More than 1,000 demonstrators marched across New York City's Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday morning to call for an end to gun violence in the U.S. They were united by the rallying cry "Not One More," inspired by Richard Martinez, whose son Christopher Michaels-Martinez was one of seven killed in May by Elliot Rodger. Photo via John Minchillo/AP.

The AP reports that Connecticut police say a woman became concerned recently after hearing someone calling "Daddy!" repeatedly near a school. When she began looking for a child, though, she found something else entirely. A talking bear! Just kidding. It was a parrot!

Fairfield police Lt. James Perez says the bird was talking nonstop, saying, "daddy," "hello," "what!" and other classic parrot words. The expressive little guy was hiding in a tree at Holland Hill School, and the fire department used a long pole to remove it on Thursday. The parrot then flew away again (DADDY!) so an animal control officer caught it in a net and brought it to a shelter.

The bird was found about one mile from its home and was later reunited with its owner (its daddy, we have to assume), who had reported it missing. Just in time for Father's Day.

[image via Shutterstock]

The Islamic insurgents that captured two major cities in northern Iraq last week have claimed on Twitter to have executed 1,700 Iraqi government soldiers, supporting their claim with graphic photos.

The images appear to show the militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria loading the soldiers onto flatbed trucks before forcing them to lie face-down in a ditch with their arms tied behind their backs. The final images appear to show the lifeless bodies of the captives.

The New York Times reports that the claim of the mass execution was posted to a Twitter feed previously used for ISIS announcements, which proves intent, but that the authenticity of the photos is still in question:

The authenticity of the photographs and the insurgents' claim could not be verified, and Iraqi government officials initially cast doubt on whether such a mass execution took place. There were also no reports of large numbers of funerals in the Salahuddin Province area, where the executions were said to have been conducted.

Erin Evers, the Human Rights Watch researcher in Iraq, also expressed doubt:

"We're trying to verify the pics, and I am not convinced they are authentic. ... As far as ISIS claiming it has killed 1,700 people and publishing horrific photos to support that claim, it is unfortunately in keeping with their pattern of commission of atrocities, and obviously intended to further fuel sectarian war."

The Times reports that if the claim is true, it would surpass last year's chemical weapons attacks in Damascus, which killed 1,400, as the worst mass atrocity in either Syria or Iraq in recent years.

[image via AP]

Casey Kasem, one of the most recognizable voices in radio who hosted "American Top 40" for four decades, died Sunday morning. He was 82

His daughter Kerri revealed the news in a Facebook post:

Early this Father's Day morning, our dad Casey Kasem passed away surrounded by family and friends. Even though we know he is in a better place and no longer suffering, we are heartbroken. Thank you for all your love, support and prayers. The world will miss Casey Kasem, an incredible talent and humanitarian; we will miss our Dad.
With love, Kerri, Mike and Julie.

Kasem was being treated at St. Anthony Hospital in Washington since last week. His daughter Kerri was placed in charge of his medical care last Friday, after she won a legal battle with Kasem's second wife, Jean.

Kasem, born Kemal Amin Kasem in Detroit in 1932, got his start in radio after being drafted into the U.S. Army, where he worked on the Armed Forces Radio Korea Network. He began as host of American Top 40 in 1970, where he would combine long distance dedications, memories, and music knowledge with the top hits of the day, before ending with his signature sign-off: "Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars."

In addition to his radio work, Kasem voiced the Shaggy character in Scooby Doo for almost 40 years. He retired in 2009. Here he is doing his Shaggy voice at the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon with Jerry Lewis in the 1980s:

Kasem himself suffered from Lewy body disease, a kind of dementia with symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease. He is survived by his wife, Jean Kasem, and four children.

[Photo via Getty]

Pop taught me how to play catch and swing a bat. Soon after, he signed me up for little league, and then signed himself up to manage my team. Teammates called him Coach Richard, but to my sister and I he was always Pop. That was how our mother referred to him in the beginning of their relationship, after learning Pop was the nickname Richard was given during his days as an air traffic controller. She meant it as a term of endearment; my sister and I meant it as a title. Pop was our way of calling Richard dad without actually using the word.

Dad is what we called our father, who picked us up for weekend visits from time to time. He was the one who would occasionally come to the little league games I played in, the same ones Pop was coaching. There was one game in particular. Dad didn't like a call made on the field and started heckling the umpire from the stands, which resulted in his dismissal from the ballpark. Back in the dugout, my teammates started talking about the "crazy guy in the stands." I told them he was my dad so they wouldn't say anything negative in my presence. They were confused, and to be honest, so was I.

