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Protestors Claim They Vandalized Google's Frank Gehry-Designed Office

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Protestors Claim They Vandalized Google's Frank Gehry-Designed Office

Protestors claiming to part of an anarchist collective called the Counterforce say that they vandalized Google's office in Venice, California, which is located inside the Frank Gehry-designed Binoculars Building. "On the full moon of May, 14, 2014, during an unusual heat spell, a Counterforce group threw paint at the entrance," according to a post on IndyBay.

I've reached out to Google to confirm the vandalism and asked the tipster for some photos as proof that the event occurred. In the post, the vandalism is described as art:

It was amusing to see Google employees emerge from the front doors of the building and see paint exploding all around them. When they looked up at the sky, all they found was the yellow moon staring back at them. It is highly likely that the cretins at Google have erased this street art, so it is important that you learn a few things about Google before going to visit the new artistic expressions of The Counterforce.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighly. Like all things Counterforce, their motivation and goals remain hazy at best. Only where their San Francisco counterparts blamed Google for the housing crisis/everything, the Los Angeles unit is more concerned with climate change.

While they code away inside the Venice offices, the rest of the metropolis bakes away under the overbearing sunshine. If May is this hot, the summer is going to be dangerous. Climate change is not happening apparently, especially inside the cool employee cafes and food troughs on the Venice offices, where a beautiful and rewarding capitalist life with AC proceeds apace. At night, the streets surrounding this tech compound are filled with homeless people in tents or covered in sleeping bags, waiting for the next precarious day of hustling and avoiding the police and hopefully finding free food that will not slowly kill them. But inside the compound, climate change is not happening. Everything is just perfect!

Other Counterforce groups have used pseudonyms borrowed from historical figures with some anarchist tie-in. The IndyBay poster lazily opts for "Thomas Pynchon"—the author from whom the group got its name—and opens with a quote from The Doors. It's not uncertain whether the poster has ever read any Pynchon, but he or she does use an impassioned Hunger Games reference.

But this is Los Angeles, isn't it? The place where a person can slowly rot without knowing it. It has always had more than its fair share of insulated rich people living an absolutely unjustified and decadent lifestyle similar to the residents of the Capitol in the Hunger Games stories. For those of you who have no idea what is being referred to, let the word Hollywood suffice to explain a world of excess, greed, and illusion.

Don't quit your day job unless your day job is screenwriting.

Update: Paint "exploding all around them" may have been wishful thinking. We heard the only lingering evidence is some drips of yellow paint on the sidewalk.

To contact the author of the post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Image via marinachetner.com.]


Deadspin The Man Who Helped Bring Down Donald Sterling Is An Asshole, Too | Gizmodo Is It Scientific

Teenagers Decide to Test out a Bulletproof Vest, What Could Go Wrong?

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Teenagers Decide to Test out a Bulletproof Vest, What Could Go Wrong?

A teenage girl is facing jail time after she shot at a friend wearing a bulletproof vest—and missed.

Police say 18-year-old Taylor Ann Kelly could spend up to five years in jail after she fatally shot 26-year-old Blake Wardell, who apparently asked her to help him test out a new Kevlar vest.

Police say they had been hanging out with friends in a garage when Wardell came up with the ill-fated plan to have Kelly shoot at him with a small-caliber weapon.

According to FOX, Wardell bled to death when the bullet struck him in an unprotected chest area of the vest. Other friends present at the scene apparently tried to give him CPR to no avail and medical workers were unable to revive him.

A deputy coroner told reporters that there did not appear to be excessive alcohol or drug abuse involved in the shooting.

Kelly faces up to five years in jail for involuntary manslaughter.

This Paramedic Is Having More Fun Driving Than You Ever Will

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This paramedic driving around in an ambulance may not be the picture of safe driving, but he sure does know how to vogue.

It's not clear exactly where in the nethers of the internet this video came from, but the anonymous EMT did manage to secure the most difficult endorsement of all—Rihanna's.

