For years, Ambiguous New York Media Person par excellence Rachel Sklar has maintained a private email list for her close friends. It's a power cluster of well-connected-on-paper women in media, technology, and the blurry outskirts of each, a ceaseless mill of congratulations and networking. Now, you can buy your way inside for just $850 every year.

An informational email from Sklar and business partner Glynnis MacNicol leaked to Valleywag lays it out plainly: Sklar is going to try to monetize her Silicon Alley doyenne status, at a very steep price. Group email lists are a dime a dozen, but charging 8,500 dimes for the privilege of being part of the (free to operate) Google Groups clique is a little daring. Particularly after having once received a $50,000 grant to operate it. They seem to think pretty highly of themselves!

————— Forwarded message —————
From: The Li.st <getlisted@theli.st>
Date: Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 2:11 PM
Subject: TheLi.st Membership Changes (DEADLINE **PLEASE READ**)
To: "Membership - TheLi.st" <membership@theli.st>
Cc: Glynnis MacNicol <Glynnis@theli.st>, Rachel Sklar <rachel@theli.st>


Hello Listers.

This email details how TheLi.st will change in 2014. It contains hard deadlines! Please read it.

As many of you know, we've been rolling out the transfer the XXinTech list into a paid, invite-only membership network of the smartest, most successful women in tech and media (around the world!). We have been transitioning over the past six months, and will close enrollment in the new list on Dec. 15th.

I. What is TheLi.st?

The list is our version of The Old Boy's Club: a highly curated network of dynamic, connected, powerful women across tech, media, business, culture, politics, movers & shakers, helping each other land investors, partnerships, press jobs, speaking opportunities, and much more. Need an intro? You'll probably find it through TheLi.st. Our group of 500 power players is networked within one degree of almost anyone you may need.

TheLi.st is also a close-knit community of colleagues and friends, providing clutch support, friendship and having-your-back plus a warm social infrastructure for commiserating, venting, and advice.

And then there's the invitations, deep discounts to fellow lister products and services, and our combined social media & message magnification muscle.

As TheLi.st evolves, the benefits for you as a member grow exponentially. Some of highlights:
Newsletter launched in May to strong critical reception (Buzzfeed, Forbes etc.) Our metrics are well above industry average. To date we've featured over 100 listers (our "Friends & Family" section is designed to feature Lister projects). We'll pass 15K subscribers by year end.
TheLi.st name means something - we've been highlighted in the NYT, SAI 100 and Marie Claire's The New Guard package, which also featured a whole whack of other Listers (visibility begets access begets opportunity!). Also, Geraldo called us "brilliant" and "awesome." We have been holding off new applicants for six months.
We've hosted events in NY, DC, SF, Austin & Toronto, including our Pop-Up Summit in February, partnership events with Marie Claire, the Guggenheim, TechStars, seminars, and general networking events for Listers to connect. These offerings will increase significantly in 2014.
Our members-only database is ready to come out of beta (screenshot attached) to stand as the first line of defense against "but we couldn't find a woman!" All List Members will have tagged, searchable profiles - a real-life Binder of Women.

II. List Membership

*We have created a discounted "Pre-Launch" rate for our current list members. The rate is $500/year. Payment details below.*

Membership in TheLi.st is meant to provide practical resources to build your business, grow your brand, increase your visibility, and establish a valuable, long-lasting network. Benefits:
Daily access to the exclusive Li.st email list, featuring 500 of the most powerful women in tech and media.
A featured profile on TheLi.st Database.
Access to list network groups on other social media platforms (Facebook, Linkedin) and inclusion in TheLi.st Twitter group.
Invitation to private events to meet and connect with other list members.
Significant discounts to products and services created by List members, as well as List friends. Previous offers have included free office space, discounts to conferences like Women in the World, discounts on major e-commerce marketplaces like Of A Kind and Zady, discounted class rates to The Flatiron School and Skillcrush, and Google Chromebooks.
Priority access to Li.st sponsored public events (incl. List-only rates).
Ability to invite a female friend or colleague to join The List (subject to approval)
Opportunities to be featured in/contribute to TheLi.st newsletter
Opportunities to be featured in/contribute to upcoming multimedia projects launched by TheLi.st (e-book collection, multi-media partnerships, etc.)
PR support & message magnification through the List network (reaching an audience of millions via our various sites and social media)
NYC office space for visiting listers/holding meetings, events, offsites etc. (subject to approval)
General awesomeness to come in 2014!

EXCLUSIVE MEMBERSHIP BONUS!!:

As part of this membership, we are excited to offer an exclusive FoundersCard deal to List network members. This offer includes a 3-month complimentary membership, followed by an option to join at FC best available lifetime guaranteed annual rate with a waived initiation fee. Current FoundersCard members may extend their term of card for three months. Additionally, FoundersCard will be open to connecting with List member products for potential inclusion in their offerings. Will will be in touch with details once your membership is finalized.

