At this point in Lady Gaga's career, she has begun transitioning from spicy pop tart in a meat suit to subdued Barbara Streisand ballad-singer, and when she was called in to a perform a medley of Sound of Music staples in the stead of Julie Andrews, she did not disappoint. In fact, she sounded amazing. A real stunner.
Julie Andrews came on to congratulate Gaga and they were both apparently moved to tears. These are a few of my favorite things.
The Academy Awards have come and gone, and can you even remember them? I can—almost. Neil Patrick Harris had a briefcase, from what I can recall, and Birdman won (I think) all of the trophies. Also: It rained. Let's take a look back at the memorable moments, of which there were few.
On the rain-soaked red carpet,
Dakota Johnson
Neil Patrick Harris opened the show with a joke about how the room was filled with "Hollywood's best and whitest," which would be funny if it weren't so uncomfortably and upsettingly true and unlikely to change in the near future.
The
musical introduction
The Grand Budapest Hotel won a surprising amount of awards. At multiple points throughout the night a stilted actor would announce the winner of an award and you'd look down at your Oscar pool sheet and think, "Wait, why did I pick The Grand Budapest Hotel to win this? I mean, I'm glad I did, but—."
Another
Grand Budapest Hotel-related surprise was Wes Anderson's girlfriend
One of the best moments of the night came after
Ida won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Director Pawel Pawlikowski straight up refused to get off of the stage
Neil Patrick Harris
had a skull dick.
People won awards, blah, blah, blah.
Miles Teller did not ask Margot Robbie out
Of course, it wasn't all wealthy white pretenders accepting accolades for Best Pretend—also dead people were remembered. Did your favorite dead person get a
snowy shout-out
Like we noted at the top, there were very few "memorable" moments to be found within tonight's ceremony, and perhaps not a single moment that could be deemed "viral." No "left sharks" here, for sure. (Remember?) No "Adele Nazeem." (Though they tried, and there were a few John Travolta moments, which we will get to in a sec.)
However, Terrance Howard did
seem super fucked up
And Neil Patrick Harris had
a fun little dig at Jennifer Aniston
What else? Perhaps the single sincerely enjoyable and worthwhile bit of the show was
John Legend and Common's performance
Lady Gaga sang and was good at it
John Travolta and Idina Menzel presented an award together in order to address last year's "Adele Nazeem" blooper, the likes of which were—unfortunate for both the academy and the Internet content academy—not duplicated during this ceremony. John did get, uhhh, ahhh, eeeehhhhhh, rather handsy, however.
Well, here’s a weird picture of Scarlett Johansson and John Travolta at the #Oscars: http://t.co/uv6KXxyIcn pic.twitter.com/jFlDSJ3Kko
— Vulture (@vulture) February 23, 2015
After winning the Oscar for best adapted screenplay,
Imitation Game writer Graham Moore spoke about his own attempted suicide. You can watch the speech and read the full text here.
To close the show, roughly 400 hours after it was supposed to have ended, following a lengthy briefcase-related Neil Patrick Harris bit that, jesus christ, should have been cut for time, my goodness, Sean Penn made a weird, racist joke about director Alejandro González Iñárritu:
Award shows: they're always great, never uncomfortable, and for sure never four hours too long.
Finally, let's take a look at some reactions from around the web:
The Oscars are a sad joke, very much like our President. So many things are wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2015
I saw the Oscar show tonight was terrific.
— Larry King (@kingsthings) February 23, 2015
Great! And here's your full list of winners
Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Achievement in Costume Design: Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling: Frances Hannon, Mark Coulier, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Foreign Language Film: Ida (Poland)
Best Live Action Short Film: The Phone Call
Best Documentary Short Subject: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Achievement in Sound Mixing: Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley, Whiplash
Achievement in Sound Editing: Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman, American Sniper
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Achievement in Visual Effects: Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher, Interstellar
Best Animated Short: Feast
Best Animated Feature: Big Hero 6
Achievement in Production Design: Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration), The Grand Budapest Hotel
Achievement in Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Achievement in Film Editing: Tom Cross, Whiplash
Best Documentary Feature: Citizenfour
Best Original Song: "Glory," Selma
Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Original Screenplay: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo, Birdman
Best Adapted Screenplay: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game
Best Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman
Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Best Actress: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Best Picture: Birdman
At the Oscars last night, several celebrities admirably used their time on stage to speak about issues like equality, discrimination, and poverty. This would have been a good time to rob their houses.
Think about it: during the Oscars, all these famous people are at the Oscars (not at home). Their houses are full of fancy things they can easily afford to replace. There is no better time to rob them.
The morning after a big awards show like this, there is always a very shallow debate over whether it is "good" or "bad" for big celebrities to speak out about political issues on stage at the big awards show. This is not the important issue. I guess on the grand spectrum of "good" to "bad" in this world of ours, "bad" would be "The Academy Awards are held and no one speaks out about politics because it is all about opulence," and "good" would be "The Academy Awards are not held." If the Academy Awards are going to be held, might as well use them to some small societal benefit, by robbing the people's houses.