The man who felt more like a dad wasn't in the stands, he was in the dugout, coaching all of us. My teammates didn't say anything about my dad for the rest of the game, nor did they ask me any questions. Because even to them, my dad was the coach. They would ask me for inside information about the starting lineup by saying things like, "Tell your dad to let me bat cleanup." I never corrected them because, frankly, I thought dad was a fitting title for the man I called Pop.

I became so overwhelmed with this feeling I decided to broach the subject with my mother. I had no problem calling my father dad in his presence, but I told her at home, I wanted to stop calling Richard, Pop. I felt dad was a more fitting title for him. She told me to ask Richard what he thought. He was in the bathroom at that moment, sitting on what he called his throne, so I asked him through the door. "Pop, I want to start calling you dad. Is that okay with you?" He didn't hesitate. "Sure," he said.

I didn't hesitate either, and wasted no time in using that word to address him. I found every excuse I could to call Richard dad. The first few days were an adjustment. There were times where I absent-mindedly called him Pop only to quickly start over. "Pop. I mean, dad," I would say. I noticed Richard never bothered correcting me, which should've been a sign that he was indifferent at best to being called dad. This went on for a week. Then, one day, as he was washing dishes and I was walking into the kitchen, he called an audible.

"Jozen," he said. "You know you can just call me Pop."

His tone was less of a suggestion and more of a demand. It knocked the wind out of me. Usually when Richard said something I didn't like, I was inclined to talk back. This time, I had no words. Instead, I just put my head down and stood there in the kitchen, and then quietly said, "Oh, okay."

"You have your dad, and—" He paused, turned off the water, then turned around to face me. "I don't know, I just know Pop is fine, so just call me Pop."

Like any good son would, I did as I was told, but I felt miffed by his request. I didn't understand why he wouldn't want to be called dad when he was assuming all these dad-like responsibilities. Didn't he want the title I was giving to him? There was also a feeling of embarrassment that I got caught. Richard's request thwarted a grand plan I had in mind for my family.

On some level, calling Richard dad was never about him so much as it was about me. I wanted to feel some sense of normalcy when I came home. The word dad made me feel like a void in my home was being filled. Yes, I had a dad, but not in the house and I wanted to replicate the families I saw most on television, like the Huxtables from The Cosby Show and the Bundys from Married With Children.

Of course, being like the Huxtables was out of the question. My folks weren't doctors or lawyers or even college graduates. I didn't have a bunch of siblings; it was just my sister and I. This made our family more like Al and Peggy and Kelly and Bud.

I always found it funny that the working title for the Married With Children pilot was "Not The Cosbys." That was us in a nutshell. Ironically, my mom forbade me from watching Married With Children. This was largely due to the show's vulgar content, but I think if she'd paid attention like I did, she would have understood why I was into the show.

First, there were the numbers: We were a family of four and so were the Bundys. They had a nice house—a marker of success—but the running joke throughout show's 11 seasons was how broke they were. I lived in a nice house, but Richard, an independent contractor, and my mom, a waitress, never failed to remind my sister and I we were living check to check. Peggy and Al, too, never seemed to get along on the show; the kids a constant source of their frustration. My mom and Richard fought a lot, and my sister and I were always arguing with each other or getting yelled at. Still, the Bundys were a unit. They had that "Whoaaa Bundy" chant, and though we didn't have some call to arms, everyone knew my family as a team. The Bundy's family love – tough, unconventional but also undeniable – looked familiar.

Richard was my version of Al, so why couldn't I replicate what I saw on Married With Children; because the man I was told to call dad lived somewhere else?

For every sitcom I loved about nuclear families, there were equally as important shows about blended families. I watched The Brady Bunch and Step By Step (which many considered to be the 90s version of the Bradys). Though their homes were often a little too happy for me to relate, whenever there was an episode in which the children realized the importance of the stepparents in their lives, it stuck. I was especially interested in any story that involved a stepfather or father figure being recognized as someone more than just a stepdad. These days, I watch Modern Family religiously, and while many folks were eager to see Mitchell and Cameron finally tie the knot, I'm still waiting and hoping the writers of the show delve into the possibility of Manny calling his stepdad Dad instead of his first name, Jay.

This is one of the reasons I bought into The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Will always got along with his Aunt Viv, but he never needed her to be his mother. Meanwhile, Will's relationship with Uncle Phil was often confounded by the fact that Will didn't have his dad in his life, and he wanted one—badly. Will never called Uncle Phil dad, but those of us who grew up in situations similar to Will's knew what that relationship was.

