For the past two weeks, I have carried Sandra Bland with me everywhere I go. At first, it was a smiling image of her that haunted my thoughts; she is dressed in what looks to be a black blazer and white blouse, one of her baby locs creeping out of place and sitting squarely on her forehead. She’s wearing big earrings, the sort that you get from an African fair. Here, Sandra (I can’t refer to her as “Bland,” we are too intimately connected now) looks like she makes #BlackLivesMatter videos and goes to sorority chapter meetings in serious heels that replace flats at the door and that don’t stick around long after adjournment. She is one of us, one of ours, absolutely.

Then there is the infamous mugshot, subjected to one of the most horrific theories I have encountered in my adult life: What if Sandra was already dead? What if these devils—these unconscionable, uneducated beasts of the South, these proud sons of the purveyors of lynching and Jim Crow segregation—killed this woman, purposefully, or by accident of their abuse, and then propped her body up to stage a photograph? I immediately reject this theory, not because it is ridiculous—because I put absolutely nothing, nothing past police departments and the various institutions that work to ensure their right to destroy black lives without consequence—but because I cannot even bear to think about it.

Yet, this broken, battered image of Sandra is the one my brain defaults to now, despite my efforts to replace it with the one I know to be true. In my head, we are friends. We would have talked about her videos. I would have asked her quite seriously, “Do you want to put your ideas out there for the world like this,” and warned her about the backlash, the sexist, racist trolls who don’t exist online outside of their sworn duty to terrorize outspoken women of color. She would’ve said “Yes.” This I know.

Sandra’s death has touched me in a different way than any of the black men and women who have been taken from us recently. I worked hard to stifle my feelings about Trayvon Martin until, months later, I had a near breakdown in a department store. I went to Ferguson the week after Michael Brown died, but didn’t allow myself to feel a thing until much later; it was the sight of a writer friend sobbing that pushed humanity to the surface. Taneshia Anderson brought rage, throwing things in my house rage. Tamir Rice was, and still is, almost unspeakable.

But Sandra, Sandy, she was a girl like me. Three years my junior, figuring things out, with plans to begin working at the HBCU she graduated from—something many of us black-college grads dream of doing, because they are the rare space in which black lives are consistently centered, affirmed, and protected. Leaving Howard University—a place that didn’t define or explain my blackness fully, but allowed it to flourish in peace— after my own graduation was a decidedly somber occasion, marked by a knowing that I would likely never be ensconced in the protective bosom of All Black Everything again.

Sandra defended our people in her #SandySpeaks videos and she defended herself against a ridiculous arrest from an overly aggressive officer. Watching that dashcam video, which I avoided as long as possible, I recognized that tone of voice—the universal language of “this white man got me fucked up,” that audacious blackness demanding to be treated like a human, like an equal, like someone who isn’t supposed to be dragged and slammed and arrested for having agency. Sandra didn’t resist arrest, she resisted the notion that she was supposed to submit to a cop like he was her overseer or master.http://gawker.com/what-happened-...

For the first time in my entire black life, I am witnessing a major outcry over a black woman, more outcry than I have seen over an injustice committed towards a sister—ever. Collectively, we didn’t do this for Rekia Boyd, we didn’t do it for seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Miriam Carey, Shelley Frey, or the countless others who didn’t get hashtagged.

So why Sandra? What made this the instance that would finally force people who don’t typically affirm the humanity of black women or challenge police violence—hello, Donald Trump—say, “Okay, this is madness?” Because America has sent a pretty clear message to black women that Tawana Brawley and Crystal Mangum have prevented us from garnering any sort of sympathy that may have been afforded to us.

Perhaps it’s because Sandra was a “good girl” by conventional standards; she was a college-trained young woman with the whole world ahead of her, as we often say when a “good” middle-class person dies. We wouldn’t be talking about her on this scale if she were a single mom of two and working in retail with a GED, nor if she were someone with an extensive criminal history. If that were the case, her name would end up on a #SayHerName poster, the committed activist community would push for answers, and mainstream media wouldn’t be bothered.

Far be it for me to suggest that Sandra, or any other black life that was lost in police custody, died so that the world could wake up. People choose to die for a cause all the time; she didn’t. She’d already established what her contribution to the cause would be: “to go back to Texas and stop all the injustice against Blacks,” according to her mother. Sandra Bland didn’t die in order to shake the world, she died because police departments kill black bodies and kill black souls—regardless if the reports of suicide are true or not.

One wonders, however, if the “it can literally happen to any black person” nature of this tragedy is the one equipped to shift outrage over police violence from the margins to the center. Does this death of a good girl, and the unconscionable way she was treated during her arrest, force the unbothered to pay attention, to say, “Wait, it’s not supposed to be like this?” Can Sandra Bland be a gateway into #BlackLivesMatter praxis for those who may have thought that Darren Wilson feared for his life, or that any sort of gun in the hands of a black male is frightening—sorry, John Crawford, sorry baby-faced angel Tamir Rice—frightening enough to squeeze first and ask questions last?

There’s no joy in watching white folks and black men demand justice for Sandra Bland (white feminists are still M.I.A., but that train is always late, if not absent), nor should there be joy following a senseless loss of life. Yet, for me, there is this strange—satisfaction may be an overstatement—awareness that finally, finally a black girl lost matters to a great deal of people. Why did it take this? Why do the circumstances have to be so extraordinary for people who are not black women to give a damn about us? And that goes not only for generally disconnected whites, tepid white ‘moderates,’ so-called allies, non-black POC and black men alike. Why is it that black women have enough empathy for marginalized groups across country, but, on the whole, there isn’t a damn to be spared when it comes to us?

