iOS 9 came out this week, and you might want to put it on your phone, or figure out what the hell you get by installing this thing. This is a guide for those who care, but only barely.

First of all, consider not installing it right away. The install size is smaller than the enormous bullshit you downloaded with iOS 8, but there have been some early reports of battery draining and crashes, and you’ll want to see how that plays out before sticking it on an older phone.

Secondly—and relatedly—it’s basically the same shit. There are a few improvements to the baseline stability (which are overshadowed in basically every release by half your apps being un-optimized for the new OS for a few weeks) and backend security, but like most OS updates, there isn’t much here that you’re going to need help with. In fact, by my count, there are exactly three things you actually need to know about.

1. Battery life

The big-ticket item is a “low power” mode that will turn off basically everything that sucks power (push email, parallax effects) and just leave you with a dumb phone, basically. Of course, since this is a truly useful and good addition, it’s buried in a menu in Settings. You can just do a search for “Battery” to find it since you can search for settings now. (This is being billed as a nice “addition” but is really just a capitulation to the unnavigable state of iOS menus.)

There’s also supposed to be a battery life boost across the board. I’ve been using iOS 9 for a few days, and battery life actually seems to have picked up on my 5S (from a steaming cauldron of dogshit to a tidy warmed-over turd, but still). Apple says it’s about an hour of extra use, and my anecdotal experience says it’s “a little better, I guess.” Still, battery life is the most important part of your phone, so this is good, unless you end up with the bug that does the opposite.

2. Split View stuff

On your iPad, you can pin an app to the side of the screen. This is good for Twitter or Messages. I tried to figure this out without looking at instructions and even though I KNEW it was there I gave up after 15 minutes and had to look it up. You drag your finger in from the right edge of the screen. You can then pull the app out whenever, like a drawer (or like the piece of shit Notification Center, which is still a barely functioning disaster but let’s not even get into that). And to switch the side-app —this took me another few minutes, but this time I think it’s just because I’m a moron— you just open it up and swipe down on a tab you’ll see at the top of it. It’s a lot of swiping from specific parts of the screen that you’re just going to have to deal with because iOS is now as complicated as a Kyle Shanahan playbook.

The latest iPad Air (and the forthcoming iPad Snorlax) also do two full apps at once, for some reason.

3. Go back button

If you click out of an app—a link from Messages or Mail, or tapping a text notification from anywhere—there’s a (very) tiny area in the top left of the screen that will shoot you right back to where you were. This was doable with multitasking before, but it’s a nice and useful amenity that doesn’t add needless complications.

And that’s it. You can stop reading here. Below is a rundown of the rest, which you can definitely figure out on your own.

Six-digit passcode: This almost made the cut to the Truly Useful section, but frankly, no one is trying to crack your passcode; they’re trying to trick you into giving it to them or just watching you as you type it in, and this isn’t any great deterrent for that. Marginally more secure, MUCH easier to forget.

Multitasking looks different now, because of how it will be used with the 3D touch crap on the new iPhone. I have a 5S and I hate this because I hate anything that looks different from what I’m used to (it’s fine).

Some dumb screen: There’s a screen to the left of your homescreen that has some suggested contacts, apps, and local map destinations. It’s useless.

Apple News: Apple News is essentially a feed of stories from Apple-approved outlets (that, presumably, meet Apple’s guidelines for content). It’s your Facebook feed, or uh, any one of the 15 million fucking apps in the App Store that do this exact thing, like Flipboard. I swear, Apple’s favorite thing is to hoist some lily-white dingus up on stage to talk about how many apps it has, made by hard-working engineers in a Stanford slave pit, and then turn around and steal that shit 20 months later. Anyway, I don’t exactly trust Apple News’s sense of what I might be into. When you set it up, you select the topics and publications that interest you. On the third page of suggestions, just after “Professional Athletes,” I saw Wellington High School (New Zealand), “Bleacher Report,” “Pachuca Municipality” (a small mining region in Hidalgo that produces more than half of the state’s gold), and “Whitehall High School (Pennsylvania)“—a school two districts and about 70 miles from where I grew up, just close enough to pound home that it isn’t dumb and random, it’s dumb and inept.

Also there’s some word that this thing is sucking power even if you’ve never used it, making it one of the bigger reasons to consider not installing iOS 9.

Ad blockers: If you don’t like ads shitting up websites on your phone and tablet, there are now options. There’s a whole insufferable debate about the ethics of blocking ads and how Apple is perpetuating blog genocide on independent journalisms, and you should under no circumstances read or think about it because I promise you don’t give a shit.

Find My Friends: Now installed on your iPhone by default. Probably turn it off.

Transit: Hey, Apple Maps does transit now, but only in a few major cities, and the directions aren’t as good as the ones on Google Maps, and Apple Maps still suck. Stay using the Google Maps app.

Hide your sex stuff: There’s a basic fix for the modern problem of your church friend Janice swiping through ONE TOO MANY baby pictures and getting an eyeful of your husband’s dick in a jar of peanut butter. If you want to keep these photos on your phone (DON’T DO THIS, PSYCHO), and you really can’t be talked out of it, you can go to the “Share” menu (no, I don’t know why it’s in the “Share” menu either) and click “Hide” in the bottom right.

New podcast app: Occasionally I listen to podcasts. The Apple app is fine for me, because I don’t use it every day. But if you do use it every day, first of all, why, it’s fucking awful. Second, the new app is so much worse. Third, the staff tells me that Downcast is good. The staff is full of rubes who can’t figure out the Netflix machine, so I don’t know how much that endorsement is worth to you, but there it is.

iPad keyboard trackpad thing (why?): You can hold two fingers on an iPad’s keyboard to turn it into a trackpad and after 10 minutes of screwing around with it I have no idea why you’d ever want to.

Hey Siri: The new iPhones also allow you to say “Hey Siri” into their phones to exactly the same effect as speaking into your own asshole.

The Concourse is Deadspin’s home for culture/food/whatever coverage. Follow us on Twitter, too.

Photo credit: Getty

While tonight’s Late Show interview with Bernie Sanders was absent any of the respective tears or deep, deep discomfort that characterized Colbert’s two biggest moments so far (and at least compared to every other candidate interview we’ve seen), Sanders’ still manages to leave you with the impression that the man is just so goddamn human.

http://gawker.com/bernie-sanders...