Richard, much like Uncle Phil for Will, had rules for me. I knew if I brought home bad grades, I'd get two ass whoopings. My dad would get his licks in when I saw him that weekend. But Richard would get his licks in too, and bench me in the process. I understand there were circumstances that allowed Richard to be more active in my life than my dad. I also know that in deciding to be with my mother, Richard was signing up to be a parent to my sister and I. But he didn't have to go the lengths that he did—becoming my little league coach, dragging me with him to the construction sites where he worked, passing on all his Calvin and Hobbes collections to me after he was done reading them.

For a child, dealing with the dynamics of their blended family is fine until questions from outsiders start pouring in. When teachers or other kids start asking why you're calling the man they see at all your games or recitals by his first name or, simply, why you're not calling him dad, answers get convoluted to the point where you don't even think you're making sense. So as much as I felt like Richard deserved to be called dad just as much as my biological father, the other reason I wanted to call him dad was it just became exhausting to tell people the reason I referred to him as Pop.

My father was nothing like Will's dad. He was as active as a divorced parent could be. It's not an indictment on him when I say this, but him not living under the same roof as me made me feel abnormal. Children of divorced families will tell you the silver lining of their circumstances was having things like two birthdays. But even I knew there was nothing normal about two birthdays, just like I knew it wasn't normal to have a Pop and a dad.

I wanted normal, and I went searching for it in a word like dad.

As an adult, it's easier for me to discuss my dad and the man I called Pop. But I also have experience. I don't have any kids of my own, and I have never been married, but in 2001 I found myself in a serious relationship with a woman who had a child. I was 20 and a sophomore in college. She was a 28-year-old lawyer and out of my league.

Her daughter was seven years old. Young, but that was around the same age Richard started coming into my life, so I knew she was old enough to acquire memories of me, which is why her mother was very careful about introducing us. We waited a month before making that move, but it wasn't long before I was leaving class to pick my girlfriend's daughter up from school or watching her until her mother came home from work.

At this time, Richard was long gone (my mom separated from him while I was still in high school) but I was thinking about him a lot when all of this was happening. It all started making sense.

Much like myself growing up, this girl had a father in her life who she saw fairly often, and though I was a constant presence during the time her mother and I were together, I understood I would never be her dad. Still, I treated her and her mother like a family, despite knowing I was ill prepared to have one of my own. My love for both of them was strong, but I realized something that has stayed with me ever since: dad, as a word, is heavy as an anvil. No one is more aware of that than the man who cares for children who aren't his literal flesh and blood.

My mother is happily married to someone else now. I recognize him as my stepdad. And I will call him to wish him a happy Father's Day because for as long as he's been in my family's life, he has manned up and he deserves to be acknowledged.

My father, too, is still an active part of my life. We talk nearly every Sunday and as I've gotten older, I've felt our relationship grow into a friendship amongst men. I plan to call him and wish him well on Father's Day.

As for the man who coached my little league teams, I call him Richard now. We don't talk much anymore, but that's okay. We both have new families, new lives, and live on opposite coasts. The last time we talked, about a year ago, he apologized for how tough he disciplined me when I acted up. I told him not to worry about it, and reminded him of all the times he would congratulate me when I did well. I thanked him for all the hours he spent sitting at the kitchen table as I sometimes struggled to finish homework. We laughed about how he would give me more spending money than an 8-year-old needed before dropping me off at the Boys & Girls Club. "You would give me $10," I said, laughing. "And the vending machine only took $1 bills."

The only thing I didn't bring up was that time I wanted to call him dad. But I didn't need to. I understood why. Our relationship meant more than the word itself.

Jozen Cummings is a writer living in Harlem and creator of the blog, Until I Get Married. You can follow him on Twitter @jozenc.

[Image by Jim Cooke, photo via Shutterstock]

On this week's The Graham Norton show, Samuel L. Jackson was asked if he still knew his famous Pulp Fiction Ezekiel 25:17 speech by heart. Turns out he does!

(Or, he can quickly relearn it after the Graham Norton pre-interview. Still enjoyable!)

(And also terrifying!)

[h/t Uproxx]

A 50-year-old elephant named Satao, one of Africa's last "great tuskers," has been poisoned to death by ivory poachers in Kenya.

Satao's death was announced in a press statement issued by Tsavo Trust, a Kenyan-based organization that works to protect the security of wildlife:

"Today it is with enormous regret that we confirm there is no doubt that Satao is dead, killed by an ivory poacher's poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in far off countries. A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket on their mantelpiece."

Satao was well-known for his giant tusks, which weighed over 100 pounds. He was killed by poisoned arrow on May 30th and his carcass was found on June 2nd, but Tsavo Trust held off on releasing information "to avoid any potential false alarms." The poachers cut off Satao's face and stole his tusks, but conservationists who had studied Satao for years identified him from the ears and other marks on his body.