All of these people are very rich.
It is nice that, for example, Patricia Arquette supports wage equality. It is certainly better than publicly declaring that she does not support wage equality. (That would be rude.) But when everyone wakes up Monday morning, that declaration does not do all that much to contribute to wage equality. You know what would contribute to wage equality? The cars parked in the unattended driveways of every Hollywood movie star last night, sold off to chop shops.
They can replace them very easily.
On balance, it is better that wealthy Hollywood stars have good politics, rather than bad politics. On balance, it is better that they support equality than oppose it. Declaring one's support for social equality while standing on stage at the Oscars is a little like declaring your pacifism while wildly firing a machine gun, but sure, it's better than nothing. It is good that this sector of the nation's economic elite understands and supports the need for America's coming class war. It should make them much less likely to get mad about the fact that members of the working class robbed their palatial houses during the Oscars. This does not mean that the class war should be confined to Los Angeles, or to movie stars, or should only touch those who profess to support its political aims. It is just a neat coincidence that works for everyone: Hollywood stars get to publicly profess their support for equality, and, while they are doing so, regular people are thereby afforded the opportunity to rob their houses. That is what I call synergy.
This would have been more useful if I had thought to say it yesterday, but there's always next year.
[Photo: AP]
Sometimes the long arm of the law clutches you with nothing more than brute force and brawn. And sometimes that arm folds back onto itself, posing as an underage girl's vagina, in order to trap and incriminate an internet predator.
Though figures like Hunter Moore
But court documents show that one Motherless user, a South Dakotan by the name of Casey Godfrey, is facing federal indictments after sending pictures of his dick to someone he thought was a teen girl. And it happened because the man—who by some act of God selected "Boneman" as his username—thought the guy's arm was a little girl's vagina.
The arm/vagina prank is older than the internet, but it's never been so easy to dupe your friends (or enemies) as in the age of ubiquitous photography and data transfer—this Reddit thread
The plot to take down Boneman hinged on a similar ruse. Written testimony by Jonathan Kirk, an officer with the Pennington County Sheriff's Office, describes baiting Godfrey (all emphasis added):
On 01-16-14 Special Agent Brent Gromer received a telephone call from Sgt. Eric Jones, Nebraska State Patrol. Sgt. Jones advised S/A Gromer that his agency was currently investigating an individual who stated that he worked as a custodian at a Rapid City Elementary School. Sgt. Jones advised S/A Gromer that Trooper Monty Lovelace had been conducting undercover chats on Motherless.com and via other electronic methods with this individual posing as a 14 year old girl.
On 01-16-14 S/A Gromer spoke with Trp. Lovelace who relayed the same information about his contacts with the unknown individual. Trp. Lovelace advised that during his undercover chat with this individual the person told him that he worked as a custodian at a local Rapid City School. The chats originally began on Motherless.com utilizing user ID "Boneman." Eventually Trp. Lovelace chatted with the individual on Yahoo instant messenger via Yahoo.com. The individual also informed Trp. Lovelace that he "really liked" a teacher at the school and provided the name "Averie". He stated he also really likes an 11 year old student at the school named "Patience".
The Boneman cometh. Godfrey made it very clear what he was after on Motherless:
On 01-16-14, Trp. Lovelace forwarded copies of his undercover chat to S/A Gromer and I. Trp. Lovelace was using an undercover identity and Godfrey was using the Motherless.com screen name "boneman". I reviewed those chats. I noticed the undercover agent told Godfrey they were 14 years old. I also found Godfrey had requested pictures mUltiple times from the undercover agent. Godfrey specifically asked for "other" pictures on 01-15-14 at 08:24:04 AM. Godfrey then asked for "naughty ones" after that. At 08:43: 11 AM, on 01-15-14, Godfrey sends the following message: "you show me yours, I'll show you mine when you get out of school".
People actually say that! In the world! Wow. In case it's not clear by now, Godfrey truly is the kind of creep you're warned about on local news segments:
Individual also informed Trp. Lovelace that he "really liked" a teacher at the school and provided the name "Averie". He stated he also really likes an 11 year old student at the school named "Patience".
[...]
Godfrey's "Boneman" site bio on Motherless.com lists his interests as "Yng/vry yng, family, panties, pissing/squirting, voyeur, jb (jailbait), tribbing (multiple females engaging in mutual, simultaneous, genitalia rubbing) ... love it all. Have done stuff to trade to trade, msg me with your email. Also world (sic) LOVE to meet people in the N/W South Dakota, N/E Wyoming area ... love making new friends :)."
In this case, the new friend was supposed to be an underage teen girl. Officer Kirk was ready to spring his trap. He just needed a piece of evidence that could pin Internet Monster Godfrey to School Janitor Godfrey. If there were some way he could get Godfrey to reveal himself, in intimate detail. Kirk knew the rules: show me yours, and I'll show you mine:
During their conversation, the undercover sent a picture of a fold in the skin of his arm to Godfrey. The undercover portrayed it as a picture of their vagina. Godfrey later sent the undercover a picture of an adult male's penis. A white ring can be seen on the subject's hand, which is holding onto the penis. Godfrey claims the picture is of his penis.