III. Pricing

We have created a "Pre-Launch" rate for our current list members. The rate is $500/year, which is $350 less than the public rate will be at our 2014 launch. We surveyed typical membership rates and conference badge prices so we could be sure to price this not only competitively, but ridiculously well against any comparable org or opportunity.

IV. Payment Options

The base membership is Pre-Launch for $500. Pay at one time OR opt for a monthly payment plan, 1st month $100, $40/month thereafter. We require a month's notice to cancel membership.

>>>>>CLICK HERE TO PAY $500 via PAYPAL<<<<<

**This rate expires on Dec. 15, 2013.**

>>>CLICK HERE FOR MONTHLY OPTION/ $100 DEPOSIT<<<

We also have a corporate membership for those representing the interests of a corporation which we are happy to discuss, and bulk rates for 2 or more Listers in the same company.

Also - this is a professional association and should definitely qualify to be covered by an employer. We are happy to provide supporting documentation to that effect.

Finally, we know that some of you are bootstrapping, or changing careers, or might otherwise need to figure something out. Please email us. We have worked out a number of in-kind exchange deals or alternate arrangements. Our priority is keeping you in this group. For realz. Email us: rachel@theli.st and glynnis@theli.st

We will send a reminder email the week before the deadline and another the day before. If by Dec. 15 we don't hear from you we will assume you are not interested and we'll affectionately part ways.

We have two goals here: Keep TheLi.st going as an awesome platform for amazing women, and start 2014 with an excited, invested membership. We hope you will be part of it!


Warmly,
Rachel & Glynnis

You can't buy friends, or success, but you can buy access to someone else's successful friends.

Photo: Getty

You can stop holding your breath: Pantone has announced its new Color of the Year. And it's...well, it makes a statement.

Pantone describes its Radiant Orchid hue as "an enchanting harmony of fuchsia purple and pink undertones." The glorified mauve will now be used the world over in cosmetics, textiles, interior decorating, and even flower arrangements the world over (or at least its chicest quarters) throughout 2014, after which it will no doubt be unseated by a new incredibly important paint chip.

But what if you don't like orchids or radiance? What if your family has a blood feud with the mauve lobby? What if you just really, really don't look good in shades of pink? (This redheaded writer is already mourning the passing of 2013's lovely Emerald.) Well, there are technically other color authorities out there, even if they aren't quite as powerful. For instance, Sherwin Williams paint company suggests the not-at-all-similar Exclusive Plum!

Or you could, you know, just pick colors you like.

[image via AP]

A Kansas women raced topless across a Kohl's department store in Lenexa in an effort to apprehend a man she caught peeping on her in the dressing room.

While trying on bras in the store's dressing room, Jeanne Ouellette spotted a man — later identified as by authorities as Jeremy Bradley — videotaping her with his cellphone through a gap in the wall.

Without hesitation, Ouellette took off after the man, despite having nothing to cover her exposed top except her hands.

"I followed him. I shouted, 'Stop! Help me!' I just screamed and chased him topless through the store," Ouellette told KCTV5. "I know I shouldn't be chasing someone ... I was just enraged. I was at a store in a very private place, and I was enraged and I wanted to get the phone."

Ouellette only stopped when she reached the front doors — "common sense took over and said,'You shouldn't go outside half naked'" — but by then she had already caused enough of a commotion that other shoppers gladly carried on the chase until the suspect was finally brought down three blocks away.

Bradley was booked on a charge of misdemeanor breach of privacy. A conviction would mean up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

[screengrab via KCTV5]

Pro-tip to any aspiring carjackers out there: If you're going to steal a truck, make sure it's not one filled with radioactive waste.

On Monday, a driver transporting discarded cobalt-60 from medical devices in Mexico stopped along a highway to take a nap—also a bad idea—when two gunman carjacked his truck.

The thieves likely had no idea of the trucks contents—odds are they targeted it because it's a new-ish (2007) Volkswagen with an attached crane. But the carjacking triggered a minor international panic, and the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a statement about the theft.

"At the time the truck was stolen, the source was properly shielded," the IAEA said. "However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged."

Unfortunately, that's just what the thieves did; last night, authorities discovered the truck, with the shielding removed and the cobalt-60 exposed.

"The person or people who took this out are in very great risk of dying," Mardonio Jimenez, a physicist for Mexico's Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, told NBC News. The average time of survival after such an exposure is between one and three days, according to Jimenez.

The material was discovered half a mile from a town of about 6,000 people, but authorities say the population isn't at risk.