This Paramedic Is Having More Fun Driving Than You Ever Will

[h/t Digg]

​Let's Talk About Thursday Night TV

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​Let's Talk About Thursday Night TV

On any given Thursday in May, everything is ending. When I was a kid I always got really creeped out during finale/sweeps season—because I didn't know what that was—so it just seemed like all signs were pointin' toward the Apocalypse. Tonight, there are a lot of things that may well signify the End of Days, but if they do it's not because of some programming slate somewhere.

At 8/7c you've got the Big Bang Theory finale on CBS, in which Leonard and Sheldon finally do it. Over on E! there's a whole special on the Secret Societies of Hollywood, presumably in very timely reference to the Bryan Singer catamite scandal. And then too, the Vampire Diaries finale, which we'll talk about tomorrow but which I'm given to understand will involve Competence Incarnate Bonnie Bennett stopping the Apocalypse of every ghost getting sucked into outer space, a thing that is now regularly happening on that show.

9/8 gives us American Idol's final two lambs to the slaughter, as well as the (sexy?) conclusion of NBC's weird little Rosemary's Baby rehash and the Reign finale, in which Toby Regbo does his Toby-Regbest to make me feel like I have a case of the Bryan Singers my own self; if you are into actual weird things then I would suggest either Unsealed Alien Files: Human Harvest (DA), which is about the science of harvesting humans, or else Dates From Hell: Long Kiss Goodnight on ID. (Or you could just watch the actual brilliant movie The Long Kiss Goodnight and save yourself the trouble.)

At 10/9 you've got Black Box on ABC—in which we are reminded, as every week, what the "M" in MPDG stands for—or the Elementary finale on CBS, or probably The Challenge on MTV, which is apparently America's best-kept secret because everybody I know suddenly has a million opinions about it. (My one opinion: Remember Baloo? She was in it to win it. That's all I got.) And then if you are still wakeful, I would recommend the Loiter Squad premiere on Adult Swim at midnight, due to: It is based.

How about you? Consider this an open thread to talk about whatever you're watching. Check for a subthread before starting one, just to keep it tight, if you would.

[Image via NBC]

Naked Couple Busted Having Very Public Sex Next to an ATM

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Naked Couple Busted Having Very Public Sex Next to an ATM

Well that's one way to make a deposit.

A Spanish couple was busted in flagranti next to a cash machine in Oviedo this week, but not before a large cheering crowd gathered outside the bank.

Naked but for their socks, the couple's copulation quickly went viral as passersby posted photos and videos to Twitter. Although the windows apparently began to steam up, voyeurs were still able to take extremely explicit selfies with the naked duo in the background.

Unfortunately the cops came before the couple did, but the Sun reports they got off with just a warning and a very public walk of shame.

Naked Couple Busted Having Very Public Sex Next to an ATM

Naked Couple Busted Having Very Public Sex Next to an ATM

[h/t Tomuban]

Last year book royalties netted the Obama family between $100,000 and $200,000 in income.

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Last year book royalties netted the Obama family between $100,000 and $200,000 in income. Vice President Biden's 2007 memoir, on the other hand, pulled in a grand total of $201.

An addition to today's Michael Alig profile in the New York Times: "An earlier version of this artic


Jennifer Lawrence Embarassed Herself in Front of JLo

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Jennifer Lawrence was not so happy with Jimmy Fallon after he ditched her in front of JLo at a recent party.

Lawrence recounted the story during a Tonight Show appearance with Fallon on Thursday. Apparently the pair were out at a party, had a few too many jello shots, and decided they were going to ask JLo to dance with them.

But just asking was too basic, so they came up with the perfect plan—an elaborate dance routine that would land them directly in front of JLo, one hand outstretched. Except Fallon bailed mid-dance. Lawrence, completely unaware, apparently went through with it.

Later on in the show, they also played a rousing game of "Box of Lies," eliciting more than a few groan-worthy jokes and ultimately cementing the world's deep-seated need for a Jennifer Lawrence/Jimmy Fallon international tour.