When approached by cops shortly after this non-vagina pic swap, Godfrey was wearing the same white wedding ring. Godfrey is now facing federal charges of "attempted enticement of a minor using the Internet and attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor." The lesson here is to never try to seduce an underage teenage girl if you are not also an underage teen and always double-check crotch-shots for authenticity.
Should you lift weights to heavy metal? Should you cardio dance to hip hop tracks? Should you run the streets listening to podcasts? NO.
Should you work out to techno? To Beyonce? To 50 Cent? To enlivening hard rock? To soothing Sade? Should you jazzercise to jazz and cardio dance to hip hop and do Pilates to Enya and spin class to, I don't know, that fucking horrible shit they always play in the glass room with all the exercise bikes in there—some sort of boy band shit, maybe?
What's your playlist? What's your playlist? What's your playlist?
Here is your playlist: the sound of silence. Here is your playlist: the blood pounding in your throbbing head as you gasp for breath. Here is your playlist: the faintest echo of a droplet of sweat hitting the concrete floor in the empty warehouse where you have gone to escape from humanity and do burpees. Plop. Dig it.
Some people seem to be under the mistaken impression that working out requires musical accompaniment. Why do they believe this? Because they are escapists. They perceive music to be a mental escape from the immediate pain of the situation in which they find themselves. They seek refuge. They don't want to be here now. They don't want to be out of breath, quivering, muscles aching, gut seizing, on the edge of heat stroke. They want to be somewhere else. They want to be in Beyonceville.
Sorry—this isn't Beyonceville. This is anywhere but Beyonceville, mi amor. This is Hardcoreville, and you're trying to leave it, but you forgot—there's no exit. Each and every exit from Hardcoreville is locked and if you think that the key to that lock can be found in loud musical distraction? Such as Beyonce? You're wrong. The key can only be found when you stop looking. You stopped looking because you were too busy doing burpees, until you went blind (temporarily). Then everything worked out well for you.
Buddha probably said something like, "Embrace the moment of where you're at." It's amazing how much he understood exercise wisdom even as a non-mobile man. Exercise works through pain. Its mechanism of progress is pain. Pain is its purpose. As a rich person once said, "Lean In." Was she referring to "leaning in" to the pain of exercise in order to reap the rewards of progress? What do you think? Why or why not? Write your answers legibly on a lined piece of legal paper while doing burpees—if you can. Can't? Good. That was a test. Needless to say you passed—this time. Yes, I just slapped you gently in the face. Calm down—that was test number two. Did you pass? Let me answer that question with a question of my own: what do you hear right now? Nothing? You didn't even notice the music was off, did you? Whether nearing cardiac arrest due to exertion or becoming the sudden victim of unprovoked violence, you were wholly present in the moment. It's called focus, my friend. I'm not talking about a camera—I'm talking about what's upstairs (your mind) (and its connection to your physical body).
"Upbeat music helps motivate me!" you say peppily like a pepita. Here's better motivation: you're holding a weighted bar that will crash down upon you and render you unconscious if you do not manage to lift it up right now. Take that song to the radio station and play it, metaphorically.
Imagine the average gym. Now, using your mind, remove the music that blasting in the background. Now, remove all the rest of the people there. Now remove the Nautilus machines and the ellipticals and the other machines and the place where they pile up all the towels and the juice bar and the snack bar and the showers and the locker room, except for one dirty hook, where you hang all of your worldly possessions, which are few. There you are. Just you and a silent, empty room. Is this your "Happy Place?" No. Exactly the opposite. This is your Unhappy Place—because of the pain of the exercise you're doing there. Since you're deriving great benefit from it just suck it up for now and think of the payoff you get in the future! In silence! I forgot to mention in this big empty room is some kind of weighted sled, and you're pulling it, until an imaginary "man" tells you to stop. (The man is mute.)
"[Sound of panting.]" "[Sound of sharp inhalation]." "[Sound of sharp exhalation]." "HUP [you just picked up something heavy]." These sounds are your music. These sounds are your constant companion. They do not fill you up with false encouragement. They will not abandon you when the electricity goes out, or when the battery runs out, or when armed gunmen seize the radio station in order to broadcast radical political messages. They will stay with you, always, through your painful journey. They are a reminder that you are, at that moment, in the midst of hell. And when they leave you, the hell has passed. And when the hell has passed, you can rest, and recover, and turn on your fucking music. Until then, savor the silence. It is all that separates us from the people who go to "day clubs."
I don't really care what you listen to when you work out, do what you want.
Work out alone
[Image by Jim Cooke]
The scenario I'm about to describe has happened to me more times than I can count, in more cities than I can remember, mostly in Western cities here in the U.S. and Europe.
