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There Is a Visible Penis Outline in One Direction's New Video, and Other Gifts from the Most Homoerotic Group on the Planet

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Earlier this week, to the delight of the young, the young at heart, gay boys and lecherous cable TV execs all around the globe, British boy band One Direction released the video for their single "Kiss You." This video is a thumbnail illustration of what makes this group so much fun to watch because it is so fucking homoerotic. Most of the boys are on record as women-daters (Harry Styles is apparently insatiable), but their overall image is full of winks, nudges and crotch-grabs. Their perpetual game of are-they-or-aren't-they makes them engaging on a level we've never seen from a prefab pack of kids singing plastic pop.

There Is a Visible Penis Outline in One Direction's New Video, and Other Gifts from the Most Homoerotic Group on the PlanetLike most of their videos after their second, "Gotta Be You," in "Kiss You" they are seen in a homosocial frolic (females, if they show up in their videos at all, are generally portrayed in fleeting, blurry shots and/or in the background). In "Kiss," the boys sing to each other. Harry Styles (Taylor Swift's on-again-off-again) tweaks Zayn Malik's nipples. Zayn kisses Harry. Louis Tomlinson, who it is has been rumored to have a thing with both Harry ("Larry Stylinson" is how the hypothetical couple is referred to) and Zahn (together they are Zouis), pops his hips, showing off the outline of his possibly half-stiff cock, or wand erection, if you will.

There Is a Visible Penis Outline in One Direction's New Video, and Other Gifts from the Most Homoerotic Group on the Planet(See gifs for evidence. Apparently, Louis is prone to public wood.)

This is just the latest and most overt example of the X Factor UK alums' nearly nonstop deluge of open flirtation with each other and the idea that they are, in fact, boy band members who have sex with boy band members. Denials be damned, "Kiss You" is their most bromantic offering yet.

One Direction fans who aren't swooning tweens approach this game of Spot the Gay as a sport. Entire Tumblrs are devoted to sniffing out and reporting signs of their intergroup gayness. What makes One Direction beautiful is what makes them seem gay. The evidence of the group's homoeroticism has been covered ad nauseam elsewhere, but just to recap:

All of this is very adorable, but it's also a very tangible sign of how times have changed — instead of asshole-clenched paranoia at the suggestion of gayness, kids these days are courting the inevitable speculation on their sexuality (if you want to know what I mean by inevitable, type the name of any male celebrity into Google and then type "G" — "gay" will come up almost always). In this way, they control that conversation and their game also works as a challenge: So what if we are? They prove that there is no good rebuttal to that question.


Shooting Blanks: Gangster Squad, Reviewed.

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Shooting Blanks: Gangster Squad, Reviewed.If a group of 12-year-old boys wanted to make a movie in their backyard, there's a good chance it might end up something like Gangster Squad. Sure, it wouldn't have the flashy production design and big names, but it would definitely share the same adolescent mindset. With its tough talk and bang-bang violence and pretty dames, Gangster Squad is, in reality, the byproduct of a bunch of Hollywood stars deciding to play dress-up and pretend they're in one of those great old gangster movies that came out way before they were born. Gangster Squad never stops reminding you that everyone in it thinks it's awesome that they're making it. You won't feel the same awe watching it.

The movie is based on the recent book by journalist Paul Lieberman, which detailed the efforts of a group of Los Angeles police detectives who fought powerful gangster Mickey Cohen during the 1940s and '50s. In the film, that group is led by Sgt. O'Mara (Josh Brolin), who recruits a team of men who will work outside the law to dismantle Cohen's (Sean Penn) operation. Each of O'Mara's men has his own important trait/quirk so we can tell them apart: There's the hunky rebel (Ryan Gosling); the nerdy technician (Giovanni Ribisi); the black dude (Anthony Mackie); and the guy who looks like Robert Patrick with a funny handlebar mustache (Robert Patrick). And, to make things a little more interesting, there is of course a love interest, a doll named Grace (Emma Stone) who's Cohen's girl but soon becomes involved with Gosling.

It's easy to see why everyone involved would want to be a part of Gangster Squad. You get to wear snazzy duds, smoke, and project an air of blasé coolness. (And, in Penn's case, you also get to ham it up with relish.) Drunk on its mid-century L.A. atmosphere and hard-boiled grit, Gangster Squad has plenty of superficial pleasures. Everybody and everything looks great, the cast is all game (although Stone tries a little too hard to play a bombshell), and if you're a sucker like me for Southern California noir like Chinatown or Kiss Me Deadly, the movie will hit your soft spot.

The problem, though, is that while Gangster Squad has all the period details right, the movie doesn't populate that decor with much in the way of interesting characters or plot points. It's not just the Ocean's Eleven-like assembly of the so-called gangster squad that's familiar: It's the way the movie keeps harking back to earlier, better films without offering much of a twist on any of them. The cops-and-cons stuff is all cliché, and even Penn's over-the-top Cohen can't help but recall Robert De Niro's equally oversized turn as Al Capone in The Untouchables. (The one saving grace is how Penn portrays Cohen as a painfully insecure fool. Cohen's more disturbing because he doesn't seem all that evil: As played by Penn, he's just the world's meanest spoiled brat.)

The movie has two modestly intriguing ideas—one that sorta, kinda works and one that gets more annoying the more you think about it. The first is that O'Mara and some of his men have joined the LAPD straight out of serving in World War II, in part because they're completely unable to function in the normal world after killing on the battlefield. Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, 30 Minutes or Less) gets this point across best through Brolin's performance as O'Mara, who's so closed off from the loving, pregnant wife he has at home that he can't stop putting himself into danger in a misguided belief that he's keeping her safe. Gangster Squad argues that the squad in some ways needs Cohen: As violent and dangerous as he is, at least he provides these guys with a recognizable black-and-white villain that can make their transition from the madness of war a little more seamless.

But that brings us to the other idea—the one that really fails—which is the notion that because this squad operated outside the boundaries of the law, they became as bad as the criminals they went after. In a nuanced drama like Zero Dark Thirty, such moral complexity creates a forum for a thoughtful conversation. But in the shallow dress-up of Gangster Squad, it's mostly just lip service used to rationalize what otherwise is a pretty flamboyantly reckless salute to getting justice by any means necessary. Apparently, Lieberman's book is more interested in examining that fine line between law and disorder, but Fleischer just wants to revel in the tommy-gun carnage while very occasionally reminding us that maybe this isn't the sort of thing we should be encouraging in those sworn to protect us.

