A pro-Donald Trump Twitter account wants to make America great again by doing things like tweeting half-naked pics of ladies with Trump slogans written across their boobs, because hell has frozen over three times to date, and this is what politics are now.
Thanks to Babes for Trump, you too can finally go all fangirl over a very rich orange-tinted walrus by wearing patriotic bikinis in sub-zero temperatures.
But don’t forget your semi-automatic and a trucker hat!
Let’s play a game: white girl duck face pose or spot-on imitation of the Donald’s rubberized facial maneuvers?
But alas, no Donald Trump social media project is complete without a conspiracy theory (where you at, InfoWars?). According to the makes behind Babes for Trump, their Instagram counterpart has been deleted a number of times, despite their efforts to fight against the deletion of pro-Trump propaganda (there, I said it) on the platform. A veritable crusade if I ever saw one, y or n.
The fact that Instagram’s Terms of Use states that users “may not post violent, nude, partially nude, discriminatory, unlawful, infringing, hateful, pornographic or sexually suggestive photos or other content via the Service” might have something to with it, considering BfT photos like this one (also: NSFW NSWF NSWF):
Don’t forget the copycats—because apparently someone else thinks this whole niche market is a good idea?
Perhaps the most heartbreaking thing about Babes for Trump is that they have ruined my love of beer pong forever.
A plague o’ your house, #TrumpArmy-adjacent account, a plague o’ your house!
In a recent radio interview, Ben Carson doesn’t say he necessarily thinks Donald Trump should be president, just that the business mogul and reality TV star could be an option. Asked why he endorsed Trump, Carson said:
Nobody believes in the government anymore. Everybody believes that we are weak; we are weak on the world stage; we are not doing things that make sense economically. And he’s probably the person who is most likely to do that. Are there better people? Probably.
Carson went on to say that his main reason for supporting Trump is that he isn’t part of the “political elite,” saying “Well, I think the establishment in the Republican Party is scared out of their wits about the possibility of someone like Donald Trump coming in, who they don’t have control over.”
Carson and Trump’s relationship recently came under scrutiny after a watchdog group filed a complaint with the Justice Department accusing Donald Trump of engaging in an illegal quid quo pro with the former presidential candidate.
On August 30, 2014, before a football game against Elon, the executive vice president of Duke University hit a parking attendant with his car—and, she says, called her a “stupid nigger” as he drove away. Following an investigative report by the Duke Chronicle,nine students have occupied an administrative building and are demanding the resignation of three senior university officials.
A few days after the August incident, Shelvia Underwood, of McLaurin Parking and Transportation, filed a police report with the Duke University Police Department, alleging that Executive Vice President Tallman Trask hit her with his car. Under pressure from her boss and fearing that she would lose her job if she filed a lawsuit, Underwood told the Chronicle that she communicated to Trask that a “sincere apology” would be sufficient.
Duke Chronicle
Three weeks later, Vice President for Administration Kyle Cavanaugh delivered a note to Underwood. “A tall guy comes up behind me and says, ‘Um, I don’t know exactly what happened out here, but whatever, here you go.’ And he hands me a card,” she told the Chronicle.
The note, signed, was from Trask. It read: “Dear Ms. Underwood, I very much regret the incident before the Elon football game. I should have been more patient and I apologize.”
Trask had originally denied hitting Underwood and using a racial epithet, the Chronicle reports. Only after being shown a copy of the note did he admit to hitting Underwood with his car. (He still denied using the slur.) From the News & Observer:
A statement released by the university said its police department investigated the incident and Underwood “chose not to pursue her police complaint.” A second investigation by Duke’s Office of Institutional Equity, “did not produce sufficient evidence to confirm” the racial epithet.
Last month, Underwood filed a $100,000 lawsuit in Durham County Superior Court against Trask—Duke’s primary financial and administrative officer—accusing him of battery, negligence, civil conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The complaint lists the University as a second defendant,” and seeks compensatory damages as a result of “pain and suffering as a result of the intentional and malicious conduct by defendants,” as well as punitive damages for the “willful and wanton conduct of the defendants.”
According to the Chronicle, however, this incident did not happen in a vacuum, but is rather part of a larger pattern of racism in the Duke administration generally and the Parking and Transportation Services department specifically. From the Chronicle’s follow-up report:
The Chronicle spoke with 12 current and former members of PTS, who described the environment within the department as hostile and its current leadership as discriminatory.
Renee Adkins, former special events manager for PTS, wrote an email to President Richard Brodhead Jan. 15 describing a culture of “racism, harassment, retaliation and bullying” in the department fostered by PTS Director Carl DePinto and Vice President for Administration Kyle Cavanaugh. Several employees noted that in the parking division of PTS in particular, a disproportionate number of black employees have been terminated since DePinto arrived in October 2014.
Adkins wrote in the email to Brodhead that after Trask hit Shelvia Underwood, there was neither a public administrative response nor a thorough investigation by Duke University Police Department. DUPD is overseen by Cavanaugh, who reports to Trask.
Adkins added that the event was one of “innumerable incidents” in which she and members of her staff were called “n*****, coon, porch monkey, bull dagger and dyke while working Duke special events.” These occurrences were all “swept under the rug” by administrators, Adkins wrote.
Nine students—members of the Students and Workers in Solidarity coalition group—occupied the Allen Building on Friday afternoon, following a protest organized calling for the resignations of Trask, Cavanaugh, and PTS director Carl DePinto.
One of the students, Lara Haft, told the Chronicle that administration officials had described the disciplinary actions that the university could pursue against them. “It’s going to be a warning, a citation, another warning and they’re going to be move into the Duke disciplinary process. There are two things in that, both taking us to Student Conduct and a judicial board, and then after that another warning and possibly arrest,” she said. “That could all be tonight, before tomorrow morning, but it also could be over a couple of days.”
The occupiers are asking the administration amnesty before negotiating an outcome, but Michael Schoenfeld, Duke’s vice president for public affairs and government relations, confirmed to the News & Observer that the university had told the students that action would be taken if they still occupied the building on Sunday night. However, he was not specific about what that action would constitute.
“It’s not in Duke’s interest to arrest us and it’s not in Duke’s interest to have us in here for several months. There are thousands of supporters. All of Durham is on our side and the whole country will be on our side,” Haft said. “We don’t anticipate going anywhere.”
Recently, Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, on a website called Sons of Confederate Veterans, proclaimed April to be “Confederate Heritage Month.” The reaction was...mixed. Clay Chandler, the governor’s director of communications, told the Times-Picayune in Mississippi:
“Like his predecessors – both Republican and Democrat – who issued similar proclamations, Governor Bryant believes Mississippi’s history deserves study and reflection, no matter how unpleasant or complicated parts of it may be.”