I walk into a store. There's a woman shopping in the store that I can clearly identify as Muslim. In some scenarios she's standing behind the cash register tallying up totals and returning change to customers. She's wearing a headscarf. It's tightly fastened under her face where her head meets her neck. Arms covered to the wrists. Ankles modestly hidden behind loose fitting pants or a long, flowy dress. She's Muslim. I know it. Everyone around her knows it. I stare at her briefly and think to myself, "She can't tell if I'm staring at her because I think she is a spectacle or because I recognize something we share."
I realize this must make her uncomfortable, so I look away. I want to say something, something that indicates I'm not staring because I'm not familiar with how she chooses to cover herself. Something that indicates that my mother dresses like her. That I grew up in an Arab state touching the Persian Gulf where the majority dresses like her. That I also face East and recite Quran when I pray.
"Should I greet her with A'salamu alaikum?" I ask myself. Then I look at what I picked out to wear on this day. A pair of distressed denim short shorts, a button-down Oxford shirt, and sandals. My hair is a big, curly entity on top of my head; still air-drying after my morning shower. Then I remember my two nose rings, one hugging my right nostril, the other snugly hanging around my septum. The rings have become a part of my face. I don't notice them until I have to blow my nose or until I meet someone not accustomed to face piercings.
I decide not to say anything to her. I pretend that we have nothing in common and that I don't understand her native tongue or the language in which she prays. The reason I don't connect with her is that I'm not prepared for a possibly judgmental glance up and down my body. I don't want to read her mind as she hesitantly responds, "Wa'alaikum a'salam."
I'm guilty of judging and projecting my thoughts onto her before giving her a chance to receive this information and respond to it. It's wrong. My hesitation in these scenarios comes from knowing that a sizable number of people from my religion look at people dressed like me and write us off as women who have lost their way and veered off the path of Islam. I don't cover my thighs, let alone my ankles. (The most dominant Islamic schools of thought consider a woman's ankles to be 'awrah, meaning an intimate part of her body, and revealing it is undoubtedly a sin.) Nothing in my outward appearance speaks to or represents the beliefs I carry. Some might even get to know me and still label me as a non-practicing Muslim—I drink whiskey and I smoke weed regularly.
However, I am a practicing Muslim. I pray (sometimes), fast, recite the travel supplication before I start my car's engine, pay my zakkah (an annual charitable practice that is obligatory for all that can afford it) and, most importantly, I feel very Muslim. There are many like me. We don't believe in a monolithic practice of Islam. We love Islam, and because we love it so much we refuse to reduce it to an inflexible and fossilized way of life. Yet we still don't fit anywhere. We're more comfortable passing for non-Muslims, if it saves us from one or more of the following: unsolicited warnings about the kind punishment that awaits us in hell, unwelcomed advice from a stranger that starts with "I am like your [insert relative]", or an impromptu lecture, straight out of a Wahhabi textbook I thought was nonsense at age 13.
Islamic studies was part of my formal education until I graduated from high school in the United States. The textbooks we used were from Saudi Arabia, which is the biggest follower of the Wahhabi sect of Islam. The first time I realized it was okay to verbalize how nonsensical these books were was when I was watching a movie with my mother about a family that lost one of their children due to a terminal disease. I must have been 6 or 7 years old. My mother said something to the effect of, "I know Allah has a special place in heaven for mothers that lose their children at a young age." I looked at my mom and asked her, "Even if they're not Muslim?" Without breaking eye contact with the TV set she responded, "Even if they're not Muslim."
That was all the permission I needed to allow myself to believe in a more compassionate God than the one spoken about in these textbooks. My parents are pretty religious. They don't know I smoke or drink. I'm honestly not quite sure how they would react to knowing that I do, but I'm not exactly ready to find out. They encouraged me and my sister to wear headscarves, but they didn't force us to. Like most parents they didn't want us wearing anything too revealing or attention grabbing. They would not approve of my wearing shorts.
When it became fairly evident that we weren't always praying five times a day, they mostly stayed quiet and occasionally spoke to us about the benefits of prayer. My mother loved reading novels by American writers. She loved movies. She loved music. She tried hard to memorize the Quran, but thought she started too late. They welcomed our male friends and didn't look at us with suspicion when we walked out of the house with them. My parents hoped their children would closely follow in their footsteps, but trusted us with our own choices.
I'm steadfast in my belief that exploring and wandering are the reasons I know I am Muslim. Learning about Buddhism brought me closer to Islam because it taught me what surrendering means, a lesson none of my Islamic studies teachers have been able to teach me even though that's literally what Islam means. My Islamic studies teachers taught me how to how to obsess about the mundane—about all the things I'm doing incorrectly and therefore my prayers will not be accepted. They taught me guilt. They taught me fear. They taught me that being a good Muslim is difficult.