Couple Who Stole Luggage During Asiana Flight Crash Are Going to Jail

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Couple Who Stole Luggage During Asiana Flight Crash Are Going to Jail

Two airport employees who used the confusion of the Asiana Airlines crash last summer as an opportunity to steal luggage from airline passengers are now headed to jail.

Sean Sharif Crudup, 44, and his fiancée Raychas Elizabeth Thomas, 32, were both working for United at the San Francisco International Airport when the Asiana Flight 214 crashed on the runway, leaving three dead and 180 injured.

As other airport employees raced to help—some doing more harm than good—Crudup and Thomas took advantage of the melee to steal thousands of dollars worth of luggage from diverted passengers.

According to court testimony, Crudup was captured on an airport surveillance tape removing a suitcase from the airport baggage office.

The victim's luggage apparently contained several pieces of jewelry and clothes worth about $30,000—some of which Thomas somehow managed to sell back to Nordstrom for around $5,000. The remaining items were recovered during a search of the couple's home.

Crudup was sentenced to nine months in jail and Thomas picked up a six-month sentence this week. The couple is also facing up to three years of probation and $5,800 in restitution to Nordstrom.

Satanic Helicopter Parenting in the Conclusion of Rosemary's Baby

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Satanic Helicopter Parenting in the Conclusion of Rosemary's Baby

The second night of NBC's version of Satanist feel-good classic Rosemary's Baby was even more entertaining than the first. The pixie cut! Julie's sparkle-filter cross! Le trahison d'un chat noir, mes amis! And an ending even happier than the original.

NBC's foray into the occult sunsets on a shot of Rosemary strolling along the Seine in head-to-toe Dior looking like a sexy Cruella DeVille with an antique carriage and a baby who has eyes like blue popsicles. Is she even technically damned? She's not doing anything wrong: she's just loving that baby. Nothing wrong with that!

There is a lot about the original Rosemary's Baby that's kind of "aged out" of being as frightening: the prenatal imaging process is now fantastic, from what I hear. But science has given us no advantage over our biology, and everyone who's cranked one out swears that parental love will act on you like a body-snatching alien when you see that baby.

Even if that baby was the Antichrist and was going to reap fire from the fields and bodies from the rivers, you'd take one look at their face and be like "That's my boy, my own sweet little pumpkin waffle. No BPA plastics around him, please."

While that's rationally unsettling, it's still a comforting, even heroic message. Moms are ride or die for their kids. Love is real. Rosemary is like the John McClane of undying maternal love. She didn't ask for this mess but now that she's in it she's going to see it through all the way, Yipee-Ki-Yay-Motherfucker/Non, je ne regrette rien.

I mean, what's more hardcore than finding your baby via following the wet spots from your spontaneous lactation? Just as Toucan Sam follows his nose, Rosemary followed the wet patches on her Brook's Brothers blouse to the Satanist baby shower going on next door and then engaged in some very ecstatic breastfeeding, reacting not unlike a delirious drifter about to topple from a bus stop after a zesty night of meth tasting.

(Also: not showing the baby in the original was way way way more horrific. The baby we got to see for NBC's version was absolutely precious. That baby looked up at the camera and my ovaries burst out into applause.)

Of course the minutes leading up to this fairy tale ending were sort of an endurance run of pathos and human agony. From the moment Julie died in that horrible white Crocs/hot oil Cordon Bleu kitchen accident Zoe ratcheted the feels up to a 10 and stayed there. She. Was. Devastated.

But that left her no where to go in the ensuing 45 or so minutes. I mean she tried to bring it up to an 11, a 12, but at a certain point you have shrieked as hard as you can shriek. Audio levels on editing software eventually top out, my dears. Ultimately she was holding a knife over her baby contemplating righteous infanticide with the same exact expression as when the Paris police commissioner got plowed under by a snazzy French garbage truck.

