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500 Days of Kristin, Day 208: AMETHYST?!


Security Guard, Gunman Dead After Shooting Inside Federal Building in Lower Manhattan

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Security Guard, Gunman Dead After Shooting Inside Federal Building in Lower Manhattan

A federal officer was shot this afternoon outside a federal building in Manhattan’s West Village. The suspect was also wounded and has reportedly been arrested.

According to PIX 11, the officer has been taken to Bellvue while the suspect, who apparently suffered cardiac arrest, was rushed to Lennox Hill Healthplex.

UPDATE 9:22 pm: The victim, Idrissa Camara, a 53-year-old security guard, has died from his wounds. The gunman, identified as Kevin Downing, 68, is also dead, reportedly of a self-inflicted gunshot. From the New York Post:

With a bag in hand, Kevin Downing of Fort Lee, N.J., walked into 201 Varick St. around 5:05 p.m. and approached 53-year-old Idrissa Camara, a guard who works for a private security contractor, near metal detectors in the lobby.

When Camara told the gunman he had to check his belongings, Downing dropped the bag and shot the guard once in the head with handgun, the sources said.

He then dashed through the security area, heading toward an elevator bank, where he another employee stopped him.

At that point he shot himself in the head, police officials said

UPDATE 6:03 pm: The gunman has reportedly died.


Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Deadspin Winona State Coach Resigned After Being Accused Of Drunkenly Molesting Player | Gizmodo Nor

Viral Miscarriage Husband’s Ashley Madison Apology: This Was Before We Went Viral

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The popular Christian vlogger Sam Rader—best known for “surprising” his wife with her own positive pregnancy test in a viral video—has admitted to using an account on the cheating website Ashley Madison. In a YouTube video with his wife Nia by his side, Sam claims that God has forgiven him for seeking extramarital sexual partners online. http://gawker.com/viral-christia...

Sam explains:

Hey guys. As you may have seen, my name has been associated with an Ashley Madison account, a website made for spouses who want to have an affair. I’m here to clarify some of this with you guys, ‘cause I owe it to you.

I did make the account. I made the account two years ago. This is an issue that is in our past. This is before I got onto YouTube. I brought this to my church at the time, when I first started at the church that I’m at now; this has been brought to my discipleship partner. This was brought to my wife’s attention. She has forgiven me for this mistake that I made and opening the account. I’ve sought forgiveness to God, and he’s forgiven me. So, I’ve been completely cleansed of this sin, and also, I need to be clear that I’ve never met with a single person face to face through that website, and that I never had an affair with anybody, ever, while I’ve been married with Nia. The account was opened out of pure fleshly desires and just sinful curiosity.

Some of you are questioning my faith and, um, me being a Christian and doing this. I guess what some people don’t understand is that we’re all broken—even Christians. We come to God as broken people, and he sat upon the cross to save us from those sins. And because this is in our past, and this has already been completely resolved within my family and within my church, we won’t be saying any more on this matter. I wont be talking to any media outlets. The only place you’ll hear of this out—of our mouth—is here on this video. The only time. You know, this is why we need a savior. We’re sinful by nature, and we do stupid things like this. And this is what the atonements all about: Forgiveness and second chances.

Nia then adds:

And I just want to add too, guys, you know, I have forgiven Sam and I stand behind him, and this is in our past. And it’s unfortunate that its being dug up right now, but you know, our marriage is worth fighting for. And it always will be. And I just want to encourage you guys who are dealing with any kind of situation like this within your marriage to just fight for what you have. Marriage is the real deal, and it’s been sealed, and it’s worth fighting for. It always will be.

Sam concludes, “Alright guys, thank you so much for your support—the ones standing by us—and for believing in us. And we’ll see you guys tomorrow. God bless.”

To be clear, Sam Rader opened the YouTube account his family now uses in 2007. He began paying for an Ashley Madison account in September of 2013. He posted his first video to go viral in 2o14.


Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

18-Year-Old Black Man Shot By St. Louis Police Died from Bullet to Back

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18-Year-Old Black Man Shot By St. Louis Police Died from Bullet to Back

St. Louis’ chief medical examiner said Friday that an 18-year-old man shot by police died from a bullet that entered the middle of his back, the New York Times reports. Police said they shot Mansur Ball-Bey after he pointed a gun at officers.http://gawker.com/tear-gas-and-a...

