Police in Wisconsin say a woman was cited this weekend after climbing into a zoo's giraffe pen and getting a big ol' giraffe kick in the face.

The Associated Press reports 24-year-old Amanda Hall, of San Luis Obispo, California, managed to climb over the first of two fences in the Madison zoo's giraffe enclosure. She almost made her way over the second when she met Wally. From the AP:

A 2-year-old, 12-foot-tall giraffe named Wally gave Hall a lick, then turned and kicked her in the face.

Girl, tell me about it.

Police fined Hall $686 for harassment of zoo animals. According to the AP, the police report says Hall told officers she climbed into the exhibit "because she loves giraffes."

[image via Shutterstock]

Monsoon season in Nepal has led to three days of incessant rain, causing floods, destruction, and death, according to the AFP. At least 85 people have died from landslides and flooding in Nepal during this monsoon season.

According to national disaster management chief Yadav Prasad Koirala, the concern of a possible cholera outbreak is high "due to the bodies laying underwater." He also stated that they "have mobilized health workers to set up camps and provide people with clean drinking water and dry food."

Koirala also noted that the missing outnumber the dead. He says:

"We have recovered 85 bodies so far, 54 people have suffered injuries due to landslides and flooding over the last three days and 113 are still missing."

People in the Surkhet area are among the hardest hit, awakening Friday morning to reports of a nearby river flooding fast. More, from the AFP:

"My neighbours woke me up, I gathered my family and we just ran uphill to save ourselves...I didn't even have time to cut my cattle loose so they could flee", farmer Prem Bahadur Pun said by phone.

"By morning, our house was gone, the cattle was gone, my land was gone. I have lost everything," Pun said.

Washed out roads are making rescue efforts difficult, with most of the supplies and evacuation efforts being led by helicopter. Monsoon season lasts from June through September, and hundreds of people are killed or injured every year.

[image via Reuters]

In undergrad, I drove a '92 Ford Taurus that just hulked, tank-like, up and down the streets of Berkeley. The thing was conspicuous, an ocean liner. I was pulled over all the time, once or twice a week at one point. Often I'd see a squad car following me and just pull to the curb to get it over with. An officer would walk up to the car, one hand on that little button that secures the strap over his gun. He'd ask for my license and registration. Some inner voice would remind me that this was the time to point out I'd done nothing wrong; I'd ask for a badge number, I'd take a stand. But black boys are supposed to know better.

So what I would do was: I would slip my college ID over my driver's license. The officer's eyes would light up. Not your college ID, he would say, amused. Then he would go back to his car and dally a little, pretending to check on things, before handing my license back with some mock-heroic advice about staying out of trouble. The story ends right there. I remember feeling vague anger afterwards, although I was probably feeling something a lot closer to despair.

–––

Every time I used the college ID trick, it bred in me a kind of survivor's guilt, a guilt about a life that feels as if it's being protected weakly, through cowardice. Because what I was really doing was saying, Yes, some of us deserve to be shot in the street, but this ID proves that I'm not one of them. I used the little plastic card to secure my status as One Of The Good Ones^[1], and I always drove away ashamed, always. At best, I was reducing my humanity—my right to not get shot by a police officer—to a giveaway received during freshman orientation. At worst, I was just delaying what is now starting to feel inevitable.

–––

Mentally-speaking, what happens when you hear about another unarmed black teen killed by police/police-like officers? For me, it goes something like this: First, anger, a kind of 360-degree, completely unfocused, completely diffuse anger; but since anger is a fairly cheap emotion it fades, and sadness settles in; and then I get that familiar helpless feeling you get when you realize what you're doing is utterly rote, almost Pavlovian, but you don't know how else to deal. To put it another way: For reasons I'm still trying to parse out, I've realized that simply mourning the deaths of other young black men isn't good enough any more.