I never quite rejected Islam, I just took a break from going through the motions of prayer out of guilt. I wanted to see if I could be compelled to return to my prayer rug. I did. I returned when I felt like my life was empty without worship. I prayed out of gratitude. I prayed and it gave me solace. Ablution became less about splashing water over various parts of my body and felt more like a daily cleanse. A baptism. I stopped obsessing about the small things and my new mantra was "Al-'amal bil niyat," which means actions are dependent on their intentions. My other mantra was "Al deen yusr," which translates to religion is ease.
Exploring and wandering gave me the tools I needed to critically look at the hypocrisy of the 'ulama'a (Islamic elites/scholars/clerics). I realized that I did not have to practice my religion from the point of view of a largely misogynistic group of people. Two years ago, I denounced most hadith (prophetic traditions and sayings), fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and tafseer (interpretation) because these three things, all of which play a huge part in how Islam is practiced today, are filtered through the perspective of Muslims born into normalized extreme patriarchy.
I haven't denounced all hadith. I kept the ones that undisputedly made me a better person by teaching me a lesson in morality, kindness, and patience. The two mantras I mentioned above were, in fact, adopted from hadith. The mantra, "Religion is ease" is from a hadith related by Abu Hurayra, one of the Prophet's companions and the mantra, "actions are dependent on their intentions" is from a hadith related by Umar ibn al-Khattab, one of the successors of the Prophet.
I mentioned before that there are many like me. Outliers, outsiders, passing as non-Muslims in the vicinity of other Muslims. When confronted, our stance on religion is waived off as a rebellious phase or an urge to fit in with the dominant non-Muslim society we live in. Despite this feeling of not belonging, we are, generally speaking, not tormented by this existence. We live very healthy, dynamic, and diverse lives. We've established connections and common ground with many different groups of people and we don't feel like pariahs. We've accepted that until a drastic cultural change happens, we're going to continue to lead dual or multiple lives.
I have a new mantra these days, a short surah titled Al-Kafirun (the Disbelievers). For me, the disbelievers, commonly understood to mean those who don't believe in God and the prophet, also take the form of those who disbelieve that I, too, am a Muslim. The last ayah states, "Lakum deenakum wa liya deen," meaning for you is your religion, and for me is my religion. A simple phrase that holds the power of interconnectedness in spite of our differences. A verse that can empower me to smile at and greet the woman in the headscarf without fear of judgment.
Thanaa El-Naggar has been living in the U.S. for the last 19 years and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
[Illustration by Jim Cooke]
Earlier today, Fox 8's Kristi Capel marveled over Lady Gaga's Oscar performance
Later, when she was called out for using a derogatory term for black people to describe Lady Gaga's music, she apologized on Twitter, explaining, "I had no idea it was a word or what it meant."
@John_Ferguson_ @fox8news I apologize if I offended you, I had no idea it was a word or what it meant. Thank you for watching.
— Kristi Capel (@Kristi_Capel) February 23, 2015
Kristi Capel, who makes her living by speaking in public: "Sometimes I just say words and I don't know what they mean! It just happens! Sorry I didn't realize this was being filmed or that I'm a person or that life is real."
On last night's NBC Nightly News, the show's Chief Medical Editor Nancy Snyderman, M.D., seemed a little...unsteady as she reported on a patch that may help those suffering from peanut allergies. I can't even pay attention to what she's saying because I'm fixated on how she's saying it. See above.
So, what was up with Nancy Snyderman? Was she drunk? Did she borrow from Terrence Howard's stash
[Thanks to all who sent in tips about this]
Dylan Byers, the dumbest media reporter alive, has typed up some thoughts at The Politico about, as his headline puts it, "Why the Bill O'Reilly charges aren't sticking." Aren't they? Or at least, isn't their "sticking" or not "sticking" in some way related to the work of a media desk such as The Politico's?
No, not at all—as Byers explains, the reason Bill O'Reilly isn't being held accountable for bullshitting about his war-reporter heroics is that the Mother Jones reporters who broke the news were the wrong people to do the story, and they did the story wrong. They "weren't war veterans" but "liberal reporters at an admittedly liberal magazine." And they failed to "deliver conclusive evidence of Choppergate-level sins":
The promised whopper was in the subhead: "The Fox News host has said he was in a 'war zone' that apparently no American correspondent reached."
Had O'Reilly falsely claimed to have been on the Falkland Islands when he wasn't, the Fox News host might be in serious trouble. But he never really said that. He has said that he was "in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands," which can reasonably be defended as short-hand for "in the Falklands War" — especially because O'Reilly has oft described his experiences there as taking place in Buenos Aires. "I was not on the Falkland Islands and I never said I was," O'Reilly told the On Media blog last week. That hasn't really been disputed since.
This is idiotic. Bill O'Reilly said he was "in a war zone." The war zone, during the Falklands war, was in the Falklands. O'Reilly was on the Argentine mainland, about 1,200 miles away from the war zone.
Claiming to have been "in a war zone" when you were 1,200 miles distant from the war zone is, if anything, a more brazen lie than claiming your helicopter got shot down when it wasn't. At least Brian Williams was in Iraq, in a helicopter, flying the same route as the helicopter that got shot down. And Brian Williams is a shameful and absurd liar!
