A North Carolina man is dead following a shootout with authorities after opening fire on a mobile home, killing two people. Reuters reports that alleged shooter Andrew Michaelis had argued with his wife prior to the incident. She took shelter at her father's trailer at the Crystal Springs Mobile Home Park. Michaelis allegedly fired a semi-automatic weapon into the trailer, killing his father-in-law, Gary Simpson, and his 10-year-old grandson, Trekwan Covington.

According to Cumberland County Sheriff Earl "Moose" Butler, Michaelis returned to the scene after officials responded, and fired again, this time hitting a deputy. The suspect gave chase into the woods, and the ensuing gunfire left two deputies injured and the suspect dead.

Eyewitness Jemarl Epps told the Fayetteville Observer, "I watched him unload his gun.It was like a movie. It was pretty scary.''

At a news conference, Butler said, "This man was prepared to take some lives this morning." A search of the suspect's truck revealed 50 to 60 rounds of ammunition.

[Image via AP]

Truth-teller and philosopher Russell Brand goes after Fox News talking head Sean Hannity in the latest episode of his web series The Trews, castigating the anchor for his segment on the Israel-Palestine conflict as only "interested in shouting, and pointing, and simplifying things."

Brand's 12-minute clip opens to the comedian saying that Hannity "does look a bit like the Ken doll from the Toy Story 3 film." From there, Brand picks apart Hannity's "interview" with Yousef Munayyer of the Jerusalem Fund & Palestine Center, which really only amounts to Hannity shouting at Munayyer for not immediately kowtowing to his pro-Israel stance.

"Sean's not interested in truth—Hannity is only interested pushing a particular perspective," Brand says. More from Raw Story:

He then cuts back to the Hannity clip, in which Hannity does not, in fact, address the broader context, but repeatedly asks what Munayyer would do if people were firing missiles into his neighborhood. Munayyer responds that he's going to try to answer Hannity's question if Hannity would stop "asking it at him," to which Hannity replies, "Good luck."

Brand laughs at Hannity's answer, then repeats it, "'Good luck'! That's right, good luck, mate answering Sean's question, because Sean doesn't want an answer. Sean wants to say more stuff while jabbing his finger aggressively!"

Ultimately, Munayyer proves unsuccessful in getting any kind of useful comment in on-air, with Hannity shutting him down with a haughty "Goodbye!" after Munayyer refused to call Hamas "a terrorist organization." http://gawker.com/russell-brand-...

"One definition of terrorism is using intimidation to achieve your goals," Brands says near the end of the clip. "Who in that situation was behaving like a terrorist? Using intimidation, bullying, being unreasonable: Sean Hannity. That's where the terrorism is coming from."

Harry Owens of Wales competes in the Men's All-Around at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. The artistic gymnastics finals air this Thursday. Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth via AP.

"You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another." —Jake Barnes, in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, 1926

No one needs another essay by another Millennial about why they left New York. But I left New York and came back eight months later. It's different.

As often happens, my relationship with New York began romantically. I knew I wanted to live here ever since I saw the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid. The skyline shone with a prestige that Chicago's didn't. Even with less than half a decade of life experience, I understood that the chaos of the city was alluring to me. New York was where I needed to be.

My first visit happened in 1996 when I was seven years old. My aunt, knowing my passion for the city, took me along for a daytrip. I wore a leather jacket, we flew first-class, and we spent the entire trip in Midtown. I mistakenly went to the Chrysler Building thinking it was the Empire State Building. I ate onion rings at the Fashion Cafe. That's all I remember.

The next trip came eight years later. I was 15, and I really wanted to be a VJ. When Damien Fahey, Vanessa Minnillo, Quddus and that whole gang took over TRL from Carson Daly, I was like, "I fucking deserve that job, too." I searched the casting section of MTV's website incessantly and got a callback for an audition tape that I submitted, but the opportunity went south when the casting director learned that I wasn't old enough to drive. The most that materialized of my constant correspondence with the network was a ticket to see Kanye West on Direct Effect. I ditched school, flew to New York on a whim, sat in the studio audience, bought a few CDs at the Virgin Megastore and returned to the Midwest after less than a day.

I didn't get into NYU, which was a blessing because my years at the University of Illinois were indispensable in a way that only four years at a Big 10 school in Illinois can be, but New York never left my sights. Though I was an honors student in the College of Business majoring in accountancy, it was apparent, by my junior year, that writing would be my path. I schemed on ways to get to New York every second that I could.

The nice thing about being young with a car and disillusionment with academia and freedom of choice is that I realized how tangible my destination was. New York was within reach. All I had to do was go there. And that's exactly what my friends and I did during our Thanksgiving break in the fall of 2008. We booked a hotel and drove across the country without a plan, bonded by the hope that something of substance would transpire on the streets of the Big Apple.

It did. We met a lot of people. We made a lot of connections. By spring break, we had returned. I interviewed for the internship that brought me back to the city for a three-month stretch that summer. I went to a real club for the first time. I was 20 in 1Oak and The Box, wide-eyed and optimistic. I yelled to my friend, "This is the type of club Jay Z goes to." One second later, Jay Z walked past us. It was serendipitous.

Still, 2009 had a rough summer. The internship was unpaid. The money that I made from selling my TV and Xbox 360 lasted about a week. I lived in a disgusting, roach-infested apartment in New Jersey. I got cheated on by my girlfriend back home. I lost a backpack with my phone, keys and laptop on the subway on my first day in Manhattan. Then I returned to college for my senior year with a severe case of FOMO. But Summer 2009 hadn't been without its glory. Despite being dead broke and eating dollar pizza everyday; it was fun. I was introduced to the world of industry events with open bars—back when they seemed cool—and the work was exciting, so even through all of the bullshit, my enthusiasm never faltered. And it paid off.

The internship became a full-time position. I made money. I lived in nicer, better-located apartments. I dated other women. I got that backpack back. (Some really nice girl saw my drunk ass puking on the train and emailed the next day to say she had the backpack I left behind.) I moved to New York a week after graduation and the city delivered on all of its promises.

Three years later, in April 2013, I had the existential realization that having everything that I thought I wanted wasn't enough. It's a cliché, but it's real. I felt trapped. My occupation as a magazine editor was no longer a dream fulfilled. It was a job. I had pageview goals and demands to meet. The city's nightlife was no longer stimulating. Downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn were no longer inspiring. I was the archetypal transplant who couldn't hack it.

I got really jaded and cynical and I was reading Charles Bukowksi's Women at the time and his animosity toward New York's clamor and crowds fueled my own anxiety on packed subway cars and busy avenues. I'd notice how miserable people looked on their commutes and I felt like everyone in the city got conned. Hubris led me to believe that I was smarter than being sold on the idea of New York. The reality was that the city is unnecessarily stressful, overpopulated, expensive, filthy, and a breeding ground for dysfunctional relationships and drug addiction. It was all trite rationalization, but before coming to terms with the issues within myself, I ran away from them. 2,475 miles away.

L.A. was my escape. I saw it as a distant utopia where all of my problems evaporated. In that sense, my first trips to the west coast were similar to my early experiences in New York. Los Angeles was like another planet. There were mountains and palm trees and beaches. On one occasion, I left a restaurant and paparazzi briefly thought I was famous and snapped a few photos. That's a vapid and superficial incident to judge a city by, but it was intoxicating. That never happened to me in New York. That scene in Swingers where they walk into the party and everyone stops to look? That really happens. People want to see if you matter. L.A. has its own pretense, but it seldom feels like anyone is too detached or "too cool" to hear your story. I liked that.