The accountability we are demanding for all involved in Sandra Bland’s death, the questions we are raising, the outrage we are expressing, this should be the standard for all victims of police violence. She will stay with me forever. The memory of her voice, her mission and her conviction will live in my thoughts and in my writing. Let’s honor Sandra, and the countless women, children, and men lost before her by being just as vigilant every single time. Looking away cannot be an option.

Jamilah Lemieux is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn.

[Image via AP]

Pixels reminded us all just how shitty an actor Adam Sandler can be. But it’s worse than you probably realize. As a star, and also as a producer, Sandler has created a string of horrible, vapid comedies that have helped make us all dumber. His movies are “films,” in the same sense that colonoscopies produce films.

Sandler has specialized in comedies with a contrived “high concept” premise, that can be explained in a sentence, and usually sounds kind of interesting, until you see it actually play out over a two-hour period. Dumb, contrived comedies where something weird happens to a regular guy are nothing new, but Sandler has taken the ball dropped by Nora Ephron, and run with it.

Let’s just review some of the horrible films that Sandler has been involved with, including a few that aren’t technically SF or fantasy:

Sandler is the good-hearted son of Satan (Harvey Keitel) who has to retrieve his two evil brothers before they unleash Hell on Earth, and mostly bickers with a talking bulldog (who wishes he was in Men in Black) and chases small children around with his hip flask, screaming “GET IN THE FLASK!” (Seriously. Watch this highlight reel.)

Rob Schneider swaps bodies with a beautiful woman, who has to learn to cope with being a beautiful woman in Rob Schneider’s body. There is a long nose-hair-trimming sequence, and lots of “hilarious” bits where Schneider expresses all of his inner femininity. This is possibly the worst gender-swapping comedy I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen Juwanna Mann, Sorority Boys, White Chicks, and that awful Blake Edwards hot-tub murder film. (And here’s a good place to mention that Sandler also made a horrible film where he plays his own sister.)

A thirty-something Jewish man learns the true meaning of Hanukkah... which has to do with poop jokes, basically.

A former Israel counter-intelligence superspy fakes his death and becomes a Manhattan hairstylist, only to be forced to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians in New York, by getting them to open a shopping mall together.

This guy’s neighbor built a robot, but it turned out gay, and it’s constantly coming out with sports statistics and trying to convince human males to have gay sex with it. (This was based on a sketch on one of Sandler’s comedy albums, but was developed into a feature-length TV pilot for a show that never aired, as well as some animated short episodes. It was also supposed to be a full-length movie at one point. Seriously, don’t watch this clip from the pilot if you value any part of your sanity.)

Sandler is a hard-working architect who gets a remote control that allows him to pause and fast-forward through the boring parts of his life. But blah blah blah morality lesson, blah blah blah, don’t fast-forward through your life or you’ll miss the things that really matter, blah. I haven’t seen this one, but according to the Guardian, it contains offensive humor about Arabs, Japanese people, and “a man mistaking his 14-year-old daughter for a hot piece of ass.”

A group of young people discover a shortcut behind their house, but there’s a scary old guy with a terrible secret, in Sandler’s only horror movie. (Apparently this was based on a real childhood memory of Sandler’s, in which he saw a homeless man feeding human feces to a dog, only to be told “This doesn’t concern you.” That was one of Sandler’s formative experiences.)

A mad scientist transplants animal parts into Rob Schneider, who then gains the strength, speed and abilities of those animals... as well as their uncontrollable sex drives. I got this movie on DVD for $1 and have never been able to sit through it, but here’s a youtube clip of the “funniest scene” from it, where Schneider twists an ape’s nipple.

Adam Sandler is a shoe-repair guy who can literally “walk in someone else’s shoes.” Which, I don’t think you’d want Adam Sandler’s feet in your shoes, if you were planning on wearing them again. I also have not seen The Cobbler, but according to this review, instead of being about empathizing with others, it’s just a series of moronic gags:

He puts on a pair of red pumps and becomes a transgendered woman, but instead of exploring what it means to be transgendered, he just pokes his junk and makes an icky face, and then other people tell him he’s ugly. He dons the expensive shoes of a good looking guy (played by the super good looking Dan Stevens) and discovers that the good looking guy is bisexual, but instead of delving into what it’s like to be bi, he just tries to pick up a hot chick. Becoming a rich guy is just about joyriding in his car, and being a black teen is a disguise for slipping in and out of shady buildings. It’s exactly as offensive as it sounds.

Or as another reviewer puts it, “the film is almost defiant in its judgment of books by their covers.”

Adam Sandler and Kevin James pretend to be a gay couple to get benefits or something. Cue lots of jokes about sword-swallowing and putting things in your butt. America!

A group of struggling reality TV producers go in search of Bigfoot (Spoiler alert: They find him and kill him with machine guns.) But mostly, there are mangled penises, a character named Dick who’s the subject of dick jokes, and a shark eating a guy’s hand. This is notorious as the worst-rated film that Sandler has ever been associated with, which is saying something.

A guy tells bedtime stories to his kids... and they become real! This is one of the “heartwarming” family films that Sandler put out, and it’s dreadfully dull, except for one wacky Star Wars sequence. Plus in a common theme of these films, the “relatable” hero’s “escapist” experience is just about furthering his own self-interest—those bedtime stories actually serve to help his career.

Drew Barrymore has magical brain damage which causes her to live the same day over and over again, so Adam Sandler has to keep going on a first date with her. (Insert your own jokes about wishing you had brain damage that would make you forget seeing most of these films.) First Dates is the most rom-commy of Sandler’s many rom-coms, and is by all accounts one of the least crappy Sandler films of the past 15 years.