At a news conference outside Police Headquarters, St. Louis police chief, Sam Dotson, asked people to be patient. “We are still in the early stages of the investigation, and the new facts by themselves do not paint a complete picture,” Chief Dotson said.

Dotson said that police recovered a gun at the scene of the shooting, Reuters reports, although it has not yet been determined whether Ball-Bey’s fingerprints were on it.

However, the autopsy’s results already appear to contradict the description of the shooting given by police, who said that Ball-Bey pointed a gun at two officers after he fled the house where they were serving a search warrant. According to Reuters, police said that after he was shot Ball-Bey dropped his gun and continued running.

St. Louis Chief Medical Examiner announced the autopsy’s findings at a press conference, saying that the position and track of the bullet, which struck Ball-Bey in the upper right part of his back and hit his heart and an adjacent artery, show that he could not have been turned towards the officers when he was shot. From Reuters:

The position and track of the bullet, which did not exit Ball-Bey’s body, show that he was not turned toward officers when he was shot, Graham said. The shot would have killed him nearly instantly, making it difficult if not impossible for him to keep running, though if he was running there would have been some forward momentum, Graham said.

Graham said it was impossible to tell from the autopsy whether Ball-Bey was slightly turned, or was twisting his torso toward officers when he was shot.

“There are so many variables,” said Graham. “But he certainly wasn’t facing, his chest wasn’t facing the officers.”

The city’s prosecutor, Jennifer M. Joyce, said her office was going to begin a parallel investigation to the police’s. According to the Times, the prosecutor generally waits for the police investigation to conclude before opening its own.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Crowd For Trump Rally Not As Huge As Expectations, Stadium

Ellen Page Confronts Ted Cruz Over 'Persecution of Gays' and 'LGTB Rights'

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Ellen Page Confronts Ted Cruz Over 'Persecution of Gays' and 'LGTB Rights'

Yesterday, Ellen Page confronted Republican candidate Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair. Cruz was grilling pork chops like a real American when Page walked up and asked him, “What about the question about LGBT people being fired for being gay-trans?” ABC caught the exchange on camera.

Cruz answered her question with a standard Cruz response, “Well, what we’re seeing right now, we’re seeing Bible-believing Christians being persecuted for living according to their faith.” The conversation didn’t go beyond that, Cruz told Page that he wasn’t interested in a debate and made a short speech about Christian values, persecution, etc., Page pushed a bit more, and then she left. ABC reports that Page was at the Iowa State Fair on an assignment from Vice. [ABC]


Here are Kris Jenner and Jennifer Lawrence in what might be the most inexplicable Instagram post ever. “Happy birthday you piece of shit....” Jenner wrote. “God I love you #JenniferLawrence thanks for making this a night to remember...even if we get caught...I love you Happy Birthday Gorgeous!!! #Bible #momager #doll.” [Instagram]


Ellen Page Confronts Ted Cruz Over 'Persecution of Gays' and 'LGTB Rights'

In an interview with LA Confidential, Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer defended her controversial sex scene with a minor. “After what we’ve done on this show—the rape, the incest, the child murdering—it baffles me that two people in a reasonably good, reasonably affectionate relationship is what gets the wide eyes and the questions,” Dormer told the magazine. Not sure that’s actually a defense of the show. [Just Jared]


  • This story on Howard Stern’s move towards “political correctness” is very, very funny. [Page Six]
  • Beyonce and Blue Ivy are on a boat. [E!]
  • Lindsay Lohan is being sued over unpaid bills. [TMZ]
  • Lamar Odom says his Soulcycle drama with Khloe Kardashian was a “set up.” This whole story sounds like a wonderful soap opera plot. [Radar]
  • The summer of 2015 was particularly rough for celebrities; here’s every celebrity couple that broke up this summer. [Huffington Post]

Images via Getty.

American Servicemen Tackle Suspected Terrorist on French Train

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American Servicemen Tackle Suspected Terrorist on French Train

Three Americans, including two off-duty service members, are being praised as heroes after apprehending a suspected terrorist on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris. The Americans rushed the suspect and knocked him unconscious with his own AK-47, the New York Times reports.