I convinced myself that New York was a facade and that L.A. had the answers. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but I knew L.A. held the solution. It's like that Sex Pistols lyric, "Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it." I knew I could get it by moving to L.A. and the desire to migrate west consumed me. I was obsessed. I watched Swingers and Jackie Brown and Clueless and Barton Fink seemingly everyday. My Gmail password was based on the year that I thought I'd move to L.A. and I didn't see it happening within this decade. It was a long-term goal, but as fate would have it, I received a job offer that would bring me to L.A. far sooner than I'd anticipated. It was almost as if I had willed the opportunity into existence. And I accepted.

I'd drive through the Hollywood Hills at night just for the fuck of it. The bars and clubs closed at 2 a.m. and, coming from a 4 a.m. culture, it didn't even annoy me because I was eager to see what the infamous after hours scene was like. I understood how Nicki Minaj felt when she said, "I live where the motherfuckin' pools and the trees is." I understood why Lana Del Rey called it "paradise." To this day, the concept of L.A.'s infrastructure shocks me. It's art. A week into the relocation and I'm going to mansion parties off Mulholland and it's like, "How did I get here?"

I lived at the edge of West Hollywood off Doheny, close to Sunset. I'd go on runs in Beverly Hills. The suburban aesthetic there and in a lot of other neighborhoods blows my mind. I can't grasp how something like the Sunset Strip is five minutes away from a row of streets that resembles Pleasantville. Then there's this perpetually smoggy, sunny glow to it all. L.A. is surreal. I feel like I'm dreaming even writing about it now: the freeways that look like something out of a post-apocalyptic film, the dozen beaches that are never more than a short drive away, the giant canyons that border city limits. It's the most inconceivable idea for a place and it actually exists.

The traffic didn't even bother me at first. Slowing down on the 405 and looking at the landscape was like sightseeing. I was down to ride anywhere and do anything. Sometimes I'd go out of the way to pass the sidewalk in front of the Viper Room where River Phoenix died or the house on Elm Drive where the Menendez Brothers killed their parents or the condo on Bundy Drive where Nicole Simpson was murdered. I felt like I was living in a history book—the way I used to feel in New York. L.A. has the grit and energy of New York but maintains a shiny surface. L.A. makes losing your mind glamorous. New York makes it cold and bitter. It was interesting to observe. Plus, in a complete coincidence, Randy Newman's "I Love LA" was the first song I heard on the radio when I touched down. Clearly this was a sign. It was all meant to be.

That feeling doesn't last forever. Everyone acts like they're too highbrow and cultured for the ongoing L.A. vs N.Y. conversation but everyone secretly loves the L.A. vs N.Y. conversation because both cities are equally terrible as they are awesome. There's a honeymoon period where nothing about either city seems wrong or like it could ever be wrong and you imagine yourself living there for the rest of your life. Then, slowly, but surely, an acknowledgment of the city's flaws begins to creep in. I was in denial when it first started happening in Los Angeles. But after enough time, L.A. becomes a real place and not a fantasy. Your problems don't evaporate. That Jake Barnes line starts to ring true and it's like, "My God! What have I done?"

L.A. is lonely by design. I had plenty of friends and a thriving social life, but isolation is still inevitable because the city is a massive sprawl where you can't avoid being by yourself for long bouts of time, under any circumstances. New York is a shark. L.A. is a blowfish, and too often is that blowfish in a resting state. That calm is what drew me to L.A. and that's also what made me want to leave. I got back into a relationship with the girl in New York I broke up with before I moved so I was visiting the east coast regularly during my final weeks out west. New York was new to me again. In my absence, my status had surpassed what it'd been before. It made me feel like a rock star. In L.A., there's always an actual rock star next to you in a Ferrari, who gets a better seat at the Chateau Marmont, reinforcing the fact that you are not one of them.

I left L.A. on Christmas Eve of last year and came back to New York on January 1st, in the dead of winter. There was a blizzard on my first day back and I loved it. The snow was like confetti at a Welcome Back celebration. I've always liked the winter more. L.A's perfect weather was, at times, depressing. It was like a movie set, a west coast sequel to Groundhog Day. After a while every day felt the same, and it was terrifying. 70 and sunny. 70 and sunny. 70 and sunny. L.A. had become the facade. Again, it seemed, New York had the answers.

I've been back for seven months and I just signed a two-year lease in Bed-Stuy, so it would appear that some type of statement has been made about where my allegiance between the two cities lies. New York hasn't been perfect since I've returned. But I guess the point of this is that no city is. The next time I get sick of it here, I'll be on the next flight to L.A. It never ends.

Ernest Baker is a writer living in New York City. Follow him on Twitter here.

[Illustration by Jim Cooke]

19-year-old Kendall Jones caused international controversy recently by posting pictures of her exotic animal kills to Facebook. Her argument? Hunting them helps protect the species. Can it? We asked The Texas Huntress.

The Texas Huntress is Ashley Chiles (pictured below), an otherwise prototypical resident of the state, complete with hair product and a stylish wardrobe. Until she picked up a gun a five years ago and became a passionate advocate for hunting, she was exactly the kind of person you'd expect to find Kendall's photos offensive. That she still does requires a bit of explanation and a look into what hunting actually is.

IndefinitelyWild: Who's The Texas Huntress and what does she stand for?

Ashley Chiles: My 92-year-old grandmother Barbara Chiles is a great example of a quintessential Texas huntress. After World War Two, my grandparents moved down to South Texas for the oil boom. At that time, it had some of the best quail and dove hunting in the country. Trust me, my grandmother became an incredible shot and she always looked fabulous while out on a hunt, with her hair done, nails done and while dressed to the nines.

Dressing up and going on dangerous outdoors adventures do not have to be mutually exclusive.

People find my lifestyle contradictory. They think that because I'm now a hunter, I must be a gun nut. But, I'm actually very pro-gun control. I only own one-gun — a beautiful Beretta Silver Pigeon over-under. I also happen to be a super progressive feminist who voted for Obama and I'm a huge supporter of Senator Wendy Davis!

My work appeals to a wide variety of demographics. I've got slow food advocates, anti-Monsanto/anti-factory farming people and then a bunch of redneck hunter dudes who like the photos of attractive women with guns.

I once made a statement against "Hog 'n Dog" hunting and I was getting comments like, "Do you think this is a fashion show?" Or, "Have you ever even shot a gun?" The good ol' boys are incredibly threatened by a strong, opinionated woman. Of course hunting can be a fashion show. Dressing well didn't stop me from making four kills the first four times I fired a gun.

Kendall Jones

IW: What's the difference between the hunting you do and what Kendall Jones does?

AC: I hunt for food out of a desire to participate in the animals' life and as an alternative to eating factory-farmed meat. Kendall is hunting big game in Africa in order to bring back a trophy. The two are very different; it does not make me feel big or powerful to kill an animal. I don't think an animal is a trophy. http://indefinitelywild.gizmodo.com/shooting-baboo...

IW: Is there any truth to the statement that the fees Kendall's parents pay for her hunts actually help protect African Wildlife?

AC: My friends in Africa tell me that yes, each country allocates a certain number of "Big Five" animals to be hunted by tourists per year. The game reserves charge a huge amount of money, which then pays for conservation efforts to protect all endangered animals. I'm not convinced this is totally true, it's doubtful that all the money goes to conservation without it being pocketed by greedy politicians.

This article from Conservation Magazine addresses the complexity, ambiguity and paradoxical nature of this issue.