"Fortunately there are no people where the source of radioactivity is," Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the Commission on Nuclear Safety, said. "What's important is that the material has been located and the place is being watched to guarantee no one gets close."

[Image via AP]

Shopping malls are disappearing. Office parks are disappearing. Mcmansions are disappearing. Garages are disappearing. And now, suburban corporate headquarters are dying. Soon, there will be nothing left of the suburbs but a single Little League field, watered with tears. [Photo: AP]

A Wendy's employee in Lovejoy, Georgia, ended up in jail last month after she allegedly "misplaced" the blunt she was smoking inside a burger that was served to a customer.

According to TMZ, the customer, Shalon Travis, found the half-smoked blunt in her cheeseburger she purchased on November 1.

"Upon arrival at home, she took her food out of the bag and noticed a strange odor in her hamburger," Lt. Michael Gaddis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. " When she opened it, she discovered a partially smoked marijuana cigarette."

Travis returned to the burger joint and called the cops after speaking with the manager.

When officers arrived, they confronted 32-year-old Amy Seiber, who reportedly confessed to the crime.

"They were able to speak with the suspect, who admitted that she was responsible," Gaddis told the paper. "She had been smoking while she worked. When she was fixing the burger, part of the marijuana fell into the burger."

Wendy's has since fired Seiber and released a statement saying she broke the rules by "not follow[ing] proper food handling steps."

Travis claimed she experienced "food poisoning-type symptoms" following the incident, which required her hospitalization. However, it remains unclear if she consumed any part of the tainted "bluntburger."

Nonetheless, the company offered to pay the customer's medical expenses and "has even generously thrown in a $50 gift certificate," according to TMZ.

Lovejoy Police arrested this FORMER Wendy's employee after she accidentally served her half smoked blunt in a burger pic.twitter.com/dBGLGlIrSA

— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) December 5, 2013

Wendy's is my new favorite burger joint... http://t.co/iuLtX2cskc pic.twitter.com/jfF3cVPyUt

— Mentality Mag (@MentalityMag) December 5, 2013

[photo via Facebook via Daily Mail]

About a year ago, a charity in Amsterdam began a project to employ alcoholics and pay them partially in beer. And according to the New York Times, it's apparently going great.

The program, which only recently began getting attention in the international press, employs out-of-work alcoholics to clean up litter on the city's streets. The Times describes the shift of one employee:

His workday begins unfailingly at 9 a.m. — with two cans of beer, a down payment on a salary paid mostly in alcohol. He gets two more cans at lunch and then another can or, if all goes smoothly, two to round off a productive day.... In addition to beer—the brand varies depending on which brewery offers the best price—each member of the cleaning team gets half a packet of rolling tobacco, free lunch and 10 euros a day, or about $13.55.

Although the first program of this kind was in Canada, it's well-suited to the Netherlands' famous disdain for zero-tolerance policies. It's certainly an approach employed in many countries with regard to other vices: the idea takes the same approach as methadone clinics, which provide a less-strong drug to serious heroin addicts on the road to recovery. If some of Amsterdam's alcoholics are working a full shift and drinking beer, it's that many fewer lying unemployed in the city's parks, polishing off bottles of hard liquor. In other words: it's not a cure, but it's a start.

The program obviously has its detractors, who accuse it both of enabling alcoholism and of using government money (where the charity that runs the program, called the Rainbow Foundation, gets most of its funding) to dole out beer. But the Rainbow Foundation claims all the beer money comes from its own coffers. Said the organization's director to the Times:

For the government, it is hard to say, "We buy beer for a particular group of people," because other people will say, "I would like some beer, too."

[image via AP]

A teen dad is pissed after spending some $750 on what he thought was an Xbox One console for his four-year-old son, only to receive a photo of an Xbox One instead.

Peter Clatworthy, of Bilborough, England, jumped at the opportunity to purchase an XBox One Day One edition console for £458 from what looked like a reputable eBay seller.

The 19-year-old acknowledges that the item was specifically marketed as a "photo," but says the category it was listed under — video games and consoles — convinced him it was legit.

"I looked at the seller's feedback and there was nothing negative," he told the Nottingham Post. "I bought it there and then because I thought it was a good deal. It's obvious now I've been conned out of my money."

eBay agreed: It has ordered the seller to return the money to Clatworthy by Monday.

Though the Xbox was officially released in the UK and elsewhere on November 22, many have taken to eBay in the hopes of purchasing a Day One edition, which was reserved for first-day buyers.

As a result, eBay has been flooded with scam artists looking to pass off empty boxes as the real deal.

If it makes Clatworthy feel better, the Post reports it had stumbled upon a popular listing for "XBox One Day One edition retail packaging."

