Robyn Rihanna BadGalRiRi BackOnInstagram
ELLE: What's on your Christmas list?
Rihanna: A big, trimmed ****!!
Aww. A big, trimmed tree!! Me too.
Rihanna also reveals that she's "shy" and that her worst fear is "childbirth!" Me too!!
There's also this:
ELLE: What's the sexiest thing a man has ever said to you?
Rihanna: Any man that tells me what to do is sexy!
Huh, oh well. This is a great pic of Rihanna:
You can view the entire spread, shot by Paola Kudacki, here.
[Photo via Elle]
After a Democratic campaign event in his home state of Arkansas, Bill Clinton flitted mothlike toward a raised cameraphone, wedging himself into a shot of a tired, cold little girl who just didn't want to be there. The resulting photo is insanely popular.
There's a lot to unpack here: The little girl clutching her Kindle, the former president's enthusiastic photobomb face, the possible Secret Service agent stoically photobombing him, and the man whose death metal t-shirt insists Jesus was Crusfied [sic] for our iniquities [somehow spelled correctly].
Truly the most Texarkanic (Texarkane?) of all tableaux.
[h/t Daily Dot]
Ben Stein,
a horny, horny man
Host Shannon Bream sets up the interview with Stein by saying that while sensational stuff like Ebola and ISIS dominates media coverage, polling shows that what voting Americans really care about is the economy. "Always good to see you, beautiful Shannon," the pundit croaks by way of greeting, forcefully reasserting his horniness, then sidesteps the economy question to offer some straight talk: what the upcoming election is really about, he says, is reverse racism, or something.
"With all due respect, I disagree with your poll," he says. "I think [the economy] is what people are saying is their most important issue, but I think what the White House is doing is trying to racialize all politics, and they're especially trying to tell the African-American voter that the GOP is against letting them have a chance at a good life in this economy, and that's just a complete lie."
Things continue along those lines for a while before the hound-doggin' economist gets to his big declaration:
"This president is the most racist president there has ever been in America. He is purposefully trying to use race to divide Americans. Anyone who investigates it even a little bit knows it's hogwash."
Not George Washington, who owned slaves, or Thomas Jefferson, who fucked them, or Andrew Jackson, who presided over the Trail of Tears, but Obama. Ben Stein,
if you're still trawling for smart and sexy pregnant ladies to snuggle with,
[h/t TPM]
Before
Bleach, and Nevermind, and the grunge explosion and Courtney Love
Dangerous Minds describes it thusly:
Kurt assembled "Montage of Heck" around 1988 using a 4-track cassette recorder. It features sounds from Kurt's wide-ranging collection of LPs, manipulated recordings of the radio, elements of Nirvana demos, and sounds created or recorded by Cobain. The list of artists that Kurt appropriated for "Montage of Heck," reproduced at the end of this post, is fairly mind-blowing for a 21-year-old punker with (remember) no access to Napster, Spotify, Discogs, or Allmusic.com.
That's a bit generous; mixtape construction was how many of us in the '80s and early '90s spent the bulk of our non-family and non-school time, and the ardors of the analog art may be a bit overstated there. (Also, "4-track cassette recorder"? It's unclear whether that means Cobain was really using an arcane '50s-era cassette setup, or a 4-channel reel-to-reel recorder, which we know he had, or just a fancy recorder for a good ol'-fashioned cassette tape. If it's the latter, then Christ, guys, it's just an "audiotape"; Nobody's gonna mix it up with an 8-track.)
But the 36-minute long cut of Cobain's ambient mix, which you can listen to above, is certainly a fun hodge-podge of classics of both desired varieties: good and bad-good.
Where you stand on "Montage of Heck" will be determined largely by where you stand on Cobain and Nirvana and their little corner of early '90s music and culture: Was it all a noxious, horrid clang of angst ? Or was it the deeply resonant nightingale's song for a reactionary subculture that persists, through market vicissitudes and crap-rock co-optations? Maybe both. Anyway, that's a decent paradoxical set of standards by which to judge "alternative" music.
