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Emily Brontë: literary legend.


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It's Time to Start Freaking Out About American Horror Story: Freakshow

Venture Capitalist Can't Believe How Much He's Gentrified San Francisco

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Venture Capitalist Can't Believe How Much He's Gentrified San Francisco

When Vinod Khosla isn't busy blocking access to beaches, he's dishing out billions to startups through his venture capital firm. But on a recent house-hunting adventure in San Francisco, Khosla realized the products he invests in are helping price the poor out of the Bay Area.

Khosla has his eureka moment helping his friend shop for a one-bedroom apartment:

"I said, 'No way can a housekeeper or gardener afford that,'" Khosla told the Chronicle. "For someone making $20 or $25 an hour, I don't think they can afford a house anywhere between San Francisco and San Jose."

The reason housekeepers, gardeners, butlers, chauffeurs, private chefs, and other such help can't afford to live in techtopia is technology, warns Khosla.

"I fundamentally believe technology will keep increasing the [wealth] gap," said Khosla. [...]

"What's happening is if you have a great idea and the technical skills to implement it you can create disproportionate wealth very quickly," he said. "That's good by itself except it increases disparity."

That disparity, Khosla said, will only continue to grow as machine learning and big data technologies improves. Eventually, software will have the ability to replace everything from farmworkers picking lettuce to law clerks.

According to a recent study by the Brookings Institution, San Francisco has the fastest growing wealth gap of any city in the country. And it's not just minimum wage workers that are being left behind by the wealth boom—even professionals like teachers are finding there is no available housing they can afford.

While investors like Marc Andreessen insist that "innovation disproportionately helps the poor more than it helps the rich," Khosla implies that venture capital pouring into San Francisco exacerbates the region's income inequality. He may have twisted an arcane law to justify blocking the plebes from a public beach, but Khosla has no trouble admitting that his industry can be a job destroyer.

"What [technology] does is it creates more wealth and jobs for a few and takes away jobs at the bottom end of the spectrum," he said. [...]

"Technology concentrates wealth in the hands of the creators of technology and the people who fund them."

This is Silicon Valley, so of course there's a solution to every problem: Khosla suggests taxing billionaires like him "north of 50 percent."

[Photo: Getty]

A Dog Meets a Rabbit

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A Dog Meets a Rabbit

A dog, Gawker's most popular columnist, returns this week with an exploration of the face-to-face relationship, and a being's ethical responsibility to the infinite other: "There's a rabbit who lives in a plywood box two yards down. Not a smart guy. I can't vouch for his personality."

A dog maintains a blog at dog.gawker.com.dog.gawker.com

Bowe Bergdahl Returns to the U.S. Tomorrow

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Bowe Bergdahl Returns to the U.S. Tomorrow

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will fly to the U.S. tomorrow. According to defense officials, the former Taliban POW will go to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Tx. to do Phase 3 of his "reintegration process."

According to NBC News (and unfortunately for the Palins), Bergdahl still won't be making any public appearances when he returns to the states. Officials said this week that he was physically ready to make the trip home but not "psychologically or emotionally." Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made the same point in a hearing yesterday: "This isn't just about a physical situation. This guy was held for almost five years in God knows what kind of conditions. ... This is not just about can he get on his feet and walk and get to a plane."

Bergdahl's homecoming will be met with controversy, obviously, amid allegations that he was a deserter with pro-Taliban tendencies (or perhaps just Randian ones).

[Image via AP]

Bestselling Author Jennifer Weiner Is Here to Answer Your Questions

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Bestselling Author Jennifer Weiner Is Here to Answer Your Questions

Please give a warm welcome to writer/novelist/hilarious Bachelorette live-tweeter Jennifer Weiner!

As you may know, Jennifer Weiner is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. She grew up in Connecticut, graduated with a degree in English literature from Princeton University, and her debut novel Good in Bed (2001) has sold over 1.6 million copies and is now in its 57th printing.

She also penned In Her Shoes (2002), which was turned into a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine; Little Earthquakes (2004); Goodnight Nobody (2005); the short story collection The Guy Not Taken (2006); Certain Girls (2008); Best Friends Forever (2009); Fly Away Home (2010); Then Came You (2011); and most recently, The Next Best Thing (2012).

And if you're not following her on Twitter, you're missing out.

She has a new novel coming out next week — All Fall Down — and it's about a woman who's got it all — including, possibly, a pill addiction:

Allison Weiss got her happy ending—a handsome husband, an adorable little girl, a job she loves, and a big house in the suburbs. But when she's in the pediatrician's office with her daughter and a magazine flips open to a quiz about addiction, she starts to wonder whether her use of prescription pills is becoming a problem. On the one hand, it's just prescription medication, the stuff her doctors give her. Is a Percocet at the end of a hard day really different than a glass of wine? Is it such a bad thing to pop a Vicodin after a brutal Jump & Pump class… or after your husband ignores you?

Summer reading list: Sorted.

You can find more info on her website, and before she kicks off on her book tour, she's here with us to answer your questions. Fire away!

Photo by Andrea Cipriani Mecchi.