This isn't an acting issue, this is a directing issue. No one can fault Zoe Saldana, who left it all out on the field and probably went through a flat of Throat Coat tea in this emotionally and physically exhausting role. The director should have been like "Hey, maybe save some of that amazing stuff for after you find the haunted doll shop behind the closet."

Ultimately I went into NBC's Rosemary's Baby wondering how they would compensate for the agency women have attained since the 60's, my blind spot—and perhaps their blind spot—was the current contemporary struggle, which is a financial one. Can we really watch Rosemary bring a baby into a perfect apartment, surrounded by adoring millionaire godparents, her kid's every need taken care of, and feel horror?

Obviously there's an underlying message about the seduction of the Devil and worldly gains, and for the record I'd generally avoid becoming enthralled with Satan or his earthly manifestation, the Whole Foods Hot Bar. But even without the supernatural element the original was a horrifying story. Excise the supernatural from NBC's version and you've got non-stop wish fulfillment: excellent prenatal health care, an apparently painless birth, an adorable healthy baby to bundle up into an antique Parisian stroller. Times are too hard for this to really be frightening, and Satanism is nowhere near as destructive as the actual hijinks some richies get up to.

[Image via NBC]

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Judge Grants Mom an Emergency Order to Protect 3-Year-Old's Foreskin

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Judge Grants Mom an Emergency Order to Protect 3-Year-Old's Foreskin

Heather Hironimus and Dennis Nebus had a son, Chase, in 2010. In 2012, they signed a parenting agreement which said, among other things, that the father would be responsible for scheduling and paying for Chase's circumcision.

Fast forward to this past Wednesday, when a Florida appeals court granted Hironimus, who has changed her mind about circumcision, an emergency order to stop the removal of her son's foreskin. A lower court had ordered the circumcision could go ahead after hearing testimony from a pediatric urologist.

Judge Jeffrey Gillen last week ruled that enforcing the parenting agreement would be in the best interest of Chase, now 3, although the urologist testified he wouldn't recommend it at Chase's age.

However, the doctor also pointed out (according to Judge Gillen) that circumcised men don't get penile cancer and that circumcision lowers the risk of AIDS—both debatable claims, but not entirely inaccurate—which convinced the judge the circumcision was the right choice for the boy.

The case became a rallying point for anti-circumcision activists, who feel boys are being robbed of their foreskins with no say and no medical benefit.

Chase's mom, a self-described "intactivist," appealed the ruling with her attorney, as "neither of us believe it should be a decision left to anyone other than Chase, who is 3 1/2 and fully aware."

She also started an online fundraiser to "help me save my son, his foreskin, his rights and hopefully other children from allowing the 'system' to make these decisions," and a group called Intact Florida was reportedly planning a protest to support her.

Nebus, the father, hasn't publicly commented on either the initial ruling or the appeal.

[H/T Daily Mail]

Zen Koans Explained: "Teaching the Ultimate"

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Zen Koans Explained: "Teaching the Ultimate"

"Zen." Roll the world over in your mouth. "Zzzzennnn." Do you taste it? I can, but I spent years practicing that. Years. Don't expect to get there on the first day.

The koan: "Teaching the Ultimate"

In early times in Japan, bamboo-and-paper lanterns were used with candles inside. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry home with him.

"I do not need a lantern," he said. "Darkness or light is all the same to me."

"I know you do not need a lantern to find your way," his friend replied, "but if you don't have one, someone else may run into you. So you must take it."

The blind man started off with the lantern and before he had walked very far someone ran squarely into him.

"Look out where you are going!" he exclaimed to the stranger. "Can't you see this lantern?"

"Your candle has burned out, brother," replied the stranger.

The enlightenment: "Are you really my brother?" asked the blind man.

"No," the stranger replied. "I just said 'brother' in the slang sense, you know, like a nice term of affection. I'm just being nice, I'm not actually your biological brother."