Via LiveNirvana.com, here's the (unordered) list of source material for "Montage of Heck":
Hello. I'm a 33-year old father of two, and I just bought a Taylor Swift CD on Amazon. Let me explain the CD part.
I realize that for many of you the act of buying an album—instead of streaming subscriptions or torrents—is borderline unfathomable. Much less an album in compact disc form. That's fair! But it's also a whole other conversation
It's tempting to peg my purchase of Taylor Swift's 1989 to the removal of her entire back catalog
And that's where I learned something totally incongruous that aligned with my interests as a cheapskate: 1989 the MP3 album is 25 percent more expensive than 1989 the CD. That in itself shouldn't come as such a surprise; Kindle ebooks are regularly pricier than their paperback counterparts. The weirdness really sets in, though, when you realize that Amazon's AutoRip feature
For those keeping score at home, here's how it nets out.
1989 MP3 album download: $12.50
1989 MP3 album download + CD: $10
The economics of this, which basically says here is what you wanted, but less expensive and with a bonus, are inexplicable, but I will try to explicate them here. Digital prices are negotiated separately; there's a set price for them. But Amazon can work around that price if it knows you own a physical copy of the music, in which case it can essentially gift you the MP3 version without paying the artist and label extra money. It's a loophole, a way to offer competitive pricing that its digital contracts don't allow. Or seems to be, anyway. It's hard to think of another explanation that makes any sense.
Yes, there's a downside; if you're just buying a CD to save a couple of bucks on the download, you're being incredibly wasteful. And if you're buying a physical format, vinyl's still the best
I'm not under any illusion that this is a brand new discovery. It's been going on for years. But I suspect that many of you—whether you actively pay for music or not—blew off CDs even longer ago. And now that it's more clear than ever that a Spotify subscription won't necessarily scratch your every musical itch, it's helpful to know your options. Especially when they don't make any goddamn sense.
Today in the cutthroat world of New York City real estate: a psychotic landlord who allegedly plotted to burn his Bed Stuy home to the ground while two squatters were living inside. While planning the razing, Lalbahadour Byjoo allegedly told an undercover cop he "liked his steak well done."
Byjoo and Jean St. Fleur, a conspirator, hoped to use the blaze to get rid of the illegal occupants, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson. From DNAinfo:
Two illegal tenants were living at his 304-A Sumpter Street building at the time, according to officials.
Byjoo met with an undercover detective on Jan. 25 and explained how he could enter the residence to avoid surveillance cameras, according to court papers.
He then gave him $100 for gasoline, adding that he "liked his steak well done." Days later, he met the agent again, telling him to "torch" the building, prosecutors said.
The two men are also accused of using fake documents to steal properties in Bed Stuy and Brownsville. "We simply cannot tolerate such alleged criminal conduct here in Brooklyn and will now hold them accountable," Thompson said in a statement.
For more on squatting in Bed Stuy, this Gothamist mini-documentary
[Image via Todd Klassy/Shutterstock, h/t ANIMAL]
Twenty-five thousand people of all ages, drunk on cuteness: That was Hello Kitty Con.
There can be but few places in the world where adult strangers can exclaim to one another in all friendliness and sincerity: "I love your ears!" But throughout the packed exhibits and cosplay contests and crafts classes, amid booths offering Hello Kitty Beats by Dr. Dre and customized Hello Kitty t-shirts, and all through the stage performances of costumed dancers, the atmosphere surrounding Hello Kitty's 40th birthday
Even a hard-bitten publicist lamented that soon it would all be over, and her apartment, currently bedecked in Hello Kitty, would be back to its former state. "And I'm gonna go, where's all the pink and happiness?"