Two of the men were Alek Skarlatos, an Oregon National Guardsman returning from Afghanistan, and Spencer Stone, a member of the Air Force. When the gunman entered their train car carrying an AK-47 and a handgun, “I looked over at Spencer and said, ‘Let’s go,’” Skarlatos said in a televised interview in France. “And he jumped, I followed behind him by about three seconds. Spencer got the guy first, grabbed the guy by the neck, I grabbed the handgun.”

The Times reports that the suspect cut Stone severely in the neck and hand. His injuries are not life threatening.

“My friend Alek yells, ‘Get him,’ so my friend Spencer (Stone) immediately gets up to charge the guy, followed by Alek, then myself,” the third American, Anthony Sadler, told CNN. “The three of us beat up the guy,” Sadler said. “In the process Spencer gets slashed multiple times by the box cutter, and Alek takes the AK away.”

“I begin to tie him up with help from Chris, another passenger. I notice a man had his throat cut at which Spencer begins to apply pressure to the neck wound before he bled out.”

The suspect, identified as a 26-year-old Moroccan man, also wounded several other passengers, including a dual French-American citizen, the Associated Press reports.

The suspect’s identity has not been 100 percent confirmed, the AP reports. An anonymous Spanish anti-terrorism source told the news agency that the gunman lived in Spain until 2014, when he moved to France, traveled to Syria, and then returned to France.

According to the Times, French media reported that the suspect denied having terrorist aims, intending merely to rob the train’s passengers.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.


Andrea Tantaros on Women Army Rangers: 'Men Can't Have Anything To Themselves' 

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Andrea Tantaros on Women Army Rangers: 'Men Can't Have Anything To Themselves' 

On Thursday’s episode of Fox News’ lady-focused Outnumbered, Andrea Tantaros shared the true and meaningful sadness she felt over two women graduating from the Army’s Ranger School. In light of the historic moment, Tantaros made it clear that though she is “all for female empowerment,” but this was hardly a moment worth celebration.

“I believe in equality and all those things, but there seems to be this sense that men can’t have anything to themselves anymore,” Tantaros said.They’re, like, kicking down the doors like golf clubs and Navy SEALs...we have to be everywhere in the name of empowerment.” Tantaros seemed to be most concerned over the feelings of the male Rangers, indicating that it wasn’t just about women’s ability to physically match their male counterparts, “We should care about how these [men] feel. It’s not always about the women.” But don’t worry women, Tantaros notes that we still have rooms of our own, “I don’t see men ever trying to bust into our all-girl spas.”

When co-host Julie Roginsky countered that the women had passed, and thus should be allowed to join, Tantaros said, “It’s not about their competition, Julie. It’s how the people that they’re fighting next to feel as well. You have to factor that in.” While mounting a true and pure defense of the feelings of men, Tantaros left out one important fact: peer evaluations are part of passing Ranger school and failing peer evaluations (receiving less than 60% support) results in disqualification. It would seem, despite Tantaros’ suggestion, that male Army Rangers are pretty comfortable fighting with women. Full video (via Media Matters) below:

Image via Fox News; Video via Media Matters.

At Least 7 People Dead After Jet Crashes At UK Airshow

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British police say seven people have died after a military jet participating in the Shoreham Airshow crashed on Saturday afternoon.

According to the Associated Press, the Hawker Hunter crashed into a road, hitting several cars. West Sussex Police said seven people died and one patient was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Police believe no one on the airfield was injured. The AP reports that the fighter jet was a single-seat plane.


Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Michael Jordan Gets $8.9 Million In Steak Lawsuit

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Michael Jordan Gets $8.9 Million In Steak Lawsuit

Michael Jordan, the man from the crying meme, was awarded $8.9 million by a federal court in Chicago yesterday after he won his lawsuit against Dominick’s, a now-defunct grocery store that used his image in an advertisement for steak in 2009. The ad ran in a commemorative issue of Sports Illustrated and only two customers redeemed the $2 steak coupon.

The court had already decided Dominick’s was liable before the case even went to trial, and the proceedings that just wrapped up were about deciding how much Jordan was owed. The grocery store’s lawyers insisted that $126,900 would be fair compensation, but Jordan wanted more.

The Chicago Tribune’s Kim Janssen reports that it was more about pride than money:

The case turned on the two sides’ competing versions of how to calculate the fair market value of the ad. Jordan testified that he signs only long-term deals expected to be worth $10 million and that he would “never” have agreed to the Dominick’s ad, which compared him to a piece of meat and came with a $2-off coupon for steaks.