I don't mean for this to sound melodramatic, because my emotions don't really matter; or, they matter less than a murdered black boy whose body was left in the street. But what I'm trying to describe here is something real, a sinking-in-quicksand feeling familiar to anyone who is tired of the terror—which is the only really truly appropriate term—police officers exact on young black men. When an unarmed black boy is killed by a police officer, again, and some loud-talking reporter is interviewing the boy's mother, again, and you can see his mother's shoulders slumped until they can't slump any more, and she's been crying so much she's gotten to the point of simply not bothering to wipe the tears away, and you watch her as she tries to look into every camera and speak into every microphone, and watch her as she suddenly gets the spectacle of all of this, and starts listing all of the good things her boy ever was, so that everyone can remember him the way she's remembering him right then, in that moment—when will we decide this is not okay?

–––

This is probably a good time to backtrack a little and talk about fear. To be black and interact with the police is a scary thing. The fear doesn't have to come from any kind of historical antagonism, which, trust me, would be enough; it can also come from many data points of personal experience, collected over time. Almost all black men have these close-call-style stories, and we collect and mostly keep them to ourselves until one of us is killed. You know how the stories go: I was pulled over one day and the cop drew his gun as he approached my window; I was stopped on the street, handcuffed and made to sit on the sidewalk because the cop said I looked like a suspect; I had four squad cars pull up on me for jaywalking. We trade them like currency. And it almost goes without saying that these stops are de facto violent, because even when the officer doesn't physically harm you, you can feel that you've been robbed of something. The thing to remember is that each of these experiences compounds the last, like interest, so that at a certain point just seeing a police officer becomes nauseating. That feeling is fear.

–––

We all know there's nothing necessarily wrong with fear, since it's just a really effective survival mechanism, and there sure as hell isn't anything wrong with surviving. Legitimate fear can save your life; it makes sense that many of us are scared of heights and rattlesnakes. But a constant state of fear, being afraid, makes you a special kind of tired, in the same way a bully or bad boss makes you tired. This is no real way to live.

___

OK: Imagine you know of a guy who occasionally walks around your neighborhood with a gun. Imagine you don't really know this guy, so you don't know how he feels about you, whether he sees you as friend or foe. You do know that he holds his gun a little tighter when he walks past your house. You also know that if he shoots you, there's a good chance he'll get away with it.

That's how all of this feels.

––

What I've seen of the Ferguson Police Department and their tanks, AR15's, flash-bang grenades, tear gas, laser sights, helicopters, and military-style detachment makes me believe Michael Brown was tired. Maybe he'd been harassed by a police officer before, maybe he was tired of being tired. So when Darren Wilson tried to bully him, Michael Brown said no. And maybe it was the "no" of someone who's been pushed around, which is a more beautiful "no," since it is so clear and absolute. That a police officer then shot him dead and left his body in the street is, historically, the kind of thing police officers do when black men stand up for themselves.

And so for the last week I've been feeling that helpless feeling. All that's left after helplessness is fatigue, right? Aren't we all tired yet? We know that what happened to Michael Brown was not a unique incident but part of a larger phenomenon—and that it will happen again, soon. Which means we know an even deeper truth: that to be black in this country means constantly paying a tax on your life. Some of us pay in dignity, some of us pay in blood. What I'm trying to say is this: Never again will I pay with my dignity.

Lanre Akinsiku is a fiction writer pursuing his MFA at Cornell University

[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]

Dave Brockie aka Oderus Urungus, former frontman of thrash metal band GWAR, was given his second memorial at Friday's annual GWAR-B-Q in the only way appropriate: by having his costume lit on fire and set out into the middle of Hadad's Lake in Virginia. Brockie died of a heroin overdose in March this year.

The funeral, which was Brockie's second (the first being held for family and friends on April Fool's Day), was open to all attendees of the fifth annual GWAR-B-Q. Randy Blythe of Lamb of God posted the following eulogy on Instagram in Brockie's honor:

Tonight we sent Oderus home in a fitting manner at the public memorial for Dave Brockie. A blazing Viking ship with Oderus laid out in it, the cuttlefish pointing proudly straight up. Watching my friend Dave's costume go up in flames in front of a thousand fans was so much more intense for me than the private memorial for friends & family we had April Fool's Day. I spoke at both of them, as GWAR asked me to, & both times as I spoke I was sad. But watching his alter-ego burn tore me up way more than the first memorial, maybe because there was Dave, the human who was my friend who just "left us"- I never saw his body- & then there was Oderus, who was something entirely else. To watch his stage gear burn was like watching part of my life literally go up in flames. I was sobbing my eyes out as I took this photo. It was just a super-intense moment. Very beautiful, but overwhelming. Fly free, Oderus- you are missed.