Katy Perry stopped by HK Ink, the convention's tattoo shop, for a tiny Hello Kitty tattoo:
Which singer has this cute Hello Kitty tattoo? http://t.co/20a77hMHd9 pic.twitter.com/GVAocXWppm
— ELLEUK (@ELLEUK) November 1, 2014
The free tattoo appointments went like hotcakes, reaching capacity in just minutes each day of the convention. Lucky recipients could choose from several flash sheets including more than 100 designs by Chicago tattoo artist Mario Desa of Great Lakes Tattoo. Desa was joined by four other artists, and they were busy every minute.
Sanrio Brand Visual Manager Sarah Walsworth got a tattoo, as well; she has been with the company for nineteen years, but this is her first Sanrio-themed tattoo. I asked her to comment on how Hello Kitty had evolved... at first a mascot for children, and later something far larger, something gradually taking on a life of its own in the adult world. (After all, little kids can't even get tattoos.)
"I think people can love anything enough that they want to put it on them... a tattoo is just another way to say, "Okay! I love Hello Kitty so much, I'm going to put it permanent. It's just another medium to channel that love for that character, or that brand."
"There's no end to how [Hello Kitty] can be applied and worn: there's product, there's design... she's a muse, who inspires a lot of people to do [their own art.]"
Asked how long she'd loved Hello Kitty, one cosplayer replied, "For as long as I can remember. But my dad asked me why I still like Hello Kitty, and I told him: 'I'm not that old yet.'"
*
Saturday night, several hundred revelers gathered for the culmination of Sanrio's Hello Kitty 40th anniversary festivities: a birthday party at Koreatown's Line Hotel. This was wilder and even more fun than the convention: there was booze galore and an adorable cosplay DJ, and there was breakdancing by the pool, and a Sephora room for trying on makeup; there was an outdoor photo booth, and there were cosplay ladies wandering around like cigarette girls of old, only bearing Hello Kitty Pocky.
A young lady dressed in glasses of champagne rolled in, and you could give her a small ticket and withdraw from her skirt a glass of champagne.
And there was a huge and gorgeous cake.
The rest is rather a blur, I fear.
Happy birthday, Hello Kitty.
[Photographs by Maria Bustillos]
Fuck Expedia. A friendly Canadian man named Jordan Axani has a great deal for offer on Reddit right now: If your name is Elizabeth Gallagher, you can fly around the world with him for free!
You see, Jordan used to have a girlfriend named Elizabeth "Liz" Gallagher. They were happy. She was a vegan baker. They booked an adventurous Christmastime vacation: NYC to Milan to Prague to Paris to Bangkok to New Delhi and back to Toronto. But then they broke up. She wasn't going to go on the trip with him anymore. And it was too much money/trouble to cancel her ticket or change the name on it.
So, Jordan went to Reddit to crowdsource another Elizabeth Gallagher to travel with him. Obviously. He seems like he might be an okay travel companion. He only has some parameters for traveling with him:
Some ground rules:
- I am not looking for anything in return. I am not looking for companionship, romance, drugs, a trade, or to take selfies with you in front the Christmas Market in Prague. If you feel compelled to toss me a couple hundred bucks, great. Really the only thing I ask for is that you enjoy this trip and that it bring you happiness.
- We can travel together and see some cool stuff - or not. I'm easy and have no problem with someone taking the tickets and doing their own thing (see ya on the plane!). Embracing the spontaneity of life is more my thing, though, so if you want to travel together (and are not an axe murder) I'm likely game.
- This is for the flights only. In the wake of the breakup I have deferred all further planning for the trip. No hotels, trains or anything have been booked. You're on your own, bucko. Having said that, I will buy the first round of vino at JFK upon departure.
You know, he's not looking for anything in return, but if you wanna throw him a couple of hundred bucks. And he'll only buy the first round of vino. No such thing as a free trip around the world, toots! You're on your own, bucko, indeed! Unless...
