lecture oil companies
and turn around and eat hamburgers,” he says.
Cameron may have also intended to make
a larger point to Hollywood. When the direc-
tor brought the idea for the first Avatar to
20th Century Fox, he says executives asked
him to strip the script of “tree hugging” be-
cause they thought it wouldn’t sell tickets. He
refused. Avatar went on to achieve massive suc-
cess, grossing nearly $3 billion globally. Since
then, other movies like Avengers: Infinity War
have tackled climate change. Still, that Marvel
blockbuster doesn’t exactly endorse green activ-
ism. In fact, it’s the villain who becomes so con-
cerned with waning resources that he uses magic
to snap his fingers and demolish half of all life in
the universe. “I can relate to Thanos,” Cameron
says. “I thought he had a pretty viable answer.
The problem is nobody is going to put up their
hand to volunteer to be the half that has to go.”
As one of the most successful directors in his-
tory, Cameron could have snapped his fingers ‘All the
and mandated the new on-set catering rules. naysayers
After all, he has made three of the four highest-
grossing movies of all time, and never lost a suddenly
single dollar on any of his nine feature films. don’t exist.’
Over Super Bowl weekend, two of his movies,
Way of Water and a 25th-anniversary rerelease
of Titanic, topped the global box office. indication that at 68 years old, the exacting vi-
But the famously mercurial director is at- sionary has started to chill out.
tempting to become a more collaborative leader. Way of Water, which Cameron admits is a per-
So he solicited the opinion of his crew. “We all sonal film, charts a similar journey for its hero
sat down together in a council circle,” he says. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington). After infiltrat-
“I said, ‘This is what I want to do. If everyone ing the alien race known as the Na’vi in the origi-
wants to start screaming and throwing stuff at nal, Jake has settled down with his love, Neytiri
me, maybe we won’t do it. But if people grudg- (Zoe Saldaña), and their brood of children—five
ingly nod, then we’re going ahead.’” They grudg- kids, just like Cameron. An ex-soldier, Jake barks
ingly nodded. Whether it occurred to Cameron orders at his family, not unlike a director. The kids
that one of the 200 crew members might not feel chafe, and Jake has to learn how to trust them.
comfortable objecting to their boss is unclear. But even this more enlightened Cameron
Still, he’s trying. The shoot for Titanic was no- hasn’t lost his edge. In the 1990s, Hollywood
toriously grueling: Kate Winslet said she almost executives predicted Titanic would fop. It not
drowned twice, chipped a bone in her elbow, only set box-office records, but the movie is still
and endured tirades from Cameron—though she tied for the most Oscars won in a single night.
added that he yelled at the crew even more than A similar narrative dogged both Avatars. Be-
at the actors. She insisted that a studio would fore its release, the general consensus was that
have to “pay me a lot of money to work with Way of Water’s delays, bloated budget, and lack
Jim again.” Decades later, she not only signed of diehard fans would kill the franchise. But
on to Way of Water but also learned to hold her Way of Water has made $2.2 billion so far and is
breath for over seven minutes for the role. Her currently vying with Titanic to become the third
decision to return to the water tank with Cam- highest-grossing film of all time. (The original
eron, despite previous grievances, is perhaps an Avatar is still the first.)
LEADERSHIP SERIES
New Zealand. He is working out of the office cept Lord of the Rings doesn’t exist yet, so I need
where Peter Jackson once labored over the Lord to go be Tolkien and create Lord of the Rings, and
of the Rings movies. His production team has then I can go be Peter Jackson.” He grins as he
projected a massive photo of the Titanic behind compares himself to two celebrated storytellers.
him for our two-hour conversation, a looming re- “A little bit cheeky and ambitious,” he admits.
minder of his success. When I ask if we can begin “But I wasn’t adapting some big pantheon of
the interview he quips, “Fortune favors the bold.” books that existed. I had to go do that.”