You can watch a clip of the pyre being set alight here:

[h/t Uproxx]

The Detroit area was pounded with unprecedented amounts of rain and flash floods on Monday, but Jena David, a 30-year-old woman who was caught in the deluge, survived—even though local news reported her as dead.

According to the AP, an unidentified man pulled the unconscious David from her car and brought her to a nearby Buddy's Pizza, where she was taken to the hospital. After regaining consciousness, she was discharged and taken home.

It was only after watching news reports of a woman who died after being carried into Buddy's Pizza that David realized that they were talking about her—and she was very much alive.

The mixup occurred in the confusion that follows chaos, when officials reported the death, according to Warren Deputy Police Comissioner Louis Galasso, who was just doing his job when he relayed the news of her death to the media. He told the Detroit News:

"I got a call from our fire commissioner, who tells me: 'You know that lady who died at Buddy's? Well, she just walked into Buddy's looking for her property. She's not dead. She wanted to know if anyone had her purse.' "

The news of David's death and subsequent non-death took a toll on her family. David's mother, Layla David told reporters "I felt like I was having a heart attack…Everything was going through my mind I was very scared."

David elaborated on her continued aliveness to the press:

"I'm alive," she said Friday. "It was strange seeing the media reporting that I was dead. Now, my friends don't believe me when I tell them I'm the girl who supposedly died at the Buddy's Pizza."

The floods on Monday claimed 100-year-old Julie Sarno and an unnamed 68-year-old man. Both deaths have been confirmed by the coroner.

[Image via AP]

Police say four people are injured after an early morning shooting today in Queens.

NBC New York reports two men exited a car and fired 20 rounds at the victims, two of whom—a 27-year-old man who was shot in the back and a 26-year-old man who was shot in the chest—are in critical condition.

The other two victims, a 19-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman, sustained less serious injuries. The man was left with a hand wound, while the woman was wounded in her stomach and hip.

The shooters reportedly fled the scene in a black and silver Audi and remain at large.

[image via Shutterstock]

Rolf Buchholz, the world's most pierced man, claims he was denied entry to Dubai due to suspicions of "black magic" stemming from his many piercings. Buchholz currently holds the record for most piercings—453 in total. His various modifications include 278 piercings in or around his junk, horns implanted in his head and magnets in his fingertips.

He was supposed to appear at local nightclub Cirque le Soir, a favorite haunt of celebs like renowned Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, which, according to its website, boasts a veritable buffet of performers from stilt walkers to drummers to magicians.

Buchholz told the Associated Press that he was allowed entry to the country, but was stopped before exiting customs and brought to a room with other deportees. While no official statement from airport authorities have made this claim, Buchholz spoke to airport workers, who mentioned that authorities were concerned that he might be a "practitioner of black magic."

At the end I got an answer why I can't enter Dubai: The Immigration thought I am Black Magic. Stupid people.

— Rolf Buchholz (@rolf_de) August 16, 2014

When it came time for Buchholz, a normal man who is definitely not a warlock, to leave the airport after being denied entrance to a country that houses a nightclub that requests his presence, he had this to say:

"There were police at the plane, and I was not allowed to stop long enough so that people can see me. They told me that I should keep moving so that no one spots me."

Dubai is one of the more laid-back Islamic countries, and a playground for the vastly wealthy, but Islamic traditions and values still influence the day to day. Buchholz still hopes to return to Dubai one day. He told The National, "I think if people were a little more tolerant, then the world would be a better place. I hope there is a change in Dubai and the whole world, so that everyone can live in peace."

[image via AP]

Page Six reports that Rihanna, (who is that?), had to stand in line to wait for a drink at the Bowery Hotel late Thursday night. She performed the act of waiting "like a normal person," a secret source shared.