Especially as we recover from this week’s GOP debate (where even Trump fell into the rote, low-energy motions he’s usually so quick chastise), Sanders’ not-at-all-youthful vitality is positively jarring. He may be hunched in his chair. He’s swimming in a coat several sizes too big. And he never glances at the camera even once. But as soon as Colbert pushes him on his distaste for capitalism—Sanders’ favorite topic of all—the unscripted, bubbling rage in his voice is impossible to miss.

Sanders: Look, clearly we want a society which encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. But what we also want is a society in which all of our people can enjoy a decent standard of living, and not a society in which the very rich get much richer while virtually everybody else gets poorer.

Colbert: But in concrete terms what does that mean, is that like an 80% tax rate, or—

Sanders: In concrete terms, what it means is that it is a moral outrage that the top one-tenth of one percent today owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and that 58 percent of all new income is going to the top one percent. That major corporations making billions of dollars a year, in some cases, don’t pay a nickel in federal taxes. That is the outrage, and that has got to change.

Granted, Sanders still doesn’t quite answer the question. But to Colbert’s credit, he was considerably more antagonistic with his questions to Sanders than, say, the pageant that was his interview with Bush. At one point, Colbert asks “What do you say to the people out there who are comparing you to Donald Trump, and saying that you are exciting or taking advantage of the same general anger that Donald Trump is?” To which Sanders responds:

I think that what Trump is doing is appealing to the baser instincts among us: xenophobia and, frankly, racism. [He’s] describing an entire group of people (in this case Mexicans) as rapists or as criminals... That’s the same old thing that’s gone on in this country for a very long time. You target some group of people, and you go after them. You take people’s anger, and you turn it against them—you win votes on it. I think that is disgraceful and not something we should be doing in 2015.

What I am talking about is a vision that goes beyond telling us we have to hate a group of people. What I am talking about is saying that, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, there are extraordinary things that we can do when people come together—black and white and gay and straight—and demand the government start working for all of us—not just a few.

The crowd went nuts. Granted, the young, East Coast audience would and did lose it after about every third sentence that fell out of Bernie Sanders’ mouth, but the great thing was—Sanders seemed mostly blind to it. He (at least as much as anyone who’s running for President can) doesn’t care what you think about him, just so long as you agree with what (he believes) is right.

Which isn’t to say that he can’t turn on the charm at all. Right after the show, Colbert tweeted out this video of Bernie hamming it up for the kids:

It’s just that, most of the time, he’s got more important things to worry about.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

On Friday, Arizona police arrested Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., 21, at a Wal-Mart in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, in connection with four of a string of 11 seemingly-random freeway shootings that took place over the past three weeks.

The first shooting took place on August 29th, the Arizona Republic reports. They continued through September 10th, and then stopped.

According to Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead, Merritt is a suspect in the first four shootings, which took place on August 29th and 30th. Police say Merritt hit a tour bus, an SUV, and two cars on Interstate 10; no one was hurt. Merritt faces charges including criminal endangerment, assault, and unlawful discharge of a firearm.

Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio said the suspect had tried to pawn the gun used in the shootings, the Associated Press reports. Meanwhile, the investigation into the other shootings continues: “Are there others out there? Are there copycats? That is possible,” Milstead said.

The suspect’s father, Leslie Merritt Sr., told the AP that anyone who believes his son was involved in the shootings is a “moron.” The elder Merritt believes police, under pressure to make an arrest, are scapegoating his son. “He has way too much value for human life to even take the slightest or remotest risk of actually injuring someone,” Merritt said.

Also on Friday, a judge ordered that a 19-year-old man detained at a convenience store on September 11th for questioning regarding the shootings be released. He was arrested for an alleged probation violation relating to marijuana found during a search of his house conducted after police received a tip that he was in possession of a gun, the AP reports, but authorities declined to explain why he was being questioned about the shootings.

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

Here are the best of today’s deals. Get every great deal every day on Kinja Deals, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to never miss a deal, join us on Kinja Gear to read about great products, and on Kinja Co-Op to help us find the best.

Most external battery packs have a small LED flashlight built in, but this one from Kmashi is more like a dedicated flashlight, but with a beefy 11,200mAh battery pack attached. Accounting for the battery alone though, $10 is a fantastic price. [KMASHI Mini 11200mAh External Battery Pack With Lamp, $10 with code XGPG4JVN]

http://www.amazon.com/11200mAh-Exter...

The iPad Mini 3 was recently replaced with an Apple A8-sporting iPad Mini 4, and Best Buy is clearing out their old inventory with a flat $150 discount on all available models. It won’t be nearly as fast as the the new ones, but it still has TouchID and a Retina display, so it’s tough to beat this price. [$150 off iPad Mini 3]

This zip-up bag features built-in solar panels on each side, so you can open it up when you need to charge your phone, and store cables and gadgets inside when the sun goes down. [ECEEN 7 Watts Foldable Solar Panel Bag, $30 with code EGLU98G5]

http://www.amazon.com/Foldable-Porta...

You know Beats don’t have good sound quality, I know Beats don’t have good sound quality, but if fashion trumps fidelity in your hierarchy of needs, or if you just need an easy gift idea, this is a fantastic price. [Beats by Dre Solo HD On-Ear Headphones, $90]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beats-by-D...

You know the old TV gag where they look at a hotel room under a blacklight and you see all of the filth and bodily fluids the characters have been sleeping in? Well, now you can do that yourself with this $7 blacklight flashlight. That’s a fantastic price, unless you subscribe to the notion that ignorance is bliss. [Vansky Blacklight Flashlight, $7 with code YQ6SLP99]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B011LPWXV6/...

Today only, Amazon’s discounting a variety of 1-year magazine subscriptions for just $5 each, including digital access in several cases. [Amazon has select magazine subscriptions marked down to $5 each]

Beach Camera’s eBay store is currently blowing out last generation’s GoPro Hero3+ Silver for just $219, down from $300. As long as you don’t mind that it’s “old,” that’s a really fantastic action cam for the price.

• Up to 1080p/60 or 720p/120 video
• 10 MP stills
• 25 MB/s bitrate
• Wi-Fi

We see deals pretty frequently on the high end GoPros, but the cheaper models are typically pretty price-stubborn, so this is a great chance to score a powerful action cam for just a hair over $200. [GoPro Hero3+ Silver, $219]

Maybe she’s born to save money. Maybe it’s Maybelline. [Save $5 off $15 in Maybelline Cosmetics at Amazon]

The humble and inexpensive cast iron skillet is one of most important pieces of cooking gear you can own, and Lodge’s highly-rated 10” model is back down to $15 again on Amazon. If you don’t own one, you should have no hesitation. [Lodge LCS3 Pre-Seasoned 10-inch Cast-Iron Chef’s Skillet, $15]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00008GKDJ/...