The “complicated” part, of course, being slavery, which both the governor’s proclamation and the planned “Confederate Memorial Day”on April 25th fail to mention. Chandler went on to say:
“Like the proclamation says, gaining insight from our mistakes and successes will help us move forward.”
Despite all of the totally rational reasons to not “proclaim” a Confederate heritage month, Mississippi really went through with it. White people can be astonishing sometimes.
The NYPD uses operations including undercover officers to arrest the most minor players in New York City’s drug trade, the New York Times reports today. In several of these stings, the targets of these stings were not drug dealers, but their impoverished, addicted customers.
The story details the arrests of Brian L., a 21-year-old heroin addict, and Reginald J., a 55-year-old crack addict. Brian L. is homeless, and, from anecdotal information in the article, Reginald J. seems very poor. In separate incidents, both men were approached by undercover NYPD officers posing as fellow users who asked them for assistance in buying drugs. Each man then took the officer’s money, used it to buy $20 or $40 worth of drugs from a dealer, and gave the drugs to the officer, whereupon he was arrested on felony drug-dealing charges. Both men went to trial and were acquitted. (They spoke to the Times on the condition that their last names not be used.)
The Times does not have information on how often the NYPD uses undercover officers to goad addicts into acting as small-time drug-deal middlemen, but says that the cases of Reginald, Brian, and two others raise “troubling questions about the fairness and effectiveness of the way the Police Department uses undercover officers.” In both cases, officers made no attempt to pursue the dealer who sold the drugs, electing only to arrest the user who acted as a go-between.
If the teams making these busts were truly interested in getting drugs off of the street, they might follow their ensnared addicts up the purchase chain and find someone who is actually moving weight. Instead, they opted for the easy arrest. In one case, a target used the undercover officer’s phone to contact a dealer, and the officer later testified that he could not remember whether he ever followed up on the drug dealer’s phone number that was added to his call log.
It is impossible to justify the largest police department in the U.S. using nine officers—the number involved in Brian L.’s arrest—to lock up someone who has less than a dollar to his name. After a case in which a target allegedly talked to the undercover officer about his desire to get clean before the officer set him up, a juror expressed a similar sentiment in a letter to prosecutors. It is “approaching absurd,” the juror wrote, “that you would use the awesome power of your office to represent the people of New York County, along with it and the court’s limited resources, on such a marginal case.”
In a move sure to rustle feathers on old Nassau Street and be the talk of this year’s Reunions, the Wall Street Journal this morning scooped the Princeton Alumni Weekly, reporting that Ivy Club member Andrew Casperson ‘99 and fellow Tiger James McIntryre are rousing rabble like it’s House Parties ‘97: Casperson has allegedly defrauded an unnamed victim, rumored to be his old pal, McIntryre. From the Wall Street Journal:
The details add an overlay of friendship and betrayal to a story that is the talk of Wall Street. Mr. Caspersen hailed from a family made rich by its past ownership of consumer-finance company Beneficial Corp. and has a résumé of prestigious schools and employers. But somewhere along the way, prosecutors allege, he took a darker turn and sought out targets for an elaborate fraud.
It’s almost as we’re all back in Wilson College gathering ‘round before the Cane Spree begins!
Casperson, feds say, stole close to $25 million from McIntyre while fundraising for an investment called Irving Place III SPV, which didn’t exist. The Wall Street Journal was sure to note that both Casperson and McIntyre are married to Princeton alums. Catch you all at the P-rade!
A new ACLU report shines a light on the bizarre and troubling netherworld of South Carolina’s “summary courts,” which “refuse to provide counsel to the poor at all stages of the criminal process, and force defendants who can’t afford to pay fines to instead serve time in jail.”
On Friday of last week, for about 40 minutes, as she rode home to Astoria from her tap-dancing lesson, I spoke to Sean Young, the actor who rose to fame in 1982's Blade Runner and then subsequently “saw my career go up in flames” in a series of professional setbacks (among them: she lost the role of Vicki Vale in 1989's Batman when she fell off a horse, and was fired from 1990's Dick Tracy).
There was the tabloid fodder, too: In the late ‘80s, James Woods sued her for harassment (the case was settled out of court), she campaigned for the role of Catwoman by dressing up as an iteration of the character on an episode of The Joan Rivers Show (Michelle Pfeiffer eventually won the role), she was kicked out of Vanity Fair’s 2006 Oscar party for trying to crash it, and then she she did the same thing at the 2012 Governor’s Ball and was arrested. “The more I tried to defend myself, the crazier I looked,” Young told me of her controversies.
Along the way, she made movies she described as “clunkers” and appeared on reality TV, which she told me was “the least fun thing that I did.” She concedes though that her stint on Celebrity Rehab helped her quit drinking.
Now, at 56, she still works, though the movies are generally smaller than they were in her career’s heyday. She’s promoting Mickey Keating’s Darling, a black-and-white Polanski-esque descent into madness, in which Young cameos. She agreed to talk with Gawker about her career, her controversies, and the beliefs she writes about on Facebook, from the existence of chemtrails to anti-vaccination positions, and support for Donald Trump.
Below is a transcript of our phone conversation, which has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Gawker: You appear in Darling briefly. What do you think about this movie?
Sean Young: I think it’s a good effort by a…well, I guess Mickey might be called a millennial. Are the millennials in their early twenties?
I think so.
I think it’s a very insightful effort to create something viable under limited circumstances. I think he does a great job at creating a story that keeps you interested.
Was there anything specifically appealing about this movie to you?
The appealing thing was to help my friend [Darling star and executive producer] Lauren Ashley Carter out. I did another show with her a few years ago called Jug Face, and I really like Lauren. I think she’s an up and comer. She’s funny. She asked me a few years ago what my advice was, and I said, “Be your own producer.” I think she has to run with that idea. I’m proud of her. She put the team together. She does a great job in the film. It didn’t kill a lot of my time to help her out and so I was happy to do that for her.
Darling is, broadly, a horror movie. You’ve done quite a few of those over the years. Do you have any particular affinity for the genre?
I don’t actually really like horror that much. I just like my friends. If my friends call me and want my help, I’m happy to help. It helped them for me to be in the picture. But I don’t have any dying, burning need to be in a horror show. Having said that, I think Mickey did a great job with it. It’s very stylish.
It helps them for you to be in the movie because Sean Young is still a name in 2016, right?
That’s correct. And ain’t nobody gonna change that (laughs).
When we talk about Sean Young, we talk about your roles, but we talk about a lot of other things as well. I wonder how you feel about the entire narrative arc of your public image? In my opinion, the antics have only made you more interesting as a human being.