The birthday party that Rihanna (who?) attended was "full of music-industry people," the Page Six source leaked, noticing an unforgivable scene unraveling:

Customers waiting for drinks and eyeing the scene noticed how the goddess herself had to wait "like a normal person at the bar" as others were served before her.

An example of a bartender's negligence to give prioritized attention to the star or another instance of Rihanna being a Chill Girl Who Is Just Like Us?

[Image via AP]

A robot made of the kinds of things one finds in the back of their garden shed is hitchhiking across Canada. HitchBOT was created by researchers David Smith and Frauke Zeller who are studying the relationship between people and technology. The bucket-bodied creature is set to reach is final destination Sunday in Victoria, British Columbia.

HitchBOT is the ideal road trip guest, programmed to ask and answer basic questions and to politely inform its compatriots when it needs to be plugged into a car's cigarette lighter to be recharged. It's also equipped with the ability to stand, via a retractable tripod, and comes with its own car seat, so drivers can strap it in. Remember, safety first.

The robot has been programmed to update social media with its adventures, posting dispatches on Twitter and Instagram, much to the delight of our neighbors to the north.

HitchBOT has probably been to more places than you this fine summer, spending the warm months traveling all over Canada visiting some cool yurts and being an unwitting participant in Internet memes that are over a year old.

@hitchBOT. @ADTR_Andrew. And @ADTR_Royzie. Doing the Harlem shake with Hitchbot! pic.twitter.com/2gyqGl9ifu

— Roy howell (@RoyhowellJR) August 8, 2014

Checking out the Yurts pic.twitter.com/bwFFbZlQhr

— Colin lee Kruger (@colinleekruger) August 16, 2014

Here is a video of HitchBOT explaining itself in full.

[Image via Vimeo]

High chairs for babies: easy for adults to get into, not so easy for adults to get out of.

Earlier this week, a Manchester man named Darren got hopelessly stuck inside a wooden high chair at an unamed restaurant. Once he realizes he's not getting out without a fight, he engages in a series of futile efforts: flopping around, enlisting his buddies, and at one point, even removing his pants in an effort to extricate himself.

The video cuts off before we find out if he ever escaped the baby seat, but it may not have been pretty—last year a similar stunt at a McDonalds in Ireland required the assistance of three police officers. Or maybe he's still in that restaurant somewhere, languishing on a steady diet of mashed peas and carrots, waiting for the spoon airplane to land.

[h/t Daily Dot]

A woman accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two Amish girls last week with her boyfriend is now claiming that she only did it because of their "abusive and submissive" relationship.

According to the New York Times, 25-year-old Nicole F. Vaisey, is blaming her boyfriend, 39-year-old Stephen M. Howells II, for the kidnapping and subsequent sexual assault.

A lawyer for Ms. Vaisey, Bradford C. Riendeau, said that she made a "voluntary statement" to the authorities on Friday night but that he had been asked by the district attorney's office not to discuss its details. He said that he planned to argue in court, however, that Ms. Vaisey was in an abusive and submissive relationship with Mr. Howells. Mr. Riendeau said he had filed for a protective order on Ms. Vaisey's behalf against Mr. Howells. "She appears to have been the slave and he was the master," Mr. Riendeau said.

"She was not the lead person or a coequal in this at all," he said, referring to the plan to abuse children.

Police say the couple had plans to kidnap more children, but did not specifically target the victims because they were Amish as had previously been suggested.

"There was the definite potential that there was going to be other victims from these two," St. Lawrence County's sheriff told the Times. "They were looking for other opportunities to victimize."

[image via

Reporters on the scene in Ferguson say the protests erupted into chaos as police began firing tear gas at crowds of protestors Sunday night—well before the official curfew time was set to begin—hitting media and children in the abrupt offensive.

It's not clear what sparked the sudden violent turn just after 10 pm on Sunday. The St. Louis Police Department posted on Twitter around the same time that molotov cocktails had been thrown at officers, but reporters on the scene described a peaceful protest that quickly turned into a cloud of tear gas and piercing LRAD sounds.

Sports Illustrated's Robert Klemko—who was also briefly arrested Sunday night— suggested on Twitter that police may have been responding to a march past a southern barricade. He also writes that police are claiming their command center was attacked.