While you’re there, pick up some cast iron scrapers for cleaning, and a silicone handle cover to protect your hands.

http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-SCRAPERP...

http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-ASHH41-S...

More Deals

Tech

• Refurb WD My Cloud Personal Cloud Storage Devices ($90-$130) | Amazon | Today only
• AmazonBasics Metal Monitor Stand ($15) | Amazon
• Pencil by FiftyThree Digital Stylus for iPad and iPhone ($50) | Amazon
• KMASHI Mini 11200mAh External Battery Pack With Lamp ($10) | Amazon | Use code XGPG4JVN
• Save $150 on Select iPad Mini 3 Models | Best Buy
• LG - 2.1-Channel Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer ($150) | Best Buy
• Epson - EX3220 SVGA 3LCD Projector ($250) | Best Buy
• Toshiba - 40” Class (39.5” Diag.) - LED - 1080p - HDTV ($250) | Best Buy
• Beats by Dre Solo HD On-Ear Headphones ($90) | eBay
• GoPro 3+ Silver Edition Camcorder - Silver ($219) | eBay
• Samsung UN55JS8500 - 55-Inch 4K 120hz Ultra SUHD Smart 3D LED HDTV ($1300) | Woot
• Vizio M60-C3 - 60-Inch 240Hz 4K Ultra HD Smart LED HDTV ($1100) | eBay
• AUSDOM® M06 Bluetooth Headphones Over-ear Stereo Wireless + Wired Headphones ($37) | Amazon | Use code O96GVDHU
• Mpow Cheetah Wireless Bluetooth 4.1 Sports Headphones ($21) | Amazon | Use code 564QK2HX
• ECEEN 7 Watts Foldable Solar Panel Bag ($30) | Amazon | Promo code EGLU98G5

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• Refurb Dyson AM06 10” Bladeless Fan ($140) | Woot
• Good Ideas Inc. RB55-BLUE Big Blue 55 Rain Barrel ($70) | Woot
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• Vansky Blacklight Flashlight ($7) | Amazon | Use code YQ6SLP99
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• Anybest Mop and Broom Holder ($9) | Amazon | Use code ANYBEST6
• Ozera Silicone Breakfast Egg Mold Ring - 2 Pack ($6) | Amazon | Promo code 3V37STIN
• Take an Extra 30% off Just Reduced Jewelry | Amazon | Promo code EXTRA30OFF
• Columbia River Knife and Tool’s Eat N Tool 9100C Silver Multi Tool ($3) | Amazon

Gaming

• Preorder Yoshi’s Woolly World Bundle ($60) | Amazon
• Valiant Hearts: The Great War ($4) | Steam
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition ($20) | Steam
• Batman: Arkham City: GOTY ($5) | Steam

Media

• Amazon has select magazine subscriptions marked down to $5 each | Amazon | Today only
• Sex and the City: The Complete Series ($50) | Amazon

Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more. We want your feedback.Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker

Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker

Last night Jessica Simpson tried to sell her clothing line on HSN and the results were, well, mixed. Many believed that Simpson was drunk, slurring her words and talking about her sister’s grey jeans. Nick Lachey reportedly said he was “embarrassed” for his ex-wife. According to an “insider”: “Nick says Jessica will most likely deny any reports that she was intoxicated. He’s just glad that he’s not in that chaotic mess of a relationship anymore!” Good, glad to see he’s moved on.

Sources closes to Simpson say that she was definitely not drunk! According to TMZ, “giggling and slurring is just part of her personality that surfaces from time to time.” In my experience, it surfaces most often when you’re drunk. [TMZ; Hollywood Life]

John Stamos is ready to have a baby. “My ovaries are rattling. Do men have ovaries?” he joked while promoting his terrible-looking show, Grandfathered. “They’re jingling. I can hear them jingling now.” Is anyone interested in birthing the spawn of Uncle Jesse? [Us Weekly]

Lena Dunham has become that social media friend who only posts cryptic stuff. [Instagram]

• Despite rumors, Julia Roberts says that her relationship with her husband is great. [Us Weekly]
  
• Jessica Chastain called Chris Hemsworth a “Greek God.” Yes. [E!]
  
• Allison Williams is getting married this weekend. It’s a secret. [Page Six]
  
• Leonardo DiCaprio is developing a drama for Showtime. The show is reportedly about the mafia in the 1980s and sounds very Martin Scorsese-esque. [THR]
  
• In case you’re in the market, you can bid on one of Pamela Anderson’s engagement rings. [E!]
  

Images via AP, Getty and Instagram.

After a 100-mph chase heading south on the northbound side of the 215 Freeway, Southern California police deputies fatally shot a man wanted on suspicion of a home-invasion robbery, BuzzFeed News reports.

The pursuit, which passed through the cities of Fontana and San Bernardino before its lethal conclusion, began when deputies tried to pull the suspect over and he fled, San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deputy Olivia Bozek told Buzzfeed.

At one point, the man got out of his SUV while it was still moving and fled on foot, Bozek said. The car continued down the road before crashing into another vehicle. According to NBC Los Angeles, three were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

The suspect was shot by a deputy in a police helicopter tracking the chase. “The deputy decided to shoot to avoid any further injury to people in the area,” BuzzFeed reports. Officials would not confirm whether the shots were fired before or after the man left his vehicle.

The suspect died on the freeway, NBC Los Angeles reports. “It’s a public-safety issue,” Bozek said. “Once he starts going the wrong way, obviously he doesn’t care about passengers or pedestrians or other cars that are around.”

Image via NBC Los Angeles. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Wednesday night, before a national audience, presidential candidate and part-time comedian Jeb Bush—son of George H.W., brother to George W., and father to George P.—told a funny story. “There’s one thing I’ll tell you about my brother,” he said, referring to W’s tenure as president from 2001 to 2009,“He kept us safe.” Good one, Jeb! I’m still laughing.

“Meet the Hottest Restaurant of 2081” by Matt Buchanan

Look, our parents’ generation had it really rough, and given the world that their parents and grandparents left for them, they sacrificed a lot to produce the optimized world we have today, where basically everybody subscribes to exactly as much they need to survive. Not everybody can return to the way that things were, with personal cars and private homes and meat on every plate. But in general, I think we can start celebrating what we have, especially if you have a bit more than most, since, if you think about it, the people who’ve had to hide their value from the world have suffered most of all, you know?

http://www.eater.com/2015/9/16/9334...