"I know, idiot—I would have recognized your voice," said the blind man, witheringly. "It was a trick question to measure your level of callousness towards the blind."

The blind man's brother, who'd gotten voice alteration surgery along with full facial reconstruction and colored contact lenses years earlier when he became a fugitive, gulped. That was close.

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." Like candy cane.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

Jimmy Kimmel and Iggy Azalea Translate "Fancy" Lyrics for Old People

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Before performing her Top 5 hit "Fancy" on last night's Jimmy Kimmel Live, Australian rapper/drag queen Iggy Azalea helped prep the squares in Kimmel's audience by rephrasing the lyrics of the song's first verse and hook. Her in-between accent as she recites (but doesn't quite rap) her lyrics is utterly bizarre, and Kimmel's translations are for the most part hilarious.

Best one: "Cup of Ace, cup of Goose, cup of Cris" gets translated to, "I have a drinking problem."

A woman is evacuated from her home in Obrenovac, a town 18 miles southwest of Belgrade, Serbia, on F

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A woman is evacuated from her home in Obrenovac, a town 18 miles southwest of Belgrade, Serbia, on Friday. Serbian authorities are considering full evacuation of Obrenovac, inhabited by roughly 25,000 people, as the local rivers have flooded most of the town's residential areas. Image via Marko Drobnjakovic/AP.


Mariah Carey debuted disco throwback song "You Don't Know What To Do" (from Me.

Beagles Experience Sunshine, Grass For First Time

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One might imagine the inescapable joy, but also terror, of experiencing sunshine and grass for the first time. One might also imagine that joy multiplying many times over if you happen to be a beagle.

The beagles in the above video were let out into a yard full of all the delights of a yard—grass, plants, more grass, OTHER BEAGLES—by Beagle Freedom Project, a non-profit that finds homes for beagles who spent their lives in research labs across America.

While cute, this video also makes a pretty good argument for not using dogs as test subjects!

[via The Dodo]

Missing Woman Found Dead After Being Buried Alive by Landscaper: Cops

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Missing Woman Found Dead After Being Buried Alive by Landscaper: Cops

The body of a missing New Jersey woman was found Wednesday in a shallow grave, where police say she was buried alive by her landscaper and another man.

Fatima Perez was first reported missing Monday afternoon. Relatives told police Perez left her Camden home that morning with $8,000 in cash to buy a new car*. Carlos Alicea-Antonetti, a landscaper who worked for Perez's family, had reportedly agreed to drive her to pick up the car.

Two days later, Perez's body was found buried about 20 miles from her home. An autopsy revealed that she died of asphyxiation, and police said her mouth and eyes were covered with duct tape before she was buried.

On Thursday, Alicea-Antonetti and his alleged accomplice, Ramon Ortiz, were indicted on charges of first degree murder. Both reportedly confessed during their interviews with police.

From Alicea-Antonetti's statement, via the South Jersey Times:

He picked up Perez that morning in a van near her home to take her to buy the vehicle. They began arguing, and Perez fell out of the van, injuring herself. But she got back into the vehicle.

Alicea-Antonetti then picked up Ortiz while the victim lay in the back of the van. Both men tied her up and eventually placed duct tape over her mouth and eyes.

They drove southbound to a wooded area, where Ortiz began to dig a hole. The men put Perez in the hole, alive, poured lime on her and buried her. They tried to camouflage the grave with branches and debris.

And from Ortiz's statement:

Alicea-Antonetti picked him up at 1115 North 23rd Street in Camden, where Ortiz was cutting grass. He entered the van but did not realize at first that Perez was in the back because she was tied up and lying on the floor.

He noticed her only when she began to make a noise. She asked Ortiz to help her. But Alicea-Antonetti drove southbound, down Route 42 to the Black Horse Pike.

At some point, Alicea-Antonetti pulled off the roadway. Ortiz took a shovel from the van and dug the grave, as his boss directed him. Alive, Perez was covered with lime and buried.