Frank Pope of Save The Elephants in Nairobi spoke to the Telegraph about the elephant's death:

"The loss of such an iconic elephant is the most visible and heart-rending tip of this iceberg, this tragedy that is unfolding across the continent."

According to a report published on Friday by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, over 20,000 African elephants were poached for their tusks in 2013.

[image via Telegraph]

In this remarkable ensemble, 23 of New York's finest low brass musicians join forces to perform a bass-quaking cover of Game Of Thrones' rousing opening theme music. If you weren't already excited for tonight's season finale, this ought to do the trick. Seriously, give it a listen. This will give you chills.

The ensemble includes 11 bass trombones, 6 contrabass trombones, 6 tenor trombones, 6 tubas, and 3 cimbassos. According to tuba and cimbasso player Andrew Bove, the idea for the cover was born about a year ago, when a few New York City low brass players got to talking about how fun it would be to record an epic piece of music with an "extra low" brass section. The Game of Thrones theme, they decided, would be perfect. The biggest challenge, however, would be getting the necessary players together. "The idea," Bove writes, "almost never got off the ground." But then,

Two weeks ago, with the current Game of Thrones season coming to a close and the deadline approaching to release this track, they realized there was actually a 90 minute timeslot on a random Tuesday afternoon when 6 contrabass trombone players were all going to be free at once. It was time to do it. Once you get six contra players in one place, you either run away fast – or join in. Seventeen other top orchestral and commercial NYC low brass players joined them, bringing the ensemble to 23 players, and this is the result.

Said result is, if you own a subwoofer, quite literally, earthshaking. Really loving the incorporation of other instrumental themes from the show, most notably that of the White Walkers.

You'll want to listen to this one at as high a quality as you can (YouTube's audio quality corresponds to the resolution at which you watch the video.) Turn up the bass on your home speakers, or listen through a good pair of bass-friendly headphones.

And now for something completely different (and also excellent), The New Orleans Swamp Donkeys:

Now that we've all finally gotten around to incorporating sunscreen and SPF 50 facial moisturizer into our morning routines, The Institute of Cancer Research has released a statement saying that sunscreen cannot be relied upon alone to prevent malignant melanoma. Oh, good!

Researchers at the ICR looked at the molecular impact of UV light on the skin of mice at risk of melanoma and tested whether or not disease formation was inhibited by sunscreen. (It probably looked like this.) The test revealed that while sunscreen can significantly lower the amount of DNA damage caused by UV, it didn't offer complete protection. UV light could still cause problems in the p53 gene, which, the study explains, typically helps protect the skin from the impacts of DNA damage caused by UV light.

Professor Richard Marais, study author and Cancer Research UK scientist, based at the University of Manchester, said:

"UV light has long been known to cause melanoma skin cancer, but exactly how this happens has not been clear. These studies allow us to begin to understand how UV light causes melanoma.

UV light targets the very genes protecting us from its own damaging effects, showing how dangerous this cancer-causing agent is. Very importantly, this study provides proof that sunscreen does not offer complete protection from the damaging effects of UV light.

He continued with how we might protect ourselves, if not by using bullshit sunscreen alone:

This work highlights the importance of combining sunscreen with other strategies to protect our skin, including wearing hats and loose fitting clothing, and seeking shade when the sun is at its strongest."

Your new beach outfit is going to be a little bulky, but, hey, what can you do!

[image via Shutterstock]

A group of men attending a bachelor party in New Mexico this week stumbled upon a mastodon skull that paleontologists say is over ten million years old.

The guys came across skull, complete with its tusks, buried in sand at Elephant Butte State Park, which is about 150 miles south of Albuquerque. They began digging at the earth until they realized what they were excavating. According to Reuters, the group then then contacted a professor at the University of New Mexico—an outlandishly responsible thing to do at a bachelor party—who in turn put them in touch with Gary Morgan, the curator and head paleontologist at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

The fossil, which was buried in about four feet of lake silt, was excavated on Thursday by a team led by Morgan. The procedure took six hours, and the fossil was found to measure approximately 5 feet by 3 feet, weighing more than 1,000 pounds. Morgan told Reuters:

"This mastodon find is older than the woolly mammoth that tread the Earth in the Ice Age. ... It probably died on a sandbar of the ancient Rio Grande River. I've been here for 20 years and have never seen something like this before."

Museum officials praised the group for recognizing that they had found a valuable fossil and reaching out to the proper authorities. (And not destroying it.) Wedding guests praised the group for providing them with at least one thing to talk to acquaintances about during the reception.