“The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

That families are better off the stronger and more stable they are is self-evidently important. But so is the notion that no family can ever be made impregnable, that families are social structures existing within larger social structures.

Robert Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard who focuses on crime and urban life, notes that in America’s ghettos, “like things tend to go together.” High rates of incarceration, single-parent households, dropping out of school, and poverty are not unrelated vectors. Instead, taken together, they constitute what Sampson calls “compounded deprivation”—entire families, entire neighborhoods, deprived in myriad ways, must navigate, all at once, a tangle of interrelated and reinforcing perils.

Black people face this tangle of perils at its densest.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archi...

“The Best Time I Stopped Wearing Tight Clothing” by Leah Finnegan

I’ve long had an irrational hatred of tight clothing. A bandage dress? I’d rather actually be in the hospital. Lululemon Apparel? As John Galt once said on a Lululemon bag, “don’t tread on me.” By far the worst phenomenon of the last decade has been “skinny jeans,” designed by a male sadist, miniature pairs tested on dead lab rats.

Women are expected to wear tight clothing to be “sexy,” which is bullshit, and similarly many women say that tight clothing makes them feel sexy. The word “tight,” in our current parlance, has positive connotations, as in describing someone’s excellent and modern style or the fine intricacies of the female sexual organ. But tight clothing is threatening to the body. It strangles you, it leaves marks on your skin. It is an undertaking: a person is restricted in a tight garment, and even simple tasks are difficult to accomplish.

http://thehairpin.com/2015/09/free-f...

“How the NFL Convinced Prosecutors To Give Them (And No One Else) The Greg Hardy Photos” by Diana Moskovitz

What happened? As with the Rice case, which changed the face of the NFL after TMZ published video of him attacking his fiancée, this one was largely about the visuals—in this case, a set of photographs said to show that [Greg] Hardy’s attack on his girlfriend was every bit as bad as police reports suggested it was. The difference was that they never came out.

The NFL acquired them, though, and the process by which they did says a great deal about the way the NFL operates in the post-Rice era. In public, the league claims that its main interest is in justice; in private, its actions suggest an intense desire to avoid being humiliated—or surprised.

http://deadspin.com/how-the-nfl-co...

“Bernie Sanders in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone” by Hamilton Nolan

Upon taking the stage, the very first thing Bernie Sanders did was to tell the crowd, “We are different,” noting that he believes in the right to abortion, and gay marriage. He did this in the most polite possible context. Still, it was a bit of a proud I-put-my-dick-in-the-mashed-potatoes moment. It was clear that Bernie Sanders is constitutionally incapable of schmoozy bullshitting, which is the sort of thing that people with actual ideals will love him for and which the political press corps will call a “big drawback to electability.”

http://gawker.com/bernie-sanders...

“China VCs Are Going Crazy for Girl Groups” by Alexandra Ho

Modeled after the wildly popular Japanese group AKB48, Wang’s three-year-old Chinese version similarly auditions young women from across the country, trains them intensively in singing, dancing, and show-hosting for four months, then puts them onstage to perform choreographed routines in live concerts. The regimen—long rehearsals, exercise, and dormitory curfews—seems more akin to the military than to the MTV life. “To make their dreams come true, they need sweat and perseverance,” Wang says. “Most Chinese girls, because the economy is developed and the quality of life is high, lack discipline.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/...

“Lego City” by Brendan O’Connor

In April of last year, Related announced a partnership with New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress to make Hudson Yards the country’s first “quantified community.” The data Related plans to collect is comprehensive: pedestrian flow, street traffic; air quality; energy use; waste disposal; recycling; workers’ and residents’ health and activity levels. “I don’t know what the applications might be,” Related Hudson Yards president Jay Cross told the Times. “But I do know that you can’t do it without the data.” Every apartment at Hudson Yards will come with a smart thermostat: “You can’t get that from any old business in town,” Cross said. According to the Times, the NYU center is supported by corporations interested in the development of “smart cities” like I.B.M., Microsoft, Xerox, and Cisco.

http://www.theawl.com/2015/09/lego-c...

“What the World Got Wrong About Kareem Abdul-Jabar” by Jay Caspian Kang

Abdul-Jabbar has been in the public spotlight for 50 years, and for almost all of that time, he has drawn the ire of most reporters who have dealt with him. For a black athlete to be accepted by the sports media, especially during the early years of Abdul-Jabbar’s career, he had to appear humble and deferential and continually thankful to the white world for giving him a chance to become rich and famous. Abdul-Jabbar, who, like many shy, intelligent people, channeled his innate awkwardness through a hardened mask of superiority, didn’t fit the model. And while many of the black athletes who were similarly demonized during Abdul-Jabbar’s time — Curt Flood, Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali — have turned into celebrated figures, Abdul-Jabbar, despite his tremendous accomplishments, has never been widely embraced by fans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/mag...

[Image via Getty]

As interracial dating, integration, and cross-cultural friendships increase, many people find themselves attending events in which they are the minority, and have no frame of reference from which to base their etiquette. In an effort to help bridge the cultural gaps we all have to traverse at some point, I have created a few rules for all my Caucasian friends who might find themselves at a black cookout.

1. You gotta bring something. One time, I went to a co-worker named Tom’s barbecue and brought a pasta salad. He looked at me like I had shit in the middle of his living room.

At a black cookout (yes, if there’s more than seven black people there, the name automatically changes from “barbecue” to a “cookout”), only the meat and the grill is supplied by the host. Everything else is brought by attendees—and no, this is not “potluck.” Black people don’t do potlucks. Potluck dinners are for Caucasian bible-study meetings where one can bring store-bought dishes. Here, you either show up with a homemade dish, or they’re gonna look at you funny. And please don’t try no new shit like potato salad with raisins or vegetarian shish kabobs. If you can’t cook, or you don’t have all the required black seasonings, just bring some cups and napkins. Or LOTS of aluminum foil. I don’t know what the hell black people do with all the aluminum foil at cookouts, but they ALWAYS need more. I have long suspected that black cookouts were ploys by hosts to get free aluminum foil. In any case, you are expected to bring something.

2. It’s a cookOUT. Black people’s cookouts are outside. At the previously mentioned Tom’s barbecue, everyone mingled in his living room. I was nervous as fuck, because for the first hour, all I could think was, “These motherfuckers are about to have an intervention on me.”