Read Nikki Finke's Predictably Absurd and Scathing Comeback Letter

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Read Nikki Finke's Predictably Absurd and Scathing Comeback Letter

Nikki Finke, the longtime Hollywood journalist equally feared and hated by much of the film industry's elite, broke her seven-month hiatus today with a letter announcing her return to the internet at NikkiFinke.com. The letter is—as it always was going to be—a tour de force.

Finke became known for breaking news in Hollywood, with little regard for burning sources, in an LA Weekly column called "Deadline Hollywood." That begat a blog called Deadline Hollywood Daily, which eventually grew into a full-fledged website, which she sold to Jay Penske of Mail.com for $14 million in 2009. That relationship, to the surprise of basically no one, went south pretty immediately.

She was forced out in October of last year, and now that the non-compete clause in her contract has expired, so Finke says, she is back. The first order of business is announcing her return in typical fashion.

Here she is on the subject of her logo:

Because I'm posting on my own website after sitting out my non-compete for 7 soul-crushing months. And that's why I designed my new logo to look the way it does – gritty and bullet-riddled with a fiery palm tree shooting sparks into the night sky more dramatically than any fancy klieg light.

I mean, sure.

There's also this completely incomprehensible metaphor:

Now a few rules for the road. Expect the unexpected. Everything could (and should) change as this adventure grows and gets funded. But for now, my new website is built like a fine Ferrari only I'm still missing my vintage Volvo. I've just taken possession of this really cool powertrain but at the moment I barely know what's under the hood. Let's learn to drive it together.

Plus the horrible puns.

I want to be your cruel and quirky alternative to Deadlame and Valiety and The Hollywood Unreported and TheCrap.

Nikki :-/

Anyway, definitely read the whole thing.

Soon, she'll break some news. Presumably.


Harrison Ford Injured by Millennium Falcon, Airlifted to Hospital

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Harrison Ford Injured by Millennium Falcon, Airlifted to Hospital

Harrison Ford was airlifted to a local hospital today after being injured on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII.

A statement from Disney explains the nature of the 71-year-old actor's injury, which occurred on set at Pinewood studios in Buckinghamshire:

"Harrison Ford sustained an ankle injury during filming today on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII. He was taken to a local hospital and is receiving care. Shooting will continue as planned while he recuperates."

A source told The Hollywood Reporter that Ford was injured when the door of the Millennium Falcon malfunctioned and fell on his ankle. A spokesman for the Thames Valley Police, who responded to the call about Ford's injury and spoke to the Mirror about it, interpreted the story slightly differently:

"We were called to Pinewood studios at 5.05pm after reports of a 71-year-old man being injured by a garage door."

Get well soon, Grandpa.

[image via Getty]

Strict Parenting May Encourage Kids to Smoke Weed

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Strict Parenting May Encourage Kids to Smoke Weed

Do you have a kid? Is your kid in high school? There's a pretty good chance they're smoking weed at least occasionally — and if they haven't yet, they're likely to try it eventually. You lit up (just once, and didn't even enjoy it that much) back in your day, right?

The impulse to steer your children away from mysterious-sounding stuff like "dabs," "vapes," "Wiz Khalifa," and "Adventure Time" is probably futile, but who wants some pot-addled drughead on their hands? What's a parent to do?

A study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence offers some insight for lamestain olds everywhere. In an effort to find a parenting style that most effectively discourages youths from enjoying weed, booze, and cigarettes, a team of researchers asked kids from six European countries about their home lives, then labeled their parents with one of four types: authoritarian (strict, inflexible), authoritative (firm, willing to reason), indulgent (permissive, emotional), and neglectful (exactly what it sounds like).

According to the results of the study, authoritative and indulgent parents have more luck convincing their kids not partake than those who are neglectful or authoritarian. It makes sense: if you're out and out ignoring you're kids, it's not surprising they'll find their way into pot and booze, and if you rule with an iron fist, they'll eventually want to de-stress and/or rebel.

Lesson learned: reasonable parenting works, and if you really want your kids to abstain, just be cool, man.

[Image via AP]

The National Weather Service Needs to Fix its Communication Issues Now

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The National Weather Service Needs to Fix its Communication Issues Now

The country's official weather forecasting agency keeps losing its communications during severe weather events, making it virtually impossible to issue life-saving warnings in some cases. This inexcusable weakness in its infrastructure will lead to people's deaths if they don't fix it now and it goes out again during a future emergency.

A couple of weeks ago, the National Weather Service experienced a highly-publicized communications outage during a major severe weather outbreak, during which they were completely unable to transmit radar data and severe weather warnings to the public. This left them completely reliant on sending out warnings through social media.

During that severe weather outbreak on May 22, a half-mile wide EF-3 tornado touched down in the town of Duanesburg, New York, and meteorologists were unable to warn people of the significant tornado due to the communications outage. If people weren't following the local office on Facebook or Twitter, they likely had no idea the storm was coming. Thankfully, the major tornado caused no injuries.

The outage on May 22 was due to a firewall upgrade.