[image via AP]

Back in February, the Lotus F1 team's often irreverent Twitter account shot out a tweet pronouncing its support of gay athletes at the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. The tweet was deleted, and Lotus apologized for the "unauthorised" tweet. Now its former brand director is saying he was fired for it.

The Lotus F1 account was generally regarded, at least by us, as one of the best in the business for its humor and willingness to poke a sharp stick at the oft-arcane and nonsensical world of Formula One regulations.

Lotus Group Brand Director Stephane Samson was the genius behind it all, and he did a pretty swell job at it. But after the tweet went up on February 7th, it all seemed to go downhill, and Lotus' Russian investors were possibly behind it, as it was noted at the time:

The real reason it went down, according to the Beeb, is because it pissed off Lotus F1's owners, the investment group Genii Capital, who have significant business interests in Russia. It also apparently angered their new backer, Russian smartphone maker YotaPhone, who are poised to buy a 10 percent share in the team.

By March 1st, it was announced that Samson had left the team. The circumstances seemed pretty clear, though it was unclear whether or not Samson quit voluntarily because of the incident, or whether he was fired.

Today Samson went to Twitter to tell the world what happened, and he said it was exactly because of that tweet:

Just been told I was sacked because of my supporting tweet towards gay athletes at Sochi. Lotus=Putin. Please retweet. People must know.

— stephane samson (@stephanesamson) June 15, 2014

"Lotus = Putin" is definitely a strong start, but Samson wasn't done:

Shall I tweet the picture again? Just for fun?

— stephane samson (@stephanesamson) June 15, 2014

So many people asked for it… This is why is was sacked from my position as Group Brand Driector at Lotus. pic.twitter.com/iN0jDR2bmn

— stephane samson (@stephanesamson) June 15, 2014

And now, he's starting a campaign against his former employers:

#LotusAntiGay ? Would that work?

— stephane samson (@stephanesamson) June 15, 2014

Let's make #LotusAntiGay trend worldwide !

— stephane samson (@stephanesamson) June 15, 2014

Let your friends know… This is why I was sacked from Group Brand Director at Lotus F1 Team. pic.twitter.com/C3FlY1nQKG

— stephane samson (@stephanesamson) June 15, 2014

If the allegations are true, it's an incredibly sad situation not only for Lotus, but for all of sports. Firing someone for using a team's irreverent social media account to support human rights in a country like Russia is pretty unconscionable in today's day and age.

And before someone jumps in to say that Samson was fired for tweeting something sexual at all, no matter what it was about, before his departure Lotus was known for delightful little tweets like this one, and the team seemingly had no problem with it:

So #Kimi is off to #Ferrari for 2014; it hurts a little bit… #F1 #Raikkonen pic.twitter.com/HkFhWvqpTo

— Lotus F1 Team (@Lotus_F1Team) September 11, 2013

Obviously, accusing your former employer of firing you for expressing support of gay rights in Russia is a pretty serious charge. We've reached out to the Lotus F1 team for comment.

The State Department announced Sunday that an undisclosed number of personnel at the American Embassy in Baghdad would be temporarily relocated as Islamic militants advance through Iraq.

According to the New York Times, many of the "approximately 5,500 staff members" will remain in Baghdad. The embassy will remain opened with additional security, and most of the staff being relocated will be transported to Jordan:

Many staff members who are leaving — the statement called it "relocating" — will be flown to Amman, Jordan, where they will continue their work at the embassy there, the statement said. Others will be shifted from Baghdad to consulates here in Erbil, in the northern Kurdish region, and in Basra, in the south, which are not now under threat by the militants.

Other Americans in Iraq, particularly contractors working for companies that had been training the Iraqi military on weapons systems purchased from the United States, have already been evacuated from the country.

The evacuation of some staff and heightened security comes after the Islamic insurgent group, which captured two Iraqi cities last week, posted graphic photos of what they claimed was the execution of 1,700 Iraqi soldiers. http://gawker.com/isis-militants...

While the veracity of the photos have been questioned, both the Associated Press and the Iraqi military have since confirmed their authenticity. From USA Today:

The Associated Press said the images were verified and were consistent with its reporting. Iraq's top military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, confirmed the authenticity of the photos Sunday and said he was aware of cases of mass murder of Iraqi soldiers.

[Image via AP]

"What I do is cinema verité" is easily the second-most ridiculous thing uttered by the subject in this bizarre profile of poor tea-partier's Art Linkletter and ratfucker James O'Keefe.

A 450-lb, 42-year-old American man was arrested this weekend after he allegedly hid drugs in his stomach rolls. Christopher Mitchell was first pulled over with his friend Keithian Roberts in Volusia County, Fla. for not wearing a seatbelt. After the two appeared to act "nervously," cops had a K-9 search the scene.