You don’t go into the house unless you have to pee, which means there a few things you should bring:

1. A chair.

2. Bug spray.

3. Another chair (because someone is going to sit in your first chair when you go pee).

3. Don’t arrive on time. If they say they’re going to start around 3 p.m., that means you can arrive around 4:47. CP time is a very complicated algorithm to figure out, but the published start time at a black BBQ is the time when they start thinking about preparing to get ready to almost light the grill.

4. Learn how to do the “Wobble.” Then consult a local ballerina/choreographer to add your own variation to one of the moves. I don’t do line dances, but I’ve noticed that white people feel SO included if they know how to do them. I believe line dances should be used by the United Nations to prevent war. You can’t be THAT mad when you’re adding your spin shimmy kick to the Cupid Shuffle.

5. Make friends. Here is a FOOLPROOF method to making a new black friend at the cookout:

1. Bring a bottle of dark liquor.

2. Keep it in the trunk of your car.

3. SOMEONE (usually Tasha’s new boyfriend) is gonna ask, “Way da liquor at.”

4. Wait. (I know you’ll want to rush up to him or say something, but ignore your white-people-timing instincts just this one time, and give it a few minutes.)

5. When he changes the subject, walk over to him and say, “Walk to my car with me.” He’ll know what you mean.

6. When you pop that trunk, you’ll have a friend for life.

6. DO NOT PLAY SPADES. Even if your black friend tries to teach you how to play. They’re gonna get you FUCKED UP. No matter what you do, don’t get on the spades table talking ’bout you “learned” how to play. You do not learn how to play spades. Black people just know. Like we just know how to do the Electric Slide or get diabetes.

AND, if you mess around and renege, your partner is gonna give you the side-eye all night when they take those three books.

AND, you might get in your feelings over the shit-talking, because James is going to call you a bitch. He always does that.

AND, if your spades game is weak, no one is gonna want to be your friend. Not even Tasha’s boyfriend.

7. Park down the street. Trust me, you don’t want to have to wait for someone to move their car so you can get out. Especially after your bitch ass let James them run a Boston on you. (See? I bet that offended you, and you probably don’t know what it means. That’s why you shouldn’t play spades.)

8. Don’t worry about the drunk uncle. You know how at white people’s Thanksgiving, there’s always that ONE drunk uncle? (Yes, there is a White Thanksgiving and a Black Thanksgiving. White people’s Thanksgiving has pumpkin pie and wine. Black Thanksgiving has pound cake and Crown Royal.)

Anyway, at black cookouts, ALL our uncles are the drunk uncle. Except Uncle Jerome, who is saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost. In fact, Uncle Jerome is starting a new ministry that confronts the evil of drugs and alcohol.

But if you take him to your trunk, he’ll have a nip.

9. For dominoes advice, please refer to rule no. 6. You know what I said about spades? The same goes for dominoes. It’s like spades with math. Most black people don’t even play dominoes as well as they think they do. And the shit-talking factor is even higher. James is going to call your mama a bitch. He always does that.

10. Listen. As the evening progresses and the alcohol flows, it becomes more dangerous to be at a black cookout. We all know that white people get drunk and fight, too, (probably more than black people), but here’s the difference:

Black people can fight.

There is, however, a very simple and effective way to know when a black cookout is getting dangerous: the music.

Music is not just entertainment at these gatherings; it is like the terror-alert warning system. The intensity of the music is inversely proportional to the danger it represents. Here are the Black Cookout Music Alert Warning indicators:

• Pop/current music. If you hear the Weekend, 2 Chainz, or Fetty Wap, you’re pretty safe. That means the kids are around, and everything’s cool.
  
• Old-school R&B. When Al Green or Parliament is playing, everything should be okay. Everyone is getting lubed up and eating, and Tasha’s boyfriend has been waiting on you by your car.
  
• Old-school hip-hop. By now, only the guys are left. Mostly the drunk ones. They’re arguing about whether Rakim was better than Tupac, while Uncle Jerome is talking about Kool Moe Dee being the G.O.A.T. Shit is getting sketchy. You better get ready, because it’s going to jump off soon. The spades table is pumping, the dominoes are being slammed down, and then you lock eyes with one guy, and you can tell he’s thinking, “If James call my mama a bitch ONE MO TIME ….” Man, just start getting your stuff together and making your way to the car.
• Gospel Music. If you hear we fall down, but we get up … run, motherfucker. Get the fuck out of there. Leave those camp chairs, and tell Tasha’s boyfriend to get the fuck away from your car with that screwdriver trying to break into your trunk.
  

Aren’t you glad I told you to park down the street?

Michael Harriot is a journalist, poet, and host of the popular podcast The Black One, as well as the cohost of The StayWoke Show web series. He’s on Twitter, Instagram, and michaelharriot.com, too. This article originally ran on his WordPress.

Gif courtesy Columbia Pictures.

Adequate Man is Deadspin’s new self-improvement blog, dedicated to making you just good enough at everything. Suggestions for future topics are welcome below.

Already, the Times is writing trend pieces about (haha) Generation Z: “The fact that some are still in their post-toddler years, however, makes it difficult for marketers trying to distill their generational essence.” So we have another 15 years or so of this to look forward to, at least.

“There are a few things that people don’t know about my brother Samuel Harrell. He wasn’t just an inmate,” Cerissa Harrell tells a group of nearly 50 prepared to blockade the Dutchess County District Attorney’s office on Poughkeepsie’s very public Main Street. Cerissa stands with Diane Harrell, Samuel’s widow. Hands intertwined, Cerissa continues, “Sam’s life was stolen from him. He was only 30 years old. He had so much more life to live.”

Samuel Harrell was sentenced to eight years in the Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, New York in April of 2014. He was later transferred to Fishkill in January of 2015. Though Fishkill is not just a medium security prison, but also a mental health facility, Harrell received no medical attention after signs of depression and paranoia were reported by another inmate. The night of April 21, housing unit B-Center was in an uproar ignited by Harrell attempting to walk away from his cell; he believed that his family had arrived to take him home. His family wasn’t there. Harrell was killed in the Fishkill Correctional Facility by nearly 20 correctional officers known as the “Beat Up Squad.”

I stand close enough to Cerissa and Diane to hear them pass deep breaths back and forth as they attempt to thoroughly evoke the significance of their brother, husband. I stand with the Poughkeepsie organizers, Samuel Harrell’s family and friends, and members of the local community. We are here to demand justice for Harrell. In that moment, my mind is consumed with the question, when we say that Black Lives Matter, do we remember the one million black lives currently incarcerated?