Frankly, I wish Gangster Squad had just gone all the way and embraced its amoral outlook: Some of the movie's best moments are when it explodes into mindless, vindictive violence. At least then Gangster Squad wouldn't feel so apologetic about its shoot-'em-up spirit. (You may remember that the movie was recut and its release date pushed back after the Aurora shooting.) Mindless violence isn't the worst thing in the world. Mindless violence with dull characters, a threadbare story and a halfhearted, unpersuasive stab at a conscience? Then we've got real problems.

Grade: C+

Grierson & Leitch is a regular column about the movies. Follow us on Twitter, @griersonleitch.

Worst Wheel of Fortune Contestant Ever Thinks Johnny Cash Wrote a Song Called 'I Have the Wine'

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Being familiar with Johnny Cash (and, potentially, his struggles with alcohol abuse) while not knowing the name of what is arguably his most famous song does not make Natasha Holly of Green Acres, Florida, the worst Wheel of Fortune contestant ever.

But risking a $9,800 payout on "I Have the Wine" with both 'H' and 'E' already on the board? Unforgivable.

For the record, Weird Al doesn't have a wine-themed Johnny Cash parody, but here's what the chorus might look like if he did (courtesy of Danger Guerrero):

I keep a close watch on this jug of mine
I keep my eyes half-focused all the time
I keep the cork out 'cause it saves some time
Because it's mine, I have the wine

[video via Uproxx]

Today's Song: Destiny's Child "Nuclear"

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Yesterday, on the heels of a fake-out by Justin Timberlake that many thought would be his new single but turned out to be a minute-long ponderous YouTube video about him not releasing music, a new ballads collection from Destiny's Child was announced. Sporting 14 tracks that span the group's career, Love Songs will include the previously unreleased Pharrell Williams collaboration, "Nuclear."

Once again beating Timberlake whose new song might actually surface Monday (but who the fuck knows), that new song has just hit the Internet. It's a nice midtempo thing that replicates an oft-used 90s house rhythm track — David Morales' remix of De La Soul's "A Rollerskating Jam Named Saturdays" popped immediately into my head as the best example, though there may be a better one. Anyway, this is great and it goes to show that in a post-EDM world, even our ballads are dancey.

If you need to get your fill of Timberlake-esque navel-gazing from this set, though, Beyoncé's got — the trailer for her upcoming self-directed HBO documentary Life Is But a Dream is now available for your eye-rolling pleasure.

Update: Oh right, that sample is Lyn Collins' "Think," the basis of virtually the entire late-80s/early-90s genre of hip-house.

[via Mashable]

Jackie Chan Thinks America is 'The Most Corrupt' Nation in the World

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Jackie Chan Thinks America is 'The Most Corrupt' Nation in the World As it turns out, Jackie Chan is not very grateful to the country that helped him roundhouse kick his way into an estimated $130 million fortune. Speaking on a television show in Hong Kong, Chan had some harsh words for the good ol' U. S. of A.

Chan was discussing recent progress China has made, removing corruption from its government (with limited success) when he called America "the most corrupt [country] in the world." Chan then continues (as translated by Ministry of Tofu), blaming America for the world's troubles and spouting some seriously nationalistic nonsense:

Chan: Of course. Where does this Great Breakdown (financial crisis) come from? It started exactly from the world, the United States. When I was interviewed in the U.S., people asked me, I said the same thing. I said now that China has become strong, everyone is making an issue of China. If our own countrymen don't support our country, who will support our country? We know our country has many problems. We [can] talk about it when the door is closed. To outsiders, [we should say] "our country is the best."

Host: So he can't get enough of his more than 20 ambassador titles. I think the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should ask him to be the ambassador to the United States.

Chan: Seriously, I am always like, when the door is closed, "Our country is like this and this. Who and who is not good." But outside, "Our country is the best, like so and so, is the best." You cannot say our country has problems [when you are outside], like "Yes, our country is bad."

As the Washington Post's Max Fisher points out, Chen has a history of controversial political views. Chan once called Taiwan and Hong Kong examples of what happens when you have "too much freedom." He also once said "Chinese people need to be controlled, otherwise they will do whatever they want," regarding Chinese censorship of his movies.

[Image via AP]

Autistic Contestant Will Participate in Miss America Pageant for the Very First Time

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Autistic Contestant Will Participate in Miss America Pageant for the Very First Time

When Alexis Wineman was diagnosed with borderline Asperger Syndrome at age 11, she thought the answer to "what was wrong with me" came too late.

"I felt so alone growing up, and I still do at times," Wineman said at an autism conference hosted by Montana State University Billings.

Through years of "overwhelming and daily" challenges that included bullying from peers and bouts of self-deprecation, Wineman never stopped trying to push past her hardships.

She underwent extensive counseling, received help with schoolwork, joined speech and drama clubs, and joined the cheerleading squad, eventually overcoming her struggles with anxiety and self-consciousness.

The hard work paid off in full last year, when Wineman was crowned Miss Montana 2012.

The 18-year-old is now poised to become the first Miss America contestant to be diagnosed with autism.

"Most people do not understand what autism is," Wineman says in a promotional video for Saturday's competition. "And one in 88 people having some form of autism — this understanding is becoming more and more necessary." The youngest contestant in this year's pageant, Wineman hopes the spotlight will help her shine much needed light on her condition. Miss America will take place this Saturday in Las Vegas.

[photo via Facebook]

Deaf Man Stabbed After Sign Language Mistaken for Gang Signs

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Deaf Man Stabbed After Sign Language Mistaken for Gang Signs

A deaf man in Burlington, North Carolina, was stabbed multiple times after his sign-language conversation with another deaf man was mistaken for gang signs.

The incident took place Wednesday afternoon on East Morehead Street, where 45-year-old Terrance Ervin Daniels was exchanging words in sign language with another man.

Police say Daniels was suddenly approached by 22-year-old Robert Jarell Neal, and stabbed multiple times with a kitchen knife.

He managed to make his way to a nearby intersection, where he collapsed on a patch of grass.

Emergency services eventually made their way to the scene and transported Daniels to Alamance Regional Medical Center in stable condition.

Neal was arrested a few hours later and charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury, and felony assault on a handicapped.

According to Burlington Police staff Sgt. Mark Yancey, it was determined that Neal had mistaken Daniels sign language for gang signs. Yancey added that Neal himself is not a member of a gang.

As Geekosystem notes, this sort of thing is a bit too common.

[mug shot via Burlington police]

Watch Mariah Carey Suffer a Crisis While Attempting to Preserve Her 'Good' Side

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Ladies and gentlemen, prepare your sympathies: when Mariah Carey was 19, someone (probably Tommy Mottola) drilled into her head that her left side is her "bad side." She has struggled with this affliction of knowledge ever since. She said she was doing better with it ("I don't care anymore," she lied in 2009), but then someone went and put her on the right in this setup for an American Idol promo interview on Wednesday.