According to WFTV 9, "the deputy found cocaine, 23 grams of marijuana hidden underneath Mitchell's stomach fat, a handgun, and more than $7,000 cash stuffed into a tube sock." It is not clear how the deputy actually found the weed squished between Mitchell's rolls, but please, everyone, know now that this is not a fail-safe way to hide drugs.

Roberts, who was driving the car, was also arrested on possession charges. Mitchell is known to his friends as "Fat Boy" and occasionally "Biggie," according to the New York Daily News.

[Image via WFTV 9]

Joshua has 5 tattoos and counting, and his dad doesn't approve. Every time he gets some new ink, he shows his dad and films the disappointed reaction. Aw, geez.

To be fair, maybe the dad doesn't hate tattoos—he could just be right that his son's tattoos are actually "ugly" and "so bad." Unfortunately, the tattoos themselves don't make an appearance in the video, so all we know is that none of them were terrible enough to get Josh disinvited from Christmas.

[H/T Reddit]

It's silly, because the world has known Apple's chief executive is gay for years now, but the New York Times is practically gnawing its own arm off in the process of writing about Tim Cook's personal life. They clearly want to mention the sexuality of capitalism's most powerful man—so why won't they?

The profile—"Tim Cook, Making Apple His Own"—is a sort of strange one. It alternates between business school bromides (Apple needs to find its way after Steve Jobs!) and deeply personal, a-bit-too-perfect anecdotes from Cook's past. The childhood run-in with the KKK that kicks off the profile seems plucked from a Tim Cook college admissions essay, perhaps heavily edited by Jony Ive.

Throughout, the Times tip toes right next to Tim Cook's sexuality. The piece mentions Cook's "support of proposed federal legislation protecting gay, lesbian and transgender workers," and "taking to Twitter and other public venues to express support for environmentalism and gay rights." Cook's "Twitter feed is a mash-up of Apple hoopla and cheerful promotion of human rights and environmentalism." Values of "human rights and dignity" are what steer Apple's Tim Cook, the Times suggests, almost as much as thin expensive things made of glass. And of course, Cook is described as "intensely private," which is right up there with "longtime bachelor" in the regressive euphemism hall of fame. When the profile comes to a 2013 speech by Cook that made a clear reference to his personal discrimination as a gay man, the Times nearly gives itself a concussion, so painfully does it contort itself:

"Apple declined to say what he meant by the reference to discrimination he experienced"

Perhaps because it's a given what he meant, and nothing further needs to be said.

Maybe the Times doesn't care about who Tim Cook sleeps with—although a profile of a man with an apparently deep interest in human rights and sexual equality should probably acknowledge it. Even so. Care, or don't care, say it or say nothing—but pulling the deeply private bachelor bullshit is insulting to Tim Cook, and anyone else who's been paying attention.

Target, America's third largest retailer, has been the source of multiple recent leaks to us from employees at all levels detailing the company's myriad problems. Today: a detailed look at the life of a Target buyer, and how they game both vendors and the company itself.

Target was hit with a computer "glitch" this weekend that caused long delays at checkout lines across the country. It was just the latest stumble in a company that has fired its CEO, had its computer system hacked, and seen its Canadian division become a billion-dollar fiasco, all in the past six months. Target has problems. What's going on in that big red box?

Today, an employee inside Target explains in illuminating detail the company's buying system—what buyers do, how they cheat the system, who dislikes who, and what's wrong with Target's buy side operations. The employee also speaks on what they see as the general flaws in Target's corporate culture. It's quite interesting. Enjoy.

There are four types of buyers.

Internals are those who started as a Business Analyst right out of college.

Internal Externals are those who transferred from a department outside of merchandising.

Experienced externals are those hired from another company, i.e. Macy's, JCPenney, etc.

MBA Externals are those hired from business schools. They come in at the highest buyer level (17) and earn a six-figure salary. They generally do two buyer 17 rotations and are promoted to Sr. Buyer.

It's common knowledge across the company that internals resent MBA externals. We view them as know-it-all arrogant hot shots who come in from out of state and jump the line to Sr. Buyer. MBA externals can become Sr. Buyers without ever doing a role in Merchandise Planning (i.e. inventory management). It's not unusual for internal Sr. Buyers to be more critical of MBA externals or to drive more/unnecessary workload, especially if they find out that the MBA external is making a higher salary, which is common. Sr. Buyers also have the power to subjectively lower their buyers' annual review score to prevent or lessen their bonus.

It'll be interesting to see if Target continues to recruit MBA buyers now that [former Target CEO] Gregg [Steinhafel] is gone. He was an MBA external from Kellogg and the MBA internship program began under his tenure.