A private autopsy report on Michael Brown, which showed the teenager was shot at least six times, was also released Sunday night.

Walked past cops seconds before the barrage. They were putting on gas masks. Couldn't understand why #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/Ua1QK5qOn4

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) August 18, 2014

Police just threw tear gas at protestors."This is no longer a peaceful protest. You must leave the area," a police announcer says. #Ferguson

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 18, 2014

absolute total chaos. multiple tear gas kids everywhere cops told me they're gonna keep launching insane

— Amy K. Nelson (@AmyKNelson) August 18, 2014

Milk from #Ferguson McDonald's used to rinse eyes of woman affected by tear gas. http://t.co/0KQdSBjZTw pic.twitter.com/RG5LgEZY2V

— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) August 18, 2014

Reporters on the scene say they were given no warning, trapped inside the protest perimeters and told to turn their cameras off. Police officers were caught on camera threatening to shoot KARG Argus Radio reporter Mustafa Hussein and threatening to mace MSNBC's Chris Hayes. At least two other reporters say they were arrested without cause.

I got tear-gassed good. Cop grabs me, drags me to truck and hands me water. "You media??" "YES" "hahahahaha Welcome to Ferguson!"

— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) August 18, 2014

Steady stream of gas and flashes being deployed by police. No warning, no press area established

— Sean Stout (@TERROREYEStv) August 18, 2014

Just spoke with the @complex_news team, which were standing in a cordoned off press area that they TEAR GASSED. cc @ComplexMag.

— Foster Kamer (@weareyourfek) August 18, 2014

My producer Cornell had to get off the phone because St. Louis PD were coming after them AGAIN. @stlcountypd WHY ARE YOU GASSING OUR CREW?

— Foster Kamer (@weareyourfek) August 18, 2014

Cops literally just fired on what was the press area. We scrambled running. Cops continuing up neighborhood streets

— Sean Stout (@TERROREYEStv) August 18, 2014

According to reports, children were also hit by tear gas during the offensive.

8-year-old hit with tear gas #ferguson https://t.co/e1STjaPR26

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 18, 2014

Whoa. This kid was just hit with tear gas. Mom is freaking out. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/5SHrdZvFqV

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) August 18, 2014

Around midnight, there were reports on Twitter that a local market had been set on fire.

Chris Hayes also reported seeing an injured or dead body lying in the street after a car accident.

I'm looking at what appears to be a dead body in the middle of Chambers

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 18, 2014

Eyewitness tells me it took an hour for ambulance. Police say two people involved; eyewitness says 4. 3 taken to hospital. 1 laid on ground

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 18, 2014

[image via KARG Argus Radio Livestream]

A private autopsy conducted on Michael Brown shows the 18-year-old was shot at least six times in the head, torso and arm, the New York Times reports.

All six shots were fired into the front of Brown.

According to the autopsy, Brown was shot at least three times in the face. At least two of those shots "would have stopped him in his tracks and were likely the last fired."

According to the New York Times, Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner in New York, found a gunshot wound at the top of Brown's skull "suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury."

"This one here looks like his head was bent downward," he explained to the Times. "It can be because he's giving up, or because he's charging forward at the officer."

Baden—who conducted the autopsy at the family's request and was not allowed to examine Brown's clothing—said no gunpowder was found on Brown's body, suggesting he was not shot at close range.

Baden told reporters Brown—who was not given medical attention—likely would not have survived the shooting.

Police in Ferguson were caught on camera Sunday night threatening to mace one reporter and shoot another. At least two other journalists also claim they were arrested while following police orders.

Shortly after 10 pm Sunday night, police began launching tear gas at protesters and demanded that reporters turn their cameras off.

In a confrontation caught on the KARG Arugus Radio livestream, a cop noticed Mustafa Hussein filming with his camera lights on—which police claim makes it hard for them to see—and confronted him, allegedly pointing a gun at him.

"Get down, get the fuck out of here and get that light off, or you're getting shot with this," the officer yells at Hussein.

Another journalist was reportedly shot with a beanbag.

Also threatened by police Sunday night was MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who was filming when police told him, "Media do not pass us, you're getting maced next time you pass us."