Well, I’m happy to hear that. It doesn’t bother me now. I’m a 56-year-old woman, and yes I do look good for my age and I’m in good health. I can’t be bothered with worrying about it anymore, but I spent a lot of years in…look, I would call it desperation. I saw my career go up in flames and it was heartbreaking to me. The more I tried to defend myself, the crazier I looked. Even though that’s not really fair, what I learned quickly is that fair has nothing to do with it. It’s all perception. It’s all what people believe, it’s not really what’s in fact accurate. I have a unique experience and I’m called upon a lot now from people who have been in the business for a while and want my opinion or who are up and comers and would like my advice. And the funny thing is is the aperture under which I can observe all of this is quite extensive, from really massively huge budgets to low budgets to reality TV, which I think is a scourge on the earth, but it’s what’s paying people now. A lot of people’s bread and butter is coming from reality TV, and people watch it. You have to ask yourself: where do you want to make your living?
You did at one point chose to make your living via reality TV.
A few times, and it was the least fun thing that I did, but in some ways it was the most lucrative. I was very grateful. I’ve been very grateful, even for the clunkers that I’ve been able to do, because I was able to take care of my family and pay my bills and put money away. I’m a very practical girl. I’m Capricorn rising. I like to take care of my business and make sure things are in order. I’m not the…whatever the reputation has been in terms of whether I’m allegedly crazy or not. I can tell you unequivocally that I’m a very sensible girl and very practical.
The infamy, I think part of that was not having learned the protocol. When I was in my 20's and very famous, very under the spotlight with Blade Runner and all the other films I did in the ‘80s, it’s not particularly educational in terms of what the rest of the world puts up with on a day-to-day basis. You’re sort of pandered to when you’re young and you’re the star. And that makes sense. So my education, in terms of being more practical, has come later in life. But I’m grateful for all of it.
Do you think that being famous as young as you were affected your development at all? Did it mess with your head?
Oh hell yeah. Absolutely. I didn’t understand the rules. I would do it the same. I underwent a lot of sexual harassment, and I know there are probably women who would put up with that. I never did, and I paid a high price for that. There’s a lot of people who paved their way to the top by opening their legs. That was not something I could ever do, and that’s all right. It’s not just women who put up with that stuff either! Men put up with it too. In my opinion, it’s not a gender issue. It’s a power issue. I had an interview earlier today and one yesterday, and I don’t do a lot of interviews ‘cause I…talking about myself is, like, my least favorite thing. But the previous two interviews were women and they were talking about gender. I was like, “You know, that’s not really a newsflash, is it?” Women have always been paid less. In some ways it’s changing, because the population at colleges is made up of mostly women. Because women will bitch less and work for less, they’re working more.
I guess what’s galling is that it’s not a newsflash and yet it persists.
Well, yeah. It will persist and it’s designed that way. That’s the way it is. That’s why I said to Lauren, “Be your own producer.” I admire Sandra Bullock a lot. There are a lot of pictures she does that I don’t love, but there are quite a few that I do. She has a kind of trademark. She’s her own producer. She’s got a business head. She knows what her brand is. She knows what she’s good at selling in terms of what she can do. Very sensible girl. I was encouraging Lauren to do the same. Don’t wait for producers to hand you stuff. Create your own stuff. That way you’re more in control in what you want to do. And then gender and pay and all that stuff is a moot point.
You said you’ve been sexually harassed. Do you name names?
Oh, not on your life.
Why? You’re so outspoken about so many other things.
Because it won’t hurt the person I name, it’ll only hurt me. If I thought that it would actually hurt the person that’s responsible for it, I would, but it won’t. It’ll just hurt me.
Because people won’t believe you and it’ll be a big controversy…?
No, they’ll believe you and then they’ll say, “You have a big mouth.” And then they won’t want anything to do with you, because they know what they are.
Is navigating the movie industry, then, to this day for Sean Young a matter of strategy and choosing your battles?
No, I wouldn’t say so at all. I would say that my career is mostly over in the sense of I’m not really ambitious and the big boys don’t call me. I’m not in really, really big movies. I make a difference in a small way to a lot of people who are wanting to build careers for themselves and who need a quote-unquote name in their show. I won’t do just anything, but I’ll do a lot for my friends. I just think that’s more human. I like that about myself.
It seems like a matter of progress that you can very casually say, “My career is mostly over,” whereas it seemed like for years, that’s not anything you’d be willing to concede. You were fighting.
I think that’s accurate. Really, when I was out fighting for roles, nobody had a sense of humor. I guess I came off as much more threatening or powerful than I actually was aware of. I’m not really that kind of fighter, so at some point, I was like, “This isn’t fun.” And if it’s not fun, what’s the point? I’ve had a lot of fun, though, since I moved back to the East Coast in 2012. I’ve helped a lot of people, and I know a lot of people. My part of the story is that I never really was particularly ambitious. I know it might have seemed like I was, but that’s not really true. I think that if I was, I would have nurtured those relationships better. I have some social awkwardness that dogged me for a lot of years. I just wasn’t comfortable. I wasn’t perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn’t crazy. So that was kind of painful. You know, like, “Crazy? Crazy? No, no over here: that’s crazy.” Robert Downey Jr., waking up in a neighbor’s son’s or daughter’s bed drunk, that’s crazy. Me? No, I’m not crazy. And I’m certainly not the first person in Hollywood to have an alcohol issue. I was a little bit of a whipping girl, and my wings were clipped by a few people that were in a position to do that.
What did you end up thinking about Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance in Batman Returns, which is considered to be one of the great blockbuster performances of all time?
I thought she was fine. Obviously, I don’t think it was as good as if it would have been me (laughs). She does fine, but the thing I didn’t like about the way they wrote the character is they had to make Catwoman crazy, like mentally unstable. I thought it would have been fun to have her be like, “Yeah, I can kick your ass and not even think about it. I’m that bad. I’m bad to the bone, and it’s not because I’m mentally ill. It’s because I have an axe to grind with all these guys who have kicked my ass all these years.”
Everybody knows that Woods has been crazy for years. Everybody’s known that. That’s not a newsflash either. As unfair as that [situation] was, the upside is that I’m not him, and I don’t have to look at my life and say that I ever did that to anybody else. People that I’ve worked with over the years, they’re still calling me. They want to work with me. I’m light. There are people in Hollywood who are afraid of me, but they don’t actually know me. Most people in Hollywood that do make the effort to call me or know me or ask me or offer me something…there’s a lot I did. So I continue to work. I think the best way to put it is: I feel cherished, I feel appreciated. Not so much in the big boys department, but it’s a tough business. Not every environment is as healthy as every other environment.