Jordan says he will give all the money to charity. The newly minted billionaire made $100 million last year from endorsements last year, according to his attorney, so it’s not like he needs the money. Because this is Michael Jordan, one of the most single-minded competitors ever, the five-year suit was partially about winning but it was also about protecting his image rights. He is a real live brand now, an industry of himself, and so he has to have complete control over his image. Let’s hope he never discovers Twitter and gets mad about the meme.

Photo via Matt Dunham/AP

Thousands of Migrants Break Through Police Lines at Macedonian Border

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Thousands of Migrants Break Through Police Lines at Macedonian Border

On Saturday, thousands of migrants rushed past baton-wielding Macedonian police, who fired stun grenades into the crowds. Many hundreds remained on the Greek side of the border.

According to the Associated Press, the rush occurred after Macedonian police allowed a small group of migrants with children to cross the border.

Many women, at least one pregnant, and children fell to the ground apparently fainting after squeezing past the cordon.

Then thousands of others, including women with babies and men carrying small children, used the moment to run across a field not protected by barbed wire to enter Macedonia.

Police fired stun grenades, but didn’t manage to stop the rush.

There were no immediate reports of the number and extent of injuries. Many children also lost their parents in the chaos and were left shouting “mama, baba.”

Ten people were injured in a clash between police and migrants attempting to pass further into Europe on Friday, the AP reports.

The situation at the border, according to Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, has “dramatically deteriorated.”

“In the last several days there has been a dramatic increase of inflow of migrants and we have reached numbers of 3,000 to 3,500 per day which obviously is not something a country of two million people and our resources can handle on a daily basis,” he told the BBC. “We had to reinforce the control of illegal entry of Macedonian territory.”

The UN estimates that more than 160,000 migrants have arrived in Greece so far this year—where they do not stay long—fleeing wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Bernie Sanders Endorsed by Deez Nuts

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Bernie Sanders Endorsed by Deez Nuts

On Facebook, presidential candidate Deez Nuts (a.k.a. 15-year-old Brady Olson) endorsed Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican John Kasich for their parties’ respective nominations. “This is not for the general election,” he clarified. “I endorse myself for the GE.”

“My endorsement for the Democratic nomination goes to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders,” Nuts wrote in one post. And, in another: “For the Republican nomination, my endorsement goes to Ohio governor John Kasich.”

Asked why he backed Sanders, Nuts told In These Times, “Because he almost completely agrees on me with social issues and even some on fiscal issues.” Asked whether he thought his endorsement would make a difference one way or another: “Not really.”


H/T In These Times. Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Chains by Any Other Name

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Chains by Any Other Name

“Bitches ain’t shit.”

But that reality rap ain’t for you, girl. That line is for them. For those women. Those women gotta change their ways to rid themselves of the label. Until then, how will men respect them? It’s a curious dynamic. Until you can figure that out, gon’ and let them play the song, and you, you just rap along. A majority of music today is full of degrading lyrics anyway. Don’t get sensitive now. It’s all just entertainment. No one really believes it. It’s just music. And words. Words that seep into your blood and alter the entire flow of your everything. But, it’s nothing. Don’t give power to the words, girl. Don’t discredit that rapper. That group. You’re not a bitch, but the word—the ugly narrative of male dominance and sexism—will remind you that if you act like a bitch, then you deserve to be treated as one. So act right, whatever right is.

Fresh conversations about old wounds—like those on journalist Dee Barnes’ head after being slammed into a wall by a man twice her size—show a reluctance to acknowledge women as little more than a receptacle for arbitrary and vitriolic definitions of womanhood. Women like Barnes have had their voices stifled and have been forced to watch their famous perpetrators proudly exclaim, through laughter and approving head nods, that the “bitch had it coming,” and “the bitch deserved it.” Barnes still suffers the effects of being a woman with a voice, even when her own is drowned out by a continuous, migraine-induced ringing in her ears. A decades-long reminder of her violent encounter with him.

She is yet another woman reduced to a denigrating epithet; the word used to validate the castigation of her body. She was not a woman deserving of protection; her abuser was. She was a bitch. And bitch has become synonymous with woman, used by people who will argue their right to engage in chauvinism and oppression toward women because they fail to acknowledge that either truly sits hand-in-hand at the base of the label.