Kevin James is a zookeeper who discovers that his zoo animals can talk, and they decide to help him find twue wuv, through a series of hilarious stunts and by teaching him fling his own poo. (Basically.) This film is horrifying in its misanthropy and consists of lots of animals whose lips move in a scary fashion, and the making of it reportedly involved a lot of animal abuse in real life.

There’s also a few “hilarious” movies, where a shlubby guy is identified by their first name, followed and their goofy occupation/characteristic, like Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo or Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, or Paul Blart: Mall Cop. (Or just Joe Dirt.)

We’re just barely scratching the surface here—but in a nutshell, Sandler’s legacy has consisted of an awful lot of “gimmick” comedies, in which the gimmick is idiotic.

Especially as he’s kept making these, his “everyman” characters have gotten more misanthropic and horrible, and the fantasy of getting a magic remote control or a magic pair of shoes has increasingly revolved around being able to screw with all the little people (who fail to appreciate the greatness of Adam Sandler.)

Even before he decided to lampoon Apache culture in such a heinous fashion that the extras had to walk off his set, Sandler was already making movies much, much worse.

The fact that at least some of these movies have made money has helped spread the idea that there’s a market for shitty wish-fulfillment paired with gross-out humor, and has helped make our entire culture manifestly worse and uglier. In short, you probalby already hated Adam Sandler’s movies, but you didn’t hate them enough.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said the neuroscience in 50 First Dates makes no sense, when in fact it’s semi-accurate.

Contact the author at charliejane@io9.com.

For anyone who’s had their credit card number or other elements of their identity stolen, the footage above should provide a satisfying jolt of catharsis. It sure as hell did for me.

Dallas Fox 4 reporter Steve Noviello received a fraud alert on his credit card earlier this month and discovered it had been used at a Hilton Garden Inn in nearby Richardson, Texas. Noviello says he called the Hilton, explained the situation, and inquired as to whether anyone had used his credit card number to pay for a room. It turned out that a woman named Farrah Parks had, reportedly via a card with her name on it whose magnetic stripe didn’t work, thus the number had to be entered manually.

Noviello notified police of Parks’s room number and headed there himself. As she was being led out by police, Noviello bombarded Parks with questions and recorded her answers on his iPhone. That footage is above.

“I am Farrah, but I did not use your credit card,” said Parks when confronted. “I used a card with my name on it.” She may be a thief, but at least she’s not a full-time liar.

When pressed, Parks told Noviello, “I’m not gonna speak to you,” and, “I actually got it from somebody...” As she was being led through the Garden Inn’s lobby, she said, “I just made bad choices. I’m aware of that and I apologize.”

“You picked the wrong guy!” Noviello said to her during the confrontation. His particular beat is consumer reports, and he uses his work to help people avoid being cheated. One of his recurring segments is called “Save Me Steve.” Here’s an example of Steve saving himself.

Parks remains in jail, according to Noviello’s full Fox 4 report, which you can watch below:

“Tiny fantasy or big mistake?” Tech Insider asks at the top of a recent piece profiling four “tiny house” owners. “Tiny fantasy!!!!!!!” you’re probably thinking, stupidly.

Wrong.

“The house just became this thing that we were [literally] hauling from place to place,” says one owner. “I was aware of [the law], but the compulsion to build a house was so great that I went ahead and did it, knowing full well that I would have to address that issue later,” says another owner who very clearly deserved what he had coming to him. “I was just going stir crazy there,” says a third.

Reading their stories you may think, “Wait, do people actually live in ‘tiny houses’?” And then you might continue, to yourself: “Like—do enough people live in ‘tiny houses’ to justify the frequency with which one sees ‘tiny houses’ and the ‘tiny house’ lifestyle talked about on blogs?” A good question.

The answer is no—I mean.

The answer is yes.

We reached out to five MORE “tiny house” couples to shed light on their experiences living in “tiny houses”:

It’s hard not to lose your tiny house

Dana and Will Meyers fell in love in the spring, but their feelings did not blossom—though you might guess—over a shared love of tiny houses. “I’d actually never heard of a ‘tiny house’ before meeting Will,” said Dana, 36. “I suppose I knew what he meant. I mean, I knew what the words meant separately. I know what ‘tiny’ means—it means very small—and I know what ‘house’ means—it means a house. So ‘tiny’ and ‘house’ together, unless it means something else completely divorced from the meaning of both of those words, would most likely mean a very small house. That was my guess, anyway.”

“Dana knew what the words meant right away when I said ‘tiny house’ to her,” Will, 42, told us. “I knew she was the one, right then—it was that easy. I said ‘tiny house’ to her, just in conversation, and she explained that although she had never heard the words together before, she knew exactly what each one of them meant. ‘Tiny,’ she said to me, means ‘very small.’ She continued and explained that she also understood that ‘house’ referred to a house. So ‘tiny house,’ she said—and I remember this exactly—‘would most likely mean a very small house.’”

Sadly, the Meyers’s good “tiny house” fortune didn’t translate to their ownership of a “tiny house.”

“The damn thing was so small,” said Dana. “I mean, I knew it was going to be small—I think before I explained the tiny/very small thing—but so small that I couldn’t even see it? It was so tiny. At one point I’d think I was looking at it and then I’d look away and I’d think—hold on, did it move? Or was I never looking at it? Or can I just not see it now? It was so small. It’s crazy. I couldn’t even see it! So we lost it! Our whole house, gone like that—poof.”

Will agrees with Dana that the house was dangerously small: “Yeah, we lost it. I don’t know. I guess we went too small. As first time tiny homeowners it’s hard to know how small is too small and, in this case, we picked a house that was too small. So small you couldn’t even see it, really.”