At the time of writing, there were 80 bid on the item — the highest being £7,200 ($11755).

[screengrab via Nottingham Post]

By now, you have probably heard of Linda Walther Tirado, aka "Killer Martinis," the Gawker commenter gone viral for her first-person "poverty thoughts." You may have also heard people say she's a privileged full-of-crap grifter. The truth is weirder and far more complex.

Here's what we really knew at the outset: Tirado is married. She has two small children. She lives in Cedar City, Utah, and works as a night cook. In her Kinja post, "Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts"—which was promoted on Jezebel and Gawker—she said she was poor. Like, want-to-make-you-die poor. She claimed to have bad teeth, and unpaid bills, and nonstop work from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m. She suggested she had no bank account, but plenty of roaches crawling across her life. Most important, she had no hope.

It was too visceral. Too awful. Too too, for many readers. And it was read and shared hundreds of thousands of times over.

"I am not asking for sympathy," Tirado wrote. "I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions."

Yet less than a month after publishing her post, she had begun talking about a book deal with an agent, opened a GoFundMe.com account that accepted tens of thousands in donations, and answered questions about her financial status and personal history that only seemed to raise more questions. Critics used her successive and seemingly inconsistent revelations to decry her as the privileged perpetrator of a liberal hoax, profiting off stereotypes about the impoverished.

(I'm not unfamiliar with the criticisms against Tirado, since I came in for a lot of them after my own viral, and admittedly privileged, rant on feeling like a white-collar working poor.)

Tirado demurred when I reached her by phone to ask her about truth of her poverty claims. "I am not able to speak openly at this point," she told me, her voice wavering slightly. "Mostly I need to get everything sorted." I asked if she was in any legal trouble, and she said no, but she'd "been advised not to make any comments to any media right now."

Here are the most salient points in the critics' case against Linda Tirado:

• She went to an "exclusive private school" in her early years, had "private music lessons from the age of four…owned twenty-three instruments" when she was 12, and "toured Europe as a featured soprano" the summer after high school.
• She admits to pissing away cash on smokes and making "a lot of poor financial decisions."
• She wants to turn her kids' room into a forest, "because I own this house and I can." Also, she has a china cabinet, which she wishes her kids would leave alone. (Gawker couldn't find a record indicating home ownership, but it did find 13 different addresses of record for her in West Virginia, Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Utah since 2001. Court records show she and her husband fought an eviction lawsuit in Cincinnati two years ago.)
• She's made some really bad academic decisions and also, that house? She says she's got no mortgage on it.
• She didn't mean to take donations online, it sort of started as a joke, but friends IRL and online ran with it and, well, why not?
• She's taking some of her donated money to go with her husband and best friend for "two nights in Vegas without children. It's gonna be awesome."

None of these—a charmed childhood, free-and-clear home ownership, a Vegas vacation—preclude poverty or invalidate Tirado's story outright, but they certainly raise a chicken-egg question: Does she make bad decisions because she's poor, or is she poor because she makes bad decisions? (Both can be true, of course. And when discussing poverty generally, neither needs to be true.)

The biggest criticism, though, is rooted in her own characteristically overwritten self-description:

How is it that someone with such clarity and evocation has any right to assert that they are poor? It is likely untrue. Well, it is and it isn't. You have to understand that the piece you read was taken out of context, that I never meant to say that all of these things were happening to me right now, or that I was still quite so abject. I am not. I am reasonably normally lower working class. I am exhausted and poor and can't make all my bills all the time but I reconciled with my parents when I got pregnant for the sake of the kids and I have family resources. I can always make the amount of money I need in a month, it's just that it doesn't always match the billing cycles.

It's hard to sympathize with someone whose every successive statement seems to ornament and hedge a previous statement. Timelines get jumbly. Tirado had lived in flophouse hotels and subsisted on frozen burritos, but no longer did. She does spend a lot of time online now, which maybe seems like a not-poor thing to do.

"When people say that I am perhaps not legitimate," she added, "it is maybe sort of true if you mean that when I was at the low points I did not have time for blogs and since I do now I am not at the bottom. That is a true thing."

Tirado's particular combination of details led many people to want to help her. With money. And she said Sure!:

The point is, I did not ask for any of this. I just wrote a thing on a Gawker forum. Everything that has come after is because something about the way I said it has resonated with hundreds of thousands of people. Everything that has come after is magic.

That's not exactly true. She wrote a thing, then emailed a Gawker Media editor asking for it to be shared, which it was. Then she started a Gofundme.com account based on the reaction to her story. That's not magic. That's how plenty of people make money, for good or otherwise.

Ten days ago, on her funding site, Tirado wrote that she would start a nonprofit with the money—after spending a little on her own dental surgery and work—and the sky was the limit: "I am raising the cap to $100,000, and if this insanity doesn't stop and we get there, I will make it $150K."