Their supporters say you’re not a bitch. This doesn’t apply to you. You had better not be offended. Somehow, intrinsically, the presumed and suggested correctness of your femininity, the docility of your silence, the modification of your behavior, has exempted you from falling into a category discernable only to those who have popularized the phrase. These are our brothers. Our brothas on the block, and in the classroom, and in the boardroom, swapping lyrics that create curriculum for the next generation. They were once interested in protecting their sisters, and their sistas, but their chains got too heavy, so they draped them around our necks for relief and named us as a byproduct of their affectation. Chains by any other name would still hurt as much. Now, their chains are gold and swing over us as they reach through to drop a pill in our drink at the bar. The songs become instructions. Blast the song in defiance. Turn it up more! Drink this. You’re not sweatin’, yet. Bounce that ass, bitch. It stings. We still love you. We dance. We feel guilty. It’s complicated.

Being called a bitch shouldn’t hurt as much, they say, because it’s not a word reserved for every woman. No! That would be ridiculous. The word is for groupies and women with attitudes, according to Ice Cube, former member of that group, who is now a successful actor and movie producer. Bitch is reserved women who fuck with your head. For women who submit to the spoils of dimly lit hotel rooms, star status, and the ecstasy of night. For women who lay down easily. Those who refuse to lay down. And those who rebel against patriarchal authority.

Bitch is for women, period. It’s fluid, like the drank poured over the bodies of women at the concerts we all love to hate to love. Take those women back to the hotel rooms and have your way with them. You’ve trained yourself to believe that they are nothing worth feeling beyond their sexual capability. Drag them by their imaginary chains and remind them that they are the bitches in the music even if they never set foot inside one of those rooms or concerts. And if one tries to rescind her consumption, put her in her place. Push her out of a hotel room by her head. Mock the event later in a hit movie. Hear the audience laugh when they learn of the origins. These types of women are disposable objects. But, somehow, your wife is not. Your daughter is not. Your mother is not. You’d kill someone for disrespecting them by flinging that dirt. They are asked to listen to the same lyrics from the comfort of their understanding. But, they are women hearing the ease of usage of the word. Bitch.

And the bad gets in.

For men, on and offstage, who explain away misogyny, women should display sexy sycophantic ways that offer no challenge. And women shouldn’t feel pained behind the free-flowing usage of a word that is simultaneously all-encompassing and discriminate. They want you to believe that you’re not a bitch, even when the word makes its way into your comfort zone. You aren’t a bitch because he says you’re not. But, he has the authority to change his mind at any time. He has the authority to change a culture at any time. Do not make him do that. Stay in your place. Don’t be strong. Don’t ask the hard questions. Don’t be Dee. Don’t be Rihanna. Don’t be Michel’le. Don’t be a tired housewife who asks for help. Don’t be the fiancee of a football star unable to control his anger. Don’t be a woman on the dance floor who denies his disrespectful advances. Don’t be a woman on the street trying to ignore his lascivious catcalls. Do not be what a man does not want you to be, lest you be a bitch. You didn’t stay in your place, so a man felt compelled to chain you to it. And people will support him because he must have known what was best in that situation, because remember what your big brother or uncle or homeboy or father told you: Bitches ain’t shit. Instead, turn up the volume and ignore your responsibility to be the best version of yourself. The bad gets comfortable.

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay recently visited a local LA movie theater to view the newly released F. Gary Gray vehicle, Straight Outta Compton. In a series of rapidly shared tweets, DuVernay reviewed the film, and highlighted the paradox within N.W.A., gangsta rap, and the larger culture. “To be a woman who loves hip hop at times is to be in love with your abuser,” one tweet read.

Rap shouldn’t turn us against each other. Women are neither the enemy nor the cast off. The masochistic and sometimes-painful relationship that women like me have with the misogyny in the music we love, understand these words as venomous when uttered, words that will be internalized and actualized by the next generation. Misogyny didn’t begin with rap, but until women and bitch are no longer indistinguishable, rap is going to be yet another divisive and oppressive tool. And Billionaires With Attitudes will continue to include skits on new albums about reducing women to bitches, and killing them, 20-plus years after that first album taught generations that we were nothing.

And the bad stays in.