Dana and Will have moved into a more moderately-sized home, but have not stopped looking for their tiny house.

You can’t just put it anywhere

Jessica and Jessie (they know, they know) had a lot of optimism when they bought their first tiny home. “I know this is silly. Hearing it now (and I’ve told a lot of reporters about this, you’re certainly not the first reporter I’ve talked to about this) it sounds ridiculous. That said (deep breath, hah) I thought you could just put the house anywhere. It’s small, so...I don’t know. Isn’t that would you would think?” Jessica, 29, told us over gchat.

We reached out to Jessie, 28, through gmail: “Yeah, you can’t put those anywhere. It’s a house still. I don’t know.”

The isolation is just too much

“We thought it would be cozy. A cozy little home in the middle of the woods. No one around. Space to really know each other. Space to read. Space to think. Space to write. We’re both writers, and—well. Ah. We just thought this would be good for us.” When newlyweds Rita, 37, and Jessa, 35, moved to a tiny home in the woods, they hoped for the best—hell, they hoped for better than the best. Jessa continued, “We had all these things you see on blogs, like a table that was also a bath, or whatever. A toilet that’s a stove. One book. A bed up on the ceiling or whatever. And it was all surrounded by glorious nature. I loved it.”

“It was too scary, I hated it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And so small!” her wife Rita told us over the phone.

With a tiny house, you generally grow or stay the same size

David, 26, and his little puppy, James, puppy age, had a startling realization after moving into their own tiny home.

“I got this puppy named James,” said David, “and he was so cute. A cute little face, tiny body—the works. He had the whole package. So fat and little, damn. I loved him, I loved him just howhe was. How little he was, specifically. I’d been reading about these ‘tiny houses’ on like literally every fucking blog so I thought, ‘maybe if I get a tiny house, my puppy will stay so tiny—so tiny and I’ll love him so much, I’ll love how tiny he is all the time. I still don’t think it was a bad idea. And on top of that I thought that maybe I could get a little tinier, too. I’m not ‘big’ but I’m a little fat, or—I’m trying to be less self-deprecating. I’m softer than I’d like, ah, blah, blah. Anyway. This isn’t a sob story about me. Long story short—puppy got bigger, too big for the house even, and I stayed the same size. Bullshit.”

Just too small

“Too small,” said Brian. “Mmmhm,” said the other name.

Image via Shutterstock, illustrations by Kelly, h/t Hairpin. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

Last night, just over 24 hours after she disappeared, eight-year-old Madyson “Maddy” Middleton was found dead in the dumpster of a Santa Cruz, California artists’ complex. Middleton’s 15-year-old neighbor, who was reportedly standing near the dumpster, watching the crime scene, was arrested and will likely be charged with her murder, according to Santa Cruz police.

The boy, whose name has not been released because he’s a minor, allegedly lured Middleton to his parents apartment and killed her sometimes Sunday evening. She was last spotted on surveillance footage at about 5 p.m., riding her scooter in the parking lot of the Tannery Arts Center.

“It is my belief she was killed before we even got the phone call Sunday night,” Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel said at a news conference today, according to the Los Angeles Times.

From the Times:

Police believe Madyson willingly went to the boy’s apartment, where they were alone. The pair knew each because they lived in the same housing complex, Vogel said.

“She was 8 years old,” he said. “I think she had a reasonable amount of trust in him.”

Middleton’s disappearance triggered a huge search, with hundreds of community members combing the 8.5 acre complex and the surrounding woods. Just before 8 p.m. Monday night, a detective found her body inside one of the complex’s dumpsters. The boy, Vogel said, was standing nearby and behaving suspiciously. He was later arrested and faces a number of charges related to Maddy’s death, some of which could be filed against him as an adult.

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Diet Pepsi recently announced that it would be removing the aspartame from its formula and replacing it with sucralose. As a connoisseur of both artificial sweeteners among many others, I reject this notion. Aspartame is great. I love aspartame.

Diet Pepsi capitulated to the current demand for “artisanal” soda—after sugar-only “Mexican Coke” became a marquee menu item for upscale restaurants, soda companies seemed to forget the reason they replaced sugar with artificial sweeteners in the first place, which is that too much sugar is bad for you.

Moreso, though, Diet Pepsi capitulated America’s long-held notion that aspartame is even worse for you than sugar. Yet the substance falls in the category of those arbitrary beliefs that many crusade behind, but who do not possess enough scientific evidence to be reasonable. It is supported by research that, say, cigarettes are a known cause of cancer. Aspartame, though, has not been proven to be harmful, despite many Americans’ perception otherwise. And despite a preponderance of conflicting information on the internet, the New York Times has just reported that artificial sweeteners are, in fact, better for you than sugar, and that the link to cancer in humans has never been proven.

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine and excellent troll of our country’s most extreme health-truthers, writes:

A 1998 randomized controlled trial could detect no neuropsychologic, neurophysiologic or behavioral effects caused by aspartame. Even a dose at 10 times the normal consumption had no effect on children with attention deficit disorder. A safety review from 2007, published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, found that aspartame had been studied extensively and that the evidence showed that it was safe.

It is true that people with phenylketonuria, a rare genetic disorder, need to limit their consumption of aspartame, since phenylalanine is one of its components. But for most people, aspartame isn’t a concern, even outside of cancer. It’s also true that some of the sugar alcohol sweeteners, like in Stevia, can have a laxative effect or cause bloating when eaten in large amounts by some people. In normal use by most people, though, all of the approved artificial sweeteners are safe.

Though Dr.-Professor Carroll says the approved artificial sweeteners are safe, I am here with my refined palate to supplement his argument by telling you which of them taste great. And there is no better tasting artificial sweetener than aspartame. This is indisputable.

