The first mention of Donald Trump in the New York Times was on October 17, 1973, in a front-page story on a Department of Justice lawsuit against Trump and his father, charging them with violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1968: “Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City.”

Today the NBA played the league’s first-ever game in Africa, pitting “Team World” against “Team Africa” in Johannesburg. The game—which managed to be largely boring, yet still a breath of fresh air in the final dog days of summer—was won by Team World, 101-97, and featured one nostalgic and genuinely cool moment when Hakeem Olajuwon and Dikembe Mutombo (who are 52 and 49, respectively) suited up in retro uniforms and took the court. The duo got a standing ovation. Olajuwon even scored, using his marquee move, the Dream Shake, to hit a jumper over Nikola Vucevic.

The moment wasn’t cool because we got to see them suit up again; if I want to see a couple of middle-aged men play basketball with some young guys, I’ll go to the Y. What it did, at least for me, was remind me of my first memories of watching Olajuwon play—which, oddly, are some of my first basketball memories. I’m 21 years old.

The main reason I know of Hakeem Olajuwon better than most old basketball players is from all the time I’ve spent watching old clips from the 1983 NCAA tournament. That’s the year my team, N.C. State, upset Olajuwon’s “Phi Slamma Jamma” Houston squad. (Thats still the coolest unofficial team nickname in sports.) It’s in the NBA that Olajuwon became a legend, but his college days are what stick out to me.

Obviously, the title game is my personal favorite from the tournament, but it was the semifinal—in which Houston and Louisville played at an insane back-and-forth pace for 40 minutes until the Cougars finally pulled away to win 94-81—that best shows what Olajuwon was capable of already at just 20 years old.

It’s Saturday, so if you don’t have anything else to do (or even if you do) I highly suggest you watch this game. You’ll get to see Houston play the truly beautiful transition basketball it was famous for, and you can see young Hakeem just dominate what was actually a very good Louisville team. Albeit, this is college basketball, but look at Olajuwon on the boards. He finished with a cool 21 points and 22 (!) rebounds against the No. 1-seed Cardinals that night.

Having spent all my 21 years reading about and watching this single tournament, I feel confident in saying Phi Slamma Jamma was the greatest team in college basketball to not win a title. With a roster filled by Olajuwon, Clyde “The Glide” Drexler, Michael “Silent Assassin” Young, and Benny “The Bomber From Bernice” Anders, the Cougars lost just eight games throughout the 1983 and 1984 seasons. They had a shot at title both years, but were famously upset by Lorenzo Charles and the Wolfpack in 1983, and edged out by Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in 1984, after which Olajuwon bolted for the NBA.

Of course, it’s hard to feel bad for them considering Olajuwon and Drexler ended up having amazing NBA careers, which is the reason we still talk about the Houston teams today. But even in the college tapes, you can see flashes of the moves Olajuwon would use to lead the Houston Rockets to two NBA titles. Who knew something as simple as pivoting could make grown men look like little babies? Hakeem, that’s who. And he knew it from the start.

Photo: AP

A lion named Jericho, who CNN had reported dead on Saturday, is not dead, but is—thank goodness—still alive.http://gawker.com/cnn-cecil-the-...

The Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority released statement Saturday morning confirming Jericho’s state-of-being along with a current photograph, taken by researcher Brent Stapelkamp.

CNN had originally reported that Jericho and Cecil the lion were brothers, and that Jericho had taken over the latter’s pride after he was shot and killed by a dentist last weekend. The wildlife authority’s statement clarifies this: “It is important to note that Jericho is a ‘coalition’ partner to Cecil and not a blood related sibling.”

Jericho.....is Alive and well. Seen him at 07:06 Zimbabwe time.Log onto WILDCRU website soon for photo

August 2, 2015

The Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WILDCRU) also released a statement:

Many people have asked if Jericho and Cecil were brothers. They were not related though their bond was one close to brotherhood. Male lions often form what are termed co-operative ‘coalitions’ with unrelated males in order to better compete with other males for territories and prides. In fact 42% of male lion coalitions are genetically unrelated, though larger coalitions tend to be brothers or half-brothers.