The National Weather Service Needs to Fix its Communication Issues Now

Another communications outage occurred on Wednesday. During a severe weather event from North Carolina to New York, the National Weather Service yet again lost communications and had major website/internet connectivity issues. The above screenshot of the website run by the NWS office in Wakefield, Virginia shows the glitches that occurred both with the warnings and the website itself.

Unlike the outage a couple of weeks ago, Wednesday's issues seemed to involve the agency's websites.

One meteorologist told me that another National Weather Service office couldn't even access its internal chat system — NWS Chat — that the agency's forecasters use to talk to one another, emergency management, and the media to explain their decision-making process and share/receive critical updates such as damage reports or confirmation of a tornado.

One of the most visible and important agencies to public safety simply should not be so vulnerable to major communications outages. That websites such as Netflix or Club Pogo can stay online during even the most demanding of days but the infrastructure that supports the organization that issues tornado warnings just randomly craps out is unacceptable.

It's astounding to think that something as simple as a firewall upgrade in May and what appears to have been an internet tech issue yesterday could so greatly impact their services for any length of time, especially during a severe weather event. What's even more worrisome is that the redundancies the NWS says are in place seemingly don't work as they should or are outright failing.

Switch providers. Upgrade your wires. Unclog the tubes. Whatever it is, the NWS needs to do something, and fast.

[Images via Wikimedia Commons and the National Weather Service]

An AIDS Movie About Living: Test

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An AIDS Movie About Living: Test

In 2014, a story about AIDS in San Francisco in 1985 is as relevant as ever. Though it shares subject matter, Chris Mason Johnson's Test is the virtual antithesis of Ryan Murphy and Larry Kramer's survey of the early plague years, The Normal Heart, which aired last month on HBO. Test is smaller in scale, more intimate, virtually free of melodrama, and features characters whose relationship to AIDS is not that they are dying from it, but that they are living in fear of it.

"Is this story worth telling?" "Who's gonna care?" "You didn't suffer enough," are things that went through Johnson's head as he was writing this, he told me by phone last week. Johnson, who was in his teens and living in San Francisco at the time that this movie is set, is HIV negative and thus worried that he didn't "have anything to say in this dialogue." But as the ongoing conversation about Truvada has shown, HIV is not just an issue for gay guys who are positive. It's something that affects all of us, regardless of serostatus, and it's something we all need to care about.

For that reason and for its still-pertinent examination of body scrutiny and insecurity regarding masculinity, I related to Test, which is set in the dance world of San Francisco. Below is an edited and condensed transcript of my discussion with Johnson about his movie, HIV, dancing like a man, and queer cinema.

Gawker: I get the sense that this is a personal movie, because I know that you have a dancing background.

Chris Mason Johnson: Oh yeah, I was a bit younger than the characters in the movie, but I was there. It's personal fiction but [protagonist Frankie] is not me. I didn't want to do a coming out story, but I wasn't comfortably out at that age, as the characters are. So that's a huge difference.

What was it like seeing the onset of AIDS from your perspective? Obviously it stayed with you so long that you ended up making a movie about it?

Exactly. In my life, [AIDS and the dance world] were inextricably bound. I think one of the things that it's in the movie that touches on this question is the whole "dance like a man" issue. During the early AIDS epidemic, before ACT UP, before we knew how it was contagious, there was a huge amount of scapegoating and homophobia. It was really powerful and there was a powerful message coming from the press both tacitly and explicitly that these guys had it coming, deserved to die, should quickly go off to a leper colony, and not infect the rest of us. And in the dance world simultaneously there was this dance-like-a-man phenomenon, where your identity and physicality is questioned. On both fronts, you're being exterminated, you're being told you're not right, you're not good, you need to change who you are, who you are is not right, who you are is dangerous. It was a hard message to disentangle on several fronts.

I didn't live in San Francisco and I was 6 at the time that this movie is set, but I still found plenty to relate to here, even today. Gay men still scrutinize their bodies, even if it isn't for Kaposi's sarcoma as much anymore. And traditional masculinity is still an ideal amongst so many gays.

I went to college after I danced and one of the most valuable things I learned was that misogyny and homophobia are two sides of the same coin. That explains the femmephobia, which isn't exactly the same as homophobia because it's about shunning and exposing the sissy, and some straight men are "sissies" and some gay men are "machos." The effeminacy issue is kind of a separate thing, but it's potent for gay men because it's a measure of masculinity in a patriarchal culture. So absolutely, these issues are still alive. You still see it on the reality dance shows like So You Think You Can Dance. You still see this tension, like, "We want this boy to dance 'straight' so we believe he loves the girl." That's a valid concern in terms of dramaturgy because that is the story of the dance. But instead of framing that as a physical challenge—"Well, what does it mean to move in a masculine way and how can I accomplish that for the purposes of this fiction"—it's framed as, "You're gay and you shouldn't be."

Is it still like that in the dance world?

I hear stories from major ballet companies about young, gay dancers who are told that they're too gay. "It's a problem how you dress, it's a problem how you act." That's still there.

I saw this movie last year at Outfest and since then it's only become more relevant—because of The Normal Heart, because of Looking, which is set in San Francisco, and because of the intensified debate over Truvada.