Well, I can't help thinking this is a ploy for Jordan to get the attention of OG Elizabeth Gallagher. In an interview with Vice, he demurred when asked about the breakup, but said that Elizabeth 1.0 was "an incredible person and remains a great friend." Uh, so, why aren't you just going on the trip with her, Jordan?
Let's add this conundrum to the Unsolved Mysteries
[Image via Shutterstock]
After finishing the first Toy Story, I wouldn't blame anyone for having zero sympathy for Sid Phillips, Andy's mean next-door neighbor. Sid tortures his toys and makes them into things resembling abominations, for crying out loud.But what if we got this character all wrong?
What if Sid reformed his ways, and became someone nobler?
The idea isn't so outlandish. Consider the ending of Toy Story 1, where Woody and the gang reveal to Sid that all his toys are actually 'alive.' Here's the scene, in case you need a refresher:
Something like that would mess a kid up, right? Later on, when Pixar shows us Sid as a garbageman in Toy Story 3, it's easy to laugh at the cameo without giving it a second thought.
But what if there was a reason that Sid picked up being a garbageman? This weekend, a great fan theory was written up by Reddit user londongarbageman, where they explain an alternate reading of Sid's appearance in Toy Story 3:
In Toy Story 1 Sid is confronted with horrifying revelation that his toys are alive. 15 years later in Toy Story 3 we see that Sid has become the local Garbageman.
Now being a garbageman has one of the biggest perks that you may not have realized. We find things. Lots of things.
I even found a 42 gal trash bag full of Lego
Sometrash picked Nerf collection
I don't have a picture of the matchbox cars I've found because there's just too damn many. Here's some monster trucks
And don't even let me start on the Barbies.
Now, let's imagine you're a guy who just learned that inanimate objects are alive. What job would you get? Sid isn't fucked up and working a crappy job. He's trying to save them. He is trying to save the toys.
He picked the one kind of job where you can rescue those things.
And Sid is uniquely equipped to fix those toys that he finds that are broken. He's pretty damn creative.
There is some tenuous evidence that can back this theory up. Sid isn't re-introduced in Toy Story 3 as some villainous character. Actually, he seems like a pretty cool guy that likes his job:
Plus, the theory makes sense. Looking back at Sid in Toy Story 1, I don't think he's evil or beyond reform. Hell, it would be easy to read Sid as someone who is just misunderstood. After the scare he gets at the end of the movie, it's easy to see why Sid might consider being a better person, and putting his creative talents to good use. If nothing else, he knows that the toys are watching—so either out of paranoia, or because of a change of heart, he has plenty of reason to try to start fixing toys after he collects them as a garbageman.
Obviously, though, this is just a theory. As much as I like it and think it might as well be canon, I'm curious: does this idea seem convincing to you?
And if this interests you, be sure to check out some other awesome fan theories about Toy Story
In celebration of the almost-annual winter return of the McRib, McDonald's dropped a few videos today that purport to reveal the secrets of everyone's favorite barbecue sauce-covered restructured pork item. They do, kind of.
Things you will see: A bunch of actual pork, albeit after the bones have been removed (at least it's not pink slime); the machine that presses the pre-cooked patties into that strange ribless-rib shape; Grant Imahara's career change from Mythbuster to corporate myth-perpetuator.
Things you won't: Anything about the conditions under which the pigs that go into a McRib are raised and killed. Basically, you don't get to see how the McSausage is actually made. This is an #ad, after all.
We also learn that "McDonald's historian" is actual job that someone has (she apparently gets paid in discontinued food boxes and vintage t-shirts) and that the McRib's seasonal appearance on the menu has nothing to do with pork prices (sure it doesn't.)
If you need to spend some alone time with looping McRib process GIFs, you sick individual, they're on sploid
[h/t digg]
On TV tonight we've got doppelgängers fooling the eye, tricky hair salon documentaries to fool with your hair, and comedies a-plenty just fooling around. Lots of new shows and new season premieres, maybe not worth watching necessarily but definitely worth keeping yourself informed about, if you see the distinction. Then we're blowing the lid off the lie that is Big Country.