On Facebook, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, who had incorrectly confirmed Jericho’s death yesterday to CNN and a number of other outlets, attributed their error to a case of “mistaken identity.” These things happen.

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

When hitchBOT the hitchhiking robot started his journey in Boston two weeks ago he wanted to see the entire country. Unfortunately, he never made it out of the Northeast. The researchers who built hitchBOT announced today that they need to stop the experiment because hitchBOT was vandalized in Philadelphia.

From the researchers who built hitchBOT:

hitchBOT’s trip came to an end last night in Philadelphia after having spent a little over two weeks hitchhiking and visiting sites in Boston, Salem, Gloucester, Marblehead, and New York City. Unfortunately, hitchBOT was vandalized overnight in Philadelphia; sometimes bad things happen to good robots. We know that many of hitchBOT’s fans will be disappointed, but we want them to be assured that this great experiment is not over. For now we will focus on the question “what can be learned from this?” and explore future adventures for robots and humans.

The goal of the hitchhiking trip was to see how humans would interact with hitchBOT. And apparently the answer was “not well.” HitchBOT has been around the world, including trips across the entirety of Canada and Germany without major incident. But America is clearly a hard land for our robot brothers and sisters.

Update, August 2nd: Canadian journalist Lauren O’Neil has posted this photo of hitchBOT, which appears to show how he was found in Philly. His head is missing and his arms were ripped off.

Sadly, hitchBOT never made it very far, as you can see from the map of his American travels below:

No word on whether his trademark “wellies” were stolen, but based on the photo below, it looks like the damage was mostly to hitchBOT’s head, which appears to be missing. [Update: For whatever reason, that photo has been taken down]

So my buddy just picked up #hitchBOTinUSA In philly and his electronics are gone along with his head. pic.twitter.com/nXIDlNPkqo

August 1, 2015

It’s unclear whether the Canadian researchers who built hitchBOT have plans to repair him and put him back out on the road. According to their website, they’ll be giving interviews starting tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll learn more then. In the meantime, America should sit in the corner and think about what it’s done to poor hitchBOT.

Oh dear, my body was damaged, but I live on with all my friends. Sometimes bad things happen to good robots! #hitchBOTinUSA

August 1, 2015

Update August 2nd: The people thought to have last seen hitchBOT in one piece were video bloggers from BFvGF on Friday. You can fast forward to 7:30 in the video to see where they pick up hitchBOT in Philly.

If you know who may have harmed hitchBOT please email: novak@gizmodo.com.

Image: AP Photo/Stephan Savoia

Officials said Sunday that a manhunt was underway after a Memphis police officer was shot and killed on Saturday night during a traffic stop, the Associated Press reports.

In a statement, Memphis police identified the officer as 33-year-old Sean Bolton.

According to the AP, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said during a news conference that police had been alerted around 9:18 p.m. on Saturday night that an officer had been shot. Police said that a civilian had used Bolton’s radio to notify police.

The suspect is on the run, the AP reports. Police have not yet made an arrest.

Image via Fox 13. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

“In the protests that have followed police shootings, demonstrators have often asked why officers are so rarely punished for shootings that seem unwarranted. Dr. Lewinski is part of the answer.”

The Times has a story today about Millennials embracing co-living spaces—basically just a euphemism for having more roommates than is healthy—focusing on something called Pure House. (What a name!) One of Pure House’s tenants is a man named Russell Jackson, who is 52 years old—not a Millennial.

Stripped of marketing language, Pure House is basically a landlord that owns several apartments in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, renting them out at a relatively high density—the Times reports that Pure House rents rooms in nine apartments to about 40 people—with a relatively low barrier to entry: no credit checks, no salary requirements.