I think what distinguishes Test from other depictions of the AIDS epidemic, whether they're from the era or more recent period pieces, is that this is not a movie about being sick, it's a movie about the fear of being sick. I think almost all the others, as far as I can think, have characters who are sick, either they die or they don't, but they get sick. That's been a challenge in the marketing. Audiences watch it and they feel good and it's sort of uplifting and they don't get what they were afraid they'd get. I think that's an important distinction—it's not another disease movie. But even people who did get sick went through this phase, right? I think this smaller slice of the story hadn't been told yet, and maybe that was right. Maybe the other stuff needed to be told first, because it was more urgent. I had to wrestle with that to write this: "Is this story worth telling?" "Who's gonna care?" "You didn't suffer enough." I'm negative. "You don't have anything to say in this dialogue."

I can relate to that, having written quite a bit about HIV while also being negative. But I think to pretend that this isn't an issue that affects everybody, whether positive or negative and especially everybody who's a gay man, is just wrong. Negative people need to care about HIV.

There's still this leper/plague onus attached to HIV, but in fact there are all kinds of serodiscordant couplings out there that are completely safe and insignificant. People have a hard time thinking or talking about that, again because of our human repulsion to disease. It's just that when our repulsion to disease conflates with homophobia, that's when you have this really toxic thing and I think the movie's about that, too.

Did you feel any sense of duty to inform younger people about what the early plague years were like?

I wouldn't call it a duty, but I did feel an urge to share this. I hope it's not pretentious to say, but I'm trying to make art here, and part of that is connecting with an audience. Absolutely one of the ways I want to connect with younger audiences is to share this subject in a human-scaled, intimate, immediate way. The big epic stories, and the big documentaries are great and I love them, but I think for a younger audience it might be easier to connect to these young, sexy guys that just want to have fun.

It drives me crazy when I talk to gay guys in their early 20's who are willfully ignorant about gay history. Generations of gay men who came before worked, bled, and died so that those guys could have such a privilege! I think it's disrespectful.

I teach at Amherst College, and I make films and employ younger people, so maybe I just have more respectful twentysomethings around me, so I haven't had that feeling. But I can relate to what you're saying in the sense that it's kind of surprising and a little alarming and dismaying that history disappears so quickly. But then that raises the question of: What is history? I think I can connect that to your last question in that I didn't want to make a documentary. I didn't want to write a history book. I didn't want an overview. I wanted to go inside one character's self-centered, isolated fear. That's my story. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm not particularly proud of it either. But it's very human, and very small. I think people connect to that smallness.

Film Comment said of Test, "If there was ever a contemporary film that illuminates why queer cinema still matters, this is it." Where do you think you fit into queer cinema?

There was that really heady moment of queer cinema in the early- /mid-'90s. And then over time the marketplace kind of exerted its power, and I think there was a lot of gay content—and it's not an accident that the label shifted from queer to gay—that was frankly just trying to make a buck, or just wanted to emulate mainstream entertainment in a mindless way. Just kind of pandering product. I don't want to be too hard on that because it's such a difficult business and people want to work, but I am kind of heartened that it seems like we're evolving toward a new kind of realism that can include gay characters and maybe in the long run that means assimilation narratively, as you can kind of start to see on TV. I do think that we're in a sort of new chapter. I've mentioned Weekend and Keep the Lights On and Looking before. I think maybe one of the differences is we don't have to be "gay" in square quotes, but it's also not about disappearing. It's a particularly American thing. We've gone through this court-jester thing where it's OK if gays are funny or maybe if they're dying tragically, but not as just regular guys or girls with diverse stories that don't shuck and jive. I hope we're moving toward that.

Test is playing in San Francisco and available on VOD now. It opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday.

What's Happening in Iraq and What May Come Next, Explained

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What's Happening in Iraq and What May Come Next, Explained

In the past week, Al Qaeda-connected Islamic militants have attacked multiple cities across Iraq and are rapidly consolidating power in the nation that the United States spent so much blood and treasure trying to stabilize. The situation is dire and dynamic. Here's some of what we know.

What's happening now?

Radical Sunni insurgents fighting under the umbrella of "The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" on Tuesday took control Mosul, the largest city in Iraq's north, and have quickly overrun several other key cities including oil-rich Baiji and Tikrit, the home of dead dictator Saddam Hussein. ISIS rebels have also contested several other cities in the west of Iraq, consolidating power in areas where Sunni Muslims are predominant.

The situation is pretty extreme, as this New York Times map of the battlespace indicates the insurgents are closing in on Baghdad, the capital:

What's Happening in Iraq and What May Come Next, Explained


It's not just Iraq, either, as ISIS continues to battle dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and has also launched attacks against anti-Assad rebels in Syria and Turkey whom they believe are not true Muslims committed to their political goals. In short, the jihadi group is trying to establish a real Islamic militant state to go with its name, without regard for Iraqi, Syrian, or Turkish borders.

Who are these "Al Qaeda types" taking over the country, anyway?

In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the rise of an anti-American insurgency, Al Qaeda in Iraq formed out of a core of conservative Sunni religious fighters who pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden's organization. Over the years, it merged with other militant groups who shared its theological outlook, trying in 2006 to establish an Islamic State of Iraq in the mainly Sunni west of the country.