But the next day, she shut her Go Fund Me page down after raising $62,058, which she said had helped her realize her dream of "health, and a reasonable assurance that if I get the flu I will not miss the rent, and more time with my family." Why the abrupt reversal? And if she owned a home, why would she have to worry about missing the rent?

Those are the most valid criticisms against Tirado. Here are some of the less valid ones:

• One writer, who promotes herself as the author of an online Scottish Terrier newsletter, insists on the relevance of Linda's past as "a lesbian taking on the Mormon church and a feisty fast food franchise manager putting entitled customers in their place."
• A Village Voice Media blogger—who, given her employer's record on writer compensation, is understandably embittered—thinks Tirado is a lying antichrist who can't possibly be poor, because she's "married to a Marine" and "speaks both German and Dutch." GRAVY TRAIN. (Gawker confirmed that Tirado's husband was a Marine, but not that he was on active duty—the only immediate circumstance in which his service might afford her dependent benefits.)
• That blogger also points to Tirado's LinkedIn profile, which identifies her as a freelance writer and Democratic political organizer for four previous campaigns. Because liberal political work is super-profitable in Utah, obviously. Or perhaps the implication there is that because she loves Obamacare, Tirado concocted her story to advance a political agenda. In any case, several of the positions she lists appear to be unpaid, and Gawker located only one possibly related payment in financial disclosures: a single payment of $1,200 to her husband—plus a $37.40 reimbursement for food—for consulting on the campaign of Cynthia Neff, an unsuccessful Virginia statehouse candidate for whom Tirado also worked.

These are all ad hominem charges that weren't really researched by their originators—an epically ironic bit of sloth from writers claiming to debunk another writer's assertions of fact.

But they pale in comparison to the internet's fever-swamp vitriol poured on Tirado—most of it right-wing, much of it encapsulated in the National Review's claim that this alleged fabrication by a "private-school-educated Democratic activist" invalidates the entire liberal mindset on poverty and how to combat it.

(The piece is called "The Left Falls For a Revealing Poverty Hoax," and in it, Harvard-trained randsplainer David French lazily misrepresents Tirado as a purveyor of lies to make his point about the stupidity of progressive compassion for the poor—"We don't serve and strive to help the poor because they're victims of circumstance but because such service echoes the love that Christ showed for us." This from a publication whose ilk urges sympathy for high-six-figure "Henrys"—"high earners, not rich yet"—who are allegedly ground down by work and impoverished by taxes.)

Linda Tirado says she intended to become a voice for the voiceless—someone with a platform to speak about poverty. Has she earned the credibility to do that? It's clear she has a fine, if raw, writing talent and an ability to move many readers with her confessional posts.

But though she says it wasn't her intention, she profited directly from her talents and experiences on a scale that (while understandable) undercuts her own story. She continued to write, and write, and write, to her own detriment—not just for altruistic reasons, and not just for profit, but evidently because she likes to write about herself and her plight. She is meticulous in answering her commenters, good and bad. She definitely craves attention (as writers do), and she has supporters in a safe place online, more than willing to attend to her in exchange for her meandering missives.

But in exploding myths about poverty—that there is only one way to be poor, and that it's to be jobless and hopeless and meek and chastened and probably a minority in the hood someplace who is reluctantly on WIC—she built up her own, sanded the edges a bit around her story, and sold it online. Is it appropriate for media outlets to fill in the holes in her story? Completely. Is she worthy of the Two Minutes Hate, the vitriol-laden political footballery, the "loose lesbian" ad hominems? No one is.

Should you give her money? I wouldn't.

Update: As reflected in the robust comments here, myriad supporters of Linda Tirado on Groupthink take issue with this account. Commenter NYCyclist compiled their issues here. Read them for yourself.

Former South African President and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela has died from complications related to a recurring lung infection. He was 95.

Mandela was elected South Africa's first black president by a near two-thirds margin in 1994, after spending 27 years in prison for his role as a leader in South Africa's anti-apartheid movement. He served as president for five years, until retiring in 1999.

For his part in ending apartheid, Mandela was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom and the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, among many others.

Born in 1918 in a small South African village, Mandela eventually moved to Johannesburg, where in 1942 he joined in the African National Congress, co-founding the group's Youth League in 1944. At the time Mandela was in law school at the University of Witwatersrand, though, in part because of his focus on politics, he failed his third year exams three times and wouldn't practice law until 1953.

His role in the ANC continued to grow throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, helping transform the group from one reliant on petitions to one that relied upon strikes, boycotts and other forms of civil disobedience. While working with the ANC, he met and recruited a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, whom he went on to marry in 1958.