“Well, maybe not always,” I say, gesturing to Yet even Cameron needed help. In 2013,
the picture of the high-tech marvel on which he provided a writers’ room with 800 pages of
some 1,500 people lost their lives. Cameron nods The TIME100 notes, generously whittled down from his origi-
and raises a finger to punctuate an addendum. Leadership Series, nal 1,300. The group outlined the story in six
“Fortune doesn’t favor the careless.” presented in
partnership with Rolex, months and then spent the better part of a de-
Cameron’s critics have called him stubborn, profiles members of the cade writing the films that Disney, which bought
abrasive, and unrealistically ambitious. But TIME100 community—
the world’s most 20th Century Fox in 2019, has pledged to make
he’s not careless. The director, who was born influential people. with Cameron. All of the writers, save one, had
in Northern Ontario, is entirely self-taught: He For video conversations
and more, visit
episodic-television experience because Cam-
photocopied dissertations on filmmaking that time.com/leaders eron wanted each movie to feel complete while
63
△
teasing what would come ahead—like a good sea- Zoe Saldaña, whom Cameron later married and divorced)
son of TV. “We’re not only in the sequel game,” Sam Worthington, doing chin-ups at the beginning of Terminator 2,
he says. “We’re also in the saga game.” Kate Winslet, and her muscles so radical on a female frame at the
That plan may have proved fruitful at the box Cliff Curtis on set; time that my young mind seized onto her as the
office but has yet to win over some critics. De- an underwater platonic ideal of a strong woman. Cameron has a
spite being nominated for four Oscars, Way of scene; Cameron particular obsession with ruthless mothers, from
takes the helm
Water still faces skepticism among Academy Sarah Connor guarding her messiah son with a
members. More often than not, the Academy fa- shotgun in Terminator 2 to Sigourney Weaver’s
vors smaller, more intimate dramas over sci-fi Ellen Ripley donning the exoskeleton in Aliens
epics that rely on motion-capture technology to to save her surrogate daughter. “There’s noth-
render human actors into aliens. Though the film ing more primal than a mama bear protecting
snagged a Best Picture nomination, Cameron and her cub,” says Cameron. The director credits his
the actors were overlooked. mother, who joined the Canadian Army Reserve
“How do you compare Tár to Avatar?” Cam- and came home with a rifle, as his inspiration.
eron asks. “How do you judge which one is bet- In Way of Water, Winslet’s pregnant character
ter? It’s ludicrous on its face.” For years, the Acad- Ronal grabs her weapons to head for war. Her
emy has worried that featuring little-seen films husband suggests that maybe she stay home,
will only further diminish the shrinking audience and she snarls, “We ride!” Cameron wrote that
for the Oscars, but it has still resisted honoring scene seven years ago, before seeing something
blockbusters. “I think it’s a bit elitist in a way that similar in John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place in
at least they shouldn’t be mystified as their au- which Emily Blunt’s character takes on a mon-
dience numbers go down. It’s been a long time ster with a shotgun shortly after giving birth.
since a crowd pleaser won for Best Picture.” Still, “I had already had that idea—I’m not trying to
he admits, “From experience, it’s better to win take credit for being first or anything—but I
than not win. It’s better to be nominated than not loved that because we never see that in movies,”
nominated, no matter how much you want intel- says Cameron. “Pregnancy is treated as a con-
lectually to argue the whole thing away.” dition or affliction as opposed to a natural part
of the human life cycle.” He muses that women
Cameron’s best ideas come to him in dreams. have been delivering babies in precarious cir-
The filmmaker often quips that he has a free cumstances for centuries. “They might be giving
streaming service running in his mind every birth, and 10 seconds later spearing a sabertooth
night. He wakes up, sketches, and retroactively tiger that happened to attack the camp. They
constructs a narrative to reach the image in his don’t have a choice. That’s how we evolved,”
mind’s eye. The Terminator was born from a vi- he says. “If people don’t buy it, they need to do
sion of the killing machine’s endoskeleton. He their research.”