AT 8/7c.
AT 9/8c.
AT 10/9c.
The songs that changed country music for me personally are most recently "Ex to See" by Sam Hunt, in fact the whole Montevallo album, which I've loved all year, and the poem that is Lee Brice's face (and half of his new album). Before that, though, it was the entirety of Luke Bryan's Tailgates & Tanlines and Chief by Eric Church, which together changed my entire mindset about country and my Texas childhood, bringing me peace.
The songs that changed country music back the other way, for me, are almost everything that's occurred since those albums, because it seems like they finally noticed that only women were buying country music and they had to break hard the other direction, so now all country music is about beers and butts. Now, I like both of those things as much or more than the average man, I like them very much, but I feel like there are only so many songs you can sing about those things.
So if it please you, country music, do bring back the lush and overproduced "sensitive/horny Christian bro" country music of my childhood (2011), and content yourself with the knowledge that I am already aware of the existence of both beers and butts. And also, please stop singing songs inviting me to "parties" that turn out to actually just be us fucking, because even with some festive Christmas lights strung up those are not parties: That's not what that word means.
I get that we are in a recession, and maybe we should be redefining words so they're less expensive versions of themselves, like sad booty call becomes party, but even then Shania Twain already covered that ground in the last one, and frankly, her music is not even music, just noises and sounds and a crazy lady who hates mayonnaise yakking at you about whatever is on her mind, so let's aim a little higher. Thank you.
Morning Afteris a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. What are you watching this weekend? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.
This weekend, the internet circulated a supposed leaked internal memo detailing Beyoncé's next album—an expanded version of last year's BEYONCÉ, which came out of nowhere (as far as the average civilian music fan was concerned) and with a video for each track. Per the document, which features the logos of Beyoncé's management company (Parkwood Entertainment) and the record label she is signed to (Columbia), a digital version will drop a week from Friday (Nov. 14), and a 4-disc physical set is due Nov. 25. The re-release will feature the original BEYONCÉ album, a new disc of 11 new songs (including the already released "***Flawless" remix with Nicki Minaj
BITCH. BITCH. BITCH. pic.twitter.com/fe53xNbDug
— A Frayed Knot, Baé (@SheSeauxSaditty) November 1, 2014
But is it true? Billboard.com has laid out five reasons why it's plausible and five reasons why it isn't. Here are some more:
Why it seems like bullshit
- The "release confirmation" repeatedly refers to a four-disc set, but to include BEYONCÉ, BEYONCÉ Vol. 2, a disc of videos, and two discs of concerts, it would need to include five discs.
- Those song titles. "Renouncement"? "Sensation of Pain"? "Sweet Illusion"? Those...sound particularly dumb? But who knows, maybe in less than two weeks everyone will be singing, "Your love is like KO..."
- In an unprecedented move for a superstar of this caliber, Beyoncé's last album was released without any information about it at all leaking to the general public. Bey's camp pulled off a miracle by not leaving memos like the supposedly leaked document lying around. We're now to believe that they got lazy all of a sudden?
Why it seems legit
- No one from Beyoncé's camp has denied the rumored release.
- There is an Amazon UK listing for a 4-disc BEYONCÉ set that's supposed to be released on Nov. 25.
- There have been rumblings about a new surprise release from King Bey for a while now—I heard that she was going to drop a mixtape featuring rerubs along the lines of the "***Flawless" remix on her birthday in September. That never happened, so perhaps now we get this? The Billboard article suggests that the supposed upcoming Rihanna duet "Cherry" could be an update of "Blow," and "KO" is like "XO" but with a much lesser letter
Why I hope it's true
- Last year, Beyoncé swooped in with a fresh and audacious pop album that effectively erased the memory of the lackluster pop junk that was supposed to define the fourth quarter of 2013 (particularly that of Katy Perry
[Image via Getty]
Silicon Valley has some of the country's more dizzying gaps in income inequality. Wealthy enclaves are built besides some of the Valley's poorest neighborhoods, leaving family services underfunded and municipalities writing laws that punish the poor. Now their own congresswoman is calling out tech CEOs for not doing enough to help:
"The biggest problem in this country isn't Ebola or ISIS — it's Income inequality," says U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, whose Congressional district includes East Palo Alto, San Mateo and Redwood City. "It affects everything."