Do you think ageism played into your career trajectory at all?
Well, it’s a youth-driven business, obviously. And I’m not going to say yes to some role where I’m going to have to be in a sex scene with anybody anymore. The door swings both ways.
You wouldn’t do a sex scene?
Not anymore. I’ve done that, and I’m not interested in that anymore. And I never really was, but it was in the script and I had to do what I was asked to do, and whatnot. Yeah, there is ageism, but it’s not a newsflash. I’m sure that that’s been true from the very beginning. And it’s not just true in our industry, it’s true in every industry. People want to hire younger people. And young people are quicker and more alert, although there’s an argument against that now because the generations do seem to be getting less well-read, and their attention span is suffering from all the exposure to technology and television and media that I think there’s some truth to that. But there’s also an incredible adaptability among younger generations.
It’s a very interesting thing to watch. I think what the millennials are having to do is really respond to the lack of funds and support from what really should be their industry, but the baby boomers aren’t really out of the way yet. They should be retired. These 75-year-old folks running things, in particular the gatekeepers, is like…you should be out of the way. Go join your yacht and let other people take over. They don’t because they don’t want to get old. They don’t want to face their mortality. Maybe they could put that in terms of a lack of humility.
I was looking at your Facebook. You’re a Trump supporter.
At the moment, I am, although I did look at this guy Andrew Basiago. Have you heard of him?
I don’t know. I don’t think so?
Go to the website, andy2016. I’m sure he seems like a complete madman, but when you listen to him and you listen to all of the interviews he’s given…there’s something to that guy. I can say that I’m a Trump supporter in that I’m not a Hillary supporter, because I’m too aware of all of the criminal activities that have been in the Bush administration and the Clinton administrations. I mean, these are cronies, they know each other. One or the other, it doesn’t matter, the same policies still go on, which is more war in the Middle East, and more selling of arms to places that will assure that we have to go in there and have more activity. It’s just fuckin’ crazy. I’m just not for that. I wouldn’t vote for Hillary, so I believe Trump will be the only alternative. But I looked up this guy Andrew Basiago, and I may vote for him, I gotta tell ya. It seems like Trump could be controlled opposition. I don’t know. Hard to say.
Believe me, maybe it’s just that it’s out. You know what I mean? That he says it out loud? All of these people are elitists. You don’t see the actions from our governors, whether they are Democratic or Republican. Let’s put it this way: If the parties were really independent and they were actually really not corrupt, then you wouldn’t see what’s going on going on. They’re all corrupt. The two sides are the same. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t see the things going on. We wouldn’t have a federal reserve. You would be able to audit the books. You have some people who are in charge, who are mostly behind the scenes. Their mistakes aren’t published. They’re not known.
It terrifies me that Trump seems to be bringing out the worst in this country, though. There’s violence at his rallies, a belief that whites are the master race amongst his supporters…
But don’t you think it’s by design? I almost think that’s by design. I think it’s a distraction. You get everybody fighting against one another, and then the people who are actually running the country, whose names aren’t out there in the press and aren’t out there in the front pages, they can sit back, put their hands behind their heads, put their feet up on the desk and have a good laugh at everybody, saying, “Ha, ha, ha, we actually vote.” We don’t vote. It’s like George Carlin said: We have owners. And you ain’t it! Trump, Hillary. Go study some George Carlin videos about the government and you’ll see where my point of view is. I’d rather have Trump than Hillary, but they’re the same. It’s a dog and pony show. It’s entertainment. It’s reality TV. It’s a little more intense than it was in past years because they know the audience needs a vigorous workout. It’s all bullshit.
You’re also anti-vaccination, huh?
Yeah, I am.
There does seem to be evidence that as a result of that stance, whooping cough and measles are making a comeback.
Well, I wonder who’s spreading it. The thing is, you have a very big pharmacological industry, and they want those bucks to keep flowing. It’s definitely not impossible to imagine that there are agents that spread this kind of thing. Remember when the English came over with blankets that were laced with tuberculosis and they gave all those blankets to the Indians? You think that doesn’t happen today?
Thus your belief in chemtrails.
Yeah! Man, we’re getting it from all kinds of areas. I know people will call me a conspiracy nut or whatever, but the evidence is out there. There’s an interview on Red Ice Radio from the guy who worked at the CDC who said that there was evidence of autism and they buried it. And the whole idea that a corporation is responsible for performing their own tests. Are you fucking kidding me? We’ll do our own in-house testing and then we’ll present what we want, and that’s supposed to be the evidence that the EPA accepts? You don’t think there’d be any conflict of interest in that. This stuff is obvious, it’s just that people are finding it hard to believe that there are any corrupt career criminals.
So you are a conspiracy theorist?
Oh absolutely, yes… That’s not my word for it. I would call it alternative reality.
There’s been backlash in recent years about Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, calling the twist at the end involving your character transphobic. Do you have any thoughts on that?
No, that’s a first. What? Tell me that again.
There’s a reveal that your character is a man, and everybody gets sick at the news. It’s saying that trans people are disgusting.
That went right over my head. I just think that there is an agenda to push lifestyles that don’t encourage or support procreation because I think that the elites want less people on the planet so they will support and push lifestyles that don’t necessarily have a lot of procreation.
But we’re talking about a very small segment of the population.
Yeah, but I think the more you support either homosexuality or transgenderism—all of which I think are natural and actually people are born that way. I think that you can learn it as well, but most of the people who I’m friends with who are homosexual are very convinced that they were that way from birth, and I’d have to agree.
Right, you don’t have that experience and can only trust the people who do.
And all of my friends who are gay seem to feel that way. Maybe one of my friends felt that they learned it in their school age years, and have conflict about it as well. I know two people who don’t really want to be gay, because it’s a harder choice for them to be gay—quote unquote not as normal. But, I mean, to me it’s not even about being normal these days! We’re living in insane times. It’s just insanity, some of the things that are happening in the world. Absolute insanity.
Do you have plans to write a book? You should.
I hear that a lot. I do write in a journal, I have since I was 13. I’ve never…like if you write this article and it goes: “Sean Young, Conspiracy Nut,” I’m just gonna be like, “Oh god.” I don’t like being in the crosshairs anymore. There’s too many people whose veil hasn’t been lifted yet, so they don’t really see this in terms of how I see it.
Are you happy?
Yes, I am. And I’m really proud of myself for being happy. One of the things that makes me happy is to not be in the crosshairs and not be under that kind of pressure. I could never be a politician. It would just bring up every hostile instinct I have. Who wants to live that way? I just want to go to my tap dancing classes and be in good health and not have to work at anything that I don’t like.