manifested Avatar after a dream about a bio- Even as Cameron has been praised for his ca-
luminescent forest. pable female characters, he’s also taken heat for
For me, Cameron’s most indelible image is a his unwavering definition of what makes for
sinewy Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton, a feminist hero. The sabertooth-tiger image is
64 Time February 27/March 6, 2023
enticing for a movie director. But it is a fantasy. he says. “Why not have women direct male
The idea of fighting a wild cat after giving birth characters? Have a woman direct Batman.
may empower some women but isolate many Now, you’re talking.”
who have endured complicated or even life-
threatening births. It’s almost as if these musings Given that Cameron wrote the first draft of
come from a man who has never been pregnant. Avatar in 1995, he will likely spend the rest of his
Similarly, when he opines on how female career in the world of Pandora. “As long as I don’t
superheroes should dress, he does so without get hit by a cement truck, we’re going to try to keep
the particular female experience of being judged the quality up,” he says. He describes Movie 4 as a
based on one’s appearance. When Patty Jenkins’ “corker” and says Movie 5 brings it all home “with
Wonder Woman debuted in 2017, Cameron com- a thunderclap.” He teases that, yes, we will see an
plained about the character’s outfit, which he earth decimated by climate change, but none of
still believes serves “an objectified paradigm.” the movies will actually be set there. He wants to
He has a point. But he also admits he’s probably focus on how to save a planet, not destroy one.
not the person to be criticizing female direc- That’s an awful long time to spend in one imag-
tors. “I don’t have an issue with Wonder Woman. inary universe, especially for a filmmaker who has
I loved the movie,” he says, quickly. “What was ping-ponged from sci-fi thrillers to romantic epics
elusive to me at the moment was it’s OK if the to underwater documentaries. When I ask if he
woman wants to be beautiful and dress well not ever thinks about doing anything else, he claims
for the male gaze, but for her own gaze in the he’s already been there and done most of that:
mirror, right? I had maybe missed that part of it “I have found a deep vein that I can mine here,
at the time,” he says. “You know, life is about a connection with global audiences—why squan-
stumbling and people push back and we talk der that?” These movies afford him an oppor-
about it and things get better.” tunity to manifest nearly every image he’s ever
Still, he can’t help but qualify his mea culpa. wanted to see onscreen and an unprecedented
“It was necessary to have a female director own platform to spread his conservationist message.
a major action movie,” he says before adding, He will remain an activist. “But there are many
“though Kathryn Bigelow had been doing that other worthy people doing that approach,” he says.
for a while.” He sings the praises of Bigelow, “I made a decision that the best use of my skill set
who happens to be his ex-wife, for directing and my voice was to do what I’m doing right now.”
movies like Point Break that plumb the depths He has shot Avatar 3 and the first act of
of male relationships. In 2010, Bigelow be- ‘Have a Avatar 4, at which point there will be a big
came the first female director to win an Oscar, woman time jump in the story. He estimates he will spend
for The Hurt Locker, another movie about the at least eight more years churning out the remain-
2 0 T H C E N T U R Y S T U D I O S (3)
complex male psyche. (She also happened to direct ing movies—if he stops at Avatar 5. “It might be
beat out Cameron for Best Picture.) “She would Batman. open-ended after that,” he says. “But there will
have turned down any superhero movie she come a point where I’ll have to pass the baton,
was offered if it was a female lead. And that’s Now, you’re just physiologically. Mortality is going to come
the healthier perspective, I think, personally,” talking.’ knocking on the door at some point.”
65
TIME OFF CULTURE
ESSAY
tery can be, Joe Goldberg is hardly the show that skewered wellness culture and influ-
first to disparage the genre’s weak- encers in past seasons invents, in the new epi-
ness for cheap suspense and cliché. In sodes, a social-justice-driven murderer nick-
a New Yorker essay published at the named the Eat the Rich Killer. You know the
height of the whodunit craze in 1944, whodunit as wealth satire has become a trend-
Edmund Wilson complained that let unto itself when it’s inspiring parodies of its
Christie’s “writing is of a mawkishness own. “The lowest form of literature” has never
and banality which seem to me literally looked so sophisticated.