With so much revenue generated within San Mateo County — home to Facebook, NetSuite, GoPro and others — it is "not good enough for companies to give a few dollars," Speier says. "They need to give more."
Rep. Speier made the comments when talking to USA Today about those left behind in the Bay Area's tech boom.
Homelessness has become a distinct, rapidly-intensifying problem in Silicon Valley since the housing bubble burst in 2007. Since then, the area's homeless have flocked to camps like "The Jungle." That tent city, minutes from downtown San Jose, has swelled to 350-plus people in recent years and is now thought to be the largest homeless camp in the United States.
The tech industry's philanthropic donations have been mostly anemic
Speier has a plan to fix it:
"We need to get CEOs to do two things: live on food stamps for a day, or spend a night in a homeless shelter," says Speier, who has done both. "It is a very humbling experience."
Her hope is that tech leaders might empathize with the people who live outside their corporate campuses and start donating. But that's a lot to ask of these guys. Just losing the free food option is "soul crushing"
To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.
Photo: Getty
An armed security guard who lost his job after taking an elevator ride with President Obama says the only thing he did wrong was trust that the Secret Service knew what it was doing.
Kenneth Tate was fired shortly after the president visited the Centers for Disease Control in September. Tate, who was employed by a private security firm, had been assigned to escort Obama around the building.
According to the Times, Tate was pretty much having the best day of his life.
His supervisors then told him that he was going to operate the service elevator Mr. Obama was going to use. Everything appeared to be going right for Mr. Tate. The previous day he had taken off for his birthday and won $800 playing his birthday digits in the lottery.
Around 2:25 p.m., the presidential motorcade arrived at the back entrance of the C.D.C. On the elevator ride, Mr. Tate said, the president struck up a conversation.
"He acknowledged me, said, 'How you are doing?' He said, 'What's your name?' I told him my name, and he extended his hand, shook my hand, and I said it's a pleasure to meet him. And I proceeded to escort him upstairs."
"I was just proud," Mr. Tate said. "That was a big accomplishment to me." He said one of the Secret Service agents had told him that it was remarkable that Mr. Obama had talked to him, considering it had taken the president two years to acknowledge the agent.
After Obama left the CDC building, Tate claims he used his camera phone to snap a picture of the motorcade. He told the Times and CNN that says that contrary to earlier reports, he acted professionally inside the elevator. Tate also says he was falsely depicted as a convicted felon in the ensuing coverage—he has been arrested for multiple offenses but never convicted in a court of law.
A federal official "with knowledge of the investigation into the case" confirmed Tate's account of the events, telling CNN that Tate was fired from his $42,000 a year job for leaving his post.
"He was supposed to stay on the elevator and left to take pictures," the official said.
Agents reportedly got upset that he came to close to Obama's limousine—known as the Beast—and reported him to his superiors.
Tate's dismissal became part of a larger story about the Secret Service's screw-ups when news broke that the agents had no clue they let an armed man onto the elevator with the president. According to Secret Service protocol, only law enforcement agents maybe armed and they must be granted special clearance
Tate's now suing the security company, claiming he was fired without cause.
"From the reports, I was some stranger that entered the elevator," he told the Times. "I mean, I was appointed."