At least two reporters were also briefly arrested and quickly released Sunday night—apparently while following police orders.

Neil Munshi, of the Financial Times, wrote on Twitter that he was ordered to leave a parking lot being used as a staging area. But hen he did, he was handcuffed and briefly held by Capt. Ron Johnson.

Just cuffed and searched as we said we were leaving as he asked. Johnson was following us saying bring the ... https://t.co/K106v4t5Qu

— neiL Munshi (@neiLmunshi) August 18, 2014

Sports Illustrated's Robert Klemko had a similar story Sunday night when he was also briefly arrested while following a police order.

Just spoke with Capt Johnson. They've quarantined me and two other journos. Not allowed to view Florissant. "They tried to take the command"

— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) August 18, 2014

Capt Johnson is now arresting us.

— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) August 18, 2014

Captain Johnson arrested us for 2 minutes. We pleaded that we had followed every instruction. He let us go.

— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) August 18, 2014

They had to cut my cuffs off with a knife. Here's Capt Johnson assisting. pic.twitter.com/IH7GHV5h74

— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) August 18, 2014

Last Monday, a Lincoln Towncar carrying a woman and her one-year-old granddaughter T-boned an 18-wheeler after attempting to merge. The huge resulting crash, massive explosion, and raging inferno is the trifecta of horror for any driver. Or, at least it would be, if not for one heroic truck driver.

David Fredericksen, the trucker recording the video on his dashcam, immediately jumped out to save the occupants inside the car, as his son explained in the video description:

A car t-bones a semi truck on I10 near Biloxi, Mississippi. The car struck the fuel tank of the semi causing a large fire ball. The doors of the car were jammed shut and the driver suffering a broken leg could not exit the vehicle.

Luckily my father had a fire extinguisher on hand to fight back the flames and give enough time to pull the driver and her 1 year old granddaughter out of the flaming vehicle. Once the passengers are free from the vehicle the flames rapidly grow in strength consuming the vehicle.

Thankfully my father had the presence of mind, bravery, and forethought of carrying a fire extinguisher, to be the first person on scene to risk his own life in order to possibly save another and to inspire others and lead them into taking action. Everyone involved in the rescue effort is a hero in my books.

Everyone involved managed to survive, though the grandmother involved did receive a broken leg for her troubles. But seriously, this explosion was ridiculously humongous, and it's amazing that anyone survived, let alone without serious injury:

Speaking to David on the phone, it's clear that this is not an every day occurrence for most truckers. He bought the dashcam six months before, after watching another truck roll after its driver fell asleep. This accident was much different, but he doesn't feel like he was the only one out there last week.

"I don't feel it's heroic," he said. "Really what I feel is when I first got out of the truck, I was praying that they wouldn't be dead. I just wanted to put the fire out, but when I saw they were alive, I was like "SWEET!"

But even then, it was incredible to see that not only had the occupants of the Towncar survived, but that they were fighting to get out as David and others rushed to help them.

"I was praying to myself. I really didn't want to have to see somebody dead," he added. Other people would've done what I did."

As he approached the Lincoln, he saw the driver desperately trying to kick out the door, despite her broken leg. David, who is not a small guy, yanked open the door, only to find the baby girl in the back seat. Her carseat had actually been launched from one side of the car to the other, which miraculously also cleared her from the immediate danger of the flames.

His co-driver, who jumped out after him, grabbed the girl from the seat after David pulled her out.

"She was the cutest little thing, too," he said. "She was hugging him so tight she was choking him."

"I'm just glad that they didn't die, you know?"

Even still, David said that he himself isn't entirely sure what motivated to get him out of his truck before anyone else:

I trusted in God when I went there. It could've blown up and killed me. He's got a plan for me, because after I got back to the truck my hands were shaking. My actions were because of my love for God and love for people. Because it does make a difference. If anyone learns anything from it, I want them to know, if they see these trucks out there, they're not bad people with aggressive drivers.

They're good people.

And David's right. If you ever need an argument for why truckers are good people, you've got plenty of evidence right here.