Forecast: Buyers forecast once a month for the next three months. They must forecast sales, margins and markdowns by week. Each month, the Divisional meets separately with each team to review last month's forecast/performance, and preview the upcoming three months. Every Buyer forecasts as conservatively as possible in order to "beat" their forecast. It happens so often that it's internally referred to as "sand bagging." The reason is simple: if you beat your forecast, your Sr. Buyer and Divisional won't ask questions. If you miss your forecast, you are grilled to death in front of your team and viewed as not meeting expectations. If you ask any buyer, they'll tell you forecasting is a joke and huge waste of time. It takes up two weeks each month and is the most hated part of the buyer job.

They're difficult because managers expect buyers to be accurate even though consumers are fickle, promotions constantly change at the last minute, unpredictable weather can impact sales, many other factors outside our control can affect sales and if you miss your forecast, you face tough questions from your sr buyer and divisional... Lately, sales have been so bad buyers aren't sandbagging, they're just reflecting the poor sales they expect. What's been frustrating is that Sr. Buyers keep telling buyers to be accurate but if we are, they say they don't like the "story" and make us change it. Then we raise our forecast, miss sales, and get chastised during the forecast meeting.

Vendor Income: VI is money paid by vendors for things like promotions, in-store displays, ads, etc. Buyers are allowed/encouraged/pressured to find creative ways to get as much VI as possible out of vendors. Nothing is off limits. I've seen buyers charge for ads in the circular, in-store displays (internally called company space), for bringing in additional SKUs, for prime shelf placement, etc. There are no rules and buyers have free reign to charge VI whenever and however they want. VI goes into margin ie profit, which is why Sr. Buyers and Divisionals allow it. They simply turn a blind eye to how it comes in, even if the circumstances are questionable. I've seen buyers lie to vendors in order to get VI. The most common one is to tell a vendor that their competitor is offering say $25k to get a company space display but the buyer will give the space to that vendor if they match the offer. VI also allows vendors to offer better margins under the table. Many vendors cannot lower costs below a certain amount, so they'll offer VI to improve margins so they can tell their other retailer partners like Walmart that every one is getting the same costs. I'm sure collecting VI is perfectly legal but the lack of any policies and rules opens it to abuse which vendors would probably be furious about if they knew some of the things buyers do to squeeze out every dollar. [VI] is 10-12% of my category sales.

Comp shop: Target has an entire team dedicated to comp shop. They send out shoppers to Walmart every week to compare prices. If an item is "comp shopped," it means Walmart has priced it lower and it is automatically dropped down to match it. Buyers hate being comp shopped because it compresses their margins. Most buyers are able to negotiate or pressure their vendors to give VI to maintain margins when their items are comp shopped. However, most of the time, the category takes a margin hit. When a buyer brings in a new item, they're supposed to check if that item is also at Walmart and what it'll retail at. If it's carried at WMT, they're supposed to report it to the comp shop team. Instead, most buyers "forget" to tell the comp shop team and feign ignorance when they're busted. Sr. Buyers also turn a blind eye to this because it boosts margin for their department, even if it's only temporary.

Target doesn't allow team members to keep the miles when they travel for business. They use the miles to upgrade executives to business or first class. It's one of the many cheap things Target does.

Target calls itself "Fast, Fun and Friendly." Each team has an FFF captain who is in charge of organizing fun activities for their team, such as frozen yogurt runs and happy hours. Other than FFF events, the motto is a joke. It takes forever to do anything at target. It's very bureaucratic and surprisingly hierarchical even though executives constantly say they have an open door policy. It's not fun when sales are bad because the pressure to increase sales is enormous. And the friendly is superficial and fake. Minnesota Nice at its best. Given the sudden firing of the CEO and the multiple rounds of layoffs, the credit card security breach, dot-com still hemorrhaging money, amazon stealing team members left and right, and Canada as a huge failure, morale is at an all-time low...

Target has a Minnesota Nice culture. It's common to agree with an idea to someone's face, then criticize it behind their back later. It's common to be passive aggressive. Managers say they like it when subordinates play devil's advocate and express disagreement, but those who disagree are viewed as negative, poor team players, and uncollaborative. In other words, agree and support everything your manager says if you want to get promoted.

Merchandise teams eat lunch together. Every day. Those who eat at their desks or with other friends are viewed as bad team players. The only exception is if you have a vendor lunch. Or it's Friday...

Target claims to be family friendly, but it's not. They don't offer any paternity leave. There's no on-site daycare. Managers are not supportive of pregnant women or new mothers who want or need to work from home.

Target claims to offer work life balance but that doesn't apply to merchandising. Buyers spend their entire day in meetings, then are expected to respond to hundreds of emails at night. In 2013, all buyers got iPhones from the company so that they could be reachable at night and on weekends.