(Honestly, this isn’t the worst thing in the world. However, given the strenuousness of New York City’s illegal-hotel laws—an obstacle that other real estate disruptors have already faced—it may be illegal. We’ll see!)

Pure House isn’t the only proprietor of co-living arrangements, and the Times frames this as a trend driven by Millennials’ propensity for sharing and shifting expectations for privacy. But! One of the people living in a Pure House apartment is not a Millennial but a 52-year-old man.

This doesn’t necessarily debunk the trend (lol) but it is... something:

Russell Jackson relinquished a studio six months ago to live in a six-bedroom Pure House apartment with a rotating cast (he presently has three flat mates). “I’m getting exposure to stuff and things that I would not have had sequestered on the Upper West Side,” said Mr. Jackson, a 52-year-old chef.

“Laundry services and cleaners and masseuses — all of that is icing,” he said. The real perks are the people he has met along the way. “How cool is it that I walk in the door and they ask me, ‘How’s your day?’ And I am genuinely interested in hearing from them,” said Mr. Jackson, who considers himself the Den Dad to the other tenants, who generally are two or three decades his junior and stay a month or two at a time.

Mr. Jackson, who has appeared on “Iron Chef America,” also orchestrates Pure House’s food events, including its pop-up dinner parties. At one such party, none of the 30 guests knew one another, but most embraced when the night was over, Mr. Jackson recalled.

Russell! You had a studio on the Upper West Side! What happened!

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

As expected, Ronda Rousey dominated her Brazilian challenger Bethe Correia tonight, winning by a brutal knockout in just 34 seconds. Rousey dedicated her fight to the late “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.

She’s still the UFC bantamweight champion, and will be until she decides she doesn’t want it anymore. http://deadspin.com/there-will-nev...

To contact the author of this post, write to tim@deadspin.com (PGP key) or find him on Twitter @bubbaprog.

Bobby Brown’s sister Leolah was escorted from her niece Bobbi Kristina’s memorial service on Saturday after lashing out verbally at Pat Houston, former manager and sister-in-law to Bobbi Kristina’s mother Whitney Houston.

According to the Associated Press, Leolah Brown told reporters outside the church that she was angry over some of the things Houston said inside. “I told her that Whitney is going to haunt her from the grave,” Brown said, calling Pat Houston a “phony” and not a “blood relative.”

TMZ reports that security removed Brown from the church, and Tyler Perry helped calm the situation.

“It’s just getting started,” Brown told reporters. This is the latest skirmish in a long-standing feud between the families of Bobbi Kristina’s mother and father.

In January, Bobbi Kristina was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in the Atlanta home she shared with Nick Gordon, whom her mother had adopted and raised, and who Bobbi Kristina called her husband. Police are investigating the incident as a drowing, the AP reports, and Leolah Brown said she believes Gordon was somehow involved.

According to Extra, Leolah Brown also implied that Pat Houston—who organized the memorial service on Saturday—may have had something to do with her niece’s death:

“... This was not something that just happens, okay? This is going to be connected. Okay, yes—I’m angry at Nick [Gordon], I’m angry at what happened to my niece, but Pat had something to do with it.”

Claiming to have “information, knowledge, and evidence” of “who Pat Houston is,” Brown promised she will continue speaking out and said she will give interviews on the subject.

On Friday, TMZ reported that invitations to the memorial service suggested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to Pat Houston’s charity group The Marion P. Foundation.

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

Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones spent Saturday dressed in their Ghostbusters costumes, visiting patients at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center. Being nice to sick children is generally part and parcel of that whole “being human” thing; and making the rounds in superhero costume is a pretty standard celebrity box to check (remember when Chris Evans and Chris Pratt did this and the internet went insane?).

But since McCarthy, Wiig, McKinnon and Jones are women who are ruining a beloved franchise, they continue to be worthy of scorn, as does Tufts Medical Center. Tufts posted perfectly delightful photographs on their Facebook page and Ghostbusters truthers descended on photographs of hospitalized children to express their displeasure.