After "deliberate, coordinated and intensifying violent acts" in Ferguson, Mo. Sunday night, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has deployed the state's National Guard to the town, which has been embroiled in protests following the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson.

"Tonight, a day of hope, prayers and peaceful protests was marred by the violent criminal acts of an organized and growing number of individuals, many from outside the community and state, whose actions are putting the residents and businesses of Ferguson at risk," Nixon said in his official order.

Seven people were arrested by police during last night's protests; two shootings were also reported. Police officers—in riot gear—fired tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters. Protesters and reporters on the scene claim that police initiated an offensive unprovoked and well before the midnight curfew imposed by the Gov. Nixon. Police, however, claim they were forced to respond to escalating violence.

"There were shootings, vandalism and other acts of violence that clearly appear not to have been spontaneous but premeditated criminal acts," Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson told reporters. "Based on these conditions, I had no alternative but to elevate the level of our response." From the New York Times:

Captain Johnson said that some demonstrators throughout Ferguson had opened fire on the police, hurled Molotov cocktails and looted and vandalized businesses.

It appeared that an attempted attack by some protesters on the shopping center the police have used as a command center prompted the most severe response from the authorities.

Captain Johnson said that at 8:56 p.m., hundreds of protesters had descended upon the area of the command post. Soon, he said, "multiple Molotov cocktails were thrown at police." The police responded with tear gas.

An independent autopsy ordered by Michael Brown's family, which reports the teen was shot at least six times, was released Sunday night.

[Image via AP]

Washington Post columnist and professional liar Jennifer Rubin is tethered to reality by only the lightest of threads, which is why she understands that recently indicted swaggering moron Rick Perry has never looked stronger as a presidential candidate.

Yes, it is true that many people have said that Perry did not deserve to be indicted because he was just acting like a normal politician acts (vindictive and self-serving). There is still the matter of him being a natural-born moron on matters both economic and social. And, probably, in all other fields. How much faith does anyone really have in this guy?

Don't answer that question—the answer is, "All of the faith in the whole wide world, if by 'anyone' you mean Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin." Rick Perry is "going a long way toward rebutting the notion that he is a swaggering, not very serious pol," Jennifer Rubin says. Not just by denying climate change and calling in soldiers to keep out the Mescans, but with two advanced political techniques:

Even before the spurious indictment, Perry, bespectacled and more sober than his 2012 incarnation, was already showing he was not the candidate who ran last time around.

Yes... he's bespectacled now! Plus, not drunk. Someone give that man the Presidency of the United States of America.

[Photo: AP]

So you've just been arrested, and you're wondering what you should wear when you're booked into jail. Worry not, as there's one surefire way to nail it with style and grace: just wear any old shirt, but print the mugshot from a previous arrest on the front. You'll knock 'em out.

Take Robert Burt, for example, a 19-year old who began a short sentence for drunken driving earlier this month. When he showed up to be processed, he wore a smart orange tee—a little baggy in the shoulders, maybe—with his arrest photo, from June, on the front. See how good it looks? Note how his nonplussed expression mirrors the face on the shirt, and his eyebrows look like two tiny mustaches, framing his face just so.

Below the photo is some text: BURT FAMILY REUNION, 8/8 - 8/10/2014, SPONSORED BY BUD LIGHT AND SOMERSET COUNTY SHERIFF. A family member of Burt's, we are to assume, was also locked up at the time. The police who took the photo, Burt said after his two-day incarceration was up, "were laughing their asses off," and asked him to hold his placard so that the photo was visible.

"I'm out bitchs," he reportedly wrote on Facebook, celebrating his release. Out and looking good, Robert. We salute you.

[Image via Somerset County Jail]

Central Park, this weekend, felt like a painting to me. Here were all these kids, many of them rich as kings, running around carefree while the situation in Ferguson, Mo., tightened like a fist. I'm thinking specifically of "Landscape With The Fall of Icarus," of course, about which there's this famous poem:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along...

Oblivion has not been the only option for those of us outside Missouri, though. More than a few have been eating and opening windows and walking dully along for the last week while thinking of nothing but Ferguson. In fact, if you are a journalist or a writer you might have spent a lot of your time fighting with your editors to let you go to Missouri and see things for yourself, because observing feels like doing something, because the act of bearing witness holds out the promise of some effect. A tiny one. But it would be something.