The U.S. and Iraqi government repelled the Islamists' advances, often by forming alliances with more moderate Sunni leaders. But the U.S. withdrawal and the raging civil war in neighboring Syria emboldened the remaining jihadists, who formed a reconstituted group, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (as Syria's also known)—ISIL or ISIS.

Amazingly, ISIS is too extreme even for Al Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over Al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed, found that he couldn't keep ISIS and its murderous ambitions in check, and he took the remarkable move of renouncing the group in February: ISIS, Zawahiri's command said, "is not a branch of the al-Qaeda group... does not have an organizational relationship with it and [al-Qaeda] is not the group responsible for their actions."

ISIS's rebels are nothing if not ambitious, as the current lightning campaign shows. They are also social media-savvy shit-talkers, documenting (and perhaps exaggerating) their triumphs in real time:

But for all that short-term military savvy, ISIS militants are downright medieval in their outlook. Most secular Muslims would derisively refer to them as takfiri—religious zealots. Here are some of the rules they have reportedly imposed on the people of Nineveh since capturing the province, which includes Mosul:

  • "For women, dress decently and wear wide clothes. Only go out if needed."
  • "Our position on Shrines and graves is clear. All to be destroyed basically."
  • "Gatherings, carrying flags (other than that of Islamic State) and carrying guns is not allowed. God ordered us to stay united."
  • "For the police, soldiers and other Kafir institutions, you can repent. We opened special places that will allow you to repent."
  • "No drugs, no alcohol and no cigarettes allowed."
  • "We warn tribal leaders and Sheikhs not to work with government and be traitors."
  • "We ask all Muslims to perform prayers on time in the mosques."
  • "Money we took from Safavid government is now public. Only Imam of Muslims can spend it. Anyone who steals hand will be cut."
  • "For those asking who are you? We are soldiers of Islam and took on our responsibility to bring back glory of the Islamic Caliphate."
  • "People you tried secular rulings (Republic, Baathist, Safavids) and it pained you. Now it is time for Islamic State Imam Abu Bakr El Qurashi."

Why are the jihadis making it look so easy?

Part of it is because Sunnis in Iraq aren't resisting much. They're letting the jihadis take over, not because they especially like a hardcore religious state, but because they consider it preferable to the treatment that they've gotten from the Iraqi government.

Nouri al-Maliki, the longtime prime minister of Iraq, leads a coalition of Shi'ite Muslim Iraqis who are friendly with their Iranian co-religionists and deeply suspicious of the nation's Sunni minority, who enjoyed power and persecuted Shi'ites under Saddam's old regime. Maliki has a reputation for screwing Sunnis politically, financially and physically, including those who worked with the U.S. coalition. In fact, a recent New Yorker piece by longtime Iraq correspondent Dexter Filkins suggests that when the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, American commanders wanted a continued presence in the country not to fight insurgents, but to restrain Maliki from launching an all-out Sunni-Shi'ite conflict similar to the 2006 civil war.

Under those conditions, many Sunnis in Iraq have chosen to let the jihadis boot out the Shi'ite Baghdad forces in their territory. ISIS has also made clear that anyone who resists them will be killed with impunity, so there's little incentive to joining the government's resistance efforts.

Beyond that, the Iraqi police and army in the worst-hit areas have been routed or deserted.

Wait, the Iraqi army that the U.S. trained and equipped is blowing it?

Many of their number have deserted, and it's hard to blame them. Here's the lede of a New York Times report on their plight:

The infantryman and his colleagues were already worn down after six months of fighting militants in western Iraq, men flush with weapons and zeal. Army commanders had no answer for the daily deadly ambushes and no broader strategy for prevailing in the longer war.

The final straw was the death of a friend, killed two weeks ago by a sniper's bullet. The infantryman, Bashar al-Halbousi, deserted, making the same choice as hundreds of other soldiers in his battalion, he said.

"The state is weak," Mr. Halbousi said. "This will be an endless battle."

Faced with bleak prospects of victory, and the certainty of death in defeat, many of those underpaid forces have simply shed their weapons and uniforms and beat tracks for home.

The result has been disheartening, to say the least, for veterans of the American campaign in Iraq:

The fleeing troops left weapons, vehicles and even their uniforms behind, as militants took over at least five army installations and the city's airport. In a desperate bid to stem the losses, the military was reduced to bombing its own bases to avoid surrendering more weapons to the enemy. American officials who had asserted that the $14 billion that the United States had spent on the Iraqi security forces would prepare them to safeguard the country after American troops left were forced to ponder images from Mosul of militants parading around captured Humvees.

Here is a video by a jihadist purportedly of 4,500 marching Iraqi soldiers who surrendered to ISIS forces in Tikrit. The number looks chillingly on target.

Will the jihadis really take over Baghdad and the rest of the country?

That's unclear. Certainly the rhetoric from both sides right now indicates that ISIS will try to take over the capital. "The battle is not yet raging, but it will rage in Baghdad and Karbala," ISIS has said, referring to two of Iraq's most important cities to Shi'ite Muslims. That's good propaganda on their part, and a good opportunity for the Iraqi government to appeal for outside help.