I also asked my friend Chris Bolton, a guide in South Africa, about it. He said, "Yes, hunting definitely aids the conservation of wild animals. Where there were stock farms before (goats, sheep and cattle), there are game farms now. If there were no paying trophy hunters, this would not be the case. If there were no value to the wild animals, then the farmers would not keep them. The money paid by trophy hunters has a profound effect on the local economy."

IW: Why do you think her story created so much outrage?

AC: The photos she's taken and publicized are offensive to me and many people — gloating with her foot up on the back of a lion with a shit eating grin on her face. She is not demonstrating respect for the animals she has killed and is doing nothing to educate the public about conservation. It's just tasteless. I guess all you have to do to become famous in America now is to make a sex tape or kill an endangered species.

That said, is there really a difference between what she's doing and those of us who love our leather or fur fashion items? Aren't those trophies of a kind too? And often, those are trophies made from unethically raised or just plain tortured animals.

IW: Would you ever kill a lion, elephant or rhinoceros?

AC: No, I don't fancy eating lion or rhino meat. I actually eat less meat now that I hunt; doing so has forced me to examine our society's over consumption and made me appreciate what's actually in our food.

IW: How'd you get into hunting?

AC: Despite coming from a family of hunters, I had rejected that for most of my life. I was raised in Houston, where you would just buy your meat in a package at the grocery store. It was not until I spent years being educated by vegans, vegetarians, farmers, chefs and slow food advocates that I decided to take a rifle into my hands and shoot an animal. I realized I either needed to shoot, dress and cook an animal — and face my fear of the process — or stop eating meat.

Factory farming is destroying the land, torturing the animals and causing us disease. If more of us hunted and participated in the process of harvesting wild meat, I think it would bring much greater respect for animals into our society, while helping to protect the environment and eliminating disease and poison from our diets.

Are you brave enough to pull the trigger yourself? If not, then stop eating meat.

IW: If Kendall is hunting on private game reserves, with animals kept in enclosed environments, is there really any sport to it?

AC: Probably not. But, I don't actually have an issue with whether it is or isn't a sporting kill. If the animal dies quickly and without pain and if you're killing it not for a trophy, but for food, then the process is actually more humane than buying a pack of burgers at the grocery store.

But, I mean yeah, if you're trying to brag about what a badass hunter you are and you've really just been sitting in a deer blind, with corn out at the feeder, shooting through a scope, then I am going to think you're an idiot.

Photos of The Texas Huntress by Tai Power Seeff.

The Texas Huntress is an upcoming series of films, photographs and stories in which Ashley explores the literal and metaphorical manifestations of hunting. Coming Fall, 2014 to TexasHuntress.com.

IndefinitelyWild is a new publication about adventure travel in the outdoors, the vehicles and gear that get us there and the people we meet along the way. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Over the last several months, the deadliest-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus has torn through West Africa, claiming hundreds of lives and leaving hundreds more infected. If you're just catching up with the news, here's some of what we know about the disease, its spread, and how it might be stopped.

What is the Ebola virus, exactly, and what does it do?

First documented in 1976, Ebola is a deadly virus that's contracted through contact with the blood or bodily fluids of another infected person or animal. Because fruit bats can seemingly carry the virus without without falling sick, they are thought to be its primary carriers. Symptoms, at first, are flu-like—fever, chills, headache, sore throat, diarrhea, vomiting—and most commonly occur 8-10 days after infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The prognosis for patients is not good: The World Health Organization estimates a fatality rate of up to 90 percent.

Why is it suddenly in the news?

West Africa is currently in the throes of the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. Over 700 people have died of the virus since it reared its head in Guinea in March—339 in Guinea, 233 in Sierra Leone, 156 in Liberia, and one in Nigeria, the Associated Press reports. Among the dead are Sheik Umar Khan, a prominent Ebola doctor in Sierra Leone who treated dozens of patients before his death, and over 6o health workers.

A graphic from the New York Times shows the geographic scope of the outbreak.

Some recent updates: Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency, its soccer team was blocked from traveling to Kenya and the Seychelles, a man died of Ebola in Nigeria after flying from Liberia (the people he came into contact with are being monitored and/or isolated), aid organizations pulled workers out out from the affected countries, and two American citizens were infected (we'll get to them in a second).

Is there a cure, or a vaccine, or anything?

The short answer is no. No licensed drugs proven to eradicate the Ebola virus from a body or prevent its spread exist, though some unproven treatments are available, including an "experimental serum" that's been used on some cases in the current outbreak and the transfusion of blood from an Ebola survivor to an infected patient. Some people are able to withstand the virus and live, though it's unclear how their bodies deal with the infection when so many others can't. According to the AP, most patients "can only be given supportive care to keep them hydrated."

And the infected Americans?

This week brought the news that Americans Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, a missionary, were infected with the Ebola virus in Liberia. Both are still alive and receiving treatment: Writebol with the experimental serum and Brantly with blood transfusions from a 14-year-old boy who survived the disease in his care, the AP reports. Only enough serum arrived in Liberia for one person, and Brantly asked that it be given to Writebol. According to Franklin Graham, head of Samaritan's Purse, a religious aid organization working in Liberia, the boy giving blood to Brantly "wanted to be able to help the doctor who saved his life."

One of the American patients, though it is unclear which, will be transported to the United States to receive treatment at Atlanta's Emory University hospital, which has a specialized unit where Ebola can be treated in isolation. Though the prospect of putting people infected with a deadly, contagious disease on American soil may be frightening to some, CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said a spread of the virus in the U.S. is "not in the cards."

State Department spokespeople say protective measures will be taken when transporting patients home. From NBC:

'Every precaution will be taken to move the patients safety and securely to provide critical care en route and to maintain strict isolation upon arrival in the United States," [State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said].

"The State Department office of medical services has deployed its chief of infectious disease to West Africa in order to provide on the ground consultation and guidance to health unit staff regarding protective measures and case recognition."

...

"This would be done through non-commercial air travel in very controlled steps," another spokesman added. "The CDC has devised plans and equipment to do it safely. Patients were evacuated in similar ways during the SARS outbreak in 2003 and in cases involving drug resistant tuberculosis in 2007."

What happens next?

No one really knows. The disease's quick spread was aided in part by mistrust of doctors and hospitals among citizens of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, as well as sluggish responses from local and international governments, and it shows no sign of slowing down. Dr. Jonathan LaPook discussed that mistrust on CBS This Morning this week: "You can understand why. People come into the hospitals and they don't leave, and so they're thinking maybe something bad is going on there; maybe the care is not optimal."

That means lots of patients are in their homes or churches instead of quarantined, and friends and family members tending to them face risk of infection. Last month, Sierra Leonean Ebola patient Saudatu Koroma was forcibly removed from a hospital in Freetown, the country's capital, by her family. Koroma was the first documented patient in Freetown, and it was feared that her escape would lead to a larger outbreak there. She later returned to the hospital, where she died.

The leaders of each affected country met with the head of the WHO in Conakry, Guinea today, the New York Times reports, where they discussed a proposed $100 million plan to help treat and contain the virus. A WHO statement describes the plan, which will deploy hundreds of additional aid workers to the west African nations:

Key elements of the new plan, which draws on lessons learnt from other outbreaks, include strategies to:

• stop transmission of Ebola virus disease in the affected countries through scaling up effective, evidence-based outbreak control measures; and
• prevent the spread of Ebola virus disease to the neighbouring at-risk countries through strengthening epidemic preparedness and response measures.