Tiffany Hobbs is a photographer, writer, poet, and occasional rapper living in Los Angeles. She has enjoyed underground success appearing on albums and hosting radio shows where she champions the causes of the Hood, which she loves and uses as inspiration in her art. Tiffany can be found at @SpiffyTiffyH.

[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]

“He painted intricate murals in the stairwells, crafted sculptures out of concrete and transformed t

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“He painted intricate murals in the stairwells, crafted sculptures out of concrete and transformed trash containers into artistic statements. All but one of the paintings have since been removed or entombed within the walls of the development, now that the building is nearly complete.”


What Do You Do When Your Lady Friends Say Sexist Things?

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What Do You Do When Your Lady Friends Say Sexist Things?

Recently, a reader emailed the Jezebel tips address with a highly relatable question.

Hello,

Maybe you’ve written about this in the past, but I think it would be interesting to hear some thoughts about how to interact with girl friends who aren’t feminist, per se. I have a couple of friends who are generally great ladies and I definitely want to keep them in my life, but sometimes when they say things that I feel are a bit sexist I don’t know if I should call them out or let it slide. It’s never anything super offensive, just off hand comments like “she’ll never get married looking/acting like that” or “women shouldn’t do X or Y because it’s for men” type stuff. Sometimes when I try to bring a feminist perspective into the conversation they seem a bit annoyed, like I’m taking things too seriously. Like I said, most of the time this is not an issue and they are perfectly respectable women, so I’m not about to drop them from my life over it.

Thanks,

Katie

Katie, are you by any chance buds with Princeton mom?

In trying to picture what kind of women think this way, you might eventually come to the realization that tons of them do. That being said, you may still be understandably tempted to let loose your thoughts about how it could even be possible that women want to get married at all—studies show it’s a way better deal for men anyway, not to mention historically fraught as fuck—as well as the truth that knocking on however a lady is looking and acting in terms of her marriage-worthiness is a particularly cruel, petty, sexist, garbage-person way to look at another human being, particularly a woman, who has been getting that kind of shit left and right since birth and ought to be able to at least count on another woman to have her back for once. You may be then tempted to throw a drink in your friend’s face and leave.

On the other hand, those ladies are probably right, in their own very particular way. If you want to get married, it’s probably best (or at least more pragmatic) to look and act a certain way (that I think involves a handjob motion) if you’d like to signal worthiness to all the men in a one-mile radius. Is acknowledging this sexist or practical? (This should definitely be a Tumblr.)

It’s hard to know whether or not to dig in, in these situations. Whether I personally would, in this hypothetical-but-also-common situation, depends: on how egregious the comments were, how misguided the person was, how open to talking they seemed, how close I am to them, and more importantly, how much one-woman social-justice warrior juice I still had in me for the day. The latter shit runs out by 3 p.m. on most days, unfortunately.

But I love this question, because like you, I am a feminist, and I want everyone to work on themselves all the time, to be humble and accountable, to be forever curious, to be working toward some greater good, to unpack the shit out of all the shit as much as possible and check their privilege and incorporate multiple points of view.

And yet, here we are in the actual world as it is, are we not? Just this morning I was getting my five-year-old daughter dressed for kindergarten. She wanted to wear a new dress we hadn’t really tried on at the store; I’d just held up to her quickly to size it up and move along. Putting it on, I realized it was kind of big. It looked nothing like the cute little Jackie-O style number I’d imagined it being at purchase time, and more like a boxy, rumpled tablecloth. For a minute I tried to encourage her to wear something else until I realized what I was doing.

I’m no scholar, but why was I willing to take up crucial morning time we didn’t have getting a five-year-old to change her clothes so she looked—what? Marginally prettier? The fuck is wrong with me? Who gives a shit? It’s kindergarten. (Answer: Yeah, probably, prettier, and a lot of people give a shit. The fuck is wrong with us?)

This isn’t a perfect analogue to your question, but it’s an example of how the real complicates the theoretical. Being in the world is messy; everyone is a complicated jumble of experiences and thoughts and dispositions. Women are often petty toward other women not because of an innate pettiness but one that’s been dictated to them almost as a mandate—because they’ve internalized these larger patriarchal ideals about what women or men should or shouldn’t be like. Sexism, in other words, is how they’ve had to move through the world, how they believe they’ve had to be in order to be accepted and loved. They feel like, if they have to suffer over it, other women should be held to the same standard. They’re certainly—and whether this is more or less depressing remains up to the jury—not making any of this shit up.