Aspartame’s top notes: aspirin, thin strands of cotton, soft and sweet plastic, chemical rugburn, bitter foliage, the sole of a box-fresh Nike Air Jordan.

Aspartame’s heart notes: diet corn syrup, guilt-free pleasure, a tongue massage.

Aspartame’s base notes: the pure taste of power... WITHOUT THE CALORIES.

It is not acquired; it tastes awesome from first the first moments in the mouth. Compare this to alcohol sweeteners like maltitol, which is often added to sugar-free candy and low-carb protein bars. As Dr.-Professor Carroll notes of its laxative effects, if you consume too much of it and other sugar alcohols, you are essentially guaranteed to contract diarrhea; I know because one single time I purchased and consumed an entire normal-sized bag of sugar-free Twizzlers, containing maltitol, and after a short period of stomach cramping my dalliance with low-carb candy ended in a particularly combative confession with the porcelain priest, after which I vowed never again. Where is the fun in that?

But with aspartame, unless you are a rat already prone to bladder cancer, the aftereffects are negligible, other than the feeling of satisfaction having consumed a beverage (or otherwise) that did not affect your blood sugar, that did not fill your body with empty calories, that did render you with a risible high only to set you up for a harrowing crash.

Monster Energy Drink does not contain aspartame, and therefore I reject it.

If you think aspartame sucks, you are wrong; University of Illinois researchers chalked up your disdain to “mouth feel” which, if you’ve ever seen Chopped, matters, but is not everything. (Presentation is everything.)

Consumers may claim they don’t like diet soda because of artificial sweeteners, but Schmidt and sensory scientist Lee think people are also influenced by a subtle difference called “mouth-feel.” Think body, fullness, thickness; regular soda contains high-fructose corn syrup, diet soda doesn’t.

What makes these scientists think mouth-feel is the culprit? For one thing, artificial sweeteners have been greatly improved and extensively studied. “Taste profiles for artificial sweeteners now closely match the one for sucrose, which humans describe as the perfect sweetness,” Lee said.

See? You’re tripping.

Granted, aspartame, being the initial pet project of demonic “agriculture” company Monsanto and pushed through by Donald Rumsfeld calling in special faves with then-President Reagan, is perhaps objectionable in philosophy. Monsanto’s website has a segment called “Products of the Former Monsanto,” which lists aspartame alongside PCBs and Agent Orange. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Currently, NutriSweet is owned by the private equity firm JW Childs, while Equal is owned by Merisant, a company specializing in artificial sweeteners. Merisant is privately held by MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc, which is owned by accused racist Ronald Perelman. Everyone involved is, there is no doubt in my mind, totally evil.

Ron Perelman with Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) in 2007. Behind them is a person who could, possibly, be drinking something sweetened with aspartame.

But aspartame is not objectionable in taste. Over the years, as its vaguely chemical, acidic, plasticky-sweet undertones have grown familiar on my palate, I have vehemently loved it, in a varying number of diet sodas and energy drinks, so that it is part of the fabric of my existence. Beverage companies of the world, do not take this away from me.

Drink water, also!

Contact the author at julianne@jezebel.com.

Minaj/Meek image via screenshot. Ron Pereleman image via Getty.

Late at night, you may sometimes find yourself being tugged in two directions by the small and insistent hole growing in your stomach. Maybe you want a sweet treat before you lay your head down to sleep. But maybe you want something more substantial—not just the goodnight kiss of a morsel of chocolate, but what Taco Bell has accurately termed/branded the “fourth meal.” Thankfully for us all, I recently discovered a solution.

The solution is: cereal for dessert. Where normally people eat cereal for breakfast, I find that it works best as a nightcap. At once, you can finish the night on a sweet note without resorting to freezer-burned ice cream, while also putting something substantial in your stomach that isn’t an actual entire meal.

A bowl of 11:30 p.m. Frosted Flakes, for instance, checks both boxes. On many nights, I don’t even want anything that sweet so I’ll just eat a bowl of Crispix. The presence of dairy alone is enough to trick my mind into thinking I’m eating dessert. If you’re feeling super crazy/stoned, you can squirt chocolate syrup on your cereal. If you’re feeling super duper crazy/stoned, you can bend further towards dessert by placing a scoop of ice cream in a shallow pool of milk and then dropping cereal into the bowl.

Cereal for breakfast is still good. It’s hard to fuck with a classic. But cereal for dessert is better, and it’s right there waiting for you. We’re all the heroes of our own lives.

[art by Jim Cooke]

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

In the last month, at least four female senior Reddit employees have left the company, as the site’s interim CEO continues to insist that there’s “no gender discrimination problem.” The latest employee to exit—Jessica Moreno, Reddit’s now-former Head of Community—quit Monday, purportedly because she intends to “spend more time with her family” and not because who in god’s name would want that job at this point.http://gawker.com/top-reddit-eng...

Still, Moreno, who started working at the company in 2011, said in a statement Tuesday that her resignation “has to do with my own life outside of work and nothing internal at reddit. It has nothing to do with the policy changes or being a woman.” Via Recode:

I have enjoyed my time at Reddit but after four years I feel that it’s time for me to move on. While I am working with Steve on a transition plan, I am looking forward to taking time off to spend with my family. It was a difficult decision to make right now as Reddit is taking difficult steps in a much needed positive direction. I’m excited to see the progress being made and glad I could be a part of it.

But it is hard to ignore the fact that four high-profile female employees have departed the site in the last month—AMA moderator Victoria Taylor, who was fired; CEO Ellen Pao, who was forced out; and chief engineer Bethanye Blount, who quit citing a loss of confidence in the company.