This morning Tufts had to remind the angry men frothing in Facebook comments over the ruination of Ghostbusters that “any comments with profanity would be deleted.” Seriously dudes, let it go. [E!; Facebook]

Even in death Bobbi Kristina Brown can’t seem to get any peace. During her funeral on Saturday morning her paternal aunt, Leolah Brown, was temporarily removed from the services after yelling at Pat Houston. “Whitney is rolling over in her grave! You are so wrong for this, Pat,” Leolah allegedly yelled during the funeral. Sources say she was accompanied out by Tyler Perry and eventually allowed to return to the services. According to Us Weekly, the fight stems from disagreements over who will control Bobbi Kristina’s estate. [Us Weekly]

PBS announced that, after the Ben Affleck fiasco, they would not continue with a third season of Finding Your Roots “until necessary staffing changes, including the hiring of a fact-checker.” PBS CEO Paula Kerger called the decision to remove references to Affleck’s slave-owning family a “teaching moment,” and reiterated her commitment to bringing the show, hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., back to the air. In addition to discussing the suspension of Finding Your Roots, PBS announced that the channel would produce a Civil War drama starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Josh Radnor. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Mel B. wants—she really, really wants—a Spice Girls reunion. [Gossip Cop]
  
• Valerie Harper said in an update that she was not in a coma despite earlier rumors. “As anyone who has taken strong medication knows, it doesn’t always agree with you, even with me as this experience proves,” Harper wrote on her Facebook page. [Us Weekly]
  
• Norman Lear is working on a reboot of One Day at a Time. The leads will be replaced with three Latinas since Lear wants to show “three generations.” So...it will be Jane the Virgin without Rogelio? [Associated Press]
  
• Kim Kardashian is a soccer mom. [Us Weekly]
  
• Ian McShane is going to be in Season 6 of Game of Thrones. [Entertainment Weekly]
  
• John Green defends the beautifully eyebrowed Cara Delevingne. [Page Six]
  

Images via Tufts Medical Center and Getty.

After racist Truther status updates were found on his Facebook, part-time Donald Trump advisor Sam Nunberg “is no longer affiliated” with the leading Republican presidential candidate’s campaign. Nunberg had been rehired after resigning last year, following his coordination of a disastrous Buzzfeed profile.

At a conference on Saturday, billionaire conservative puppeteer Charles Koch challenged around 450 fundraisers to advocate for the end of “corporate cronyism.” Hmm. What’s the play here, Charles?

Politico reports that the event took place at the St. Regis Monarch Beach luxury resort, south of Los Angeles. According to the AP, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and former technology executive Carly Fiorina, both presidential hopefuls, were in attendance.

“Where I believe we need to start in reforming welfare is eliminating welfare for the wealthy,” Koch said. (What.) “This means stopping the subsidies, mandates and preferences for business that enrich the haves at the expense of the have nots.” (What.)

Koch asked those in attendance to end “corporate welfare,” which is “creating a permanent underclass, crippling our economy and corrupting the business community—present company excepted, of course.” (Haha—what.)

The Koch brothers’ network of donors plans to spend upwards of $889 million on the upcoming presidential election, the AP reports. “I wish the whole world could see what goes on here,” Koch said. As do we! However, according to Politico, this was the first time mainstream media reporters were permitted inside the twice-annual “donor seminar,” on the condition that those present not be named without their permission.

Possibly this is an effort at softening the Koch brothers’ image as greedy robber barons who will go to any length to roll back government regulation that might impede their accumulation of wealth. Then again, what do they care? They’re rich beyond all imagining. Still, it costs Charles Koch nothing to pander a little bit, and if they—or Republican strategists—imagine that it will get a GOP candidate into office, then so be it.