And ideas about what’s appealing and what’s proper don’t always line up with actual political positions. Some women totally believe in equal pay, a woman for president, paid maternity leave, keeping your own last name, but they wouldn’t be caught dead out without full makeup and a good bra because you never know when you will run into the One, and you can’t fuck that up with the wrong kind of bouncy tits and any woman who doesn’t abide by that sort of practical thinking is Looney Tunes, OK?

Sucks they don’t want to unpack that. Sucks you can’t really make them. Sucks that neither of us is even technically sure they need to. All I know is most women I know have spent far more of their lives trying to meet a cultural criteria for “respectable” and only a shorter, more recent part of adulthood getting good and pissed about it—if at all. Often women don’t realize how much they’ve been fucked around by this shit until they get older, or become mothers, or otherwise wake up. Or even if they have, they don’t know how to stop holding themselves and other women to this retrograde set of standards.

What I’m saying is that you’ve got to give everyone a chance to arrive at that place on their own. Some might not ever do so, though. Can you still be buds?

Regardless, ideological lockstep is a high bar, friend. At this point in my life I have more friends who I would guess “think like me” than perhaps at any other time in my existence, and yet, we still disagree. Sometimes we argue over class stuff, race stuff, charter schools, you name it—when you’re with people who are mostly just like you, you can then move on to experience the joy of something called the narcissism of petty differences, AKA, agreeing about 99 percent of the big stuff, thereby spending all your time and energy arguing violently over that 1 percent you don’t agree on. For an abundance of examples, see the comments on any post on this website.

I have come to see that I don’t necessarily need my friends to think like me, but one criteria I have for all my friendships that I put effort into is this: I can’t hang out with anyone who isn’t willing to own their opinions, who doesn’t enjoy debating them at least a little, who isn’t willing to scrutinize them from time to time. That doesn’t mean I can’t go out and get drinks with virtually anyone just for fun. But the most fun I have with people I consider good, close friends usually involves sitting around talking and turning things over. For this reason, even strong disagreements aren’t dealbreakers, because there’s a spirit of openness involved, a willingness to be wrong. (I’m not talking about hanging out with a neo-Nazi, but, say, like, a perfectly decent dude who would never call himself a feminist.)

You have to make room for linguistic missteps, misguided thoughts, and differing worldviews. I also have lots of women in my life who aren’t feminists but who I admire a lot for how they live their lives, which, even as I’ve told them, espouse feminist values whether they realize it or not. Some people are hung up on the word. I try not to be hung up on that. I think the values and the life matter more than the errant utterance.

So depending on the person and their openness, I might or might not bring it up seriously, faux-argumentatively, mockingly, or otherwise—all based on how other discussions had gone. And if we hit a standstill, it’s always an individual calculus about whether it’s worth it to press the issue or keep things as-is, in order to maintain whatever level of otherwise greatness we had. Friends can be good for different kinds of hangs—the person I’d meet at a bar is much different than who I’d hit up the Farmers’ Market with. Finding friends who feel precisely as you do about the world is the friend jackpot. That only happens a few times in a life, if even.

Besides, I think there’s a real danger to the idea that we should only surround ourselves with people who think like us anyway, particularly to a card-carrying degree. I believe you should try to be friends with good people even when they have flawed thinking. I roll my eyes every time I see another Facebook update from someone who is bragging about successfully blocking everyone who says anything offensive so they don’t have to experience it. I personally almost never hide or unfriend anyone on Facebook. It’s a thing I do because for some reason I feel compelled to know the especially contradictory points of view of others in my general acquaintance circle. The offensive, bigoted, awfulness—I don’t enjoy it, it often makes me sick, though sometimes I marvel at its wrongheadedness—but I still feel it’s my duty to understand the world as it is, not how I would like it to be.

I draw the line somewhere, of course. I pick my battles, and sometimes pick fights. Some stuff sticks harder in my craw than other stuff. I hate when people spout evo-psych bullshit about how women and men are different, and I will happily argue all night long in a drunk, yelly way over it because for me, that juice never runs out. But this is part of my personality, and I’m doing this with friends who also like to argue, and in general, I’m fully prepared to have things go south if need be. I gauge all the time what low-simmering level of dumb shit I’m willing to be around, and I usually only make an effort to get someone talking about it when I think it will be fun for me, or them, or possibly enlightening for both of us. Or at least where we can yell super good at each other.