WHO and affected and neighbouring countries will renew efforts to mobilize communities and strengthen communication so that people know how to avoid infection and what to do if they fear they may have come into contact with the virus.

Improving prevention, detecting and reporting suspected cases, referring people infected with the disease for medical care, as well as psychosocial support, are key. The plan also emphasizes the importance of surveillance, particularly in border areas, of risk assessments and of laboratory-based diagnostic testing of suspected cases. Also highlighted is the need to improve ways to protect health workers, a scarce resource in all three countries, from infection.

In addition to those who have died, the Times reports, there are 1,323 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola in west Africa to date.

[Image via AP]

Finally, white people have the non-native American mascot they deserve.

A "Caucasians" t-shirt that lampoons the racist "Chief Wahoo" logo Major League Baseball's Cleveland Indians have been using since 1947 is flying off the shelves at Shelf Life Clothing.

It's been around since 2007, but sales of the parody tee have recently taken off thanks to the growing backlash against Native mascots and team names (especially noted asshole Dan Snyder's Washington Redskins) and an endorsement from Ojibwa musician DJ NDN of Canada's A Tribe Called Red.

NDN, real name Ian Campeau, successfully complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission about the Nepean Redskins, after which the football team renamed itself the Eagles. When A Tribe Called Red faced a backlash as a result, supporters started buying the Caucasians shirt in droves, the Toronto Star reports.

Shelf Life's Brian Kirby told the paper sales have "skyrocketed" since the DJ NDN controversy, and the company has been "working around the clock" to meet demand. Canadian orders now make up 25 percent of the shirt's sales.

Although the message behind "Caucasians" seems pretty straightforward—using a race of humans as a sports mascot is regressive and offensive—Kirby says some of his sales are coming from white folks who wear it to argue there's nothing wrong with racial caricatures.

"We are selling tees to a wide range of customers – indigenous peoples and Chief Wahoo supporters alike," Kirby told the Star.

If you prefer a less ambiguous fuck you to Snyder et al, Shelf Life also sells a "Your Team Name is Disparaging" shirt, with Washington Redskins-style feathers hanging from the text.

[H/T boing boing, Photo: Shelf Life Clothing]

Bill Gross is the billionaire head of the enormous bond fund Pimco and one of the most influential men in finance. But Bill Gross's 25-year-old son, Nick, is pure 100% rocking and rolling.

Like most of us, you are probably a big fan of the lite rock sounds of the band Open Air Stereo. But did you know that the Nick Gross in Open Air Stereo is the same Nick Gross who is the scion of Bill Gross, "The Bond King?" Okay... if you were a true Open Air Stereo fan u would know that. ICU guys. For the rest of you (poser fans) though, Bloomberg today goes behind the scenes with Nick Gross, who has overcome his childhood as the son of a financial titan in order to become a bit of a mini-mogul of his own, in terms of Music That Sounds Like It Would And in Fact Has Appeared in the Television Show 'Laguna Beach.'

"In music too, as it is in the stock or bond world, you have to kind of, in the production world, be ahead of the curve," is one quote that Nick Gross says regarding his music company that includes "a full service experiential marketing firm," which is certainly an ahead-of-the-curve way to look at the concept of "music."

Nick Gross also discusses his own investment portfolio in fields like Big Data.

Though their sounds may vary, the world can never have too many celebrity children making music for us.

[Bloomberg]

This morning, the not-so-subtly pro-settler, pro-war Times of Israel published an op-ed explaining that genocide is okay when the victims are Gazans. The paper quickly thought better of it, and took down the piece. We saved it here in its entirety, because it's an important window into a terrible mindset.

The piece is not by a geopolitician or a statesman or a soldier, but by a New York-based accountant named Yochanan Gordon who insists "that the US and the UN are completely out of touch" with the realities of war in the Middle East. The op-ed quickly garnered 300 Facebook likes and was tweeted more than 3,000 times before it disappeared from the Times' website:

Multiple Twitter users took screenshots of the entire column before it was deleted; one such shot appears below. I've excerpted some "highlights" here:

…it's now obvious that the US and the UN are completely out of touch with the nature of this foe and are therefore not qualified to dictate or enforce the rules of this war—because when it comes to terror there is much more than meets the eye.

I wasn't aware of this, but it seems that the nature of warfare has undergone a major shift over the years. Where wars were usually waged to defeat the opposing side, today it seems — and judging by the number of foul calls it would indicate — that today's wars are fought to a draw. I mean, whoever heard of a timeout in war? An NBA Basketball game allows six timeouts for each team during the course of a game, but last I checked this is a war! We are at war with an enemy whose charter calls for the annihilation of our people. Nothing, then, can be considered disproportionate when we are fighting for our very right to live…

News anchors such as those from CNN, BBC and Al-Jazeera have not missed an opportunity to point out the majority of innocent civilians who have lost their lives as a result of this war. But anyone who lives with rocket launchers installed or terror tunnels burrowed in or around the vicinity of their home cannot be considered an innocent civilian...

I will conclude with a question for all the humanitarians out there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly stated at the outset of this incursion that his objective is to restore a sustainable quiet for the citizens of Israel. We have already established that it is the responsibility of every government to ensure the safety and security of its people. If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals?

I will not comment on this at length. Make of it what you will. I'll only say that Israel deserves to exist and deserves to defend itself from external threats, and certainly Hamas and its sympathizers have posed a threat to Israeli citizens and soldiers in recent years. Those are fair premises. But they do not lead inexorably to Yochanan Gordon's psychotic final conclusion. They do not lead inexorably to the manner in which this war has been waged. And Israel's manner in this war does not appear to lead inexorably—or even remotely—to a solution for Israeli security, much less peace for the non-Israelis in the region.

What Yochanan Gordon—and anyone inclined to agree with his hoop-dream musings—doesn't know about war, peace, and humanity could fill volumes.

The full column:

Update: The 5 Towns Jewish Times, a U.S. news site founded by Gordon's father, also published the genocide op-ed and has finally removed it, replacing it with this note:

An article that was posted earlier today on our website dealt with the question of genocide in a most irresponsible fashion. We reject any such notion or discussion associated with even entertaining the possibility of such an unacceptable idea.

The piece should have been rejected out of hand by editors but escaped their proper attention. We reject such a suggestion unequivocally and apologize for the error.

Vice President Joe Biden posted a #ThrowBackThursday picture on Twitter yesterday, and boy was he hot in his youth — #letsbuildatimemachine so that he can #getinsideme.

Short sleeve button-downs are coming back but health care has always been in style. #Bornin88? Then #GetCovered. #TBT pic.twitter.com/XeMmUPC2Go

— Vice President Biden (@VP) July 31, 2014

That's the tweet. It's meant to advocate Obamacare to 26-year-olds no longer covered by their parents' insurance so that everyone can be healthy and virile like the Binden of yesteryear.

[H/T Towleroad]

On a tape recorded September 10, 2001, Bill Clinton can be heard saying he once had the opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden, but didn't, because it would have meant killing 300 civilians as well.

The recording, made with Clinton's consent, surfaced this week when former Australian Liberal Party head Michael Kroger provided it to Australian TV network Sky News, Reuters reports. Clinton was speaking at an event in Melbourne at the time.

Clinton's full statement regarding bin Laden:

I'm just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden—He's a very smart guy. I've spent a lot of time thinking about him. And I nearly got him, once. I nearly got him, and I could have gotten—I could have killed him, but I would have had to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan, and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn't do it.