Mandela supported peaceful forms of protest until 1961, when he co-founded the armed division of the ANC, the Umkhonto we Sizwe, or MK, which focused on guerrilla warfare and sabotage, based on Mandela's newfound beliefs that such measures were necessary to end apartheid. That same year, Mandela organized a workers' strike. In 1962, he was arrested for the strike and sentenced to five years in prison. In early 1964, Mandela and 10 other members of the ANC were sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on four charges of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Mandela spent the next 18 years of his life in a prison on Robben Island, confined to a damp, 56-square foot concrete cell when he wasn't forced to smash rocks into gravel or work in a lime quarry. For his first few years in prison, he was banned from reading any newspapers, and was allowed only one visitor and one letter every six months.

In 1982, after nearly two decades in Robben, Mandela and other ANC prisoners were transferred to the maximum security Pollsmoor Prison, where, striking up a friendship with the commanding officer, he was allowed a roof garden and and increased rate of correspondence: one letter a week. He underwent prostate surgery and contracted tuberculosis, while staying politically active as South Africa's anti-apartheid movement battled President P.W. Botha. In 1985, offered a chance at early release, on the condition that he renounce armed struggle, Mandela declined.

At the end of the decade, in a new prison in the southwest where he was given a warder's house and private cook, Mandela earned the law degree he had spent part of three decades studying for. Botha suffered a stroke, and was replaced by F. W. De Klerk, who, realizing that the apartheid system was unsustainable, freed all ANC prisoners except Mandela in 1989, and Mandela himself in February 1990.

Upon his release, Mandela traveled throughout Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, meeting world leaders and giving addresses. The next year, he returned to South Africa, was elected president of the ANC, and entered into a cease fire with the ruling government.

Despite increasing personal strain involving his deteriorating marriage with Winnie, who was put on trial for kidnapping and and assault, and violence between ANC supporters and other political parties—much of it, he suspected, promoted by the state—Mandela pushed through negotiations for free and democratic elections with De Klerk. After three years of talks, spurred on by the Bisho massacre, the pair agreed to a new, interim constitution and free democratic elections.

Despite the best efforts of violent ethnic separatists, and over the fears of South Africa's white media, the elections were held in April 1994. With 62 percent of the vote, the ANC—banned from the previous election—now controlled parliament and nearly enough votes to change the constitution.

Mandela remained in office for five years, creating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to push for national reconciliation without alienating the wealthy white elite, increasing spending on aid and development programs in an attempt to bring parity to black and white communities. After his retirement in 1999—Mandela, aged 81, had never planned to run for a second term—he focused on charity and aid work, in particular HIV/AIDS activism.

Mandela had divorced Winnie in 1995, and in 1998 married Mozambican politican Graça Machel. He fathered six children, and is survived by his wife, Graca, and three of his children.

To contact the author of this post, email taylor@gawker.com

There's a new development in the ongoing saga of discredited restaurant server Dayna Morales: It seems the woman who falsely claimed she received an anti-gay "tip" from two patrons never donated the money she received from supporters to help wounded vets like she promised.

In the immediate aftermath of Morales's anti-gay allegations against a New Jersey couple who dined in her section at the Gallop Asian Bistro, many supporters began showing up at the restaurant with "monetary contributions."

Within a few days, Morales had racked up over $2,000 in donations, but told NJ.com she planned to forward it all to the Wounded Warrior Project.

But an investigation by Bridgewater Patch discovered that, as of today, no donations to the nonprofit have been made in Morales's name, nor were any donations made from any ZIP codes in the Bridgewater area.

This wouldn't be the first lie Morales ever told.

In fact, friends have since described Morales as a compulsive liar, and say she made up stories about having brain cancer and claimed her home was damaged during Sandy.

According to a Marines spokesman, Morales also never served in Afghanistan despite claiming she was the sole survivor of an explosion that took out her entire platoon.

Moreover, she was dishonorably discharged for missing drills.

The Gallop Asian Bistro had said it suspended Morales, but it's unclear if she has since had her employment permanently terminated.

[screengrab via NBC New York]

It's not entirely clear how Mark Ruffalo's amazing anecdote about accidentally smoking pot on stage slipped through the Internet's cracks the first time around, but, luckily, it's being given a second chance to make your day so much better.

Appearing on the Graham Norton Show last year, Ruffalo casually let drop this hilarious tidbit: A fellow actor once pranked him into smoking a joint in front of a live audience during the opening night of a play.

"There was a play that I did where I smoked a joint in the first scene," Ruffalo tells Norton. "And of course there was a very naughty young actor that I was in the play with who, on the opening night with all of the critics, he slipped a real joint onto the prop table."