But it's possible that ISIS might hunker down to consolidate power and legitimacy in the large, strategically important swath of territory it already controls. This notion has been suggested, among others, by regional scholar and founder of the respected "Jihadology" blog Aaron Y. Zelin:

If this is ISIS's strategy, Maliki and the Iraq government seem to be playing into it right now. Their first concern, understandably, is protecting Baghdad, and they've reportedly dug in at an old U.S. base in Taji, 20 miles north of the capital, to repel any ISIS siege. But though it might save the government, that mentality could also leave it without much territory to govern, and much space to negotiate.

What happens next?

One thing that seems sure to happen is that a lot of Iranians are going to end up in Iraq. Maliki's close relationship to Tehran, and his lack of better options, seems to have led him to accept security assistance from the better organized Iranian military. Two units of elite special forces have reportedly already come in from Iran and helped the Iraqi government take back some portion of Tikrit.

For the Iranians, this is not only a strategic move—it's good to be the power broker on the block—but a very emotional one. Two of the holiest shrines for Iran's Shi'ites are in Iraq, and their protection seems to play a very large part in Tehran's involvement.

That's cold comfort, however, for nearby Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel and the United States, none of whom are comfortable with an expansion of Iran's territorial and military sphere, no matter how effective it may be against Al Qaeda types.

So... what is the U.S. going to do, if anything?

The president can honor America's war-weariness and leave the problem to the Iraqis and the Iranians and the Kurds, who live in Iraq's northern region. The likely results could include: the long-term partitioning of Iraq into multiple states, one of which is controlled by radical Islamists; the fall of the entire country, its military, and its natural resources to ISIS; or the destruction of ISIS by an Iranian-led coalition, leaving Iran as the major player in the region. Any of those situations is likely to deepen an already-burgeoning humanitarian disaster—an explosion of deaths and refugeeism.

Alternatively, Obama could order airstrikes, which might be effective in breaking ISIS now that the group holds territory and is positioned out in the open. But that would be another domestically divisive military campaign with an open-ended commitment and no clear end game, as we had in Libya. Reports surfacing now say Iraq has asked for U.S. airpower for a month, and the U.S. has demurred. But never say never; it's possible the Obama administration could be waiting until the situation is so dire that American war fatigue is overcome by fears of an Islamic terror state in the Middle East.

Whose fault is this?

Everybody's. The Bush administration toppled Iraq's oppressive (but secular and nationalist) leader, and in so doing he gave "Al Qaeda in Iraq" a reason to exist and American soldiers to target, as one of the foremost U.S. scholars in international relations pointed out yesterday:

Obama's eagerness to put Iraq in the rearview may have helped accelerate the violence, particularly by giving Maliki a free hand to treat the country's Sunni minority neglectfully at best and brutally at worst. But it's hard to see how the current administration could have done differently, seeing as how strongly the U.S. electorate wanted its own troops withdrawn (and for good reasons).

Ultimately, Iraq was a religiously and ethnically fractious state held together for decades by a dictator with few qualms about killing enemies and making uneasy alliances. We untied the ribbon on this box of hell. Getting the ribbon back on has never really been an option.

Politically, America is already thoroughly and profoundly screwed, and another round of Iraq recriminations may kill off any hope for a functional government here at home in the foreseeable future. Much of the left and the right have grown isolationist; the crazy right, as ever, paradoxically wants a weak federal government but wants to smash Islamists to bits, and ISIS's successes are already being spun either as signs of Obama's weakness as a leader or proof of their fantasy that he's a closet Muslim trying to help the worldwide caliphate get its footing.

House Speaker John Boehner has said Obama's "taking a nap" on Iraq, and longtime hawk John McCain has called for the president's national security team to be sacked. Fellow national security hardliner Lindsey Graham is already hollering for bombings and complaining that if 10,000 or 15,000 U.S. troops were still in Iraq, none of this would have happened:

But of course, this is an election year, and should Obama call for air strikes, no matter how effective, the right would likely change tack again and attack him for an adventurist foreign policy—as it has in Libya and Afghanistan. The left, too, will be stuck wondering yet again how an agent of hope and change painted himself into a war-filled corner. Regardless of who's calling the shots—now, or in 2015 or 2017—America is divided and bound to be unhappy with whatever unpalatable options are actually pursued.

[Photo credit: AP Images]

Ragtime Game of Thrones Theme Sounds Like Drinking Gin with a Dragon

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Capital news for nerds of varied persuasions: An ambitious band has transformed the meandering, incomprehensible, jazz-like plot of Game of Thrones into actual (kicky) jazz.

Enjoy the New Orleans Swamp Donkeys performing the Game of Thrones theme live at B.B. King's Blues Club in New York City, recorded Monday. The perfect soundtrack to your confusing party.

[h/t Reddit, via Slate]

Watch Some Guy Feed an Alligator Marshmallows Directly From His Mouth

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The video above, published by the Associated Press, shows a tour guide in Lafitte, Louisiana swimming with wild alligators, feeding them marshmallows straight out of his mouth.