As Reuters notes, Clinton made similar statements before and after 9/11, but the timing of this particular speech is eerie. The 9/11 Commission Report details the December 1998 incident to which Clinton was apparently referring:

On December 20, intelligence indicated Bin Ladin would be spending the night at the Haji Habash house, part of the governor's residence in Kandahar. The chief of the Bin Ladin unit, "Mike," told us that he promptly briefed Tenet and his deputy, John Gordon. From the field, the CIA's Gary Schroen advised: "Hit him tonight—we may not get another chance."

...

The principals considered a cruise missile strike to try to kill Bin Ladin. One issue they discussed was the potential collateral damage—the number of innocent bystanders who would be killed or wounded. General Zinni predicted a number well over 200 and was concerned about damage to a nearby mosque...By the end of the meeting, the principals decided against recommending to the President that he order a strike...A few weeks later, in January 1999, Clarke wrote that the principals had thought the intelligence only half reliable and had worried about killing or injuring perhaps 300 people.

San Francisco's big push to make tech corporations pay for years of clogging city bus stops ended with a shrug. Starting today, the 18-month pilot program will charge a mere $3.55 per-stop fee for shuttle operators. But organizations figured out a way to avoid even that small token of goodwill just by crossing the street.

Yesterday, a tipster sent Valleywag a notice posted outside the offices of Advent Software, a San Francisco-based company with a market cap of $1.6 billion that makes software to help investment banks, hedge funds, and family offices manage their wealth. The flier explicitly says the shuttle bus stop is being moved because of the pilot program's fee. Although Advent's name is on the building, the bus service is provided by Advent's landlord at 600 Townsend Street, which manages the contract with the shuttle operator.

From the flier:

The reason for this change is that the SFMTA recently approved an 18-month pilot program whereby all shuttles stopping in designated stops (one of which is our current stop) are being charged a fee per stop. [The new stop] is a white zone that is less busy and a safe and dedicated shuttle stop. This stop is not included in the SFMTA pilot.

According to the tipster, the smaller 600 Townsend shuttle used to stop at the Chase bank on the corner of Market and 8th Street, the site of a heated Google bus blockade in January. The spot outside Chase (red arrow in the map) is also used by a number of other tech shuttles. Now the 600 Townsend shuttle will stop at the Burger King across the street (green arrow). The image at the top of the post is taken from the SFMTA's map for commuter shuttles participating in the pilot program.

In Google Street View, you can see the Chase logo and the Burger King logo in the same frame. Hey, brands!

Unlike the double decker deals that cart workers to and fro tech campuses on the Peninsula, the tipster said 600 Townsend's shuttle picks up employees who take BART and Muni and buses them a few blocks to their office. Advent's office is a just down the street from Zynga's headquarters. Airbnb's headquarters are also nearby.

I contacted the company that manages the building at 600 Townsend yesterday afternoon and will update the post if I hear back. The building's website links to the America subsidiary of the Toda Corporation.

SFMTA spokesperson Kristen Holland told Valleywag there was nothing illegal about avoiding the $3.55 fee. The pilot program was designed "as a framework for those who do want to continue using Muni bus routes," said Holland. "If they're outside of our permit program, they're a road user like any other. If they find a legal place to park, that's fine. And, if not, they run the risk of being cited." Holland said all transit officers have been trained and the SFMTA has "a very robust enforcement plan in place."

Holland also stressed that the pilot program only levied fines on the shuttle bus operators, not the tech corporations directly. "Our understanding is that they do pass along the fees [to the tech companies]. We don't have copies of all their contracts, but that's my understanding."

After looking at a photo of the flier, Holland said she wasn't sure if the new spot was entirely on the up-and-up. "It's a little unclear exactly where they're going to be, but I can't see the curb really well," she said. "If they have a legal way to operate safely in the city that's fine."

When I asked how the SFMTA felt about companies hopping crossing the street rather than paying the city, Holland sounded very Zen: "Everyone needs to do what makes sense for them."

The pilot program is still accepting applications. Here's a list of participating shuttle operators:

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

[Original image via SFMTA]

Five minutes into ABC's new reality saga The Quest, the realization hits that we live in an incredible, surreal time; a time where it seems like literally anything is possible if TV cameras are involved.

Quick premise: the geniuses behind the art department and special effects in the Lord of The Rings series decided to put their Middle-Earth artisanal skills back to work by creating an immersive fantasy world for 12 extremely lucky, extremely nerdy contestants, and they've filled this exquisitely, painstakingly detailed physical world with the most scenery-chewing seasoned Renaissance Faire MVPs yours and mine eyes have ever seen.

The snap of a velvet cloak is music to my motherfucking ears.

PS, that castle up top? The players live in it.

I have not felt this kind of childlike wonder about a reality series since the series premiere of Survivor, when CBS took the old watercooler premise "what if you washed up on a deserted tropical island..." and made it legit happen. But while The Quest closely follows the format of Survivor (two challenges, one member voted out) its mission statement is the exact opposite. The Quest is the reality Yin to Survivor's reality Yang, and it's betting on the kindness of the average viewer in the way no reality show ever has. Ahem:

1. Survivor counts on us wanting to see people ruthlessly betray each other and lose radical amounts of wait as they physically suffer. But The Quest is vicarious wish fulfillment, and one of its greatest joys is witnessing the sheer unadulterated happiness on the contestant's faces. I have never seen people enjoy their time on reality TV so much, ever, and I love it.

2. Unlike Survivor's famous 1 million dollars motivating the social intrigue, there's no money prize for contestants of The Quest. Production has instead poured that money into making this insanely gorgeous world, and the prize is getting to spend as long as possible in it.

3. Because The Quest made an effort to cast genuine, self-proclaimed nerds, the social dynamics are a lot kinder than Survivor. Granted, we're still in the premiere, but these are people who were most likely forced into some level of empathy at an early age and they do not wield the weapon of rejection lightly. The moment of highest anxiety in the premiere happens after they get to the castle and have to choose roommates.

AND FINALLY, and this is the most devastating difference, is that when someone is voted off Survivor, there's the comfort of knowing they may be stung but at least they'll be restored to a better world: they'll get a hot shower, a sleeve of Oreos, a toilet, etc. With The Quest, when one of the "Paladins" (I KNOW!) is banished, you see a nerd banished from nerd heaven, and you're left with the feeling they've been ejected from a far more engaging reality than what's waiting at home.

Did you watch The Quest? What do you think they eat since we haven't seen meals yet? Turkey legs? Can a reality show that tries to stimulate our purer impulses (kindness, empathy, wonder) be successful, or is reality TV ruled by schadenfreude? Think production's serving them up Pepsi and mojo potatoes like at Medieval Times? Can't wait to find out.

[ Videos via ABC]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Read more here.

Florida teen Jennifer Greene announced her candidacy for Worst Human of 2014 last month when she and a friend set a protected gopher tortoise on fire repeatedly, stomped it to death, and posted the video on Facebook. Now she may have established herself as the frontrunner: The 18-year-old is now facing charges for allegedly being sexually involved with an underage boy.

The boy, whose age hasn't been made public, told investigators Greene engaged in multiple sex acts with him. According to an arrest report obtained by Fox 30, their relationship started when the two were playing hide and seek behind an Orange Park, Fla. home.

The boy told police he initiated things by asking to see Greene's boobs, and she "then consented to perform various sexual acts, including oral sex," Fox 30 reported.

Because Greene was only 17 at the time, multiple sources originally reported she would be charged as a juvenile for lewd or lascivious battery—defined in Florida as engaging in sexual activity with a child older than 12 and younger than 16.