[image via AP]
Earlier this morning, we invited readers
Though we may have missed it in our compendious voter's guide
But Captain Jack is no Bachmann tea partier, according to the blog of Minneapolis sci-fi writer and astute local political commentator Naomi Kritzer:
I am pretty sure that Jack wants you to take him seriously. He has an article on his blog about his past accomplishments; he's spent about 40 years as an activist, focused largely on housing. In recent years he's worked with Occupy Minnesota to make life hard for banks foreclosing on homeowners. Back in the late 1980s he founded an advocacy group called People United for Economic Justice, which used similar tactics (occasionally in collaboration with anarchist bowling-ball-throwers — I'm not making this up, Jack links to the wikipedia article about the other group because it mentions their collaboration with his group.)
Kritzer seems less than sold on the Cap'n:
A lot of what he accomplishes seems to boil down to attention, rather than substantive results. Which shouldn't be entirely surprising with someone who went to court and changed his legal name to Captain Jack Sparrow.
Anyway. Even setting aside the fact that he changed his name to Captain Jack Sparrow ... he strikes me as someone who'd be profoundly ineffective in this job. But in any case I see no reason to set that aside. THE GUY CHANGED HIS NAME TO CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW.
It seems Kritzer prefers McLaughlin, a consummate politician who is big on "green energy and transit." (Both candidates are officially nonpartisan, according to Minnesota election records.)
Still, if you're on the fence, take it from a commenter on Kritzer's blog who claims to have been a campaigner and activist with Sparrow back in the heady '80s and '90s. His take: "He was useful for getting things done, but not the guy you wanted talking to the press." Well, if nothing else, Sparrow seems to have picked an appropriate name.
A teenager at Radnor High School outside of Philadelphia, Pa. was arrested on Monday for allegedly formulating a plot to become the "first female mass murder." She had reportedly written extensive notes on how to murder her classmates and teacher before a pep rally.
An administrator at Radnor High found the girl's notebook around 11:30am on Monday morning, and turned it in to authorities as soon as they read her notes. The notes touched on how she admired the shooters at Columbine High School, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Via NBC Philadelphia:
"But imagine the power," the girl allegedly wrote. "The bullets leaving the gun with a loud bang, piercing kids around me, the way they collapse, their blood splattering the floor... the screams."
The 17-year-old girl was arrested and will be charged with making terroristic threats, police announced at a press conference on Monday afternoon. There were no weapons found at her home and she is currently being evaluated while in custody.
[Image via NBC Philadelphia]
In the leadup to
today's votepocalypse
The gist of it is that Udall's a politician like all the rest, except that he's a real liberal who's really putting his thing down for freedom from government surveillance:
I like gawker and I liked your article, but to put it as nicely as possible, you really sold Mark Udall down the river.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-swit...
http://thehill.com/policy/technol...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Udal...
Mark Udall is up there with Bernie Sanders as the closest thing we have to a replacement for Russ Feingold. In other words - credible, hardworking, effective, actually hangs-their-ass-out-on-a-limb for-things liberal senators.
One of the five best senators in the building dying on the vine, and you're a good case study in why.
Me too, probably.
This is why Senators are shitty—hard work for noble causes gets one absolutely nothing in job security, financial security, even recognition. That's a high wind to lean into every day.
Fuck it.
I can't disagree with the last part, at least: The best work of governance is the least likely to hold much sway in a campaign.
As for the assertion that Udall's a real liberal: If he is, then he's in a crappy situation that's at least partly his own making, committing to a campaign path that accepts liberalism as dirty and moderate centrism as the proper path to electoral safety in a purplish state. Sure, it sometimes works (and, if the polls for Udall are an indication, it often doesn't); but it also reifies a system that vilifies libruls and celebrates status quo-ism.
I myself am in Florida, watching Rick Scott possibly win reelection, along with a local bubba and tea party congressman, Steve Southerland. Both face "moderate centrist" Democrats. Well, actually... Southerland's opponent, Gwen Graham, is the daughter of Bob Graham, one of Florida's most popular past governors and senators... and one pinko lefty (he was one of six senators who voted against the Iraq war, despite giving George Bush the benefit of the doubt on WMDs).