The story itself is enough to give you a contact high, but the way Ruffalo tells is nothing short of Oscar-worthy.

[H/T: Vanity Fair]

It was announced yesterday that Israeli actress Gal Gadot would be taking on the role that feminists and fanboys oft-speculate on: Wonder Woman. Immediately, the internet erupted with two reactions—"Who?" followed quickly by "She's too skinny to play Wonder Woman." And so begins yet another cycle of outcry over a no-name being cast as a beloved superhero. But is casting someone with little to no fan following really such a gaffe?

Marvel has achieved a fair amount of success in casting relative unknowns in screen adaptations of their comic book successes—Hugh Jackman had just two minor film roles before being cast as Wolverine in the 2000 release of X-Men, which would go on to launch Jackman's career as a leading man and spawn five more films, with a sixth currently on the way. Similarly, Marvel "rolled the dice" according to Vulture, when casting Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston in Thor, and passing over stars with name-recognition, like Josh Hartnett and Shia Labeouf. Both Thor and its sequel Thor: The Dark World have been box office successes, and pleased both discerning movie critics and fanboys and fangirls alike. It was Hiddleston's panache at making Loki enchanting and hateable in the same breath, coupled with some active campaigning, that made his character such a focal point of both The Avengers and Thor: Dark World.

The curse of expectations can cripple a comic book-based film well before a single frame is shot. Comic book fans—the really hardcore ones that wait with bated breath for even a morsel of information from their beloved fictional universes—are difficult to please, and rightly so. Their vividly color printed worlds are far richer than a two hour film could do justice to, and have existed for far longer than any hype or notoriety surrounding a film might. By casting someone who doesn't already have box office bankability, producers and studios are paying an homage to both the fans and the character being adapted, by letting the story and the superhero take center stage.

As seen with the backlash around the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman, when an actor with considerable fame is put into an iconic role, it becomes immensely hard to separate the actor's public persona and previous performances from the new role. The idea of seeing freewheeling, wisecracking Affleck, who bombed in his last superhero turn Daredevil, take on the brooding hero played to previous perfection by Christian Bale was a choice that's been met with almost universal derision. It's the same reason that despite rumors to the contrary, Johnny Depp would not have been a good choice to play The Riddler in The Dark Knight—no matter what he could bring to the character, it's still hard to separate that Depp is far more than just boozy Captain Jack Sparrow these days.

For studios, casting a big name is usually a measure to ensure profitablity of a film (or at the very least, return on investment). With comic book film franchises, the audience is already built in. No matter how much vitriol the Twitterverse chooses to heap onto Affleck, you better believe Batman fans will be lining up in droves regardless, to see if he was able to do the character justice. Be it excitement or hate watching, the audience is already strongly built into this world, which lessens the pressure on a studio to cast someone that can pull in a crowd.

There are obvious exceptions to the suggestion: Robert Downey Jr. breathed life into an Iron Man franchise that could have been a spectacular failure, though on the flip side, at that point in his career no one was expecting much from Downey to begin with, so the curse of expectations was far lowered than it was for Affleck. Christian Bale was already well-respected before bringing his considerable gifts to the Dark Knight Trilogy. By and large, however, superhero roles have boosted the career of an actor, rather than the career of an actor boosting the role and box office earnings. By casting an unknown, a superhero film is able to take on a life of its own, rather than a life already dogeared by someone famous donning a spandex suit.

[Art by Sam Woolley]

A Florida woman inadvertently killed her boyfriend when she "playfully" shot him with a gun she wasn't aware had been loaded.

Justin Holt, 22, and his girlfriend Erin Steele, 20, were visiting a friend this past Sunday when another friend arrived with a pistol that was passed around the group.

Authorities in Boca Raton say the four had spent the day "dry firing" the empty gun at each other before moving on to other things.

At some point, the gun's owner, Joshua Henry, loaded the gun and set it on a counter.

Steele, unaware the gun had been loaded by Henry, picked it up and resumed the "game" by pointing the weapon at Holt's chest and firing it.

Holt was rushed to the Delray Medical Center around 11 p.m., but was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

Holt's family, who knew Steele well, called the incident and accident and said they did not harbor ill-will towards her.

"We have a lot of compassion for her because she's got to live with that, no matter what she does, for the rest of her life," Holt's grandfather told the Sun-Sentinel.

Police have yet to charge anyone with a crime, but their investigation continues.

[photos via Shutterstock, Sun-Sentinel]

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Walmart replaced its CEO two weeks ago and has been paying the attorney's fees for thirty senior executives who are under investigation by the Department of Justice after the company was accused of making a $24 million bribe in Mexico.

The executives are being investigated as part of a larger corruption probe. Authorities believe Walmart paid bribes to get permits that would allow them to build stores. The government says Walmart bribed its way into Mexico, Brazil, China and India.