What most of us can do, though, is barely above nothing, meaning that we can hang out on social media feeds and hope not too many of our friends are retreating to the comforting envelope of whatever this ice bucket stuff is. And we can yell, rather ineffectually and mostly by way of pixels, for someone to do something, anything.

The "someones" we have in mind are politicians, obviously. But the politicians, too, seem to be feeling helpless. They seem to spend a lot of time doing not much of anything other than watching the chaos themselves. Mostly, they issue statements, and seem to hope that since those statements are longer than tweets, they will somehow have a greater impact. Then authorities seem to throw their hands up in the air about the greater issues. They refer to "peace and justice" in these press releases; they just haven't anything of practical value to say about them.

Of course, action has its perils. It is not even that reassuring that the governor of Missouri finally called in the National Guard today. More policing, more force, more restrictions aren't likely to calm anyone down. But what is likely to calm things down, what leadership could be doing, is implementing the sort of small, practical steps that will give any further investigation of Michael Brown's death the credibility it absolutely needs. There are practical ways to make this all look a little less like, as a friend put it, "using a police coup to hide a murder." Suggestions include: appointing an outside Special Prosecutor, releasing the incident report from the Brown killing proper, revealing where exactly Darren Wilson is and why he hasn't been charged yet. (There is a preliminary report of a grand jury hearing, but it won't meet until Wednesday.)

When authorities can't get their act together to do such small, obvious things, it is very hard to have faith that we will see any movement on the larger issues this crisis raises about race and police brutality in America.

A lot of people hoped those larger issues would be the topic President Obama would speak on at his press conference this afternoon. Instead he simply said he'd send the Attorney-General, Eric Holder, to Ferguson to oversee an independent federal investigation by the FBI and the DoJ. Obama demurred on making too many pronouncements about Michael Brown's particularly, because he said it was important that he avoid "pre-judging events." He seemed tired and distracted as he said these things, taking long pauses between words.

He seemed, in a word, to be feeling helpless too.

The vacuum of faith in government that the crisis in Ferguson has revealed isn't new. Anyone who has followed any kind of criminal justice reform news for the last twenty years has seen it before. The refrain from everyone between Michelle Alexander and Rand friggin' Paul is that the system is set up to unduly target black people. It is practically spray-painted on the Washington Monument at this point. But infuriatingly, the people who are the most delicate about saying that, the most queasy about incorporating it into their policy decisions right now, are exactly the people who have the power to do the things that might end this.

In short, the only good news at this point is that people still have a sense of humor about the lack of leadership, even if the punchlines depend on hopelessness:

Hi @barackobama. Do you have comcast? Your internet broke? You just got lasik? I'm trying to understand.

— #JusticeForMikeBrown (@beauty_jackson) August 18, 2014

A few more nights of tear gas and rubber bullets, and I bet all remaining wit will dry up, too.

[Photos by Getty and Shutterstock; beautiful melding of two by Jim Cooke.]

Kendall Jenner, professional Kardashian, passed the Turing Test this weekend by leaving a 30 percent tip on an expensive meal, proving herself indistinguishable from an actual human customer. Inexplicably, no one has presented her or her creator, artificial intelligence pioneer Kris Jenner, with a goddamn medal.

Earlier versions of Kendall reportedly proved incapable of basic dining etiquette during a test run earlier this month, exiting before paying the tab and then throwing cash at a server's face once outside the restaurant. Witnesses estimated the tip at negative 30 percent.

An attorney for Kardashian-Bioroid Inc. has threatened to sue the waitress who disclosed the apparent glitch.

Meanwhile, Kendall has apparently been upgraded to the latest firmware, and her performance was impressive. TMZ reports she left a $160 tip on a $554 check this weekend while dining with her friend Hailey Baldwin and Hailey's father, Stephen. That's a 28.8 percent tip, an encouraging improvement over earlier benchmarks.

Afterward, the unit was returned to the lab, where she dreamed of electric sheep.

[H/T TMZ, Photo: Splash News]