The group stands in unwavering silence as Cerissa makes a promise to her brother. “We will not stop fighting until we get you the justice you deserve,” she says, “We will keep fighting until no one else will.” For the Harrell family, they have no choice. They feel this loss with every fiber of their beings, and with that pain comes a commitment to tenacious acts of loving and remembering the man they’ve lost.

The night of Samuel Harrell’s death was one of unimaginable violence and cruelty.

Harrell was unarmed when he was killed in Fishkill Correctional Facility. In 19 signed and sworn affidavits, inmates report hearing screaming. Harrell did not lunge; he was not intoxicated. He was unarmed. He made no threats. Inmates recall feeling the walls shake.

Harrell was outnumbered twenty to one. One officer tackled Harrell to ground, dug his right knee into his back, punching him in the face with his right fist. Reports say Harrell never resisted. One inmate was in earshot, as officers yelled at Harrell, who was cuffed, “You fucking nigger.” A CO tried to balance himself on the back of Harrell’s head and neck. A pack of officers swarmed him, throwing punches and kicks until his body went limp. His body lay bent in an impossible position, eyes open, not looking at anything. “The senseless behavior shown by the correctional officers was inhuman,” Samuel Harrell Sr. said. “ He was handcuffed. This was a criminal act.”

Fishkill’s Sergeant Joseph Guarino, who witnessed the killing and reportedly took no action, was obligated to call medical attention since the victim was unresponsive. There was no effort to resuscitate. His lifeless body was thrown down a flight of stairs, and a call was made for an inmate to clean up the blood left on the floor while Harrell’s body was removed in a wheelchair, covered in a torn white sheet.

An inmate remembers: “His feet were in black socks, but I saw [them] scraping the floor.”

Later, officers posted signs that read: “On April 21, 2015 at approximately 8:30 pm, this convict was so stoned that he assaulted numerous officers, sending two of them to the outside hospital…The convict ended up deceased.”

The convict ended up deceased. Ended up.

The Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office performed the autopsy. They ruled Harrell’s death a homicide spurred by “physical altercation with corrections officers.” They found no illegal drugs in Harrell’s system. The District Attorney has filed no criminal charges against the officers responsible for his death.

In Baltimore, the city I’m from, black men, women, trans people, and children are routinely targeted by the police. Cop cars roam blocks full of children drawing their names on the ground in chalk. Officers park their cars on corners monitoring friends and family in warm embrace. In Baltimore, Freddie Gray made eye contact with a police officer, and ran, clutching the now-inherent suspiciousness of his black life firmly. Gray was brutalized, handcuffed, and thrown violently in the backseat of a cop car.

The price of his life? Settled. $6.4 million dollars.

The price of wandering eyes while black? Nearly six and a half million dollars, a city fractured, and a generation taught to keep their heads low to the ground. We have become desensitized to death. We often forget that with death should come the remembrance of life. Harrell and Gray once lived fully in homes, on blocks, and in cities that matter, cities that do not forget. Hundreds and hundreds of families mourn and ache. These killings are not arbitrary, nor should these lives be understood as inconsequential to the American public.

Harrell’s family traveled from North Carolina, Texas, and Kingston, New York to attend a news conference on Wednesday, September 9. They stood before reporters, ready to tell his story, in matching shirts that depicted a smiling Harrell placed before angel wings. The shirts read, “Celebrating the life of Samuel D. Harrell, III.”

Harrell’s father shared words with the crowd. “Every day I wake up,” he began, “and thank God for another day.” A daily reminder that living while black in this country is volatile. He described the physical, psychological, and emotional pain he and his family endure grieving and remembering. “I’m his father,” he said before ending, “I feel like I should have passed before him. I’m burying my son.”

At 30, Harrell was an inmate in Fishkill Correctional Facility, but his potential for life, for continued living, extended far beyond the cold confinement of incarceration. His incarcerated status did not warrant a death sentence. The correctional officers committed an act of thievery, and claimed entitlement to a life, to a father, to a brother, a son. His life was not for the taking. And the manner in which they took it is brutal beyond comprehension.

The officers responsible for Harrell’s death are members of the self-titled Beat Up Squad. Most inmates don’t know all of the names of these vigilante officers, because they wear no identification.

Ricky Rodriguez, a man formerly incarcerated in Fishkill and other facilities told me, “The Beat Up Squad is a group of [Correctional Officers] with a lot of ego.” In reports spanning back nearly a decade, inmates articulate in detail a gang of COs roaming the Fishkill Facility and terrorizing inmates.

“In the prison,” Rodriguez continued, “the Beat Up Squad functions as an organization” who select certain COs they consider to be a fair match to an inmate’s size—it’s called the “size up.” This group then stages an altercation to test how much they can verbally and physically abuse a particular inmate.

By this logic, Fishkill Correctional Facility unofficially condones informal, violent sparring matches initiated by individuals whose job is to prevent disruption.

In Attica, a similar group exists. They call themselves the Black Glove. At Great Meadow Correctional Facility, in Comstock, New York, they terrorize without a title.

“You just know who they are,” Rodriguez says.

I ask him, “Were you afraid?”

Standing just above six feet, with swollen biceps, he responds, “Yes I was.”

“Why?”

“Because I felt like at any time I could be next.”

Harrell’s attorneys from Beldock Levine & Hoffman announced that they would pursue a federal civil rights lawsuit against the New York State Office of Mental Health, the Department of Corrections, and the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association.

By not pressing charges, the state is permitting members of the Beat Up Squad to exist above the law and commit acts of unfathomable cruelty. The Beat Up Squad who, with their fists, feet, and elbows, took the air from a man formerly permitted to inhale and exhale freely, are sacrosanct.

As we prepared to march, I wondered had Harrell been a white man, would his life have been taken? Could twenty people have publically beaten a person to death on Main Street in Poughkeepsie, New York? If he was not a black incarcerated man, would Governor Andrew Cuomo have neglected to respond to his family’s pleas for acknowledgement and action?

This atrocity, while nearly impossible to stomach, is not unique. The Guardian reports that, as of today, 837 people have been killed by law enforcement. Blacks have been killed at a rate more than two times that of whites. Harrell’s death is part of a larger phenomenon.

“Our family and our community are broken and will never be the same,” Diane Harrell tells us. “I can only hope that Sam is at peace. And I can only pray that the people responsible for Sam’s death will be held accountable.”

There are 54 correctional facilities in the state of New York confining more than 77,000 inmates. The events at Fishkill demonstrate that these inmates are not safe. The consumption and destruction of black life is inseparably woven into the fabric of the façade that we call American life. Each of us maintains our private investment in its function, until it becomes too painful, until we watch it work too well on one of our own.