The Florida state's attorney's office now plans to prosecute her in adult court. She faces up to 15 years in prison, in addition to the five years she already faced for animal cruelty.

[H/T Opposing Views, Photo: Fox 30]

In a video that would be funny if it didn't revolve around violent bigots, representatives of the Ku Klux Klan confirmed the organization's call to shoot border-crossing immigrants from Central America to advance its goal of a "white homeland" in the United States.

In the remarkable new video from Al Jazeera America, reporter Robert Ray rendezvoused with two Klansmen in a compact Chevy and followed them from a North Carolina town to a rural wood, where they articulated the Klan's murderous objectives.

The Klansmen purport to represent the "Loyal White Knights" of North Carolina, described by Ray as "the largest active KKK operation in America"—although the talkative guy in the silly white hood—identified by Al-Jazeera as "Robert Jones," a grand dragon—has a shoulder flash identifying him as a Virginia-based Klansman, along with thong sandals and a gut that protrudes through his cassock and over a purple rope-belt.

"These people are criminals to begin with when they cross our country," the white knight says of the mostly-underage immigrants currently collecting at the U.S.-Mexico border:

"They're gonna continue to break the law when they're here. they're bringing with 'em the third-world diseases...

If we can't turn them back, I think if we pop a couple of 'em off and leave the corpses laying on the border, maybe they'll see that we're serious about stopping immigration."

The objective of these bubbas, as always, is "A white homeland," Jones says. "I believe we will have it here eventually one day," he adds, thong sandals and all.

[ H/t Raw Story]

Today, New York City is mounting a large-scale simulation of an anthrax attack, the biggest emergency simulation the city has ever staged. So how exactly does the largest city in the United States respond to biological warfare?

The drill is called RAMPEx (Rapid Activation for Mass Prophylaxis Exercise), and it's co-sponsored by the Department of Health and the Department of Homeland Security, which will be footing the estimated $1.4 million bill. Its main focus is "mass prophylaxis," which is a fancy way of saying "getting life-saving drugs to as many people as possible as quickly as possible."

In order to test its response systems, the department has set up 30 points of distribution (PODs) and various command centers across all five boroughs to ensure that if a biological agent were released on the city, people would be able to get drugs quickly and easily. And once all the PODs are open for business, the drill is over. It started around 6:30am, and city officials estimate the whole song and dance will be done by around 3pm.

The first thing that would happen in the event of an anthrax attack? The city would pretty much shut down. There would be an announcement on TV and radio with explicit instructions for where people should go if may have been affected.

Since today is only a drill, the medicine headed for the POD we observed—P.S. 153 Adam Clayton Powell, in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood—got stuck in traffic, which is obviously not ideal when timeliness could save lives. But if this were a real-life situation, the medicine would be zipping to its destination quickly, thanks to police escort, the health department told us. And fortunately, you have between 24 and 48 hours after anthrax exposure for treatment to still be effective. So literally, a bit of traffic won't kill anyone (yet).

The Health Department's David Starr told us that the PODs are equipped to accommodate around 3,200 people per hour. The logistics aren't dissimilar to showing up at your local polling station on election day, except with more medicine and panic. When people arrive, they're asked to fill out a screen form that asks a simple set of even questions that will help staffers know how to medicate each individual. From there, each person will either be given the dose or examined further, if deemed necessary. The government supplies 10 days worth of antibiotics, although 60 days is the recommended dosage.

NYC has put on anthrax drills before, just not of this scale. To give an idea of the size and reach of this particular one, it involves more than 1,500 people (none of whom knew of the drill beforehand) from the following 13 city agencies:

Mayor's Office
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Department of Education
New York City Police Department
Human Resources Administration
Department of Environmental Protection
Department of Housing Preservation and Development
Office of Emergency Management
Administration for Children's Services
Department of Homeless Services
Department of Finance
Department of Transportation
Department of Citywide Administrative Services
Department for the Aging
Law Department
Department of Probation

This statement from Police Commissioner William J. Bratton puts the necessity of such a drill into perspective:

There are over 8 million New Yorkers, 55 million tourists and over 5 million commuters that visit this city. This exercise will provide an opportunity to work closely with our emergency response partners to develop a safety plan that includes dispensing the proper medication in the event of a terrorist attack or public health emergency.

The truth of the matter is that an anthrax attack, or any other kind of public health emergency, can happen. And it has! Just after September 11, five people were killed after receiving anthrax-laced mail, and many others fell sick. And around that same time, anthrax was discovered around New York City, with Tom Brokaw, a couple of U.S. senators, and the offices of the New York Post being targets. There are also naturally-occuring disease scares to be aware of, like H1N1 or West Nile or, more currently, Ebola. Point being, this is a good and necessary exercise.

The only disappointing thing is that we won't ever know the actual results of the drill; the Health Department will be keeping those private for security reasons. Let's just hope it goes better than Pawnee's.

Additional reporting and photography by Nick Stango

A week later, the summer monsoons are still pouring down across the Rio Grande Valley, as my wife, Kirbi, and I wait here at Goat Farm for the birth of our son.

The due date came and went last weekend with just a few false contractions—so now we're just kind of sitting around, occasionally going outside in between storms to pet the goats or plant flowers while we wait for something to happen.

You see, I made my mind up after a particularly scary moment early in Kirbi's pregnancy that I wasn't going to freak out over anything related to pregnancy anymore until someone who actually knows what the hell they're talking about gives me a concrete reason to do so, which hasn't happened yet.

I figure it was either do that or risk a sudden, catastrophic stroke every other week for nine months. I'm 41 now, and the risk for that sort of thing is going up…

But the co-sleeper is set up, the changing table is ready for dirty diapers, the Baby Bjorne is as bjorned as it's going to get, the car seat installed and triple-checked and the teddy bear with the little shirt that says "Love from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada!" is ready to be cuddled. Now we're just patiently waiting, which has actually given me a lot of time to get all philosophical and think about exactly what it is I want our son to know and learn from me as he grows into adulthood.

There are a few easy, highly practical lessons, I guess. Things that fall firmly under the "don't" category that like an idiot I had to learn the hard way, and with any luck my son won't have to learn at all:

Don't sniff glue. Don't sniff magic markers. Don't sniff paint. Don't sell your school supplies to others so they can sniff them. Compound hunting bows aren't toys. Roman candle fights always end badly. Gasoline isn't a toy. Don't accidentally light papers on fire in your desk at school with gunpowder from a cap gun. Don't do a Pete Rose slide on asphalt. Slugs are inappropriate pets. Don't sniff gasoline. Don't taste gasoline. Don't light a wheelbarrow full of gasoline on fire just to see what happens. Just please avoid gasoline. I beg you, son, stay away from gasoline. Also power lines. Avoid describing your honest emotions when writing about death to a new audience. Don't drink gin above 10,000 feet. Don't play cards with anyone over the age of 60. Don't move to Tucson unless you have a job in hand. Don't get an English degree…

But just constantly saying "no" to a mile-long list of dumb crap isn't really parenting—it's more like being an HR manager, and that sounds like 18 years or so of hell for everybody involved. What kind of positive impact do I want to make on my son's life?

I honestly have no specific ideas beyond being generally kind and caring. I guess I'll just play it by ear, making it up as I go along like every parent has since the first parents crawled out of the ooze 500 million years ago.

But there is one thing for certain: I want my son to like road trips.

Road Trips = Good, Television = Bad, Dogs = Well...

I love road trips—I always have and I guess I always will.