And despite claims that Reddit is looking to promote women, the company has been filling its new, lady-shaped holes with men: former CEO Steve Huffman was tapped to replace Pao and Blount has since been replaced by former team leader George Pang.

It’s still unclear who will replace Moreno; she says she’s working out a transition plan with Huffman. But as the company continues to hemorrhage female employees, it’s harder and harder to believe its claim as a hospitable place for women, even as they deny, officially, that their departures are non-gender-related.

When Blount quit earlier this month, she said Pao had been placed on a glass cliff and set up to fail. At this point, it’s worth asking who at the company wasn’t. http://gawker.com/ellen-pao-offi...

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

In a 2013 interview with Chicago blog “A Drink With,” Kristin Cavallari finally answered the question Chicago blog “A Drink With” was dying to ask: What were her son Camden’s first words?

Got a guess? Guess again. Kristin’s answer:

His first word was “Dada” but he didn’t even know what it meant. He says mom now!

Just to clarify—he didn’t even know what it meant.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photos via Getty]

Does Chris Harrison, the good-looking, charismatic host of the popular marriage competition television show The Bachelor, know that Lifetime has a series about the behind-the-scenes of a popular marriage competition television show? You better believe he does.

Does Chris Harrison, the congenial front man of The Bachelorette, have a sense of humor? If I had to guess, based entirely on this recent interview, I would guess, no, he does not.

I ask, because Harrison, who has a lovely set of teeth, was asked about the Lifetime show—and weirdly, it turns out he’s not a fan.

“Really, the main difference that I’ve seen is that people watch ‘The Bachelor,’” Harrison told Variety when asked what he thinks about “UnReal” at “The Bachelorette: Men Tell All” taping earlier this month. “It’s complete fiction. As much as they would love to jump on our coattails — they were begging for us to talk about it and for people to write about it — at the end of the day, no one is watching. I mean, absolutely nobody is watching that show. Why? It is terrible. It is really terrible.”

(The Lifetime show, which was created by former The Bachelor producers, attracts about a tenth of The Bachelor’s audience but was just renewed for a second season. I think it’s pretty good, but what do I know?)

Still I can’t blame Harrison, who no one can deny is quick with a quip, because the character ostensibly based on him is very, very unflattering. Surely the real Chris Harrison has a better sense of humor than the “Chris Harrison” UnReal character.

Because Chris Harrison does like some things! Like total reverence:

While talking to Variety, Harrison acknowledged that he does admire some parodies such as those on “Saturday Night Live” or “The Tonight Show” because they validate the “Bachelor” franchise’s cultural impact.

“Validate me!!!” —Chris Harrison (not a real quote).

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie—a man who seems to sincerely believe he could become president—took a brief hiatus from Falstaffian misadventures on Tuesday to discuss drug enforcement under a fictional Christie administration, addressing the nation’s dope smokers and grass fiends directly.

“If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it,” said Christie at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire today, Bloomberg reports. “As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws.”

“If you want to change the marijuana laws, go ahead and change the national marijuana laws,” he added.

Of course, like any good conservative, Christie has previously advocated for states’ rights—an advocacy that apparently stops at actual conflicts between state and federal law.

“It was the states that created the federal government, not the federal government that created the states,” said Christie in March. “We need to get back to that philosophy.”

[Image via Getty Images]

A 911 dispatcher with the Albuquerque Fire Department has been reassigned after hanging up on a frustrated caller attending to a dying gunshot victim, NBC News reports.

In a released audio recording, dispatcher Matthew Sanchez can be heard saying “I’m not going to deal with this, okay?” in response to the caller’s vulgar language before ending the phone call. From KOB-TV:

Caller: (inaudible) I’m keeping him alive.

Sanchez: Is he not breathing?

Caller: Barely. (inaudible) Stay with me. Stay with me, ok. Good job Jaydon.

Sanchez: Is he breathing?

Caller: He’s barely breathing. How many times do I have to [fucking] tell you?

Sanchez: Ok, [you know] what ma’am? You can deal with yourself. I’m not going to deal with this, ok.

Caller: No, he’s going to die.

The call ends there.

According to KRQE, fire department units had been dispatched before Sanchez disconnected the line but the victim, 17-year-old Jaydon Chavez-Silver, was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

On Monday, Albuquerque Fire Department Chief David Downey released a statement saying he was “taking the allegation very seriously.”

“After learning of the alleged misconduct, Driver Matthew Sanchez was immediately removed from the dispatch center and placed on administrative assignment,” wrote Downey. “An internal investigation has been initiated.”

[Image via KOB-TV//h/t Buzzfeed]

Beautiful work, Philadelphia. http://t.co/VUpRJ6CjRr pic.twitter.com/IJCyCUbQeS

July 28, 2015

It certainly seems possible.

Eight children were hurt, at least three of them critically, when a tree fell on a group of kids outside a summer day camp in Pasadena, the Associated Press reports.

According to KTLA, the victims, all of whom were between the ages of 6 and 8, were waiting to be picked up from a camp held at the Kidspace Children’s Museum when the 70-foot tree fell on Tuesday.

“I heard a tree crack, and then I turned around and I saw little kids running, then I saw the tree fall on top of the little kids,” a witness told KABC. “I ran over there with a bunch of parents and we just started going through the tree and the bushes and we started pulling them out.”

It was not immediately known what caused the tree to fall over.

“We are bringing out an independent arborist to investigate what could have caused this,” a fire department spokesperson told the Associated Press.

[Image via KABC]

On Sunday, a Washington man was arrested after allegedly running naked through his neighborhood waving a knife—but not before treating police to a surprise banjo concert, KPTV reports.http://www.kptv.com/story/29636603...