(In an interview with USA Today in April, Koch scoffed at the idea that he and his brothers’ political involvement had anything to do with making money at all: “We are doing all of this to make more money?” he said. “I mean, that is so ludicrous.” Ludicrous is certainly one word for it.)

Still, a glimmer of honesty shines through the rhetoric. In the effort to end a “two-tiered society,” Koch said on Saturday that it is necessary to encourage “principled entrepreneurship.” Ohh, right. Capitalism for everyone!

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

This may be the only exciting piece of government paperwork you’ll ever read. Buzz Aldrin conquered Throwback Thursday forever last week when he shared his travel voucher from the Apollo 11 mission on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s an unassuming document: a travel voucher for Col. Edwin E. Aldrin for a round trip originating in Houston, Texas. But the whole story of the most historic space mission to date is right there, listed matter-of-factly as a series of destinations in the right-hand column of the first page: Cape Kennedy, Florida; Moon; Pacific Ocean (USN Hornet); and Hawaii.

On the next page, the voucher spells out the details of travel arrangements for a business trip to the Moon. Aldrin drove his own car from his residence to Ellington Air Force Base outside Houston, Texas. From there to Cape Kennedy, he flew on a government aircraft. Nothing unusual so far, but you’ve got to wonder what the typist thought while typing out the next two lines:

• Cape Kennedy, Florida to Moon: Government Spacecraft
  
• Moon to Cape Kennedy, Florida: Government Spacecraft
  

The form also notes that “Government meals and quarters [were] furnished for all of the above dates.” NASA really thought of everything.

[Buzz Aldrin]

Contact the author at k.smithstrickland@gmail.com.

“Calling practically all growing contemporary businesses ‘technology companies’ is about as useful as calling the enterprises of the industrial era ‘factory companies.’” Everything is tech and nothing is.

A teenage girl died on Sunday of injuries sustained when an anti-gay extremist stabbed her and several others during an attack on Jerusalem’s gay pride parade last week, the Associated Press reports.http://gawker.com/a-despicable-h...

Sixteen-year-old Shira Banki died on Sunday, a spokeswoman for the Hadassah Medical Center said. Her organs will be donated.

Six people were wounded Thursday by Yishai Schlissel, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man recently released from prison. Haaretz reports that Schlissel had been serving a 10-year sentence after comitting a similar attack at the 2005 pride parade, when he stabbed three people.

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

In her Saturday op-ed column, New York Times writer Maureen Dowd reported that Joe Biden is thinking about running for the Democratic nomination. According to Dowd, Biden’s decision was prompted by the dying wish of his son, Beau Biden.

Dowd writes:

“Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.

[...]

When Beau was dying, the family got rubber bracelets in blue — his favorite color — that said ‘WWBD,’ What Would Beau Do, honoring the fact that Beau was a stickler for doing the right thing.

Joe Biden knows what Beau wants. Now he just has to decide if it’s who he is.”

Once the entire media finished wiping the tears from their hardened eyes, they rushed to confirm whether or not Biden is actively considering a run. The general consensus: Biden has resumed talks that were put on the backburner while Beau Biden was sick. The Associated Press reports that Biden is likely to make a final decision in September.

Also part of the consensus: Biden is likely to cause concern for Hillary Clinton.

Via the AP:

“The renewed focus on Biden comes amid some signs of weakness for Clinton, including declines in her favorability ratings among voters in recent polling. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination, has been attracting large crowds with his liberal economic message, evidence of a hunger within the party for an alternative to Clinton’s candidacy.”

That insider’s sentiment was echoed in a separate report from the New York Times:

“The support Mr. Biden has garnered speaks to growing concerns among Democrats that Mrs. Clinton could lose in Iowa and New Hampshire, as the populist message of one of her opponents, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, draws swelling crowds.”

But who knows what will happen; the 2016 election is still 463 long days away.

Image via Getty.

Congratulations to Kim Jong-un, this year’s recipient of the Sukarno Center’s “Global Statesman” award. Past recipients include Mahatma Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi (a political dissident turned Myanmar’s opposition leader), and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea.