You can see that it provoked as close to an existential crisis as she is ever likely to let on having in public. What followed were two and a half minutes of her squirming uncomfortably. She looks like a calf in a veal box with horse hair. She won't look at the interviewer, she's turned away from the rest of the group, she appears to have a medical condition.

It is, in a word, hilarious. Like I said yesterday, the woman is living camp and her inherent humor comes out best when it is unintentional. It's gonna be a great season of Idol, whoo!

[via an eagle eye at ONTD]


The New Girl Scout Cookie Tastes Like BULLSHIT

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The New Girl Scout Cookie Tastes Like BULLSHITDid you know that the Girl Scouts, America's rag-tag crème puff children's militia, are rolling out a new cookie this year?

"Oh my God," you say to yourself. "Thin Mints, Shortbreads, Peanut Butter Sammiches – and now they've done it again? I don't care what it's called; I don't care how much it costs (it costs $3.50; they all cost $3.50) — put me down for a dozen boxes!"

Well you're spending your money very irresponsibly, Marie Antoinette.

Because the cookie is named like a shampoo, lists "mushrooms" among its ingredients, and is neither coated in chocolate nor forms a cookie-sandwich around peanut butter.

Meet your new nightmare, Mango Crèmes with NutriFusion™.

I'll take one box of Thin Mints and one box of Mango Crèmes with NutriFusion™, please.

My favorite cookie? It's a tossup between the classic chocolate chip and the Girl Scouts' Mango Crèmes with NutriFusion™.

All existing nuclear weapons derive their explosive energy from NutriFusion™, the radioactive decay of an atom's mangocreme.

Here is ABC Smart Cookies' official description of Mango Crèmes with NutriFusion™:

Crunchy vanilla and coconut cookies feature a mango-flavored creme filling with all the nutrient benefits of eating cranberries, pomegranates, oranges, grapes, and strawberries!

Proceeding along to the ingredients list (in scout-talk: The Ingredients Jamboree), one of the first things you'll notice is that there ain't no kind of mango inside this mango cookie.

There is mushroom concentrate. There is grape concentrate. There is an orange-ish color.

However "mango" in this instance serves, not as an ingredient, but as a decoration to hang before the rest of the cookie's name. A name which—in case you forgot—ends with the made-up science word "NutriFusion™."

You know what, though? That's not even the worst thing about this cookie. Some of the most delicious "foods" in the world have origins that are murky, if not completely opaque. What is a Sour Patch Kid made of? What is a kiwi?

The worst thing about this cookie is that Girl Scouts of America thought the world was clambering for a mango-flavored VitaCookie™ in the first place.

So, from now through March, if any young girls attempt to sell you "Mango Crèmes with NutriFusion™," try stoking the campfire of promise that burns like an inferno behind their coal black eyes with a little piece of tinder called "Real Talk."

Sit the young ladies down and explain that:

  • They are selling a lie.
  • Even if it weren't a lie, no one wants to eat a cookie that is mango-flavored.
  • They are too young to be using the word "crème."
  • And then buy a double order of Samoas instead.

    [h/t LAist / ABC Smart Cookies // Image via ABC Smart Cookies]

CEO of Weapons Training Company Who Threatened to 'Start Killing People' Over Gun Control Has Handgun Permit Revoked

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The head of firearms training company who took to YouTube and Facebook this week to threaten a murderous response to any attempt on the Obama administration's part to "ban assault rifles and impose stricter gun control" has had his handgun carry permit suspended by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security for presenting "material likelihood of risk of harm to the public."

James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response, appeared in a video this Wednesday, in which he seemed pretty damn sincere about his intention to "start killing people" over gun control.

In the video, since removed but preserved elsewhere, Yeager claims "Vice President [Joe] Biden is asking the president to bypass Congress and use executive privilege, executive order to ban assault rifles and to impose stricter gun control."

Of course, Obama can't actually do that, but that didn't stop Yeager from promising to "fire the first shot" of the impending civil war "if that happens."

He continues:

I'm not fucking putting up with this. I'm not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I'm not letting anybody take my guns! If it goes one inch further, I'm going to start killing people.

Yeager has since released a new video in which he attempts to walk back some of his more criminal statements — but not by much.

While he no longer "condone[s] anybody committing any kind of felonies up to and including any aggravated assaults or murders," Yeager qualifies his retraction by adding "unless it's necessary," which it isn't, "yet."

In its statement concerning the rescinding of Yeager's handgun permit, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security said Yeager's comments "were irresponsible, dangerous, and deserved our immediate attention."

"The number one priority for our department is to ensure the public's safety," writes Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

[video via YouTube]

How One Writer Tried to Defy Her Publisher and Reveal the Abusive Relationship Hidden in Her Romantic Memoir

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How One Writer Tried to Defy Her Publisher and Reveal the Abusive Relationship Hidden in Her Romantic Memoir"I set out to write a memoir that was a love letter to a man I was deeply in love with, a man who challenged me in myriad ways, a man who changed my life profoundly, a man I respected and honored greatly at the time," Alisa Valdes wrote on her blog on Wednesday. She was talking about her book The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story. "[W]hat I actually wrote was a handbook for women on how to fall in love with a manipulative, controlling, abusive narcissist. [...] I feel I owe it to my loyal readers and fans to be truthful now. It is the decent thing to do."

Less than a day later, the post had been taken down.

In it, Valdes had described how the book — "an engrossing memoir about how falling in love with a sexy cowboy turned her feminist beliefs upside down" — depicted not the loving (and marketable, thank to E.L. James and Katie Roiphe) real-life romance between a dominant man and submissive woman, but instead a controlling, abusive relationship that ended (after she'd written her book) with a terrified Valdes leaping from a moving truck to escape her boyfriend's rage, separating her shoulder in the process. After one difficult fight, in which she'd "challenged him," she wrote, he overpowered her, dragged her to the bedroom, and raped her, "telling me as he did so that I must never forget who was in charge, that I must learn to be nicer, that I must learn... to obey." Only in retrospect, she wrote, did she realize the number of red flags she'd missed.

And in the time between the end of the relationship and the books' publication she'd been "essentially shunned by my publisher, one assumes because the reality of my life more than a year after having turned in the final manuscript is different from the ending one might have liked to have seen[.]"

When fans asked what had happened to the post, she tweeted "I was asked to take it down by my publisher, and did." Later, the tweet was taken down, too. Doing a radio interview in Colorado later that day, Valdes didn't mention the abuse. Had her publishers, worried about the sales of a book now clearly lauding an abusive relationship, silenced her? Did she still stand by the blog post? Did she still stand by the book?