It’s barely been 24 hours since the first Panama Papers reports hit, and things are already getting fun. Assuming you’re not Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, that is. Because judging by the way Gunnlaugsson stormed out of an interview with a Swedish news station, he’s got a few, uh... calls to make.
During the course of the interview, which was published by The Guardian, a reporter asks the Prime Minister about Wintris Inc. According to documents in the unprecedented leak, Gunnlaugsson created the company in 2007, but later sold half of it to his wife the day before he would have had to declare the business as a conflict of interest for a total of $1.
In the video, the reporter asks Gunnlaugsson if Wintris is, in fact, his company. He stutters a bit, demurs, claims that he “doesn’t know how these things work,” and then makes a run for it.
“You sold the company for $1,” the reporter says.
“No, no, no, no. You are asking me nonsense,” Gunnlaugsson responds as he sweats profusely. He then remarks that “something is being made suspicious that isn’t suspicious.” (Don’t let me tell you how to run Iceland, Prime Minister Gunnlaugsson, but fleeing an interview may not be the best way to stymie suspicion.)
Russian president Vladimir Putin’s official mouthpiece has some things to say about the Panama Papers. According to Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, the massive report, coordinated by 400 journalists from 100 media organizations in 80 countries is, firstly, a personal attack on Putin.
The report tied twelve current world leaders to secret offshore accounts via the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonesca. Among their clients: the King of Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, 29 out of the 500 billionaires on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, companies blacklisted for doing business with Hezbollah and North Korea, as well as “Ponzi schemers, drug kingpins, tax evaders, at least one jailed sex offender” and Jackie Chan. Vladimir Putin was linked to $2 billion worth of offshore accounts, mostly run in the name of his good friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin.
In a press conference earlier today, Peskov said that he’s been expecting some sort of an “information attack” on the President for some time. These were bad journalists, he said, and they did a bad job, because he “learned nothing new.” They also weren’t even journalists, primarily, but were being paid by “a company connected to attempts” to disrupt Russia’s “stability” and its successes in Syria, and “to discredit the government and, most of all, the discredit the president.”
Peskov dropped words like “information product,” “dump” and “PR” generously, which are all terms referring to deliberate and false hit jobs by foreign agents. But he used a new word too: “Putinophobia,” which he says is so big abroad now that “you can’t say anything nice about Russia” anymore. What a catchy new word. (Oh, look, RT is already using it.)
The Press Secretary’s wife was also implicated in a connection to an offshore account, which Peskov denied. In 2015, when opposition blogger and politician Navalny called Peskov out for wearing a $620,000 watch, he said it was a gift from Ms. Navka and how she spent her money “is no one else’s business.”
When asked if Putin was still close to his cellist buddy, Peskov said, “Roldugin, and many, many other people from various industries continue to be Putin’s friends. Putin has many friends, in Russia and abroad.”
The Russian state press treaded very lightly in their mentions of the story today, with focus drawn purposely away from “a certain legal personality in Russia” and onto the offshore secrets of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who was elected on an anti-corruption platform. The former Mayor of Odessa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, was also linked to an offshore account, as well as a Russian passport. He called the Panama Papers “a deluge of lies and an unsuccessful April fool’s joke.”
GOP presidential candidate and sentient sac of millions of spiders Donald Trump—literally more spiders than you’ve ever seen—does not have a coherent stance on cybersecurity. In his business ventures, though, his cybersecurity record sucks. Trump has failed to encourage policies to prevent large-scale data breaches at the hotels that bear his name.
Krebs On Security is reporting that Trump Hotel Collection is currently dealing with a credit card data breach, and Trump Hotels confirmed that it is investigating claims of a data breach:
KrebsOnSecurity reached out to the Trump organization after hearing from three sources in the financial sector who said they’ve noticed a pattern of fraud on customer credit cards which suggests that hackers have breached credit card systems at some — if not all — of the Trump Hotel Collection properties.
I reached out to Trump Hotels for more details about the investigation. I’ll update if they respond.
If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because Trump Hotels admitted that it had been hacked for over a year in October 2015—customers from seven locations had credit card and banking information stolen between May 2014 and June 2015.
To be fair: Lots of hotels suck at keeping customers’ data safe. It’s not like Trump has been running around yelling MAKE ALL YOUR PASSWORDS 1234! and that’s why this is happening. But most hotels aren’t owned by or explicitly associated with Donald Trump—again, SO many spiders skittering every which way, all over, forever—and this continued failure to succeed in private-sector cybersecurity doesn’t bolster Trump’s claims that his business background gives him the right tools to fix the government.
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Amazon’s celebrating baseball’s opening day with big discounts on team-branded shirts, jackets, hats, and even socks. Check out the full selection here, and don’t be scared off by the product photos if they don’t reflect your favorite squad; just click through to find a dropdown menu with lots of available teams.
Like all Gold Box deals, these prices are only available today, or until struck out.
The best bet for most people is probably the Kindle Paperwhite for $90, which is $30 less than usual, and $10 less than its semi-frequent deal price. The Paperwhite has the same ultra-sharp screen resolution as the Voyage, which is the most important aspect of any e-reader, but for $60 more, the Voyage adds pressure-sensitive page-turning bezels, slightly more contrast, and an ambient light sensor to control the backlight.
Once again, these deals are only available for Prime members, and you won’t see the discounted price until checkout, but you can sign up for a 30 day free trial, and still get access to the deals.
Uniqlo just kicked off another shipping holiday, with absolutely free shipping on every order, from a single pair of socks to an entire wardrobe. Concurrently, you can also score two button up linen shirts for men or women for $50, or $10 less than usual. Just add any two marked “Multi-Buy” to your cart, and you’ll see the discount at checkout.
We’ve posted several deals on USB power banks that can also jump start a dead car battery, but this model from Anker puts out 600 amps, compared to 400-450 on most other models. For your standard dead car battery, 400 is probably enough, but if it’s really dead, or hasn’t been started in a long time, the extra oomph could make a big difference.
Apple’s 15" Retina MacBook Pro isn’t for everybody, but if you demand a lot from your laptop, it’s one of the best options on the market. The newest model comes complete with a 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM, and you can save a whopping $400 on yours today, with no sales tax for most buyers.
This ingenious little travel charger combines a USB wall adapter, car adapter, and 3,000mAh battery pack for just $10. I probably wouldn’t use it as my primary charger, but it would be rental cars and hotel rooms.
Refurbs aside, $50 is one of the cheapest prices you’ll ever see on a Logitech Harmony universal remote with a screen. The Harmony 650 can be programmed on your PC or Mac, and is compatible with nearly 250,000 devices from over 5,000 brands.