A wildfire has burned through nearly 46,000 acres and closed two highways north in Lake County, north of San Francisco, The Guardian reports. A firefighter was killed in a second fire, near the border with Oregon.

According to The Guardian, the Rocky fire, along northern California’s inland coastal range, had grown in size by about 20,000 acres since Saturday. It has destroyed 50 buildings, including 24 homes, and still threatens more than 6,000.

The fire broke out on Wednesday and was only 5% contained by Sunday. Around 12,000 people are being evacuated or have been evacuated from the area.

The Frog fire, which killed a firefighter on Thursday and has grown to 3,000 acres, is also about 5% contained.

The firefighter, 38-year-old David Ruhl, died in the Modoc National Forest. Forest spokesman Ken Sandusky said Ruhl died alone, which, as an incident commander on the fire, was not unusual. He declined to release further details on Ruhl’s death.

All photo credits: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Men: What are they thinking? And where do they get off? More specifically, why do they always think you like them or want them when you don’t? And conversely, why don’t they know when you actually do like them, either? Join me as we keep chipping away at this riddle of the ages.

If you’re a woman, your life is likely filled with a slew of men who mistakenly thought you wanted them when you didn’t. The first time it happened you were probably a mixture of flattered and confused. You might’ve even gone back over everything you did or said wondering where the mistake came. Why did that guy think you were interested when you weren’t? Were you simply “too friendly”? Did you mistakenly act more interested than you meant? Should you “dial it down” next time? Act less enthusiastic? Be more rude? Is it even possible to flirt in a way that also signals you don’t want to actually go out? What is to be done?

While these sorts of misfires are common, it is usually fairly innocuous, part and parcel of being in the world, interacting with others. People approach other people all the time only to get rejected. People mistakenly think someone who is straight is gay, or vice versa, single when married, taken when available. In any situation where there is potential for confusion, said confusion will transpire in one way or another eventually.

But there’s a more complex side to this, which is that wherever there is a situation between a man and a woman, that situation is often potentially sexual, whether you want it to be or not. This can be thrilling or terrifying, and everything in between, depending on the person, the situation, and the respective desires of both.

On some level this is part of the risk of being alive everyone undertakes. But taken together, women’s stories paint a picture of a lifetime of intrusive advances, catcalls, or attempts at taking a relationship romantic or sexual (or worse) that they must learn to navigate in their own way. It then becomes part of the burden of existing while female.

And while, as I’ve mentioned, this is mostly innocuous, it can manifest in terrible ways. Case in point: Famous alleged rapist Bill Cosby’s 2006 deposition admission that he is “skilled” in picking up on nonverbal cues. The New York Times reported:

[Cosby] suggested he was skilled in picking up the nonverbal cues that signal a woman’s consent.

“I think I’m a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things, whatever you want to call them,” he said.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Cosby’s monstrousness—drugging and raping dozens of women—is on par with the average dude who doesn’t get that you really don’t want to date him so he keeps calling, or keeps texting, or comes to your work three times asking for you after you’ve already said no.

But I’m saying all of it exists under the same giant umbrella of what we might think of when it comes to men vs women, how they are “different,” and how we culturally condition, portray, and encourage the genders to act toward each other when it comes to getting together, and how it can be totally toxic, and breed awful misunderstandings.

It starts with the first time dudes check you out, and continues unabated until you show the telltale signs of aging that signal your last day of fuckability. And in between are the stories—the guys who just didn’t get that you weren’t into them. The dude you waited on at your waitressing job who thought you liked him. Your male friend who really thinks he and the stripper had “a thing.” The older accomplished man in your career you seek out for advice who assumes you want an affair. And there are studies, too.

Some find that men simply can’t distinguish between friendliness and sexual interest, and err on the side of the latter (convenient!). But often they err on the side of the former, too, when you’re doing everything to convince them otherwise. Maybe they are just bad at reading other people, period.