Gwen Graham's campaign staff has assured me she really is a liberal, but you have to say things like "Obamacare sucks" and "I don't agree with Pelosi and Obama on much" to get elected in the Florida panhandle, because God forbid if you should endeavor to undertake the hard work of expanding the Florida panhandle's political culture for the long haul instead of indulging the scared id of every insular voter.
My point is, all these "liberals" running as "centrists" could still lose to radical rightists. And all we would get for the trouble is a political culture that crabs its "center" farther and farther to the right.
Would I still vote for Udall? Probably. I'm not Coloradan, but I take this reader's analysis at face value, especially when it comes to the senator's work on NSA issues. Will I still vote for Gwen Graham, and for Charlie Crist, Rick Scott's Democratic (today) opponent? I already did. But at some point these candidates, win or lose, are going to have to decide whether or not they really stand for progressive values, or whether they'll keep running away from said values and granting to conservatives an absurd mouthbreathing luddite equation of American liberalism with Soviet communism.
[ Photo credit: AP Images]
Police have released security camera footage of the apparent abduction of Carlesha Freeland-Gaither from Philadelphia's Germantown-Penn Knox neighborhood. According to the 22-year-old's family, she was just blocks away from her home when she was dragged into a car by an unknown man.
Freeland-Gaither was abducted Sunday night just before 10 p.m. local time. In the video released by police Monday, you can see her being dragged down the street and taken to a car. She drops her cellphone and glasses in the struggle, and police told CNN that she kicked out the driver and passenger side rear windows in her attempt to flee.
According to the Philadelphia Daily News, a witness told police that they heard Freeland-Gaither screaming for help at the time of her abduction. The paper also reports that Freeland-Gaither was supposed to phone her boyfriend from the bus stop near their home, but she was taken before she could make the call.
WPVI reports that police have confirmed that Freeland-Gaither's credit card was used at an ATM in Maryland early this morning. The reward for her return has grown to a collective $42,000: the FBI, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and the Fraternal Order of Police have all pledged money for Freeland-Gaither's release. A description of the alleged abductor and their getaway car from WPVI:
The suspect is described as a black male, 5'10, medium-heavy build, 25-30 years-of-age, medium brown complexion, wearing a dark colored jacket with a dark colored hood possibly a hooded sweatshirt underneath, dark colored hat, and dark colored pants.
The vehicle is described as a 2000-2002 dark gray metallic 4-door Ford Taurus with an unknown PA license number, an unknown plate on the front bumper, rear spoiler, and both driver and passenger side rear windows broken out. The vehicle is missing inspection stickers and has an unknown item in the center bottom of the front windshield.
"I don't care what anyone has to do, just let my daughter come home," Carl Freeland, Carlesha's father, told WPVI. "That's all I'm asking."
[Image via Philadelphia Police Department]
Anna "Chickadee" Cardwell, 20, sat down with E! News last night to discuss the reports that her mother has rekindled her romance with the man who molested Anna when she was eight years old. Anna says Mama June "can be very selfish. She ain't tell me she love me in a long time."
Mama June has denied that she's dating convicted child molester Mark McDaniel, but the two have been photographed together
You can watch a video of the interview here.
If all that's not upsetting enough, Anna suspects that Mama June is siphoning money—her children's money, specifically—to McDaniel. Anna explains:
Apparently all us girls have trust funds that have over $30,000 in them [based on the money made from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on TLC]. Well I called the bank and said, "How much is in it?" $17.90. I have a feeling Mama used that money to buy him a car and buy him what he wanted.
Mama June denied that claim to E! News: "I have never brought a car for him and all her money is there, beside the money I have given her to live on—$400 every month and pay her $475 each month for cell phone bills for the last two years. That's the only money I have taken out of there."
In an earlier interview with E! News, Mama June would only say that the "truth will come out"