The thing is, I have to be willing to take it too. I might be right about one thing, but wrong about something else. That’s a two-way street, and you can’t assume you’re always on the right side of the ideological fence either. And the next thing you know, you’re an unassailable feminist but an elitist snob, and someone else will be writing a letter asking how to fix you.

Image via Fox/screengrab

Congressman: Manhattan Shooter Was a Whistleblower Who Got "A Raw Deal"

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Congressman: Manhattan Shooter Was a Whistleblower Who Got "A Raw Deal"

On Saturday, New Jersey congressman Bill Pascrell said that the man who’d killed himself after shooting a security guard at a federal building in Manhattan was a whistleblower who’d been given “a raw deal,” the Associated Press reports.http://gawker.com/a-federal-offi...

Pascrell, who represents New Jersey’s 8th district, said members of his staff had worked with the gunman, Kevin Downing, who, according to the AP, was fired in 1999 from his job at the New York City office of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to help resolve his case.

In 2013, Pascrell wrote a letter to the Labor Department criticizing Downing’s firing. “There is evidence to indicate Mr Downing’s termination was inappropriate because it was in retaliation for his communication with congressional staff regarding what he believed to be waste and abuse present in the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Pascrell wrote.

This weekend, Pascrell said that the 68-year-old Downing had never shown any violent tendencies.

The security guard Downing killed on Friday, Idrissa Camara, was supposed to have left at 4pm but had agreed to work an extra shift, according to his employer.

There was no indication that the shooting was terrorism-related, James O’Neill, a chief with the NYPD, told the AP on Saturday. “We’re in the very early stages of the investigation and are working to establish his motive for coming here, if he had an intended target beyond the security officer, and what the motive was behind the crime.”


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

During a rehearsal on Saturday for the Independence Day parade in Kiev, Ukraine, a soldier tries on

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During a rehearsal on Saturday for the Independence Day parade in Kiev, Ukraine, a soldier tries on part of a cartoon character’s costume.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

“Trump has built a broad, demographically and ideologically diverse coalition, constructed around pe

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“Trump has built a broad, demographically and ideologically diverse coalition, constructed around personality, not substance, that bridges demographic and political divides,” the New York Times reports. “Trumpism...is an attitude, not an ideology.” Trumpism! Oh no help.

Presidential Campaign Interrupts Hillary Clinton's Hamptons Vacation

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Presidential Campaign Interrupts Hillary Clinton's Hamptons Vacation

Hillary Clinton had planned to spend the last two weeks of August in the Hamptons. But! Next week, she is going to have to take a quick jaunt across the Midwest. You know what they say about the campaign trail: it stretches all the way from Montauk to Des Moines.http://gawker.com/oligarch-possi...

On Wednesday, Clinton, who dropped $100,000 for two weeks with her husband at a beach house in Amagansett, will head to Cleveland and then Minneapolis, the New York Times reports. It’s just so hard to unplug these days!

The Times speculates that the break in vacation time comes as a response to Clinton’s dipping poll numbers and an increasing number of eyebrows being raised about her email habits. A campaign aide said the events had been scheduled for weeks.http://gawker.com/state-departme...

In any case, according to the Times, Clinton’s Hamptons neighbors aren’t taking it personally:

Among the places where Mrs. Clinton enjoys stalwart support are the Hamptons, where she and Mr. Clinton have spent the past several summers, walking their dogs on the beach, attending clambakes and raising money for their family’s philanthropic foundation. This summer, the fashion designer Tory Burch is among those hosting fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton.

Alan Patricof, a longtime donor and friend, said the pancake breakfast he and his wife, Susan, were hosting for Mrs. Clinton on Aug. 30, for up to $2,700 per person, had almost reached capacity at more than 300 people.

He said the criticism over Mrs. Clinton’s emails was just the latest attempt by Republicans to try to take down the Clintons. “Republicans have been on their case since 1991,” he said.

But, like many supporters of Mrs. Clinton, he said it was important for the campaign and its surrogates to explain that the subject was “somewhat of a tempest in a teapot.”

$2,700 per person for a pancake breakfast! Those are some fat cats.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

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