Work.different: This initiative was launched in 2013 to help team members be more creative and efficient in completing their work. Desktop computers were replaced by laptops. Desk phones were replaced with headsets that plug into our laptops. We now receive calls via Lync. The idea was that we can work anywhere and be accessible anywhere our laptop is. This didn't work out for buyers because managers were not open to buyers replacing meetings with phone calls and video conferences. Like many other great ideas, this one fizzled because management is resistant to change. This may have worked out better outside of merchandising but I do know that within merchandising, it was a bust.

Previously

For our full archive of Target reporting, see here.

[Photo: Flickr. Contact the author of this post at Hamilton@Gawker.com]

Rick Perry, presidential contender and the Republican Party's version of a Very Special Blossom Episode, said today he'd listen to scientific professionals on whether gay-conversion therapy works. Which is weird, since he thinks scientific professionals who study climate or uteruses are basically charlatans.

The Texas governor has been backspinning since a San Francisco speech last week in which he defended clinical gay-fixin' as something worth funding with Lone Star State tax dollars:

"Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that," the governor said at the Commonwealth Club of California. "I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way."

Perry was responding to the Texas Republican Party's recent decision to support access to "reparative therapy" for homosexuals in its public platform.

By way of clarification Monday, Perry explained on CNBC that whether or not the therapy works is a question for sciencey-types, not politicians. But, you know, fund it now:

The Texas governor largely skirted questions regarding his comments last week, in which he appeared to suggest that homosexuality is a disorder, and refusing to say whether homosexuality therapy was legitimate or not.

"I don't know," the Republican governor said on CNBC when asked whether he believes that there should be therapy programs to "cure" homosexuality. "The fact is, we'll leave that to the psychologists and the doctors."

Seems a sensible decision: Let shrinks and physicians do the psychology and doctoring. Would that Perry felt that way about, well, any other aspects of empirical reality.

Like Perry's dismissal of climate science in 2011:

I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects... I do not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases found to be manipulating this information.

And the cost to the country and the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions if not trillions of dollars at the end of the day. And I don't think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money still on a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is being put more and more into question.

Well. Certainly, though, he trusts doctors in their difficult, unsettled search for the moments where life and viability of a new human begin. Right?

We passed a bill that protects unborn babies after the fifth month of a pregnancy, near a point where we know children born can survive, and thrive, with appropriate care...

Our opponents claimed this was an unreasonable request. I suppose they figured we could just trust the abortion industry to care about the needs of Texas women.

But we know better.

We've witnessed far too many stories...from Philadelphia to Houston and elsewhere, about reckless doctors performing abortions in horrific conditions...

Nowhere even in Roe v. Wade does it say our state owes the abortion industry a high profit margin.

Perhaps beleaguered Texas OB/GYNs will consider retooling as gay-conversion therapists, since the state will apparently subsidize those doctors' profits.

Which reminds us: Does anyone when Rick Perry will get an answer to his probing scientific question? How do psychologists and doctors feel about gay-conversion theories? When will there emerge an empirical consensus?

Oh, probably somewhere around August 5, 2009.

[Photo credit: AP Images]

In a move that indicates he's grown impatient with Congress, President Obama has asked his staff to draft an executive order that would ban workplace discrimination against LGBT employees of federal contractors. This could affect up to 16 million U.S. workers.

A White House official told the Huffington Post that there is no timeline yet for signing the order, leaving a window open for lawmakers to do something themselves first. "The president's intentions are clear," the official said.

If Obama does sign the order, it will be a long time coming — he first promised to sign something like it back in 2008. Since then, Congress has failed to push forward any kind of LGBT non-discrimination legislation. The Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act last November knowing that Speaker of the House John Boehner would never bring it to the floor.

Vice President Joe Biden hinted that an order like this might be coming. He got out in front of the president again on gay issues when he told The Huffington Post last month that he didn't "see any downside" to Obama using his executive authority to ban workplace discrimination against the employees of federal contractors.

One of Jimmy Kimmel's best schticks is forcing celebrities to read the cruel, grammatically incorrect insults that randoms hurl at them on Twitter, and he's done it again with a bunch of NBA stars (and Kris Humphries).

In case you haven't been following basketball, Nate Robinson is still short, Stephen Curry still has a tasteful merkin on his chin, and DeMarcus Cousins is still "an emotional lesbian." Whatever that means.

Kimmel's staff seemingly used to write some of the mean tweets themselves, but the best insults here all seem to come from authentic haters (although the show could probably just hire this guy to write all of them, and nobody would know the difference).

[H/T EW]