Both are being held on $5 million bail on charges of first degree murder.

[Image via AP]

Cristina Yang Saves The World, on Grey's Anatomy

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Cristina Yang Saves The World, on Grey's Anatomy

Against the backdrop of a disaster that is capricious as it is confusing, Yang's oft-promised farewell—how can we miss you if you never leave?—was, appropriately, back-burnered in different (and poignant) ways for each of the other characters in her immediate orbit.

Meredith accepts the job early on of strong-arming her ass out the door, once she sees what Cristina Panic looks like (it looks like Cristina but times a thousand, like she is taskin' hard on a handful of Adderall while having a megalomaniac psychotic break), which is delightful: "Whattayou need, a fuckin' I love you? Fine. I LOVE YOU." And then she not-quite-cries as the taxi pulls away.

Of course, Cristina can't really leave until they revisit the entire ten years of this show's history, so she runs back so they can "dance it out" to Tegan & Sara, "you're my person" it up for a bit, and discuss how the Fab Five are always and forever unfinished: George got gay-bashed to death by that bus, Izzy's melanoma renegotiated her right out of a job, and so forth. And in a way, I guess that's why—even though the Big Money was on Mer/Yang being the tearjerker of the night—I found myself less destroyed by it than the rest of her goodbyes: They are unfinished. They will always be what they are.

Their love has always been nonverbal, physical—sweaty, like a toddler waking up in the middle of the night and crawling into bed with you. They recognized each other the first time their eyes met, with Yang on that motorcycle and Meredith having the worst in a series of dark and twisty days. That doesn't ever stop, even if it sometimes changed. So as mortifying as I usually find the dancing interludes on this show, they are also saying something very true, and something that's hard for Ravenclaws like us to swallow: There are many, many ways to love each other. Words are just one.

You may know that I am obsessed with the politics and mythology of place on the show: It's one of the first things I bring up when furiously backpeddling to explain why I'm so passionate about the show, even ten years on. You emotionally know what will happen on the Bridge, you know what will happen in the Back Hallway and Back Alley, you know what happens in God's Own Vent Room: Grey-Sloan Memorial has many hearts.

And so—just as, in unrelated news, Meredith and Amelia McDreamy discuss their passion for surgery, cementing their new situation as "almost friends"—you know the Bridge is a place for deep decision-making, life-scuttling, set-it-on-fire choices are made. It's where Izzy quit, in her beautiful Prom gown; it's where Chris O'Donnell and Derek Shepherd whistled for Meredith like a dog. And of course, it's where Cristina says her rough and sweet goodbyes to Webber and Bailey, with Meredith tapping her foot as her designated GTFO partner. It's also where Shane abruptly quits the hospital to follow her to Switzerland, which is a graceful exit for his character as well. May you live on to kill many people by accident, Smash, in your new home.

Out in the ER, Cristina gives Derek a calm goodbye that somehow gets to the heart of their many beefs/Team Meredith alliance, and their embrace is surprisingly touching for its very unlikelihood. While we see bits and pieces of similar chilled-out goodbyes, though, the last two are very moving indeed. One is no surprise, but the other took my breath away more than once.

Owing to the Event of the episode—a Boston-Marathon disaster with a supposed dirty bomb that turns out to be a regular bomb that eventually proves to be no bomb at all, which is a great metaphor for the way this show conflates personal tragedy with world-ending tragedy and vice versa—Owen spends the episode constantly one step behind Cristina, seeing her in every curly-haired intern across every crowd, terrified that she has been blown up and desperate to make a Big Romantic Scene. Their relationship this year, to me, is the best it's ever been, and it seems like even Owen has finally gotten the memo on what Cristina's actually about.

When she finally appears to him from the Gallery, Owen's so caught up in an emergency surgery that he splits in two, one in Trauma Surg mode and the other half falling apart. Since he arrived, he's been chasing a Cristina that was half a phantom, of course; but then too, a silent goodbye through glass seems somehow perfect to help heal them both. (He also has a tremendous Hero Chief moment in which he takes the fourth estate to task for drumming up chaos simply because terrorism is fun to watch on the news, setting the tone hopefully for a more revolutionary turn as Chief next year.)