And because this is the AP, and we have to hear both sides, we also get interviews with a few boring sadsacks who argue that the man's actions are somehow "dangerous," "disruptive to the environment," and "against the law." State officials are reportedly looking over the footage to determine whether our hero has committed any crimes.

C'mon, have a little fun, guys! Seems perfectly safe and conscientious to me.


Man Mistakenly Freed by Jury Gets Stabbed to Death Hours Later

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Man Mistakenly Freed by Jury Gets Stabbed to Death Hours Later

A California man charged with burglary went free after a deadlocked jury signed a not-guilty form by mistake. Just hours later, he was stabbed to death.

The Fresno jury returned a guilty verdict Wednesday against one of Bobby Lee Pearson's co-defendants in the burglary of an apartment, but couldn't reach a unanimous decision in Pearson's case. They were hung, with only 8 jurors voting guilty.

When Superior Court Judge W. Kent Hamlin asked the jury whether the verdicts they'd handed in were correct, all 12 nodded. But they'd given the judge the not-guilty form in Pearson's case, which the judge put on the record.

Jurors tried to correct the mistake by telling the judge they were hung on the charges, hoping it would lead to a retrial, but the judge said he had no choice, the Fresno Bee reported—to retry him after entering the verdict would be double jeopardy.

"This has never happened to me in more than 100 jury trials that I have done," the judge said.

So Pearson went free.

Police say he went to a home to pick up some clothes and other belongings early Thursday morning. There he apparently encountered his sister's boyfriend, with whom he had a bad history. In their ensuing fight, the unnamed boyfriend allegedly stabbed Pearson, killing him.

Jurors said they had been confused by the separate verdict forms—for guilty and not guilty—and the fact that there was no form for "hung jury."

"I call it a June jury," defense attorney Linden Lindahl told the Bee, referring to the fact that many of the jurors appeared to be young college students who put off their jury service until the summer. "I guess they see things differently than our normal jurors."

Lindahl added that he was surprised at the confusion, because Judge Hamlin's jury instructions had been "by the book."

[H/T NY Post, Photo: Fresno PD]

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

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This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

Lena Dunham, it is time to take a break.

Perhaps you are already aware, and that is in fact the message you were sending us with your performance this week on Seth Meyers, but either way it's time to have a frank discussion.

Lena Dunham, did you ever see the arc on 30 Rock where Liz Lemon dates Jon Hamm, who is too attractive to fail? So nobody tells him when he should rethink his shit? Sometimes people can love us so much that it makes them unsure when to step in, Lena Dunham.

This is not a situation like Michael Jackson, where people were being selfish and greedy so they never said no, and it caused an untimely death. Lena Dunham, this is more like a Montessori situation, where everybody gets a prize at the end of the day. Even if they half-ass it, hardcore. That does not cause death, usually, but it does cause some of us to radically reassess where we stand, backlash-wise.

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

Now, perhaps you are responding to your critics, and to your haters. Perhaps, Lena Dunham, part of you desires them. You may have a Twitter death wish. You may even be experiencing Eminem feelings. Do not listen to them, Lena Dunham. They are oppositional; they are lies.

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

There are those of us out here who are still rooting for you, Lena Dunham. There are those of us who, like Patrick Wilson in that one episode of your show, love you for who you are. But do you remember what happened on that episode of that show? Eventually Hannah Horvath trusted him too much. Showed a little too much of what she was working with.

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

Your notoriety comes from the fact that you are an unabashed striver! You cannot be half-assing at this point in the game! Your hustle is to be admired!

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

Metaphorically speaking.

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

It's clear that this is all in fun. Taking part in the Sia Moment is another way of writing an Archie comic book, or other fun things you have been doing lately. Dressing up like Sia and dancing around on her behalf is the new Being James Franco, and we get that. Nobody begrudges you your fun! And it's true that in the discipline of modern dance, few things are sacred. But right across the board, one rule remains thumbworthy: Do not make promises you can't keep. Do not write checks that you cannot cash.

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

In summation, Lena Dunham, some of us out here in the world believe there's a lot to love about you, even when you fuck up.

But love is never a 100 percent proposition. Sometimes when we think we can do something, and then we find—hopefully not on live television—that we cannot do that thing, we downgrade our goal: "I just wanted to have fun," we say, or, "The joke is that I was doing it." But what most of us learned in seventh grade is that nobody besides the person pulling that crap—either by design or retroactive decree—really enjoys it when that happens. To everyone else, you are only embarrassing yourself.

(To Sia, you are sitting on Sia.)

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

In summation, Lena Dunham: Put it away. Work on your wonderful television show. By all means continue to think about black people. Do what Dunhams do, when Dunhams are just doin' Dunhams. Interrogate fame, talk about art, see the world. Take a pet care class. Take a nap.

This Time Lena Dunham Has Gone Too Far

Have your dancing fun in private, or on your show, where this bleeding-edge awkwardness would make more sense. But make no mistake, Lena Dunham: This was not a Hannah Move. This was some Marnie Michaels bullshit right here.