I emailed her to find out.

Valdes has a mild reputation online for combativeness and controversy, stemming from a series of incidents in 2009, documented here by David Shankbone, in which she was accused of claiming, and then denying, to be, respectively, bisexual and bipolar (Valdes says that lesbian news site AfterEllen misinterpreted or made up quotes about her bisexuality, and says she's never been diagnosed with bipolar disorder). But when I reached her at her personal email address yesterday she came across as engaging, thoughtful and self-reflective, a smart and articulate writer stuck between a rock and a few different hard places. Over the course of several emails, she tried to explain to me what had happened with her blog post, how she felt about her experiences, and why she didn't see her book as meaningless even after experiencing abuse from Steve Lane, the rancher and part-time actor whom she dated for two years (calls to a Steven Lane of the right age in New Mexico were not returned).

One thing she wanted to be clear about was that her publisher, Gotham, was not silencing her. In the removed post, Valdes had written that she had "tried to be cooperative" with Gotham and had been advised "to just accept this... lack of support as my penance for the crime of being openly broken up with the cowboy when I should have just pretended we were still together long enough to sell books." ("Alisa has her own version of the publication of her book," Gotham's Lisa Johnson told me. "While it makes a good story, it is not accurate." Johnson didn't comment on Valdes' account of abuse, or how it might change the nature or marketing of the book.)

But while the publisher might have, according to Valdes, treated her like she had the plague, Gotham "NEVER asked me to take the post down," and she'd only written the now-removed tweet saying it had after misunderstanding her agent, who suggested she take her blog post down "because it might be seen, in his view, by the publisher as my sabotaging myself."

Indeed, she told me, she still stood by what she had written on her site. "I wrote a post to try to explain to readers why I was no longer in a relationship with the cowboy," she said. "I also felt it was my duty as a writer to be honest about the circumstances of the end of the relationship, in part because a lot of readers seemed to see in my original descriptions of the relationship (in the memoir) some red flags that I had completely missed." This was more or less how she explained it at the time, in the disappeared blog post:

"[I]f there is any hope of redeeming this book and making it meaningful it lies in the full story of my relationship with the cowboy and not just in the candy-coated version that appears in the book. [...] I set out to write a memoir that was a love letter to a man I was deeply in love with, a man who challenged me in myriad ways, a man who changed my life profoundly, a man I respected and honored greatly at the time, what I actually wrote was a handbook for women on how to fall in love with a manipulative, controlling, abusive narcissist."

But over email, Valdes appeared to soften her tone somewhat. She told me doesn't see the sentiments expressed in her book as mutually exclusive of those expressed in her blog post — and certainly isn't claiming that the book requires redemption or new efforts at making it meaningful. She seemed most affronted at the idea that her book was somehow a lie, now that the relationship it lauded was revealed as destructive and abusive:

The book is true. It's that simple. It is as true as a wedding photo is true, a year after the divorce. Were the people in the photo deliriously happy? Yes! Were they in love? Yes! Was there great beauty? Yes! Did they find in one another something important, something they both thought would last? Yes! Are those people in the photo the same people today that they were then? No.

It seemed to me that one reason that Valdes was able to reconcile her book to the events that followed is that she understands it as a memoir first and a polemic second. The Feminist and the Cowboy is aimed at (and successful with) a certain strain of anti-feminist conservative thanks to its message (its original title was Learning to Submit), but Valdes is less concerned about the truth of its politics or understanding of gender than she is about the truth of its narrative and depictions of the relationship and her personal growth:

The truths of the book are simple: He challenged me, most often in productive ways but sometimes in ways that could be perceived as controlling or abusive. The challenge he provided was a CATALYST for some soul searching that I did ON MY OWN about the extreme radical feminism and anti-conservatism I once held to be the absolute truth. The book has always been about THAT journey, the soul searching, the questioning, the awakening in me of new ways of looking at things. I stand by all of that 100 percent.

Still, I asked her, do you think you have a responsibility to your readers to make them aware that the relationship you speak so highly of in the book was, in fact, abusive? "Yes, and the loyal followers of my blog and social media feeds have known for months that the relationship was over," she explained.

"I've never gone back on the lessons I learned from it, though; in fact, I have been very clear to say I truly believe I emerged from that relationship a mellower, kinder, more compassionate and wiser woman, and absolutely a better girlfriend! My new boyfriend even wrote the cowboy a thank-you letter on my Facebook page, after he and I talked about the ways I changed after spending time in a different culture with a very different kind of man."

Valdes understands her responsibility to end there at least in part because she doesn't think that the masculine qualities that she praises in the book are as closely related to the qualities that led to her abuse as some of her critics do. Not that she doesn't see some connection. "I think that it can at times and with some people be a very fine line between masculine confidence and narcissistic controlling," she wrote me. "I think it is a matter of degrees, just like, say, sexiness versus sleaze, or a strong appetite versus gluttony," she said in a later email. "It's a scale. There are numbers on that scale that are safe, and numbers that are dangers. The cowboy inhabited a broad spectrum, as did I, at various times. People are not statues."

She certainly was more than willing to credit Lane with shaping her in positive ways. "How many of us have parents who might have been abusive in some way?" she asked me when I wondered if it was possible to learn positive lessons from an abuser.

"A father who, when he was drunk, beat our mother in front of us, perhaps, but who also, when sober and magnanimous, took us fishing and taught us incredibly valuable life lessons? This is the dirty little secret of abuse that simple Hollywood storytelling has stolen from us all — that good people can do bad things, that bad people can do good things, that sometimes it is really fucking hard to tell the good from the bad, especially when we're deeply in love, that lessons come fast and hard from life's deepest pain."

But she was also intimately familiar with — and clearly cognizant of — the mechanisms of her abuse, and how she'd become a victim of what she described as Lane's cold brutality. "The dance of it all is so complex, and so patient, so gradual — I compared it to a frog being boiled alive by first being placed in a pot of cold water over a low flame," she told me. "By the time I understood what was probably happening, I had already developed a deep love for the man. I don't know if he consciously sought to trick me — probably not."

Valdes no long speaks to Lane, and is dating someone new. And yet, despite having removed herself from him physically, she's still trapped by him. I believe that she still thinks on her time with Lane with some degree of fondness and respect, but it's also true that she can't do anything else if she wants her book to succeed. Having had her book embraced by the anti-feminist wing of American conservatism, she now needs to play by its rules: even if she is more concerned with the book's truth as memoir than its truth as gender politics, people like Christina Hoff Sommers (author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men) care only about the latter, and without a cowboy, there's no The Feminist and the Cowboy.