But the absolute killer—out of nowhere!—has to be Cristina's intense series of goodbyes to, of all people, Alex Karev. First during a shared surgery, in which she takes him to task for entering private practice and in the process unloads ten seasons' worth of praise for his technique, his skill, and even his character. That killed me. Then, she makes Meredith solemnly promise to watch out for Alex in particular—on the way to cautioning her against letting Derek pull a Burke and drag her to DC, which has huge consequences down the road—but she's not finished: In one of the last scenes of the year, we learn that she has secretly gifted Alex with her millionaire's shares in Grey-Sloan, meaning that he'll never have to bust ass on buttholes ever again and can return to the babies, and the Arizona, he loves the most.

It also seems to mean that he'll get a seat on the Board, but I don't know if that contradicts or conflicts with another hugely touching moment, in which Webber sends Bailey (privately) over the moon by offering her a spot as well. It was touched on, lightly, throughout the season—this idea that Bailey feels hamstrung by not being lucky enough to have crashed in a plane and thus become the boss of things—so I hope that works out, because she is exactly what the Board needs. But a Bailey/Karev fight for newbie power also sounds very intense, so either way.

April is finally telling people about the baby, but in the first half of the episode when the event seems like a terrorist bombing, she goes full-Kepner about it, freaking out to (of all goddamn people) her mother-in-law about bringing a baby into this fraught world. But Dr. Avery is no fool, and certainly no asshole whatever Webber thinks about her right now, so instead of going the harsh way another authority on this show might do, she calms that girl down like she's fully internalized April as her daughter, promising—by way of a painful story about growing up in the South—that the only way the world changes is by good people raising their babies right.

There's something neat about April taking this wisdom back to Jackson without confirming that he's right about where it came from: I don't like dealmaking behind family's backs, but I do know April has a long row to hoe when it comes to that family—and she seems appropriately grateful for the counsel, above and beyond its exquisite kindness. In an episode of tears and constant running around, how crazy is it that April Kepner and Catherine Avery provided the stillest, brightest, most compassionate point?

Also taking part in the big bomb-that's-not-a-bomb is my beloved Leah, back for one more helpful spin through the ER—including a fairly gross but mostly fascinating moment where she, Shane adoringly looking on, pops a dude's eye back in his head. While I haven't been a huge fan of the dopey cover-song score this year (The OC did it better in their fourth season), when it works—two or three times an episode—it friggin' works. (And will never be as humiliating as the white-people funk that plays every time the Associates of Olivia Pope are dorking out at their most smug.) Versions of both "Ruby Blue" and "Take On Me" were used in pretty lovely, haunting ways this week, and the juxtaposition of Leah's easy-breezy, self-respecting exit with Cristina's yelpy, paralyzed sudden-terror response was heightened all the more by the tone the music set.

And finally, we see the results of Cristina's abortive search for a new Cardio Chief, as my favorite supporting castmember from Emily Owens M.D., Kelly McCreary as Maggie Pierce, shows up having been hired two weeks ago. While her first day is considerably dampened—by the chaos of the big ersatz terrorism, sure, but mostly because she bears the worst brunt of Cristina's acting-out in her last few hours on staff—she is clearly positioned as something of a Big Deal for next season... And that's even before she reveals herself to be Ellis Grey's bastard daughter.

While the "secret sister" reveal has now happened to Meredith a record three times (if you count Melissa George, which I do, because all these secret sisters begin life as mirrors to Mere's relationship with Cristina) I can't say I'm mad about it. First because I love the actor, secondly because Meredith has little connection to anybody besides Derek and Bailey and Webber at this point, and third because a new Chief of Cardio is going to wreck everybody anyway, because there's only one Cardio God and she has now ascended to Swiss Heaven.