“I can promise,” Diane Harrell continues, “that we will not rest until there is justice for Sam.”

Kali Tambreé is from Baltimore. She grows by writing, reading, laughing, and crying with and around the people she loves. Kali tries to remember every day that Audre Lorde wrote, “I feel, therefore I can be free.”

[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]

Since Wednesday, the New York Times reports, more than 17,000 refugees have entered Croatia, having been blocked from entering Hungary and sent on from Serbia. Now, as Croatia closes its borders with Slovenia, they are stranded there.

The refugees—many of whom come from war-torn countries like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan—are largely heading for northern European nations like Germany and Sweden (via, in this case, Slovenia and then Austria). The Balkans have become the de facto route, which presents infrastructural issues for countries not equipped to handle then.

On Friday, the Croatian government announced that it would close its borders with Serbia. “Don’t come here anymore,” Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said. “This is not the road to Europe.”

Twenty years ago, Europe saw its biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War during the break-up of Yugoslavia: according to the Times, some 2.3 million people had fled their homes there by 1992. Today, the region is still struggling: the average gross monthly wage in Serbia is 518 euros, or about $585, and unemployment is about 18 percent.

“We have much empathy in the region for migrants but countries across the region are poor, their institutions are not yet developed, and most states can barely deal with the daily problems of government, nevermind a migration crisis,” said Sead Numanovic, former editor-in-chief of Bosnian newspaper Avaz. “These countries just don’t have the capacity.”

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

:)

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

A Georgia court set a seven-day execution window for the state’s only female death row inmate on Friday, the Associated Press reports. Kelly Renee Gissendaner’s death was postponed earlier this year because of a problem with the lethal injection drug.

In a news release, attorney general Sam Olens said that a superior court judge in Gwinnett County had issued an order on Friday saying that Gissendaner may be executed between noon on September 29th and noon on October 6th.

Georgia corrections officials temporarily suspended executions in the state on March 2nd out of an “abundance of caution” when the drug they intended to use to execute Gissendaner appeared “cloudy” (likely because it had been shipped and stored at the wrong temperature).

“I just want to tell my kids that I love them and I’m proud of them and no matter what happens tonight, love does beat out hate,” the mother of three says in a video, obtained by NBC News earlier this year, of Gissendaner’s final statement, delivered before her execution was postponed. “You keep strong and keep your heads up. I love you.”

According to the AP, Gissendaner, who was convicted in the February 1997 murder of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, would be the first woman executed by the state in 70 years. Prosecutors said that Gissendaner and her lover Gregory Owen stabbed her husband to death. Owen is serving a life sentence.

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

Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, continues to interfere with court orders.

The Guardian reports that Rowan County deputy clerk, Brian Mason filed notice with a Kentucky district court alleging that Davis, “may have altered forms used in the marriage licensing process, raising questions over the validity of licenses issued in the county.”

Davis, who was jailed for five days for refusing to issue marriage licenses, was released under the condition that she not interfere with the licensing process. It looks like, however, that she might have done just that.

Mason told the court that Davis took the original forms that he issued this week and “handed out an altered form that did not include her name and does not mention the county.” In the filing, Mason’s lawyer, Richard Hughes, said: “Those changes were made in some attempt to circumvent the court’s orders and may have raised to the level of interference against the court’s orders.”

The broader issue seems to be over Kentucky’s laws which require that marriage licenses be issued with the county clerk’s name on them. Davis’ new forms, again, do not include her name and instead indicate that they were issued under the orders of a federal court, rather than the clerk’s authority.

Via the Guardian:

“...lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the gay couples that sued Davis, said they are concerned the new forms might not meet the requirements of Kentucky state law. Hughes echoed those concerns in Friday’s court filing.”

Meanwhile, Kentucky’s governor has said that the licenses without Davis’ name will be honored by the state.

Image via AP.

For the second year in a row, the Washington Post reports, a watersnake in Missouri gave birth without having had any contact with any male snakes (for the last eight years). (Nice.)

Researchers at the Missouri Department of Conservation believe that this snake may be the first of her species to experience “virgin births.” Parthenogenesis—a kind of asexual reproduction in which females give birth without any male genetic contribution—is more commonly seen in insects. “It doesn’t happen in snakes all that often,” naturalist Jordi Brostoski said.

“She’s at that age where she’s completely able to reproduce... It seems like a reproductive survival technique,” Brostoski said. “Without a male, she wants to go ahead and produce offspring. That’s what she’s driven to do.”

From the Post:

These watersnakes give birth to live snakes. This summer, an intern at the Missouri conservation center discovered a bunch of membranes in the watersnake’s cage.

“I thought, ‘what joker put tomatoes in here for the snake’,” intern Kyle Morton said in a release.

Hah! That would be a good joke.

The two babies the watersnake gave birth to last year are still alive and healthy, the Post reports. None of this year’s babies have survived.

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

Patti LaBelle is up to her old tricks: screaming at people. Last night at a concert in Vancouver, an audience member the diva had presumably invited to come dance onstage began unbuttoning his shirt. That wasn’t part of the deal Miss Patti had in her head, so she interrupted him and the music (“Lady Marmalade,” of course). “Don’t you dare, not on my stage!” she hollered. She explained with what initially seemed like good humor, “I am not Nicki Minaj or that little, uh, Miley.” The dancer took this as an opportunity to arch his back and present his ass to her. Here’s a tip: Do not arch your back and present your ass to Patti LaBelle.

“Get off of my goddarn stage, bitch,” said Miss Patti as her security dragged the guy from the stage “And stay off. Put him out of the building. Put him out! How dare you!” TMZ has the clip, and the dancer no longer has a head since Patti ordered off with it.

Once that man and his offensively loose buttons were gone, Patti continued:

I’m sorry I didn’t let my security do what he felt he had to do earlier. I believe in giving second and third and fourth chances, because I always say sometimes we know not what we do. Just so rude. A rude American or whoever he is, whatever he is. Don’t ever come in my face again. Next!

Engaging with a group of other fans who were onstage (presumably to share more of their talents while remaining clothed), Patti commented on the incident repeatedly. “The devil was here about 20 minutes ago, and I saw it, I tried to block it,” she said. And then: “I’m so sorry you heard me say a bad word. I’m so sorry. I’m a Gemini and things come out of my mouth sometimes that I try to control.”