Valdes laughed off the suggestion — floated in a New York Post review — that she'd written the memoir to stave off bankruptcy. But she acknowledged that writing is "feast and famine, always a hustle... in publishing you are only ever as good as the performance of your most recent book." If there's anything to be salvaged from the remains of her relationship with Lane it's that its given Valdes, who struck me as someone compelled to understand her life in memoiristic terms, more than enough material for a new book — which she's already begun. "I have been working on a sequel about the cowboy and me," she wrote in her original blog post,

"and though I am quite sure my publisher won't want it I will likely self-publish it soon. In it, I plan to detail the ways I was fooled and manipulated, the mistakes I made in choosing to ignore red flags, the many unfortunate ways that I started to subsume and lose myself in order to please an unpleasable and controlling man. I hope that in doing so I will help to make sense of the first book, both for you guys and for myself."

Image by Jim Cooke.

Reddit Cofounder, Digital Activist Aaron Swartz Dead From Suicide at 26

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Reddit Cofounder, Digital Activist Aaron Swartz Dead From Suicide at 26

Aaron Swartz, a programmer and Internet activist who co-founded a company that would eventually grow into Reddit, committed suicide Friday in New York City, according to The Tech and Boing Boing. Swartz's attorney confirmed the news to The Tech early Saturday morning.

"The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true," confirmed Swartz' attorney, Elliot R. Peters of Kecker and Van Nest, in an email to The Tech.

At 14, Swartz co-authored an early version of RSS. Later he started Infogami, a company that would eventually merge with Reddit. He also co-founded Demand Progress, an online activist group whose mission statement was "win progressive policy changes for ordinary people through organizing, and grassroots lobbying."

Swartz was arrested in July 2011 for allegedly downloading approximately 4 million academic journals from JSTOR with the intent to distribute them for free over P2p file-sharing sites. He was charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. In September 2012, Swartz appeared in court and plead not guilty to those charges. Just two days before Swartz's suicide, JSTOR — perhaps because of Swartz's actions — began offering free but limited access to its archives.

Swartz had hinted at depression in the past. In a 2007 speech, he discussed his time at Reddit, including the first weeks after its purchase by Conde Nast:

We all flew out to San Francisco and begun working at the offices of Wired News (we were purchased by Condé Nast, a big publishing company which owns Wired, along with many other magazines).

I was miserable. I couldn't stand San Francisco. I couldn't stand office life. I couldn't stand Wired. I took a long Christmas vacation. I got sick. I thought of suicide. I ran from the police. And when I got back on Monday morning, I was asked to resign.

In a separate blog post from that year, Swartz discussed his depression in more detail, writing:

Your face falls. Perhaps you cry. You feel worthless. You wonder whether it's worth going on. Everything you think about seems bleak - the things you've done, the things you hope to do, the people around you. You want to lie in bed and keep the lights off. Depressed mood is like that, only it doesn't come for any reason and it doesn't go for any either. Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle with a loved one and you don't feel any better, only more upset at being unable to feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel. Everything gets colored by the sadness.

At best, you tell yourself that your thinking is irrational, that it is simply a mood disorder, that you should get on with your life. But sometimes that is worse. You feel as if streaks of pain are running through your head, you thrash your body, you search for some escape but find none. 

Cory Doctorow, a friend, wrote a touching tribute for Swartz at Boing Boing:

I'm so sorry for Aaron, and sorry about Aaron. My sincere condolences to his parents, whom I never met, but who loved their brilliant, magnificently weird son and made sure he always had chaperonage when he went abroad on his adventures. My condolences to his friends, especially Quinn and Lisa, and the ones I know and the ones I don't, and to his comrades at DemandProgress. To the world: we have all lost someone today who had more work to do, and who made the world a better place when he did it.

Here's Swartz discussing SOPA during his keynote speech at last year's Freedom to Connect conference:

[Image via Daniel J. Sieradski]

18th Century Cannon in Central Park Found Loaded and Ready to Fire

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18th Century Cannon in Central Park Found Loaded and Ready to Fire

On Friday, conservancy workers in New York's Central Park discovered a fully loaded, ready-to-fire 18th century cannon during a routine cleaning. Upon finding the ammunition after removing the cannon's plug, the park workers called 911, who sent in a bomb squad.

According to Paul J. Browne, the NYPD's chief spokesman, the bomb squad found one pound and 12 ounces (over 800 grams) of still-functional gun powder wrapped in wool. "They tilted the barrel of the cannon and the cannonball rolled out," Browne told the New York Times. "In theory you could have fired that cannon because the powder was still working."

According to CBS New York, the cannon had been on public display from the 1860s until 1996, when it was moved indoors to the park's Ramble shed to prevent vandalism. Authorities believe the cannon is at least 233 years old – possibly from the British warship H.M.S. Hussar, which sank in the East River in 1780.

Police took the powder to a gun range and returned its wool wrapping to the conservancy.

[Image via NYPD]

It's Not Too Late to Join Florida's '2013 Python Challenge'

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It's Not Too Late to Join Florida's '2013 Python Challenge'

If you have always dreamed of killing giant snakes but found yourself hampered by a lack of funds, worry no more: Florida state officials are ready to pay anyone willing to help rid them of wild Burmese pythons, no snake hunting experience needed.

More than 700 people from 32 states and Canada plan to kill wild Burmese pythons in south Florida. Called the 2013 Python Challenge, a state-sponsored 30-day hunt starts today with a kickoff in Fort Lauderdale.

700 is a lot of people: it feels like a featureless mob. I can't humanize it. Who's the all-American face of the snake hunters?

Andres Schabelman is not the kind of guy you expect to see roaming the Everglades in search of a giant, slithering beast that's nearly as long as a stretch limo.

He's 28, holds a graduate degree in public policy from Harvard, lives in the progressive city of San Francisco and even works for a fancy Internet start-up - Airbnb.

"I literally have never done anything like python hunting in my life," Schabelman said Thursday from his home in California. "In New Orleans, I used to hunt and fished a lot, but nothing like this."

Oh, he'll do nicely. What led him to make the long journey east, machete in hand?

Schabelman said he and three friends from Harvard decided to take a stab at python hunting after they realized Martin Luther King, Jr. Day would fall in the middle of the hunt and allow them a three-day hunt.

What better way to honor the legacy of Dr. King, sworn enemy of all snakes and tireless python-slayer in his own right?