But mostly because our version—Meredith's version, Ellis's version even—of the perfect world is one in which Webber was actually her father, and Thatcher was never in the picture. Maggie's not only the opposite of Lexi biologically (unrelated, both half-sisters to Meredith) but also the opposite of Meredith herself: All of Ellis's genius, all of Webber's solidness, and a stable adoptive family that gave her a resilience and humor we've already seen. If there's anything that's going to piss the formerly dark and twisty Meredith Grey off about her, it's going to be that: She has the father, and the life, that Meredith deserved. On the other hand, Meredith is fucking awesome now, so maybe we'll see her build bridges as a way of repenting for the hell she put Lexi through. But I doubt it.

...Because Meredith is going down in flames, I think, a little bit. After Yang's final speech—"You're my person, I need you alive. You make me brave... Don't let what he wants eclipse what you need. He's very dreamy, but he's not the sun. You are," which, gah—she finds herself back home kind of pissed off out of nowhere, putting her foot down and demanding to stay in Seattle, with the family and the hospital she's rebuilt (and keeps rebuilding), ending on an incredibly touching reference to how the hospital bears her sister's name, her mother's name, and her own.

If you had told me ten years ago that Meredith Grey would look Dr. McDreamy in the eye and tell him to go screw, because she finally has a home she built with her own goddamn two hands, I would have laughed in your face: Dark and Twisty is feral, forever homeless, raised by fucking wolves—as all Five of the Fab Five were, except sweet George—and cleaving only onto Cristina Yang, who was broken in just the right places.

But Meredith, like the show, has grown so far past that it now seems like a regrettable memory. And so while Maggie can never—nobody can ever—replace Cristina Yang, she could possibly be a new kind of sister, and friend, that Meredith doesn't even know about yet. If anybody's strong enough to figure all that out on her own, it's our girl.

[Image via ABC]

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Discrimination Against Hillbillies Is Rampant in Higher Education

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Discrimination Against Hillbillies Is Rampant in Higher Education

The academy. It claims to stand for inclusiveness and diversity and voices of dissent. But what happens when students decide to vote with their feet—their bare feet—and a professor calls those students "hillbillies"? Well sir, you've got a discrimination problem.

Inside Higher Ed has the story on a raging battle between Appalachians and their elitist detractors at an unnamed university:

On the faculty discussion board, a staff member posted a complaint about a student walking around barefoot in a building. A response is what set off the larger discussion:

One professor wrote: "My approach would be to assure this student that going barefoot is not against the rules because the assumption is that by the time they reach college, students are expected to understand why wearing shoes is expected on campus. If s/he disrespects his or her peers and the college community enough to (un)dress like a hillbilly here, I would say, then s/he should be prepared to be dismissed as one, in whatever pursuits s/he favors, in the preference of someone more attuned to proper decorum and respectful behavior."

A professor who was troubled by that response forwarded the comment to the Appalachian studies email list with the question: "Colleagues, if you read the following on your institutional discussion board in reference to a complaint about a barefoot student, how would you respond to the professor?"

How would you respond? Furiously, apparently. That's how many people felt, as they assailed nose-in-the-air profs who "do not feel the same need to be sensitive to those from poor, largely white, rural communities in Appalachia."

One suggested response was: "Spit on their car."

Well, that seems... a bit... on the nose.

Look, this is a subject near and dear to my heart, as a hillbilly redneck who strives to stand apart from the peckerwoods while still believing redneckedness can be a wonderful thing. Peckerwood culture is a problem, and one that profs should have a right to critique. But it seems more than a little unfair and hostile for Appalachian natives to write "of being asked at colleges and universities such things as when they started to wear shoes."

Maybe everybody can hammer out their differences over a relaxing drink, like Dr. Henry Louis Gates and that white police officer did. Might I suggest:

Discrimination Against Hillbillies Is Rampant in Higher Education

[Photo credit: Cameron Whitman/Shutterstock]

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