It's how you see and learn about a new place, getting out to walk around weird towns like Barstow, Port Angeles or Cortez, or stopping in some tourist trap like Wall Drug or the World's Largest Prairie Dog to happily buy crap like bumper stickers, snow globes, hat pins, key chains, genuine Navajo turquoise jewelry imported from China or souvenir t-shirts featuring a drawing of a donkey with "I Lost My Ass in Reno" scrawled across the top and which will inevitably become a dust rag when you get home—and you wouldn't have it any other way.

Gas station somewhere east of Barstow, Calif. (Photo by Jason M. Vaughn)

It's doing things like keeping tabs of the license plates you see as you cruise for a parking space in Yellowstone, finding yourself shouting things like "Hey, there's a Quebec!" without the slightest trace of irony or self-consciousness. It's learning about mountains and valleys and farms and history and people in a hands-on way that schools will always fail to do.

It's about having some control over your journey through life, and being more than a piece of cargo-meat strapped to the floor of some shitty commuter jet, drinking a can of warm Coke, sitting next to a human fart machine for three hours while staring out the window and wondering if this is the flight where a poorly-maintained chunk of wing just sort of falls off and the plane makes a graceful spiraling arc straight into a canyon wall, or if you'll just end up in Oakland as scheduled—and honestly not giving much of a shit either way.

I'm my happiest when I'm driving long distances—12 hours straight or longer—stopping only long enough to gas up, cruising through deserts or mountains, listening to music, making terrible jokes, admiring the landscape, irritating the hell out of whoever is stuck riding beside me, being a tour guide for the places I've been before, getting lost in places I never knew existed…

It's therapy. It's a great way to clear your mind, put the past in perspective and figure out what to do next. Not to get too Kerouac-y about it, but it's all about the journey—not the destination, you dig?

But if you want to appreciate the road, you have to leave some things behind…

Televisions, for instance. The worst idea ever put into action in the history of road tripping has to be the introduction of television screens into cars. The upper half of most passenger cars are made mostly of glass—dark tinted and glare-resistant for your driving pleasure, allowing almost complete visibility out into the great American landscape, with all its purple mountains' majesty and amber waves of grain, etc…

But that wasn't enough to keep the kids quiet, so somebody decided to put televisions in the back seat—usually the head rest—so the kids can stare at the back of your head and watch the same goddamn cartoons they watch at home instead of irritating you with questions about where they are or where they're going. It's a straight-up admission that we, as a nation, just don't give a fuck about anything anymore except keeping the children quiet until we reach the amusement park/hotel/grandma's house or wherever half-assed vacations are spent.

I want my son to ask me questions about the world around him. I don't want to keep him quiet and staring at a screen while the world passes him by, I want him to be engaged and excited about the journey and not just the destination…and I'm sure that every one of those self-righteous words will come back to haunt me in some nightmarish fashion at some point in the next decade, probably while driving through western Kansas.

Nothing good ever happens in western Kansas. I've been through it a thousand times over the years, and it's all just tornadoes, failure and hate out there.

But at the moment I'm serious, goddamn it! Turn off the TV and look out the window!

Also, leave the dog at home.

I love dogs. At any given time there are three or four huge country dogs of indeterminate breed wandering around Goat Farm, chasing off squirrels and lounging around on the porch during the day and keeping guard for coyotes, bobcats and any stranger dumb enough to tangle with a farm dog at night. They're absolute sweethearts, and were born to ride around in the back of a pickup truck and keep an eye on things.

I still wouldn't take one with me on vacation. No way in hell.

Seriously, leave the dog at home. Most dogs love car rides, but after a few hours most will still get incredibly car sick. Even the ones that don't vomit all over the interior of your car will only be fun up to a point— like, say, you're driving through Yellowstone and your supposedly well-trained dog, overwhelmed with their dumb dog instincts, shoots out the window after a bison or moose or a herd of elk and gets immediately stomped to death. Or jumps into a scalding hot spring. Or just wanders away from your campsite into the woods in the night to follow some strange new smell, never to be seen again.

Good luck explaining that one to your kid: "Son, please don't look out the rear window because (insert your dog's name here) just had his face torn off by a grizzly bear. Now who wants ice cream? I know I do, but only little boys who don't look out the rear window to gaze at the grisly horror show we're leaving behind in the parking lot get ice cream! Sweet, delicious ice cream..."

You may think that you have one of those dogs who just travels well, but I guarantee that you don't. Please put the dog in a kennel until you get back.

Building Memories Through Violent Cowboys and Volcanic Ash

Maybe the best way to impart a love of long road trips is to try and build up some good memories, stuff that becomes part of your family's catalog of legends. For instance, when I was a wee lad of four or so, my family went on a road trip from our home in Kansas City to Yellowstone National Park.

Our favorite route, or at least the fastest route at that time (the mid-70's), took us across I-90 in South Dakota, where we stayed the night in the town of Mitchell, home of the famed Mitchell Corn Palace—which much later as an older child I was disappointed to learn was not actually made of corn (corn pillars, corn roof, corn toilets, etc…) but was just a normal building covered in corn, which in my mind is kind of a rip-off.

Kind of like the Cow Palace, which didn't live up to it's name either; or Hell's Half Acre, which it turns out is not in the fiery depths of the biblical Hell at all but is instead just a pretty canyon in Wyoming.

A van full of mariachis cruising down I-80 in western Nebraska. (Photo by Jason M. Vaughn)

Anyway, we had coincidentally arrived in Mitchell in time for their big rodeo. If your town has never experienced an authentic small-time rodeo, forget anything you might have seen on television. A small town Friday night rodeo is where cowboys from across the area would gather to rope calves, ride bulls, bust saddle broncs, generally terrorize the locals, drink and pill themselves up into blackout rages, beat the mortal shit out of each other in parking lots, wake up in jail pissing blood, etc…for maybe a couple hundred bucks in prize money.

That night at the motel (we tended to stay at some hall-of-fame-worthy budget hellholes on our road trips, not even name-brand places but genuine dumps with names like "The I-25 Inn" and "Motel 5") was apparently terrorizing for my parents, with the sounds of drunken cowboys yelling and fighting outside our door throughout the night. I guess I slept on through it, but my parents finally decided enough was enough around 4:00 a.m. and we packed up to leave.

I'm told that as we were leaving, and I was being carried out to the car, I awoke just long enough to say—loud and clear in my sweet four-year-old voice—"Look at all the nice cowboys!"

I then fell right back to sleep.

Whiskey bottles stopped in mid-air, fists halted in mid-punch as a motel parking lot full of wasted cowboys and bikers froze in a rictus, wondering what the hell it was they just heard. Heads turned to look at us as my mortified parents shoved me and the suitcases into the backseat and we took off down the road as fast as our Ford Maverick could take us.

Or the time we were driving through Washington a few months after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, which was easily one of the most fascinating events of my childhood. It got me stuck in a nerdy life-long geology kick that I'll probably never get over—to this day I collect small rocks from every place we visit, dutifully hauling them from place to place every time we move. Fortunately, Kirbi does the exact same thing, except she likes collecting big, hernia-inducing chunks of granite or basalt instead of the little samples I like to take. So, yeah, we're pretty much perfect for each other.

And I still want to be a volcanologist when I grow up.