“It was crazy ridiculous,” an eyewitness told the station.

Responding to complaints of a nude, knife-wielding man, officers say they found the suspect, 26-year-old Andrew Helmsworth, barricaded in his home. A two-hour standoff with SWAT officers reportedly ensued, ending only when Helmsworth left his house to pluck out a tune. From The Columbian:

A neighbor captured a portion of the standoff with a cellphone. Footage showed Helmsworth emerging from the house with a banjo and playing for police. He was subsequently shot with a nonlethal round and taken into custody about 5:45 p.m.

Helmsworth, who authorities say chased his father with the knife, now faces felony assault charges, KATU reports.

[Image via KPTV//h/t Death and Taxes]

The French can have a reputation for being, how do you say, less-than-hospitable to les foreigners. The French at Disneyland Paris are, authorities say, even worse: they’ve allegedly been charging foreigners as much as double the ticket price for the privilege of touring Cinderella’s chateau.

According to the Financial Times, the detested Germans are charged the most—around €2,447, while Brits pay €1,870. Meanwhile, French visitors pay only €1,346.

And it’s tres, tres illegal, if true and could enable the EU to sue France:

Unless companies meet strictly defined criteria, the EU services directive in principle bans forcing consumers to pay more simply because of their nationality or country of residence.

Under EU rules prices can be varied according to nationality if there are objective reasons, such as different market conditions, seasonal fluctuations in demand or different holiday periods. Disneyland Paris says that its promotions in local markets are based on booking patterns and school holidays.

However a Commission “sweep” of Disneyland Paris’ rivals in Europe — including Denmark’s Legoland and Tivoli Gardens and Germany’s Europapark — found that other operators did not vary prices to the same extent

It’s almost like they don’t believe it’s a small world, after all.

Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

She was looking for some work—she didn’t want a fling—when she got a nanny job with Ben and Jen this spring. What was she to do, what was she to say, she needed the money. But over the next few months her bosses went to war—she was there to watch the children, but their father saw more. She had youth! Jen went poof! It’s the (alleged) truth! Ben fell in love with his nanny.

Who would have guessed that the girl we described, was just exactly what Ben’s penis prescribed? Now Jen Garner found her disgusting - she let her go! And now Ben’s on top of her thrusting - His rep says ‘no!’ She’s the lady in bed, next to Ben Affleck: the man of her dreeeeeeams.

His twenty-something rebound - the nanny, Christine!

[Us Weekly]

Cara Delevingne was interviewed by Good Day Sacramento yesterday, and it was a complete mess. The rude hosts made multiple comments about Delevingne looking like she needed a nap and/or Red Bull (I thought she seemed fine?), before the actress decided she had had it.

RUDE HOST: You do seem a bit irritated. Perhaps it’s just us.

DELEVINGNE: Yeah, I think it’s just you.

If you watch the whole video, you’ll notice Cara’s behavior is...fine? She seems a little tired, sure, but maybe that’s because she went to a movie premiere the night before and got 90 minutes of sleep before waking up and preparing for hours of interviews?

Or maybe she’s just sad about St. Vincent.

[Us Magazine]

Look at this headline:

Now read the story.

[Page Six]

• :( Demi Lovato’s dog died in a “tragic accident.” [People]
  
• OITNB’s Selenis Levya fights for her transgender sister “on a daily basis.” [People]
  
• Monica Lewinsky had a “low-key” 42nd birthday dinner last night. [Page Six]
  
• Chrissy Teigen and John Legend are always hungry. [E! Online]
  
• Terrence Howard’s ex-wife says he beat her “to within an inch of her life.” [TMZ]
  
• Tyga’s not paying his rent. [TMZ]
  
• BUT DID HE PAY FOR KYLIE’S ENGAGEMENT RING?!?!?! [Celebitchy]
  

Contact the author at bobby@jezebel.com.

Images via Getty/Sony Pictures Television

The right soundtrack has the power to elevate sex from good to mind-boggling. But if you’ve ever hooked up with someone who put on what was obviously a meticulously-arranged “sex playlist”, you also know that music has the potential to make your encounter a bit awkward. Here’s how to achieve the former rather than the latter.

Before we even get into picking the right jams, let’s talk about why playing music during sex is a good idea. Quite simply, music adds a unique layer of stimulation. It invites another one of your senses to the party. Music can help us feel more connected to our bodies, and can make our movement feel more sensual. Music can also capture the different moods that can accompany sex: passion, anger, playfulness, intensity, romance, melancholy, and so on.

On a more practical level, music can drown out the weird squelches that often accompany sex, fill up any awkward silences, and prevent your roommate from hearing what you’re doing.

What Makes for a Good Sex Song

When you’re looking for potential songs for your playlists, consider your history with the song. Some songs evoke memories we don’t necessarily want to get distracted by during sex (like that album you and your ex listened to all summer). You may also want to avoid “earworm” songs, or songs that you can’t help but sing along to (unless you don’t mind breaking into song in the middle of receiving oral). You’re looking for songs that capture a certain mood for you and make you feel in tune with your sexy self.

How to Make a Playlist

Sex comes in all kinds of flavors, so it can be fun to make different playlists that capture unique moods for you. At the very least, you can make a “romantic sex” playlist and a “hot sex” playlist. Other than that, you’re only constrained by how much time you want to spend on this. If you’re feeling inspired, make a playlist for lazy Sunday, post-brunch sex. Or one for when your irresistible but batshit insane ex bootie calls you.