67
TIME OFF BOOKS
family history differed from her classmates’; “If you think about it, eventually,
in adulthood, she’s able to recognize how she every cell in your body is different,”
has advanced in life because of her access to Makkai says. “If you don’t believe in
that upper-crust community and, more largely, the soul, what is the self? It basically
her status as a white woman. Makkai, her- becomes memories. You are the sum
self a scholarship student, drew on her expe- of your memories, the sum of your
riences to probe the push and pull of feeling experiences.”
69
TIME OFF MOVIES
◁
Jackson-Cohen and
Mackey: a union of
souls, gothic-style
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8 QUESTIONS
What drew you to a project about a ripping somebody’s body part off.
bear overdosing on cocaine during We did the research. So it was like,
a botched 1985 drug-smuggling It’s been harder how do we let the audience process
operation? I read this script in this in a way that remains fun?
April 2020, when chaos was all for comedies
around, and I just thought, There’s
no greater emblem of chaos than a
to succeed at Are there movies with a similar
madcap style that you took partic-
bear high on cocaine. More impor- the box office. ular inspiration from? I loved mak-
tantly, this is the movie I want to see.
I knew there was this high concept
What gives this ing Slither with James Gunn. But I
also looked further back to Evil Dead
hook in the rampaging bear, but one an edge? and John Carpenter. I had a true
I knew if I did it right, it would be- North Star in the original Jurassic
come this very entertaining, heart- Park because this is less of an animal-
felt, fun movie. attack movie, more of man’s hubris
is the real villain. Another one was
It’s a star-studded cast. Who were Stand by Me, with these kids encoun-
you most excited to see tangle with tering adult scenarios that challenge
a CGI bear? There is absolutely no them and they lose their innocence.
question: Margo Martindale. The au- And then Pulp Fiction.
dience is not expecting her to be as
bold as she is. I had to convince her. How do you decide where to focus
She was like, “I don’t do these stunts.” your energy when it comes to
She’s [71]. But she was down on the acting vs. directing? Directing re-
ground and on the wires. We built quires a commitment of my entire
special rigs for her, and she did it. life. I have to be so passionate about
the material that I’m willing to turn
This was one of Ray Liotta’s last my life over to it. That doesn’t hap-
roles. Did anything surprise you pen often. With every job, I have to
about working with him? I worked have a few reasons to leave the house:
with Ray on a little movie more than Am I going to be challenged? Am I
a decade ago, so I knew how profes- going to surprise people? Am I going
sional and charming he was, what a to be able to disappear into this?
big heart the guy had. He didn’t say no
to a single thing: Can you put on this You told Variety that you wanted
crazy wig, do these crazy stunts, fly to “break down some of the my-
to Ireland to make this movie? He thology around what kinds of
did. He came fully game. I’m forever movies women are interested in
grateful for the opportunity to work making.” Did you feel like you
with the legend Ray Liotta. had something to prove as a fe-
male director taking on this kind
There’s a lot of gore in Cocaine of story? I didn’t feel personally like
Bear. What do you think gore adds I had something to prove. I just try
to a movie? Gore is a way to pro- and lead by example. I never want to
cess trauma with a little more fun. If be put in a box. I don’t want people
someone were to pull their fingernail to have any expectation about what
JOHN SHE ARER— GE T T Y IMAGES
off, I would throw up. The straight- an Elizabeth Banks movie is or who
up reality of a trauma is not interest- I am as an actor. I’ve broken out of
ing to me. You have to oversell it. a lot of boxes in my career. I want to
I wanted to acknowledge the reality continue to surprise not just the au-
of a bear attack. Bears eat their prey dience, but myself.
alive. They’re capable of literally —MEGAN MCCLUSKEY
72 TIME February 27/March 6, 2023