For a limited time, Dell will sell you this 55" Samsung 4K Smart TV for $1000 (the same price Amazon’s currently charging), and toss in a $400 promo gift card for good measure. These promo gift cards are only valid for 90 days, but that’s enough to buy you a new game console or sound system to complement your new TV.
Note: Dell has been known to pull these offers without much warning, so make sure you see the gift card in your cart before checking out.
While you can’t control these Schlage deadbolts with your smartphone, the ability to unlock your front door with a passcode is perfect for house sitters or overnight guests, or for just unlocking the door while you’re carrying groceries.
$82 is the best price Amazon’s ever listed, and you can choose from several different finishes to match your decor. Just note that that is a Gold Box deal, so don’t get locked out.
$20 water-resistant Bluetooth speakers aren’t exactly rare, but I appreciate that this one from Mpow includes a suction cup mount to stick to the wall. It’s like a shower radio for 2016.
Fitness trackers can help you ward off winter weight gain, but if you don’t want to commit to wearing a bracelet every day, the clip-on Fitbit One is is a great alternative.
In addition to steps, the Fitbit One will monitor calories burned, stairs climbed, and distance traveled, and you can even configure it as a silent, vibrating alarm clock so you don’t have to disturb your sleeping partner. If that sounds like an appealing package, you can grab one on eBay today for $50, one of the best deals we’ve ever seen. [Fitbit One, $50]
Google’s second OnHub router packed in plenty of smarts, but was a tough sell at its original $220 MSRP. But could you be tempted for $160? That’s a pretty solid price point for any high end 802.11ac router, let alone one with intuitive app control, and the ability to enable certain functions by waving your hand over the top.
Kmashi consistently offers the cheapest price-per-mAh USB battery pack deals we see, and their 15,000mAh pack is back down to $13 today, matching an all-time low.
It’s not the prettiest vacuum in the world, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bagless upright with an accessory hose for $40 before. It is a Gold Box deal though, so be sure to grab yours before they’re all vacuumed up.
I’ve owned a corded electric trimmer for a couple years, and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually bothered to use it; dealing with the extension cord is just too much of a pain. This battery-powered alternative is somehow marked down to $30 right now on Worx’s official eBay store, and I’m not sure I’ve ever made a purchase more quickly in my life.
Today and tomorrow only, Perry Ellis is taking an extra 40% off already-discounted sale styles, with free shipping on orders of $75 or more. Deals include dress pants for $30, suit jackets for under $80, and shorts for $24, just for starters. Just note that you won’t see the additional discount until checkout.
If you take racing games (or Rocket League) seriously, Amazon’s top-selling racing wheel for PlayStation and PC is marked down to $300 today, matching an all-time low.
If you need a 4K streaming box to go with your new 4K TV, you can save big today on Amazon’s excellent Fire TV, including bundles that include a game controller or a HDTV antenna.
Amazon’s Prime Pantry program is great for stocking up on household goods and non-perishable foods without actually having to visit a store, but the $5.99 per box shipping charge has always been a drag. This month though, if you buy five select items, you can get that fee waived.
Bonus: If you already have a no-rush free shipping credit in your account, this deal actually appears to stack, netting you an extra $6 discount.
They ran a similar promotion the last two months with different eligible items. Just add five of them to your box (plus anything else that will fit), and use code PANTRYAPR at checkout to get free shipping. [Free Prime Pantry shipping with five eligible purchases, promo code PANTRYAPR]
There’s an additional 20% coupon on those Lysol wipes, and my favorite natural dish liquid is also one of the eligible items this time around, along with the antiperspirant version of one of your nominations for best men’s deodorant.
This Black+Decker cordless hand vacuum is perfect for cleaning out your car, or vacuuming in the tight spaces between pieces of furniture, and Amazon is taking an extra $10 offat checkout today. The product page shows $65, but at checkout, you’ll only have to pay $55.
If you missed out on on last month’s Bosch Insight wiper blade sale, or if you just don’t like Bosch Insight blades, Amazon will sell you two Michelin Stealth blades today for $20. Just add any two to your cart (shipped and sold by Amazon.com), and the price will automatically be reduced to $20 at checkout. The deal even works if you buy two different sized blades, so you should have no trouble finding a combination that fits your car.
We see a fair number of deals on standard (A19) LED light bulbs, but if you have some recessed lighting fixtures that could use an upgrade, this dimmable Philips BR30 bulb is marked down to $7 right now on Amazon.
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Everyone hates being burned online, even convicted murderers. So when someone who appears to be former Manson Family member Tex Watson decided that his Wikipedia page wasn’t giving him a fair shake, he did what any currently incarcerated felon would do: Print out the page, physically mark every point of contention, and mail it in to Wikipedia.
Discovered by The Wikipedian, a new section was added to the article’s discussion page this past Thursday under the heading “Edit requests.” In the addition, a member of Wikipedia’s Volunteer Response Team, tasked with answering the sites’s emails, explains, “The requested changes were presented as a printout of the 16 February 2016 version of this Wikipedia article, annotated with handwritten notes by the subject of the article. A copyright release was sent with the notes. The scan of the notes is uploaded to Commons.” According to Wikipedia’s editors, the scan was from none other than the former Manson devotee himself.
For a man who helped brutally murder at least seven people, including then-pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Watson’s purported edit requests are surprisingly banal. Some of his suggestions are syntactical, while others point out basic errors of fact—like this one noting that he actually attended Cal State, not the University of California:
The editor also attempts to clear Watson of at least some degree of culpability in the Manson Family murders. Here, for instance, Watson seems to assert that he merely assisted co-Manson Family member Patricia Krenwinkel in killing Folger.
Apparently, Tex was much happier with the previous version of the post, which not only included the murderer’s real first name (Charles) but also plugged his autobiography.
As William Beutler of The Wikipedian points out, “It does seem that Watson has done at least a bit of research into how Wikipedia works: he understands there should be citations, and knows he can lobby for the removal of uncited material—although it seems more likely someone will just find a news story about the signature drive than remove this detail.”
At the time of publication, Watson’s alleged edits have yet to be made. Wikipedia’s editors are, however, still in the process of discussing the submission, so that might very well change. Of course, there’s no way to be certain from scans alone that Tex is who he says he is. The ticket for the request was made private by Wikipedia, and without the envelope allegedly sent from prison, it’s hard to verify without speaking directly to Watson. We’ve reached out to Wikipedia for comment and will update if and when we hear back.
Generations of first-year psych students know ‘Winston Moseley’ as the man whose savage murder and rape of Kitty Genovese in 1964 was witnessed by dozens of neighbors rendered powerless by a phenomenon called “bystander effect.” That tale, as neat and compact as it is, is incomplete.