Burmese pythons first became a problem in the 1980s, after Floridians who had apparently purchased them as pets decided "nah, we're good, snake-wise" and dropped them blithely off in the Everglades. Once the realization of their new and terrible freedom struck them, the snakes proceeded to eat everything in the wild before returning to take revenge upon their former owners by devouring "cats [and] small dogs." Also:

Burmese pythons grow to about 25 feet and can weigh more than 200 pounds. They eat adult deer in one long, icky gulp.

While there is an entry fee of $25, the person who kills the most snakes gets $1500 and the person who kills the longest snake gets $1000. No word on what happens to the hunter who ties all his or her snakes together into a knotted, writhing snake-ball and builds a snake castle in the python-ridden swamps, but there's a first time for everything, even in Florida.

[Image via AP]

Alleged Arsonist Fights Off Firefighters After Setting Pinkberry Building Ablaze, Killing One

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Alleged Arsonist Fights Off Firefighters After Setting Pinkberry Building Ablaze, Killing One

According to the NYPD, a 45-year-old man set a massive fire above a Pinkberry yogurt shop in Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood Thursday night, leaving one dead and several injured. Police believe the man, Wei Chu Wu, started the fire after fighting with his child's mother, who lives on the building's second floor.

Witnesses say Wu fought emergency responders as they arrived on the scene, attempting to prevent first responders from entering the burning building. Wu was subdued, but not until a police officer broke his hand during the brawl. Seven firefighters were also treated for injuries, although it wasn't clear if they were hurt in the fire or during the fight.

The New York Post reports Wu confessed to police at the scene.

Wu told investigators that he "was pissed at his wife, thought she was cheating," a law enforcement source told The Post today.

Wu later "showed no remorse for the fire," the source said.

Through a translator, Wu told authorities, "I burned down a building," according to a source.

Wu, who, by the incident's end, was shoeless and wearing a blood-soaked shirt, was arrested a taken to New York Downtown Hospital with bruises. He was charged with murder, arson and attempted assault on Friday.

After the fire was extinguished, police found a body "burned beyond recognition." Because of the extent of the injuries, authorities have yet to determine the victim's identity. The building was "essentially destroyed," according to James Esposito, chief of operations for the Fire Department.

[New York Times//Image via Shutterstock]


How To Not Die of the Flu

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How To Not Die of the Flu

Yes, the flu season is really bad this year. No, it's not entirely due to "people use too much Purell nowadays" or whining about what's probably just a cold, either. The CDC reports that more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from "flu-related complications" every year. Sometimes, especially in the winter, people will use the word "flu" to describe any condition they want, but this is not the flu's fault and you should not blame it.

We do not want you to be one of those hospitalized people; we want you to be here, pointing out typos in the comments, for years to come. With that in mind, here are a few strategies to help you fight off the flu:

  • Get vaccinated. Did you already get vaccinated? Good. Are you planning on getting around to it? Do it now. It's not a guarantee you won't get sick, but it's better than exactly everything else out there. You can get one at pretty much any pharmacy. If you have ideological problems with Walgreen's, put them aside for a minute. I understand. It's hard. Resisting capitalism can wait, though. Buy yourself some Burt's Bees while you're there. It'll help.
  • Reconsider going to the doctor unless you're having trouble breathing, become dehydrated or experience complications (seriously high fever, pneumonia- or bronchitis-like symptoms). There's not much a doctor can do to treat the flu; you're going to feel like a murder victim for a week, maybe two. The only thing heading to the urgent care center with "but I feel really bad and I don't want to" will do is increase patient wait time for people who really need medical attention and spread germs. Go back home. Stay in bed.
  • If you do go to the doctor, be polite to every health care provider you encounter, from the receptionist to the nurse who takes your blood pressure. They are not withholding a magical flu drug from you (and Tamiflu is definitely not worth the trip). They are doing their best, and they are exhausted. They're sorry about the size of the bill you're going to get in the mail in five weeks, too.
  • If you truly can't stay home because you don't have sick days and/or your job doesn't provide you with health insurance, please accept my sincere apologies for our broken system that is failing you.
  • Do you really need us to remind you to drink fluids? This seems like an absurd thing to tell you. You're not going to forget to push liquids over your larynx, right? Liquids: ingest them, that's the official Gawker policy.

The following substances are not at all effective in treating or preventing the flu:

  • Chinese herbal medicines
  • Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
  • Echinacea
  • Elderberry
  • Green tea
  • N-acetylcysteine (NAC)
  • North American ginseng
  • Oscillococcinum
  • Pomegranate extract
  • Vitamin C
  • Vitamin D

Sadly, the Journal of the American Medical Association has rejected for publication your peer-reviewed study of "that one time I thought I might be getting sick and then I drank a lot of herbal tea and chewed like four things of Emergen-C and then I didn't get sick. Maybe there's something there you could use, I don't know." Stay safe out there.

[Image via AP]

The Unbearable Invisibility of White Masculinity: Innocence In the Age of White Male Mass Shootings

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The Unbearable Invisibility of White Masculinity: Innocence In the Age of White Male Mass ShootingsI have been profiled my entire life as innocent. When disruptive in class, I was told that I was eccentric, that I needed to work on my focus. Growing up, I looked for fights and conflicts yet I never fit the profile of a juvenile delinquent. The chip on my shoulder never signified a thug; I was just a kid with a bad temper who needed to mature and grow out of it.

When I was pulled over in Emeryville, CA for speeding for several miles and asked multiple times by the police officer if there was a reason for my speeding, I told him the truth. "Officer, my ice cream is melting."

No stop and frisk. No pretext stop. No humiliating search. No fear of how to hold my hands. No ticket. I, like Adam Lanza and James Holmes, the two most notorious mass shooters of the past year, am white male privilege personified. We are humanized and given voice and innocence over and over again.

***

The most recent shooting in Newtown highlights whiteness and the ways it has been rendered invisible after every mass shooting. Described as a "nerd," who "still wears a pocket protector," Adam Lanza has been reimagined as a character straight out of The Revenge of the Nerds series and not a cold-blood killer. He carried a brief case, not a gun; he read The Catcher in the Rye and Of Mice and Men, not Guns and Ammo; he wore button down polos, not fatigues. His life was not extraordinary but was that of an average kid. From the reading list to the sartorial choices we have been sold a Normal Rockwell painting. The Associated Press painted a picture of Adam that imaged him as a character ripped out of a Brady Bunch script: "He was an honors student who lived in a prosperous neighborhood with his mother, a well-liked woman who enjoyed hosting dice games and decorating the house for the holidays."