But we were driving across the plains of eastern Washington on our way to visit my great-uncle Hughie in Seattle when we stopped in some little town for gas. Volcanic ash covered the land like snow. Great piles of the stuff were shoveled up along the edges of parking lots and roads. It was in the car, on our clothes, in our lungs…

Yet, when we went inside the gas station, they were selling little plastic globes filled with "Authentic Mount St. Helens Volcanic Ash" for $10 a pop, and—apparently suffering a sudden bout of amnesia regarding of our immediate surroundings— I pretty much lost my shit when my parents refused to get one for me. Yes, I have matured a bit since then.

But I loved every ashy second of that road trip.

Denouement

We plan on getting our son used to the road as soon as his development will allow. Quick day trips at first—up to Taos or maybe down to White Sands. We might even get adventurous this fall and head up to Colorado for a weekend to see the aspens turn. It'll be a while before we try out camping with a young child, but I'm sure that'll be part of the mix at some point in the not-too-distant future.

A pre-pregnancy Kirbi Vaughn taking a stroll across White Sands National Monument. (Photo by Jason M. Vaughn)

Before too long, we'll be going on some really long adventures. We'll also be staying at our fair share of terrible motels along the way, buying up souvenirs like jackalope shot glasses and Grand Canyon Viewmaster slides and visiting weird towns like Baker, Scottsbluff and Medicine Lodge, looking intently for license plates from Hawaii and Chihuahua as we search for a parking spot at Mount Rushmore or Yosemite Falls.

I'll probably (begrudgingly) cave in and take a dog with us at some point, too. But I'll still draw the line at in-car televisions.

Mostly, though, we'll be on the road. I really hope our son wouldn't have it any other way.

Top photo by Jason M. Vaughn

Over the past few years, Gawker and other outlets have detailed how to leak documents and information without getting caught by your employer’s I.T. department—or government investigators with subpoena powers. Here’s a refresher course with the most up-to-date details.

If You’re Leaking Tips or Information

Say you want to provide Gawker with information about a politician, celebrity, or other public figure. Or you want to talk about your company’s unethical practices. Or you have access to sensitive documents or revealing photos and just want to discuss their publication. Before you get in touch, this is what you want to do.

Step 1: Get on Tor

Tor is an “anonymity network” that attempts to mask an individual user’s Internet Protocol address, thereby greatly minimizing the ability of a third party to trace any online activity to that user. Tor isn’t perfect—no network can be completely anonymous—but in most cases it will make your real-world identity very difficult to ascertain. You can download the software for using it here.

Step 2: Get a Burner Kinja account

If you’re reading this, you’re already using Kinja, Gawker Media’s discussion platform. And if you click or tap “Reply” at the bottom of this post, you’ll have the opportunity to create a Burner account, which enables a user to comment and post on Kinja without being associated with a third party such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter.

Burner accounts are designed to supply sufficient anonymity to a person seeking to leak sensitive information to the public. Gawker Media immediately deletes logs of IP addresses that visit websites in its network, which in theory would prevent law enforcement officials from subpoenaing Gawker for those addresses—after all, we wouldn’t have them. Gawker Media websites are, however, connected to third-party servers operated by several companies that provide Gawker with banner advertisements and traffic analytics. Meaning, it’s still a good idea to use Tor, especially if you’re trying to provide us with information that could, later on, result in legal action.

Step 3: Sign up for an anonymous email account

Another way of contacting Gawker is via an email account registered under a fake name. Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook are all fine for this purpose. If you go this route, though, you’ll want to register that account on either your own computer (less safe), or on a terminal at a public library or Internet café (more safe). In any case, don’t register or even login to the account on your work computer, or on any network where you’re being actively monitored. The same advice applies, of course, to registering a Burner account.

Step 4: Get our PGP key

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is a method of encrypting data to protect its contents from surveillance while being transmitted over the Internet. If you’re contacting Gawker via email, you can now use PGP to encrypt any emails sent to our main email address, tips@gawker.com. To do so, you’ll need to download and familiarize yourself with free software that generates a pair of PGP “keys”—one private, one public—and hooks into the email program of your choosing. We recommend Mailvelope, a cross-platform browser extension that augments Gmail’s browser interface.

Gawker’s current public PGP key can be viewed here; you’ll need it to contact us using PGP. As time goes on, we may change our public key, so make sure you have the most recent one when sending anything our way.

If You’re Leaking Photos or Documents

If you want to anonymously send us photographs or documents, it’s wise to consider an additional set of precautions.

Remove Metadata: Before sending them to us, make sure you completely remove any identifying information from the actual electronic file. Known as metadata, this information often indicates who took or created a photo or document, the software used to create or edit it, the date and time of its creation, even GPS coordinates—any of which could be used to trace the leak back to you.

Use a public computer terminal: You can remove metadata using desktop software, but as we’ve noted before, the best way to send us photos or documents is to print them out at home, scan them into a public computer at a local Kinko’s or copy center, and email the file from there. (Pay in cash only.) If you use this method, be sure to shred—or discreetly burn—the pages you printed out. Modern printers embed a microscopic pattern of dots on every page they process, which are believed to reveal the make of the printer, its unique serial number, and the exact time of printing. Of course, Gawker separately ensures that anything we publish does not identify a source—but again, it’s best to be safe on your end, too.

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Happy leaking.

A bowl of milk is placed on the ground. A cat is invited to drink. As he does, a poor man walks by. He gazes at the milk longingly. The cat looks up and the cat is like... I don't think so, lol.

The koan: "Not Far From Buddhahood"

A university student while visiting Gasan asked him: "Have you ever read the Christian Bible?"

"No, read it to me," said Gasan.

The student opened the Bible and read from St. Matthew: "And why take ye thought for rainment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these... Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."

Gasan said: "Whoever uttered those words I consider an enlightened man."

The student continued reading: "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened."

Gasan remarked: "That is excellent. Whoever said that is not far from Buddhahood."

The enlightenment: "I guess probably Jesus said it," the student replied.

"Well," said Gasan, "like I said, then, it sounds like he's not very from Buddhahood."

"Ok...... " said the student. Both men sat in silence for some time. Finally the student said, "What does 'Buddhahood' mean?"

Gasan squirmed uncomfortably. "It means... ah... to asketh receiveth, seeketh findeth, knocketh, and, uh..."

"Are you reading a tiny Bible right now?"

Gasan leapt up and ran away.

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." A walk on the side of ever tinier cone.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

Katy Perry combated the rumor that she's a member of the Illuminati—a rumor that stems from her "Dark Horse" music video and Grammy performance—in a recent Rolling Stone interview. She claims that, far from being a member herself, she doesn't know what it is and would like to be invited!

"Listen, if the Illuminati exist, I would like to be invited! I see all that shit, and I'm like, 'Come on, let me in! I want to be in the club!' I have no idea what it is. It sounds crazy.

Hmmm. "I have no idea what it is. It sounds crazy." Is that something someone who wants to be in the Illuminati would say, or something someone who wants you to think that they're not in the Illuminati would say? Or is it something someone who wants you to think, "hmm, she's denying that she is in the Illuminati, so she must be in the Illuminati" would say, like when Kim Kardashian says it?

Katy Perry continues:

"Weird people on the Internet that have nothing to do find, like, strange triangles in your hand motions. I guess you've kind of made it when they think you're in the Illuminati. But listen, I believe in aliens, so if people want to believe in Illuminati, great."

Uh, it sounds like they do have something to do, Katy Perry: lift the veil of lies that rests over the face of everyone who hasn't accepted the truth about the Illuminati and the ways its members show off their membership all the time, hiding in plain sight while the demonic forces of the universe plan their next move.

So. Katy Perry: Illuminati member or merely Illuminati hopeful?

I guess we'll all find out soon enough!

[image via Getty]