O'Reilly's defense is that he witnessed street demonstrations about the war that turned violent (how violent they were is another thing O'Reilly is lying about). Super. I think I witnessed the police arresting war protesters in New York in 2004—which means, by O'Reilly's standards, that I could say I was reporting from the Iraq war zone.
The reason why Brian Williams got into deep trouble for lying about his war experience while Bill O'Reilly hasn't is that Williams and O'Reilly have different jobs, for different employers. Brian Williams was paid to sit in front of a TV camera and give viewers an ostensibly neutral, agreeable account of current events. When people began disagreeing with Brian Williams about his presentation of facts, loudly and in public, it hurt his ability to perform those duties for NBC.
Bill O'Reilly is paid to go on television for Fox News and say things that get the viewers upset, even if those things are false or nonsensical. So what if his experience in the Falklands war was bogus? So is his experience in the War on Christmas. The fact that people are calling him dishonest simply proves, from Fox's point of view, that he's doing his job.
Thus the network maintains a political campaign's approach to controversy—where NBC wants to make trouble go away, Fox News wants to use trouble to promote itself. Instead of apologizing or investigating, the network counter-spins as hard as it can. You say Bill O'Reilly lied about being in a war zone; Fox says you're lying about the meaning of "in" and "war" and "zone."
And it works. Byers blames Mother Jones for coming after O'Reilly with a story that "could be argued away on semantics"—argued away, that is, if you are trying to argue semantics with someone as dull-witted as Dylan Byers. This willingness to be befogged presents a funny contrast to Byers' reaction when Fareed Zakaria was accused of plagiarism, under similarly disputed circumstances:
Fareed Zakaria plagiarized. Period. http://t.co/2VojiRLdPX via @POLITICO
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) September 17, 2014
In that case, an executive for Fox News' parent-turned-sibling company*
MT @DylanByers: @FareedZakaria plagiarized. Period. http://t.co/5ApwCgwvco via @politico
— Raju Narisetti (@raju) September 17, 2014
It's almost as if Dylan Byers writes the things that Fox News wants to see written. Certainly, the work he is doing on the O'Reilly story advances the interpretations that the Fox News PR department wants advanced.
By Byers' own semantic standards, then, it would be accurate to say that Dylan Byers works for Fox PR.
[Photo via Getty]
Hard to believe it, but it's true: movie star Cameron Diaz has been married to Joel Madden's brother Benji Madden for almost two months
Benji shared the up-close look at his new ~`*~~Cameron~~*`~ tattoo and old (?) gold tooth on Instagram today with this caption: "Thinking bout you <3 <3 <3 #LuckyMan."
Lucky, indeed. Lucky in the sense that Benji already has so many tattoos, covering up one name six to nine months from now will be relatively easy. Just paint over it with something else you like, my friend. That "C" right there looks like a lima bean—why not turn it into the start of a darling garden? Or how about those squiggles at the end? You could fill those in all blue and white, like waves crashing on the beach of the vacation destination you should definitely hole up in for a few weeks when this all falls apart. Even that little "e" in the middle looks like a pretty lady's eyelashes—why not turn it into the face of the next gal you meet?
(Don't worry, man. You'll meet one.)
Have you ever modified your body in a way you later came to regret?
[Photo via Instagram]
Bikram yoga, a popular brand of super-hot yoga run by a Speedo-sporting, hip-thrusting alleged sex guru, is experiencing a crisis of faith as multiple sexual assault lawsuits move forward against its figurehead and namesake, Bikram Choudhury. The New York Times reports hot yoga studios are dropping their Bikram branding due to the six civil suits now pending against him, the most recent of which was filed just a week ago.
Although Choudhury has never been criminally charged with sexual assault, he's faced public accusations since 2013. Multiple lawsuits allege he has "a propensity to sexually assault young women," and is surrounded by an inner circle that both knows about and enables the abuse. Two of the women suing him allege he raped them at teacher training sessions, one as far back as 2005.
About those training sessions: Teacher candidates who sign up for the nine-week classes are allegedly told what they can eat, how to speak, what facial expressions they can make, and what to wear—which is not much. One yoga teacher who went through Choudhury's very expensive course described it to the Times as "cultish" experience with students clamoring for the guru's attention. She said it consisted of:
marathon yoga practice in a roasting room, rote memorization of a yoga script to which teachers had to adhere, what she described as rambling lectures led by Mr. Choudhury and mandatory viewings of Bollywood movies until 3 a.m. She and other teacher trainees frequently massaged Mr. Choudhury as he sat in an oversize chair on stage before rows of pupils.
She's since removed "Bikram" from her studio name, and the Times suggests she's not alone: Many studios are distancing themselves from the charges against the face of Bikram, if not from his technique of performing 26 poses in a 100-degree room.
Sarah Baughn, the first accuser to come forward
The most recent former student to file suit against Choudhury, Jill Lawler, says he groped her at a 2010 training after she massaged him "for hours" during one of those Bollywood movie marathons.