While identified as "reclusive," and "shy," as "quiet and reserved," as "weird" and a "loner" outcast, Lanza has been consistently described as an average kid who had problems and difficulties. At worst, he was odd and painfully shy. "He didn't have any friends, but he was a nice kid if you got to know him," said Kyle Kromberg. "He didn't fit in with the other kids. He was very, very shy." Yet, the constant quest to figure out what caused him to snap, to speculate about the effects of his parents' divorce or medications, all refashions Lanza as a good kid, a victim of sorts. He just snapped so there must have been a reason. Yes, he was strange, but do good (white, suburban, upper-middle class) kids shoot up an elementary school? Thus, reports the New York Post: "Bloodthirsty child killer Adam Lanza might have snapped, and carried out his unspeakable atrocities after learning that his mom wanted him thrown in the loony bin, according to published reports today."

The narrative following Adam Lanza and Newtown might as well recycled the media coverage surrounding James Holmes and the Aurora, Colorado shooting. Described as "smart" and quiet, as "nice," and "easy-going," the narrative sought to not only humanize James Holmes, but also imagine him as good at his core. It worked to tell a story of a normal kid, whose life turned toward evil for some yet-to-be-explained reason.

Sympathetic and identifiable, Holmes was depicted as Beaver Cleaver for most of his life. Anthony Mai, a longtime family friend, told the Los Angeles Times: "I saw him as a normal guy, an everyday guy, doing everyday things." Like many others in the community, he is "very shy, well-mannered young man who was heavily involved in their local Presbyterian church." The AP similarly depicted Holmes as a cross between Norman Rockwell, Jason, and Opie. Mind you the extent of its evidence comes from someone who had a beer with him at a local bar. "We just talked about football. He had a backpack and geeky glasses and seemed like a real intelligent guy and I figured he was one of the college students." Can you imagine having your identity reduced to a single meeting at a bar? Sure, he was quirky, and a bit of a "loner" but he was a "reserved" and "respectful" "kid."

Because these are told as stories of individuals with specific reasons for killing others, there is no reason to talk about race, class, or gender; there is no reason to talk about society, nor is there any reason to think that Aurora, Newtown, or Columbine are becoming Chicago or Detroit.

"Stuff like this does not happen in Newtown," Renee Burn reminded America. Stephen Delgiadice shared a similar level of shock: "It's alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America." Reflecting a level of acceptance of violence elsewhere, bloodshed in their own white and middle-class neighborhoods, call into question the utopic fantasy promulgated by many in white suburbia. "We thought it was safe here," reflected Mike Hajzer. "But it's not so true. It's as if nowhere is safe."

Adam Lanza killed 26 people; he destroyed the lives of many, but he also put in jeopardy the dreams and fallacies that led many to the suburbs.

Adam Lanza killed 26 people; he destroyed the lives of many, but he also put in jeopardy the dreams and fallacies that led many to the suburbs. He put the allure and meaning of whiteness in jeopardy. "Is there anything more innocent than a child eating popcorn and sipping Coke with the lights of a movie screen reflecting off his face?" wrote Bert Weiss after the shooting in Aurora. "Is there any place I can feel my children are totally safe? Rather than being excited to share this movie together, now I'll spend a considerable amount of time addressing what happened in that theater with my sons. Frankly, I wish someone could explain it to me. As a parent, I wish I could postpone the reality of conversations like this for just a little longer; keep my kids innocent for as long as possible."

Ian Landau further captures this sense of innocence lost that pervades the media coverage in the aftermath of shootings in Aurora. He laments the lost sense of security, community, and the reason to live in places like Aurora and Newton. "Traditionally in America movie theaters are a safe, family environment where everybody goes and settles down into the dark," notes New York Psychiatrist Alan Manevitz. "You can watch a scary movie because you know you're safe in the movie theater and can enjoy the experience. The Aurora shooting has suddenly turned that upside down. That presumption of safety gets shattered and you feel the vulnerability at that moment."

The "its suppose to happen" in inner-city communities reframe is not surprising. Places like Columbine, Aurora, and Newton exist because of the fear-industrial complex. The white middle-class flocked from cities into the suburbs and rural communities partially due to fear of black and Latino youth, integrated schools, and urban crime. The continuously deployed the narrative of "its not suppose to happen in Newton" and their neighborhoods mirroring "American family's dream" embodies this entrenched belief. The efforts to imagine Holmes and Lanza as good kids turned evil, to scour the earth for reasons and potential solutions, works to preserve the illusion of safety, the allure of white suburbia, and the power of whiteness.

In imagining the killers as good kids who did a bad thing, who snapped because of a divorce, because of too much medication, because of inadequate mental health treatment, because of too much mental health care, because of guns, and because of who knows what, white manhood — the visible link that binds together so many of these shootings –always gets erased.

"Do you also think it's odd that white men commit the overwhelming majority of mass murders," wondered Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Senior Director of Advocacy for the Women's Sports Foundation, "but that people don't identify that as a causal factor? Instead we talk about mental illness and gun control. If it were Asian women or Jewish men or elderly African-American, it would be topic number one. But not white men." In fact, the media response to mass shootings often reimagines white men as victims.

The national spectacle and the hyper focus on Newton and Aurora especially in comparison to the scant coverage afforded to murders in Chicago or drone deaths in South Waziristan points to the value of whiteness. School shootings and other mass killings matter when there are white victims. Whiteness is thus reimagined as under attack. White suburban kids, white suburban families, white suburban communities and even white shooters are the victims—victims of Hollywood, victims of gun laws that don't allow them to protect themselves in every context, victims of removal of prayer from public schools, and victims of soiling culture.

The consequences are clear in Newtown and Aurora, yet these are not the only victims. The killers themselves are reconstituted as victims. Arguing that, "maleness and whiteness are commodities in decline" and that "things are looking up" for women and people of color, Christy Wampole concludes that the Sandy Hook shooting was the consequences of the waning privileges afforded to white males:

Because resources are limited, gains for women and minorities necessarily equal losses for white males. . . . Can you imagine being in the shoes of the one who feels his power slipping away? Who can find nothing stable to believe in? Who feels himself becoming unnecessary? That powerlessness and fear ties a dark knot in his stomach. As this knot thickens, a centripetal hatred moves inward toward the self as a centrifugal hatred is cast outward at others: his parents, his girlfriend, his boss, his classmates, society, life.

While embodying "White delusional disorder," and seemingly arguing that resistance to patriarchy, white supremacy, and homophobia has produced a generation of angry white males ready to shoot, Wampole yet again imagines whiteness as the default victim.

We use moments of tragedy to reassert the value in whiteness and the importance in protecting white bodies.