In addition to funding attorneys for all of the executives under scrutiny, Walmart also retained at least three law firms for itself as part of an internal probe.

According to Reuters, Walmart has spent at least $300 million in legal fees so far.

And in late November, Walmart CEO Mike Duke was replaced with Doug McMillon. A New York Times article last year exposed the company's bribery, and emails released by the government suggest Duke was aware of and approved of the tactics.

[image via Shutterstock]

In an uncharacteristically upbeat interview with Rolling Stone, former Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher shared his thoughts on Kanye West (love), Miley Cyrus (hate), hypochondria (have), and his dog-shit year. It was cantankerous, insightful, and f0r grouchy Gallagher, the most holiday spirit we may ever see from him.

Despite his penchant for familial fisticuffs, as always, Gallagher's best jabs come at the expense of other artists, and as always, they are nothing short of gems. He loves very few things, though fiercely, and everything else is basically as dog-shit as his year was.

On David Bowie's new album:

I thought at the time, and I still think now, that it's a fucking masterpiece. I love it. Nobody has the right to be that fucking good at this point in their career. Apart from Neil Young, all of the people that are in his league are basically fucking shit.

On Kanye West:

I'm not really a fan of his or anything like that. I don't really like that kind of modern hip-hop, whatever you call it. But somebody told me to watch this interview he did in England [with BBC DJ Zane Lowe], so I watched it, and I thought it was one of the best interviews I've ever seen. I fuckin' loved it! Especially the bit about the leather jogging pants or whatever he's going on about, fucking claiming he invented them.

On Robin Thicke:

It sounded good on the radio. Got a bit annoying after the five millionth time you've heard it. I think he's going to be a one-hit wonder, surely. It'll be like that guy who's done "Gangnam Style" – we'll never hear from him again.

On Miley Cyrus (who he inexplicably thinks is named Miley Ray Cyrus):

She was on TV recently, Miley Ray Cyrus, and it was just like, "What the fuck is all this about?" I don't know. It's a shame, because it puts all the other female artists back about fucking five years. Now, Adele and Emili Sande – that music, to me, is like music for fucking grannies, but at least it's got some kind of credibility.

On Lady Gaga, and defecation:

Lady Gaga for me is all about that first album, because my daughter and my wife loved it. I've never heard of her since. What does that say? That speaks volumes, to me. She's another one. In fact, she's probably doing a shit on top of a boiled egg right now. And somebody will fucking freeze it and call it art.

On Arcade Fire's double album:

I haven't heard it. Anybody that comes back with a double album, to me, needs to pry themselves out of their own asshole. This is not the Seventies, okay? Go and ask Billy Corgan about a double album. Who has the fucking time, in 2013, to sit through 45 minutes of a single album?

On hearing that David Bowie sang backup for Arcade Fire:

Oh, that's a shame.

Noel Gallagher wishes you all a very happy holidays.

[It's feel-good holiday time, but first let's scare the crap out of some kids. In this photo, Austrians in Neustift im Stubaital dress up as Krampus, a part-goat, horned demon creature who rewards good children and punishes the naughty ones. Photo by Sean Gallup via Getty.]

When the director of a Texas hospital found out that her radiologist husband was cheating on her with a fellow radiologist, she apparently lost it, telling the other woman that she would "dislocate her vagina," before breaking into her house, where she scattered condoms and wrote messages on a bathroom mirror in red lipstick.

Forty-two-year old Angela Siler-Fisher was the medical director of the Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston and a teacher at the Baylor College of Medicine, where her husband Brandon is a radiologist.

On Sunday, Siler-Fisher apparently found out her husband had been cheating on her with a co-worker, radiologist Marcelle Mallery. It did not go over well.

According to the complaint, Siler-Fisher's husband called Mallery to warn her. Mallery was scared, so she took her children and left the house. At some point Siler-Fisher called Mallery, telling her she was "going to beat her fucking ass whore," and "dislocate her vagina."

Then, according to security footage, Siler-Fisher kicked in a doggy door at Mallery's house and broke in. Once inside, she texted Mallery a photograph of Mallery's bedroom and wrote "Whore" and "Homewrecker" on the woman's bathroom mirror in red lipstick.

According to the Smoking Gun, Siler-Fisher also left condoms on each step on a stairway inside the home.

[image via Shutterstock]

Yesterday NASA released this crazy GIF of a storm on Saturn where air streams move at more than 200 miles an hour. It's the only weather system of its kind in our solar system.

The image shows six-sided jet stream, known as a hexagon, located on the north pole of Saturn. It's also the highest resolution imaging of the storm that NASA's ever made. It was captured from the Cassini spacecraft.