She says he apologized afterward, promising to "make her a champion," and then raped her in his hotel room weeks later. That was the first of many alleged sexual assaults, which her suit asserts continued through 2013.
Lawler wanted to leave after that first groping incident, but felt committed to the training because she'd invested $10,000 from her college fund to pay the $12,500 tuition.
Both of the women mentioned in the Times story have since quit teaching yoga, and Baughn says she no longer even practices.
In a statement, Choudhury denied all of the allegations against him and asserted that he's not the predatory devil in charge of a nightmarish yoga hell:
"Their claims are false and dishonor Bikram yoga and the health and spiritual benefits it has brought to the lives of millions of practitioners throughout the world," the statement said. "After a thorough investigation, the Los Angeles County district attorney declined to file any sexual assault charges against Mr. Choudhury or the college for lack of evidence."
Over the past several months, as the culture of brutality at Rikers Island has become harder and harder to ignore, New York's corrections department has gestured toward reform. Incompetent officials resigning,
The New York Times' Michael Winerip and Michael Schwirtz, whose coverage—along with a federal investigation in August—has been instrumental in raising the curtain on Rikers violence, report that even as the de Blasio administration has publicly touted its own commitment to prison reform, violence at the prison complex has persisted "largely unabated."
The Times' brutal findings:
Seventy percent of the 62 beatings examined by The Times resulted in head injuries, even though department policies direct guards to avoid blows to the head unless absolutely necessary. And more than half the inmates sustained broken bones.
In October, a typical month, one inmate had his jaw shattered by a guard after being handcuffed and led into an elevator; another had his arm broken while handcuffed; and a third had three teeth knocked out.
The Times also identified 30 episodes from August to January in which officers suffered serious injuries in altercations with inmates. While most of the inmates involved sustained head injuries, nearly half the guards fractured bones in their hands and fingers, often after striking inmates in the head.
Guadalupe's altercation with correction officers started innocuously, with a disagreement over personal photos he had hung on the wall of his cell.
During a search in September, the guards tore down photos of his family, along with pictures of women he had cut out of magazines, he said in a telephone interview from Fishkill Correctional Facility. When he asked to see a supervisor, Mr. Guadalupe said, the officers pulled him into his cell, where there were no surveillance cameras, kicked and repeatedly punched him in the face and slammed his head against the wall.
The "August to January" distinction is important, because it means that these beatings happened after the federal investigation, after much of the Times' own reporting, and—in the case of violence that happened between November and January—after de Blasio publicly acknowledged that the prison "deeply needs a culture change." "Taken together," Winerip and Schwritz write of their findings, "they suggest that in the face of an unprecedented push to reform Rikers, guards are either being defiant or are indifferent to demands for change."
Reform doesn't happen overnight, especially in an organization as large and historically corrupt as Rikers. But whatever the city is doing to change things, it isn't working.
[Image via AP]
Anne Schuchat, the director of the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, has strenuously denied that there is any evidence supporting claims of a connection between the United States' recent measles outbreak
Speaking in an online forum hosted by the National Press Foundation, Schuchat said, "I know that immigration is a complicated issue and people have strong feelings about it."
Earlier this month, Representative Mo Brooks, a Republican from Alabama said, "I don't think there is any health care professional who has examined the facts who could honestly say that Americans have not died because the disease is brought into America by illegal aliens who are not properly health care screened, as lawful immigrants are."
"Unfortunately, our kids just aren't prepared for a lot of the diseases that come in and are borne by illegal aliens," Brooks claimed.
However, the Guardian reports, according to World Health Organization estimates, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador all have greater rates of measles coverage than the United States.
Schuchat explicitly denied any evidence supporting a connection between undocumented immigrants from these countries and the outbreak in the United States. "In fact, this outbreak associated with the Disney park, the U.S. exported measles virus to Mexico, so we see the virus unfortunately going the other direction," she said. "It's really important for people in every region to have access to vaccines."
Later, Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, asked Schuchat if some immigrants might have "fallen through the cracks," the Guardian reports. Schuchat observed that the outbreak is not spreading along the United States' border with Mexico, however, but in "some of the wealthier communities
Correction, 8:25 p.m. – An earlier version of this post misidentified
[Photo credit: AP Images]
Aaron Schock, GOP boy wonder, might soon have some problems that are much larger than office decorations
AP writers Jack Gillum and Stephen Braun say they cross-referenced metadata taken from Schock's Instagram account with reports filed by his office. Here is their methodology in their own words:
The AP tracked Schock's reliance on the aircraft partly through the congressman's penchant for uploading pictures and videos of himself to his Instagram account. The AP extracted location data associated with each image then correlated it with flight records showing airport stopovers and expenses later billed for air travel against Schock's office and campaign records.
And now the fun stuff.