The essential facts are these. Winston Moseley had been out in his car, looking for a victim, when he came across Genovese driving home from work. He followed her. She parked at the Kew Gardens train station, adjacent to her apartment. Moseley parked, too, and attacked her with a hunting knife. She screamed, and a man named Robert Mozer opened his window and shouted, “Leave that girl alone!” Moseley ran away. Genovese, wounded but not mortally, staggered to the back of her apartment building and went inside a vestibule. Moseley returned, found her, and attacked again, stabbing her and assaulting her sexually. He fled again before she died.
The narrative pushed at the time, that this horrible crime happened in part because of a public unwilling to do their part played very curiously into the hands of then New York Police Commissioner Michael Murphy who, of course, was worried about the Civil Rights movement spilling into New York.
A meeting between the editor of The New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal (who shared these fears), and Commissioner Murphy, eventually resulted in The Times publishing a detailed account of thirty-seven strangers unwilling to help an innocent woman under attack from a deranged black man, turning one of over 600 murders in the city that year into a spectacle repeated for generations. From the Times:
It was one of 636 murders in the city that year. The New York Times ran four paragraphs on it.
Two weeks later, The Times published a more extensive, though flawed, front-page account quoting the police and Ms. Genovese’s neighbors. “For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens,” it began.
WeLive, the dystopian shared living space offered by WeWork, officially opened its doors on Monday in New York City. For only $1,375 per month plus an amenities fee, WeLive offers residents unnecessarily tricked out common areas including “a Chef’s Kitchen, Laundry/Arcade and Yoga Studio,” “all the coffee, tea and beer you can drink,” and one whole murphy bed per person. It’s a beautiful, lonely, humiliating idea that we all fucking deserve.
The communal living space, which comes fully furnished in a kind of Ikea-plus style and is rented out month-to-month, offers “a series of opportunities,” according to WeLive’s co-founder Miguel McKelvey.
“What will make you energized and motivated to be awesome today?” he said in an interview with Wired. “Is it an awesome shower in the morning, is it a great breakfast, is it a beautiful view? Or is it all of those things together? Do you prefer to watch a movie on an iPad by yourself, or in a room full of 50 people? You need to be able to enter these kinds of social experiences with options.”
The idea of WeLive is upsetting because it makes it easier for its tech-dependent adult infants to make superficial connections and to never be alone with their thoughts. It’s also upsetting, though, because it means that well-to-do (those rents are insane) New Yorkers are voluntarily living in something that sharply resembles a college dorm.
The residences are also, in effect, single-room occupancy (SRO), a form of affordable housing, of which many units have been converted and rented out to wealthy recent graduates. According to a 2014 report in the CUNY Law Review, SROs in New York have declined from 200,000 units in the 1950s to 15,000.
Of course, these units aren’t available to residents who can’t afford a private apartment (studios at WeLive go for $2000 per month)—instead, they are for the tech millennial who has so much money they can actually buy their way out of adulthood.
“We are happy if there are some bros here having a good time,” McKelvey toldForbes. “But there will also be people here eating wine and nice cheese and watching ‘The Bachelor,’ too. It’ll be diverse, and if we do our job, it will stay that way.” Meaning McKelvey will be stoked if there are rich men and rich women living there.
Being black in most places in the world is, by and large, a disadvantage. In America, for example, police are more likely to arrest you if you are black, jobs are less likely to call you back if your name sounds black, and just about all of your cultural capital is sure to find its way, more profitably, in the hands of a white person.
Now, alas, black people can add “white doctors really think we’re invincible” to the list of pains in the asses we have to deal with on a regular basis. According to a study conducted at the University of Virgina, more than 111 medical students belive non-truths about black people, like the idea that our blood coagulates faster than white people’s. From UVA’s press release:
Hoffman and her team asked white medical students and residents, 222 participants in total, to rate on a scale of zero to 10 the pain levels they would associate with two mock medical cases, a kidney stone and a leg fracture, for both a white and a black patient, and to recommend pain treatments based on the level of pain they thought the patients might be experiencing. They were also asked the extent to which various beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites are true or untrue; for example: that blacks age more slowly than whites; their nerve endings are less sensitive than whites’; their blood coagulates more quickly than whites’; their skin is thicker than whites’ (all false).
This is horrible but ultimately unsurprising. When Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri, he claimed that Brown charged through a barrage of bullets and plenty of white people bought it, citing Brown’s size and “power” as if those things somehow make bullets less painful. In fact, white people have a long history of classifying black people as other worldy and immune to “normal” humanity.
Political scientist John Dilulio Jr. introduced the term “Superpredator” to the masses in a 1995 article for The Weekly Standardwhere he described an almost psychological condition overtaking America’s inner-cities. By his estimation, these kids (who he claimed thrived in “black inner-city neighborhoods”) were in a league all their own, posessing an unprecedented capacity for violence, hence the “super” part.
White people’s fascination with what (hint:nothing) is biologically different between races goes back as far as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, during which black sharecroppers were manipulated into acting as living petri dishes for a disease that researchers failed to inform subjects there was a cure for. Writer James Jones claimed that the physicians involved were fixated on African American sexuality and believed that the subjects were responsible for getting the disease.
Still, you’d think a room full of doctors in 2016 would be able to offer an emphatic “NO” to a dumbass question like whether or not black people have less sensitive nerve endings. But then again, white people can be astonishing.
On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge to the “one person, one vote” rule that requires states to count all residents, regardless of their eligibility to vote, when determining election districts.
“One person, one vote,” endorsed by the Court in the 1964, augments the voting power of districts with large numbers of people who cannot legally vote. These include legal and illegal immigrants, certain convicted criminals, and children. (Experts generally agree that in election scenarios this rule tends to benefit Democrats.) In her opinion for the Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote:
“Adopting voter-eligible apportionment as constitutional command would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 States and countless local jurisdictions have long followed. As the Framers of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment comprehended, representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible to vote. Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates and in receiving constituent services. By ensuring that each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the same number of constituents, total-population apportionment promotes equitable and effective representation.”
In the case before the Court, Evenwel v. Abbott, the challengers argued that Texas, in the manner it drew its Senate districts, violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee to equal protection under the law. The plaintiffs were represented by the conservative advocacy group the Project on Fair Representation, which has challenged the Voting Rights Act in past cases.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito did not sign onto Ginsburg’s opinion, but agreed with the ruling. Justice Thomas wrote that he’d rather let states determine whether or not they draw district lines based on number of eligible voters alone.