According to Danny Hoey, Assistant Professor of English at Indian River State College, the insatiable quest for explanation as to why the ubiquitous industry committed to uncovering motives, reasons and mitigating factors leads us to a clear conclusion: white men are victims and they are under attack: "So, naturally, we are supposed to forgive white males who commit mass murder because they feel as if they have lost their privilege? White America constructs victim narratives around itself to explain and rationalize its own failures." The kids who died in Newtown, and in other schools are victims, but the threat to them, to society, wasn't Adam Lanza or James Holmes.

Yet, we look elsewhere. We look for excuses and make moves to reposition whiteness as victim needing protection. We use moments of tragedy to reassert the value in whiteness and the importance in protecting white bodies. We work to ‘blame' something or someone other than Mr. Holmes, Mr. Lanza, Mr. Klebold, and countless others? With a narrative about" good kids" in hand and an insatiable need to ask, "Why?" and "How could he have done such a thing?" we continually imagine violence, barbarism, and terror elsewhere. White Americans like to think of this kind of violence as an anathema to who we are as a country and as a culture and are reluctant to think that someone like those all American kids, like our kids, like us, could be mass murdering monsters living in our midst. In reality, this kind of violence is in many ways a part of our violent history and culture. We have to accept that there is a "typical" face of mass murder in the United States - it is not the black kid killing people in gang shootings, the Mexican cartel member, or the "Muslim terrorist." It can be, often is, will probably remain the innocent, white, suburban boy next door.

I was the boy next door, schooled in America's pedagogy of racial stereotypes, fear, and racism. Dropping off my friend in East Los Angeles, or visiting another friend in Gardena, CA often resulted in family members and white friends telling me "to be safe." I recall one instance where I dropped my friend off, only to ask him to watch me to drive off to make sure I was safe. I wanted him to make sure that I was safe. Privilege, stereotypes and irrational fear were on full display. I fear, I profiled, and I lived within America's racial logic. Yet, the danger to white America, to the nation, then and now, was not the black or Latino gangster, or the Muslim terrorist, but the white man who is capable of unimaginable death and destruction, the white man, who we will go to all lengths to embrace as our own, who we will continually aid and abet with innocence.

David J. Leonard is associate professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of "Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema" and "After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness (SUNY Press)."

This piece includes parts of a previously published piece from The Grio and builds on work that appeared on Huffington Post.

In a project overseen by contributing editor Kiese Laymon, Gawker is running a personal essay every weekend. Please send suggestions to saturdays@gawker.com.

Image by Jim Cooke.

Flashmob Performs Heartwarming Cover of 'Here Comes the Sun' in Madrid Unemployment Office

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Spain is in the midst of prolonged and devastating financial crisis. Its economy lost roughly 800,000 jobs last year, more than half of under-25-year-olds are unemployed, and the total unemployment rate is at 26% and growing. So you can imagine how bleak and hopeless people waiting (and working) in one of their umemployment offices might feel.

Carne Curda 2.0, a program on Spanish radio, decided to do something to help, however fleeting; they organized a small flashmob to perform and sing The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" for one of the unemployment offices in Madrid. As you can see above, the result was heartwarming.

[Guardian]

Bowie and Timberlake: Who Came Out of Retirement Better?

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Bowie and Timberlake: Who Came Out of Retirement Better? Both David Bowie and Justin Timberlake, you may recall, announced (or coyly hinted at; it still might just be a Myspace party) the release of new music earlier this week, which is very exciting.

So who did the better job of emerging from musical retirement? Are you for elegant restraint or teasing videos and countdown clocks? There are no wrong answers, except the correct answer is definitely David Bowie, now and forever. Justin Timberlake is fun and I like counting as much as the next guy, but he's still got about 29 albums to go before he can make announcements the same week as Bowie.

Let's try an exercise in comparisons, like the technician has you do at the optometrist.

Is this better?




Or this?





Do you find yourself more excited by this?

The elegiac balladry of Where Are We Now? isn't particularly representative, [collaborator Tony Visconti] says. "The album is eclectic, it's got five really blistering rock tracks. The rest is really mid-tempo, mysterious and evocative. He's been obsessed with medieval English history, which, believe it or not, makes great material for a rock song. And contemporary Russian history, which makes a great rock song. The subject matter he choses to write about is amazing. The Next Day is a song about a tyrant, let me leave it at that. One thing the album's got is a lot of substance. You're going to have to listen to it many times, because the lyrical content's going to take a long time to absorb.

"It's got an instantly familiar sound, because the band are rocking away and it's David Bowie's voice. He's singing very low-key on the single. A lot of people have misinterpreted that, thinking that he's going to sound old and frail on this record, but for that song he wanted to sound vulnerable. Big difference. Elsewhere, he's singing in full voice, that voice you hear on Heroes, so loud that I literally had to step away from him in the studio."

Or by this?

[N]ot just a song, but a full album produced by longtime collaborator Timbaland. Timberlake is believed to have around 20 new tracks recorded. A source familiar with the project confirms to Billboard that Timberlake is definitely releasing a new album more sooner than later.

Please tally up the scores and mail them to us right away.

Also, which made you feel more heavily aware of your own mortality this week: Bowie's new video or this NYT article about the dying nurse? No wrong answer here.

[Image via AP]

The Only Abortion Clinic in Mississippi Missed State Compliance Deadline, May Face Closure

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The Only Abortion Clinic in Mississippi Missed State Compliance Deadline, May Face Closure

The only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi came one step closer to closure today. Last year, the state passed an ordinance requiring all of the doctors working at the Jackson Women's Health Organization to have hospital admission privileges in order to continue operating. The deadline to comply with the order came earlier this week; only one of the four doctors currently employed at the clinic has admitting privileges.

Workers at the clinic were unable to obtain admitting privileges from any of the nearby hospitals.

Clinic administrator Diane Derzis said every Jackson-area hospital where the clinic applied for privileges said no.

"They were clear that they didn't deal with abortion and they didn't want the internal or the external pressure of dealing with it," Derzis told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday.

With or without admitting privileges, any patient in need at the Jackson clinic can currently be transferred to an emergency room. The clinic will not close right away, however. The next step, according to Mississippi's health department, will be a state inspection. If the state orders a closure, the clinic can appeal the decision, although they will face a hostile environment.

From Mississippi governor Phil Bryant:

"My goal, of course, is to shut it [the clinic] down," Bryant said Thursday. "Now, we'll follow the laws. The bill is in the courts now, related to the physicians and their association with a hospital. But, certainly, if I had the power to do so legally, I'd do so tomorrow."

If the clinic closes, the nearest health center providing abortion services will be "three hours away and over the state line." Mississippi currently has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the country.

[Image via AP]

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