According to Gillum and Braun, a Schock PAC called "GOP Generation Y" (young people love PACs) has billed itself over $24,000 in the last four-plus years for various concerts, including: $13,000 for various country music events, $4,700 to a ticket brokerage called SitClose.com, $3,000 to the organization that put on the Global Citizen Festival (headlined by Jay Z) and $1,928 to Stubhub, which the AP connects to a Katy Perry concert in Washington from last summer.
Do you think Aaron Schock enjoys Katy Perry? I bet he does.
Aside from entertainment—and $1,400 sent to a massage parlor last October—the AP alleges that Schock spent at least $40,000 of his donors' money on private airfare. Here are Gillum and Braun explaining the congressional rules that govern using campaign money for airfare:
Lawmakers can use office funds for private flights as long as payments cover their share of the costs. But most of the flights Schock covered with office funds occurred before the House changed its rules in January 2013. The earlier rules prohibited lawmakers from using those accounts to pay for flights on private aircraft, allowing payments only for federally licensed charter and commercial flights.
According to the reports filed by Schock, the various concerts and such were "fundraising events"—including one called "Schocktoberfest," which is a cool thing that millennials know about, held at a brewery—and his travel was for official Congressional business such as stumping for his fellow but perhaps less camera friendly Republicans.
Nonetheless, despite the AP's thorough reporting, using donor funds to fly private jets falls on the milder end of the political scandal spectrum. In quotes given to the AP, Schock's office seems to be readying a strategy to write all this off as a series of paperwork errors, though that could be complicated by an earlier ethics inquiry that stems from his fundraising methods.
And, really, if you're a rich person who gave money to Aaron Schock and then became pissed because he used it to go see Katy Perry, the joke would be on you.
[image of Schock at the Global Citizen Festiva via Getty]
A tanker truck carrying around 8,000 gallons of gasoline overturned and exploded on a highway in Pennsauken, N.J. Monday morning, CBS Philly reports. The driver escaped with minor injuries.
According to CBS Philly, the Delaware River Port Authority said the fire was extinguished in about 30 minutes. 200 gallons of gas reportedly remained, which were moved to another tanker.
CBS has aerial footage of the blaze:
The crash happened around 11 a.m. Monday morning. Pennsauken Police Captain Michael Probasco told NBC10 that the driver, Brian Ervin, lost control of the truck while navigating a ramp.
"I heard a big bang and felt it," Bob Ried, who was driving near the truck when it exploded, told CBS Philly. "I didn't see the truck… all I saw was flames. It felt like a bomb went off."
"It was pretty crazy," he said.
[Image via CBS Philly]
Attention all MH370 conspiracy theorists: The journalist Jeff Wise has a big essay in New York magazine detailing his personal theory for why the aircraft disappeared
Ben Woolf, an actor on American Horror Story, has died, the Associated Press reports. Woolf was hospitalized last week after being struck by a car.
Publicist Zack Teperman told the AP that the 4'4" actor's family was at his side when he died Monday afternoon at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
The AP reports that the driver stopped at the scene on Thursday night after Woolf was struck by the car's side mirror. TMZ reported that cops said they didn't ticket the driver because Woolf was jaywalking at the time.
Woolf was 34. He had been an American Horror Story cast member since 2011.
Officials announced that evidence from 6,663 untested rape kits in Houston has produced 850 hits in the FBI's national DNA database, the Associated Press reports. Charges have already been filed against 29 people since the $6 million effort to clear the backlog was launched in 2013.
According to the AP, testing of the thousands of kits, some nearly three decades old, was completed in the fall. "This milestone is of special importance to rape survivors and their families and friends because it means their cases are receiving the attention they should have years ago," Mayor Annise Parker said.
Of those charged, six are alleged to have committed other rapes while their DNA went untested, the Houston Chronicle reports. "It did happen unfortunately," District Attorney Devon Anderson said. "We are eagerly looking forward to prosecuting those rapists, those repeat rapists."
[Image via Shutterstock]
The three Los Angeles Police Department officers who shot and killed Brian Beaird after a car chase on live television
The Times reports that district attorney Jackie Lacey found "insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt" that the officers "did not act in self-defense and in defense of others," according to a January 29th letter released Monday.
Baird's 80-year-old father, who watched on live television as his son was gunned down, filed a $20 million claim against the LAPD in 2013. In August, the City Council approved a $5 million settlement.
According to the Times, however, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck determined late last year that officers Armando Corral, Leonardo Ortiz, and Michael Ayala had violated department rules when they fired 20 rounds at Bearid as he emerged from his crashed Corvette. Beck rejected the officers' claims that they felt their lives were in danger, the Times reports.
An LAPD spokesman told the paper that the officers had been relieved of duty without pay and were awaiting disciplinary action.
[Image via PoliceMag.com]
In the course of doubling down on his widely
During a phone conversation on Monday, O'Reilly told Times media reporter Emily Steel that there would be consequences if he didn't like the way the story she was writing came out.
"I am coming after you with everything I have," O'Reilly said. "You can take it as a threat."
Steel shares a byline on the story with Ravi Somaiya, but Somaiya gave her credit on Twitter for the quote.
[Photo credit: AP Images]