The ruling shouldn’t change much practically speaking—as Adam Liptak at the New York Times put it, the judges have “upheld the status quo.” But at least nothing got worse.
I know you don’t care about cricket and can’t make heads-or-tails of its rules, but bear with me here, for this is one hell of a story.
The T20 World Cup final took place in India yesterday, and was contested between England and the West Indies. T20—an abbreviation of Twenty20—is a relatively new form of cricket meant to appeal to those good-for-nothing millennials, who don’t have the attention span for day-long cricket matches with tea breaks. Instead, T20 matches consist of a single innings with a maximum of 20 overs (each over consists of six balls) for each team. T20 matches take roughly three hours to play, putting it on par with other sports.
The West Indies, one of just 10 full International Cricket Council members, almost didn’t even make it to the T20 World Cup. For the last year-and-a-half their players have been embroiled in a bitter dispute with the West Indies Cricket Board over their collective bargaining agreement, resulting in the cancellation of a tour that was already under way and threats of action from all sides. But eventually, 12 of the 15 players picked for the tournament by the WICB accepted their spots. One pulled out to focus on test cricket, one said his rehab was incomplete, and one is still working on correcting his bowling form after being suspended for an illegal bowling motion. One of the replacement players was Carlos Brathwaite, whose name will come up again, quite prominently.
In Group Play, the West Indies and England finished one-two in Group 1, both advancing to the semifinals. England made light work of New Zealand, while the West Indies had to go deep into their final over to chase down India, after India put up a healthy 192 runs in their innings.
West Indies won the coin toss in the finals, and elected to field first. England scored 155 runs in their 20 overs, a sold but not insurmountable performance. But it became a lot less surmountable for the West Indies when their first two batsmen—Johnson Charles and the fearsome Chris Gayle—were retired after scoring just one and four runs respectively, both skying balls that were easily caught by Ben Stokes. The one consolation here is that Chris Gayle is a Very Bad Cricket Man, so screw him.
One of the people who saved the West Indies was their third batsmen, Marlon Samuels, who scored an amazing 85 runs not out. To understand what that means, we have to take a quick detour into how cricket is scored.
If the batsmen belts the ball over the boundary they score six runs, while if they hit a ball that rolls to the boundary they score four runs. If they hit a ball on the ground, they and their partner—who is at the opposite wicket, next to the bowler—run back-and-forth as many times as they can before the fielders get the ball in. If in doing so they score an odd amount of runs—almost always one, but occasionally three—the batsmen and his partner are now at opposite wickets, and the partner now takes his turn batting, with the bowler bowling from the same spot as before.
Since Samuels batted third and never got out, what this means is that he would bat and score a bunch of runs, eventually scoring an odd number, putting his partner up to bat. That partner would bat for a bit and eventually get out, and a new batsmen would enter. Samuels and the new batsmen would go back-and-forth until the new batsmen got out, but never Samuels. This happened with the second batsmen, fourth batsmen, fifth batsmen, sixth batsmen, and seventh batsmen, all eventually getting out while Samuels partnered with them and was unstoppable.
The eighth, and ultimately final, West Indies batsmen was the aforementioned Carlos Brathwaite, a massive tree trunk of a man. When he finally got a chance to bat, it was the fourth ball of the 17th over, and the West Indies were down 155-116. They would need to score 40 runs in their final 21 balls to win.
Over the next 15 balls, Samuels and Brathwaite chipped away at England’s lead, mainly going back-and-forth scoring single runs, but mixing in a couple of twos and fours. Going into the final over, the last six balls, it was Brathwaite’s turn to bat, and the West Indies needed to score 19 runs to win the World Cup. To win would require the greatest comeback in a final over in T20 international history, and what happened is better watched than written about:
This motherfucker had six balls to score 19 runs and decided, “nah, I’m just gonna do it in four balls by hitting four straight sixes.” Now, sixes are much more common in cricket than home runs are in baseball, so it’s not quite right to say that this was the equivalent of four straight batters hitting home runs in the bottom of the ninth for a walk-off victory in Game 7 of the World Series, but it’s something close.
As Brathwaite was bombing his sixes, his partner Marlon Samuels was basically bat-flipping in the in the face of the English bowler, Ben Stokes:
Stokes and Samuels had been talking shit to each other all match long, to the point that Samuels was fined for “using a language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting during an International Match.” In the post-match press conference, he went in on Stokes:
Samuels, his feet comfortably kicked up on the table, starts out by saying that Stokes “doesn’t learn,” and that when he plays against Stokes he warns him “do not speak to me, because I am going to perform.” Halfway through, however, his answer morphs into a screed against former Australian bowler and current cricket commentator Shane Warne—who he has a long history with, like the time they got into what amounts to a cricket fight—and makes fun of his (presumably surgically augmented) face: “I don’t know why he talks this way about me. Maybe because my face is real and his face is not.”
Samuels wasn’t the only one who used the occasion of victory for a bit of score settling. West Indies captain Darren Sammy criticized the West Indian Cricket Board for failing to even reach out and congratulate the team on their victory, while teammate Dwayne Bravo went even further, saying that the governing body for cricket in India does more for the West Indies team than the WICB.
But lest you think they were all grumpy sourpusses, heck no, they just won the World Cup! As they are known to do, they danced their goddamn asses off:
Even Usain Bolt got into it:
Broadly, cricket faces some of the same generational challenges as baseball, as both are lengthy and heavily tradition-bound sports that don’t appeal to young people the say way they appeal to their parents and parents’ parents. But T20 matches are shorter and much higher energy, and if they’re also contested among shit-talking adversaries and feature the exploits of a Paul Bunyan-esque batsmen and a team so overjoyed by tremendous plays and tournament wins that they dance at every chance they get? Sign me up.
Ted Cruz isn’t one to shy away from cheesing up the campaign trail, but today the presidential hopeful failed to deliver.
The Wall Street Journal reports that during a tour of the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Monday, Cruz was asked to don a foam cheesehead, the headware of choice for fans of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers.
Cruz attempted to refuse the hat while remaining in Wisconsinites’ good graces.
“I think the people of Wisconsin wear their cheeseheads so powerfully, that I would not presume to intrude in the elegance with which the people of Wisconsin wear those hats,” Cruz said.
Cruz has a very comfortable lead in Wisconsin over Donald Trump—up by between 43 and 37 percent according to the most recent polls. Perhaps this is why Cruz felt that wearing the hat was an option.
During the tour, Cruz was also asked to name his favorite kind of cheese. In March, Cruz revealed to US Weekly that cheese is his favorite food, so this was something of a softball question.
Cruz—demonstrating once again that he realizes he’s running for president—replied that he enjoys them all.