But try as we might, some things are uncontrollable. The entire situation is uncannily reminiscent of one that happened September 14, 2007 in Kansas City, when she announced that a fan she had brought onstage to dance to (what else?) “Lady Marmalade” was dancing too close to her. “I think you want it more than I do,” he joked back and Patti LaBelle did not like that joke one bit. She scolded him for about three minutes:

“You’re rude! You’re very freakin’ rude!” she said, literally shaking her finger at him. “This is not Lil’ Kim, OK? I don’t play that. Do you know who I am?”

“You disrespect a black woman like that in front of people like this? How dare you! How dare you!” she said. The two incidents are so similar, it’s like she has a script and just updates the raunchy recording artists (“little heifers,” if you will) with whom she contrasts herself according to popular taste. In 2007, though, she had the offender (presumably another rude American) go back into the audience, only to bring him back up again so he could apologize to her. He did and they hugged.

The lesson here is: Do not try Patti LaBelle. Even if you think you’re so cute and funny, just don’t. Take no risks when on her stage. This is a woman who paid dearly for scaring a child. Patti LaBelle will shame you. She will call you rude. She will say, “How dare you?” She may even ask, “Do you know who I am?” Patti LaBelle does not give a fuck, until she really, really does.

[Image via Getty]

Yesterday, a U. S. District Court in Northern California ruled that the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), the group that has released “sting” videos targeting Planned Parenthood, must turn over evidence. The Hill reports: “Judge William Orrick said in a hearing that the Center for Medical Progress must comply with the court’s requests for documents, escalating the weeks-long legal battle over the secret videos.”

Last month, CMP and its founder David Daleiden notified the court that it planned to plead the Fifth Amendment to protect themselves from self-incrimination in response to a lawsuit filed by the National Abortion Federation. Since Daleiden and his group released videos which claim to show Planned Parenthood employees illegally selling fetal tissue, CMP has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and questions regarding the legality of the group’s actions.

Daleiden has acknowledged that members of his group gained access to Planned Parenthood employees by posing as buyers for a medical research company. The National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood claim that those actions are illegal.

Despite CMP’s shady practices, Republican lawmakers have seized on the videos as evidence of Planned Parenthood’s wrongdoing. Multiple states have launched investigations and yesterday House Republicans voted to defund the organization.

The ruling, however, might be a bit of a silver lining for the National Abortion Federation (of which Planned Parenthood is a member). “It’s telling that the defendants have been very vocal in the media saying that they have nothing to hide, yet in Federal court they want to plead the Fifth,” Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, said in a statement issued yesterday.

CMP and Daleiden deny that their actions were illegal and have maintained that they followed both state and federal laws while recording the videos.

Image via Getty.

In court papers filed on Thursday, city lawyers claim the family of a college student murdered in 2013 at an East Harlem housing project don’t deserve a settlement from the city because she should have known the “risks” of being there, the New York Post reports.

Olivia Brown’s mother, Crystal, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city last year, claiming a lack of security allowed a woman, Michele “Mohawk” Graham, 36, into the Lincoln Houses before she shot and killed Olivia, 23, after an argument. Graham is a former resident of the housing development, the Post reports, but according to police was homeless at the time of the shooting.

Seeking a dismissal of the suit, lawyers for the New York City Housing Authority argued that the shooting was “spontaneous” and “unavoidable.”

“All the risks, hazards and dangers were open, obvious and apparent to [Brown] and said risks, hazards and dangers were openly and voluntarily assumed by [Brown],” NYCHA’s lawyers wrote, claiming that the agency could not have prevented Brown’s death. “Such damages and injuries are attributable, in whole or in part, to the culpable conduct of the plaintiff’s decedent and/or third parties.”

In an interview with the Post on Friday, Brown’s mother Crystal, 51, expressed her outrage: “I can’t believe they’re saying she’s responsible for her murder,” she said. “Everybody has a right to be safe in their home. Why wasn’t my daughter safe? Because we’re poor and live in public housing?”

Two police towers and a number of cameras have since been installed. “Why didn’t they have the security in place to protect her when there’s been a history of violence here for 25 years?” Brown asked.

Her lawyer, Kyle Watters, also criticized the city’s argument: “If the language in the . . . city’s papers is taken as case specific, I do not agree that anyone should be deemed to have assumed the risk of being shot, merely by walking in the public area of a New York City Housing project.”

Olivia’s death came in the middle of the 2013 mayoral election. Three days earlier, the top Democratic candidates—including eventual Mayor Bill de Blasio—had spent a night at the Lincoln Houses as a campaign stunt.

Image via Google Maps. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Influential tweeter Richard Dawkins, whose intellectual rigor never ceases to amaze, makes the very good, necessary, and important point that, in claiming his reassembled clock as an “invention,” Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texas teenager arrested last week on suspicion of building a bomb, committed fraud.

All right, guy.

H/T @keplyq. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

On Saturday night, Donald Trump appeared in the parking lot of Urbandale High School, in suburban Des Moines, Iowa, to speak to the teens gathered there before their fall homecoming dance. “Hello folks,” Trump said. “Oh, they’re so young. Look at them, so young and beautiful and attractive.”

The real estate developer went on to offer the teens life advice: “If you can stay away from the alcohol and stay away from the drugs, it’s a big, big barrier that you won’t have to work out. And it’s so important,” Trump said. “You represent so much. You represent the future. You represent something very important.” A low keening, full of chaos and blood, could be heard in the distance.

“You have to go and follow what you love, you have to do it,” he continued. “And you just have to follow your heart and you’ll be successful. And it may not be pure monetary success, because I know people that are the wealthiest people in the world and they’re not happy.”

The Associated Press reports that Trump seemed surprised to find himself there, noting that he could be “on Fifth Avenue, this beautiful apartment, watching whatever,” but instead was in a high school parking lot. The sky, dark like a bruise, cracked and wailed.

During a question-and-answer session, one student asked if, as president, Trump would consider appointing a Muslim to his cabinet. “Oh absolutely, no problem with that,” Trump said. “Would I consider putting a Muslim-American in my cabinet? Absolutely, no problem with that. OK?” Small tears in the fabric of reality widened.

Another questioner raised his history of insulting women, the Des Moines Register reports, but Trump interrupted her before she finished speaking. “I think women are the greatest,” he said. “No, I think they’re superior to men. Let me tell you—I think they’re far superior to men. Women—they’re great. And I will take care of women’s health issues.”

The yawning maw just below the surface of all things opened up and swallowed them all, their silent screaming smiles etched into a history no one will read.

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