When it comes to actually playing your playlist, I’m an advocate for the shuffle function. I do think it’s best to pick all of your songs because being subjected to a random Pandora or Spotify pick that you don’t actually like can spoil the mood. But plotting out the exact order of your songs can make sex feel overly rehearsed, especially if you’re sleeping with someone relatively new. You might feel pressured to time your hookup based on how you had envisioned it unfolding when you created the playlist. It also feels a little weird as the partner to know that someone has specifically arranged these tracks to listen to while they had sex with you.

Try out these Specific Recommendations

We love asking people for their favorite songs to have sex to. We got started on nine different playlists, broken down by genre.

R&B Slow Jams, with Maxwell, Cassie, and of course The Weeknd:

Hip Hop, because some of these songs are hilariously obvious:

Indie/Folk. Pretty guitars, melancholy melodies. The xx, Brazilian Girls, Little Dragon:

Electronic, with a classic from Lil Louis and some newer additions from Safeword and Perseus:

Chill/Dub/Ambient. Rhye, Junior Boys, and Caribou will slowly bring the heat:

Romantic. Sade, Sade, Sade. Do you need anything other than Sade?

Motown Classics, for that lazy Sunday afternoon sex:

80s/90s. Some oldies but goodies from Fiona Apple and Placebo:

Rock. Angry sex with NIN and the Deftones:

All of the playlists are collaborative, so open up Spotify and help us fill in the gaps by adding some of your favorite songs! Or, if you don’t have Spotify, recommend your own favorites in the comments below.

Illustration by Tara Jacoby.

There is something very off about a recent story circulated by the Associated Press on Sandra Bland’s toxicology report, which was released on Monday. It was mostly republished by right-of-center publications like the New York Post and Fox News, with little interest from the mainstream media—presumably because the article makes some questionable claims about Bland’s marijuana use, a handy conservative talking point that is depressingly familiar.

In the story, two expert toxicologists reviewed the report. The report stated that the level of THC (an active component of marijuana) in Bland’s system was at 18 micrograms per liter, which the Associated Press notes is “more than three times the legal limit for drivers in Colorado and Washington, states that permit the recreational use of marijuana.”

University of Florida toxicology professor Bruce Goldberger was quoted as saying, ““I don’t think it’s possible to rule out the possibility of use while in jail,” a notion so unlikely that it seems odd to publicize it; no evidence has been found to back up that claim. Robert Johnson, chief toxicologist at the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office in Fort Worth, Texas, told the AP: “I have never seen a report in the literature or from any other source of residual THC that high three days after someone stops using the drug.”

What the Associated Press and its on-call experts failed (rather egregiously) to note is that THC levels redistribute and, more importantly, quite often rise after death. There is very little literature on residual THC in dead bodies, and the literature that does exist shows that postmortem THC levels are almost impossible to pinpoint exactly. Even with living people, there is no definitive scientific consensus on what THC level constitutes impairment; the decision to set a legal driving limit based on this measurement was extremely controversial. Its presence in a toxicology report is not enough to presume impairment at the moment of death with any kind of certainty, which Dr. Goldberger—who also helped George Zimmerman’s lawyers make the claim that Trayvon Martin had enough marijuana in his system for impairment—did.

Speaking about the THC levels of a deceased person in the same terms as THC levels in a living person was an irresponsible and misleading choice. The New York Times investigated this discrepancy, quoting leading forensic toxicologist Dr. Nikolas P. Lemos, who stated: “If you’re a woman with all that T.H.C. parked in your fatty tissue, after death it leaks out and contaminates the adjacent blood, so it artificially elevates the measured concentrations in blood.” According to Dr. Lemos, the report’s findings reveal “nothing about impairment, nothing about use in jail, nothing about when she took it.”

Goldberger doubled down with the Times, countering that “even if we assume there’s been a post-mortem change, it’s not going from a negligible concentration to 18.”

While Bland’s postmortem THC levels are certainly relevant to the ongoing investigation into her death, they are absolutely not relevant to the public without appropriate context. It’s disheartening to watch Sandra Bland’s drug use become quietly, steadily politicized—the implication being, of course, that if she smoked marijuana with any kind of regularity, she deserved what happened to her.

Contact the author at ellie@jezebel.com.

Image via Associated Press.

Officials in Waller County, Texas, have released new jail footage showing that Sandra Bland, the woman who was arrested during a traffic stop and died in jail under suspicious circumstances, was alive during the booking process. The county also produced “several hours” of footage of Bland in jail, showing her sleeping in her cell and being taken in and out, the AP reported Tuesday night.http://gawker.com/cops-release-n...

Although Bland’s death has been ruled a suicide, her family believes she was happy and would never have taken her own life. They’ve ordered an independent autopsy. District attorneys, Texas Rangers, and the FBI are all investigating how Bland died.

The new video was released in response to a popular conspiracy theory that Bland was killed before she was ever booked into the jail, and that her official mugshot was staged after her death.

“Because of some of the things that’s gone out on social media, this county has been literally attacked,” Waller County Judge Trey Duhon said, adding that the FBI is investigating threats against county officials over Bland’s death.

Although the video shows Bland was brought in alive, it doesn’t do much to dispel doubts that she’d hang herself with a garbage bag three days later.

“She’s calm when she arrives at the jail, sometimes smiling and at one point putting her head in her hands,” the AP reported, describing the booking video, “The jailer let her use the phone at the booking desk instead of the pay phone in her cell, and she was seen talking with animation during some of the calls.”

Authorities said last week that there was no footage of Bland’s cell on the morning her body was found, only security tape showing the hallway and cell door.

Previously, the official dashcam video of Bland’s arrest had some conspicuous irregularities—parts of the video repeating, other parts possibly missing—that prompted the FBI to investigate whether it had been tampered with.http://gawker.com/what-the-hell-...

[h/t crimefeed]