Well, women specifically. In one study, researchers found that the amygdala in men was more active when looking into the eyes of other men over those of women. They concluded that men were either conditioned or hard-wired to either ignore women more or read men better, probably both. In a study on sexual misinterpretation, researchers claimed that the universal practice of men thinking you wanted some of that D was about evolutionary adaptation, i.e., men need to fuck you to spread the seed, so it’s hardwired into them to keep trying no matter what. I argued then that this is a copout answer that doesn’t account for the pervasive conditioning that encourages men to pursue women in spite of their seeming indifference, and it’s the same case I’ll make here:

The very idea of romantic masculinity, at least in the most generic sense that most of us see in popular culture and various normalizing institutions, is so strongly rooted in a man getting a woman to “give it up.” A man not only chooses a potential mate, but all the momentum is up to him, too: He asks her out, pursues her, makes her his, wins her over, decides when it’s serious, even if it means competing against another man for her hand.

In many depictions of falling in love, especially in romantic movies, the woman resists her suitor purely out of obligation to her social role—she pretends not to like him, pretends she could not care less. Hell, even books like The Rules told women, ultimately, to do one thing to make sure a guy stays interested in them: Act busy. All of this sets men up to think of women as naturally resisting male charm until they are worn down, and themselves as eager pursuers, ignoring disinterest and carving an alternate path to her heart, be it boombox, fake identity, time travel, or any number of other batshit, stalky things male romantic heroes do in movies to win women over who’ve said no thanks.

All this said, I’m not unsympathetic to men, who are given these messages again and again, often from women themselves. In a recent sex diary over at New York Magazine, the anonymous author details her jam-packed week of boning a variety of men at her leisure and some of the attendant complications logistically and otherwise that ensue, before remarking:

I wish every girl knew the power of ignoring, or not giving a shit about the men in their life. It works like magic.

But which kind of magic—magic like he won’t leave you alone, or magic like he will?

And this is not to suggest that women can’t pester men and misread signals. They can; they do. But generally speaking, most men don’t fear women physically—though there are plenty of exceptions. I often wonder why we can’t simply be more direct in these situations—after all, other studies insist that these gender differences are wildly exaggerated anyway.

Why couldn’t a man say, for instance, that he really likes you and gets the feeling you like him back, but, hey, he could be wrong. Then you could say you did or didn’t share his interest. And that would be that. I can’t decide what is sadder: That this is so simple, or that it’s so unlikely.

Illustration by Jim Cooke.

Four people have died and dozens more have been sickened by a recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City, CNN reports.

“We are concerned about this unusual increase in Legionnaires’ disease cases in the South Bronx,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett in a statement. “We are conducting a swift investigation to determine the source of the outbreak and prevent future cases.”

According to The New York Times, 65 people in the area have contracted the flu-like illness since mid-July and 55 have been hospitalized. From NBC New York:

Legionnaires’ disease is caused by exposure to the bacteria Legionella; in most cases, people are exposed to the bacteria by inhaling contaminated aerosols from cooling towers, hot tubs, showers and faucets or drinking water.

Twenty-two buildings have been visited as “disease detectives” hunt for the source of the outbreak, the city said Friday. Seventeen of those buildings have cooling towers — three of those tested positive for Legionella, including one at Lincoln Hospital; one at Concourse Plaza, a shopping plaza; and one at the Opera House Hotel.

This weekend, Deputy Health Commissioner Dr. Jay Varma warned that it was “very possible” the number of infected could go up in the next seven days.

“We are also quite confident that after that time, the number of cases will go down,” Varma told WABC-TV. “We can never know for sure what the future holds and we are working very aggressively to make sure people at risk—people in senior centers, people at homeless shelters, people with other medical problems—get the message to pay attention to their health.”

Symptoms of the disease include fever, cough, chills and muscle aches.

[Image via Shutterstock]