[Images via NBC]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Follow @GawkerMA and read more about it here.

"Severe Allergies": A New Episode of Tom Tips Back

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"Severe Allergies": A New Episode of Tom Tips Back

We get tips. Lots of them. Sometimes Gawker features editor Tom Scocca responds to them. These conversations are memorialized here in an occasional feature we call Tom Tips Back.

To: Gawker Tips

From: Bernadette [REDACTED]

Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 1:27 AM

Subject: Filthy rap video girl is teaching pre-K children at [REDACTED] School in NY

Dear Gawker,

I wanted to bring to your attention a disturbing tip.

[REDACTED] who lives in New York and teaches Pre-K for [REDACTED] School in Brooklyn starred half naked in a rap video called "Pussy Breath" with the duaghters of Dan Aykroid and Dan Libeskind and some other B-movie actresses. Gawker wrote about it a few yrs ago. I just found your article.

I'm pretty sure the school would love to know who's teaching their kindergarden class. and it's crazy that they didn't check her out before putting her in charge of little kids. Can they spell lawsuit? I have a duaghter and I would be absolutely terrified to know this is who's in charge of my kid all day.

The video is still available at ebaumsworld, you just have to google it. I have several screen caps that show her face pretty clearly and also her LinkedIn photo. I showed my friend who had her son in her class and she was horrified and almost puked! Her kid has severe allergies and we can't believe this lady was put in charge of him.

I can assure you this information is all true because she bragged about the video multiple times with friends, me present, since she's in it with duaghters of Dan Aykroid and Daniel Libeskind.

I'm emailing you because I think private schools that cost an arm and a leg should check who they hire.

To: Bernadette [REDACTED]

From: Tom Scocca

Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 8:34 AM

Subject: Filthy rap video girl is teaching pre-K children at [REDACTED] School in NY

Is your friend's son allergic to pussy? Otherwise I'm not 100 percent following the logic here.

This has been Tom Tips Back.

New Republic Accuses Pulitzer Winner Chris Hedges of Plagiarism

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New Republic Accuses Pulitzer Winner Chris Hedges of Plagiarism

In long investigation published today on The New Republic’s website, left-wing journalist Christopher Ketcham formally accused another lefty writer, former Times editor and Nation Institute fellow Christopher Hedges, of lifting passages from other writers (including Ernest Hemingway) for columns at Truthdig.com, several of his own books, and an essay for Harper’s that was never published.

Ketcham prosecutes an exhaustive case against Hedges, though some of the charges seem to concern Hedges’ habit of lazy footnoting, rather than outright plagiarism.

As an aside, Ketcham notes that his article “first took shape as an investigation for The American Prospect and then for Salon, both of which eventually declined to publish it.” In a revealing footnote, Ketcham continues:

I should note that a possible result of this piece will be the burning of my bridges at the Nation, where I know the editors and have been published; the Nation Institute, from which I have received funding for investigative journalism published in Harper’s and elsewhere; Truthdig, where I have published half-a-dozen columns and have been proud of my work; and Nation Books, Hedges’s current publisher, a house I have always respected and admired.

Hedges did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Know anything more about why it took Ketcham so long to get this published? Enlighten us below.

[Photo credit: Associated Press]

Startup Seeks Dream Girl To Grill Office Meats

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Startup Seeks Dream Girl To Grill Office Meats

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it can take an open floor plan full of marginalized, under-compensated women to raise a startup. Or, in the case of this Craigslist ad for a job in SOMA, one "Girl Friday" to do everything, including "cooking simple Paleo meals and grilling meats."

It sounds like the mealtime equivalent of a booth babe: a startup lunch lady. Those perks don't manifest themselves and many companies have someone who orchestrates lunch orders. But the title in this listing doesn't say meal manager. No, this team of "creative weirdoes" claims to be looking for an administrative assistant.

What would this girl administrate? Glad you asked!

She would put her self-motivated personal assistant skills to work in the kitchen:

We need you to be a good cook and be comfortable cooking simple Paleo meals and grilling meats.

As a cruise director:

As our assistant we want you to have a positive, fun attitude while also being OCD compatible.

As a general-purpose cleaner:

Keep kitchen clean - dishes/sink/loading + unloading dishwasher before + after lunch

Clean up after lunch + put away dishes/cookware

Keep office clean and organized, including supply closets

Comfortable prepping meals daily + cleaning kitchen after cooking

The job will be from 10am-3:30pm Monday through Thursday. In the remaining hours, she should also contribute as receptionist, social media manager, recycler, errand runner, project manager, researcher, UI library organizer, editor, bookkeeper, and, when that's done, share a "secret recipe for the perfect gin cocktail."

Should the pleasant Paleo goddess who applies for this job also have "basic knowledge of Illustrator and Photoshop," it wouldn't hurt. All the better to enhance those Taco Tuesday signs.

Startup Seeks Dream Girl To Grill Office Meats

Startup Seeks Dream Girl To Grill Office Meats

I contacted the employer to ask about the name of the company and salary range and will update the post if this isn't someone's idea of a joke.

h/t @caylenb

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

[Image via Fanpop]

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