Steve Dyer

Bae: Come over

Me: I can’t drive, I’m a turtle

Bae: Im off my period

Me: 

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book or two free gift subscriptions to the Dish. Have at it.

figgypuss:

should someone tell him or?

beyonce:

howtobeafuckinglady:

janemba:

xtjna:

jackanthonyfernandez:

yojesus:

fuck you flinchin’ for?

NOt the Solangecident being viral marketing for the now released “Run” video! Beyoncé her marketing muscle!!

PLEASE

OMG

BYE

waterking:

what the fuck

shittysurfer:

4gifs:

Flappy Bird simulator

We’ve gone too far

oknope:

lotoflivingtodo:

typac:

no thank you

GOOD FUCKING BYE TO THAT

OH MY GOD 

For all the cloudiness over the really real reasons that Jill Abramson was fired—because she was "brusque"! because she tried to secretly hire another co-managing editor to run digital! because her Times tattoo isn't large enough! not sexism!—there is at least one set of cold, hard data:

As executive editor, Abramson’s starting salary in 2011 was $475,000, compared to Keller’s salary that year, $559,000. Her salary was raised to $503,000, and—only after she protested—was raised again to $525,000. She learned that her salary as managing editor, $398,000, was less than that of the male managing editor for news operations, John Geddes. She also learned that her salary as Washington bureau chief, from 2000 to 2003, was a hundred thousand dollars less than that of her successor in that position, Phil Taubman. (Murphy would say only that Abramson’s compensation was “broadly comparable” to that of Taubman and Geddes.)

To say nothing of inflation. So yes, it is mysterious that the highest ranking woman in print journalism initially making nearly a hundred thousand dollars less than her male predecessor has become the cause célèbre of media.

The post Fun With New York Times Numbers appeared first on The Awl.

fish-dinner-connoisseur:

lightersandipods:

This is perfect.

geezyqueen

The Great State of Idaho holds its primary election next week, to decide which Republican candidates will beat some token Democrats in November. We have a true two-party system in this fine state: Conservative Republicans, and Insanely Conservative Republicans. And every four years, we get treated to the Republican debate, an event usually featuring a mainstream Republican, sometimes two, and any number of other candidates who somehow got enough signatures to get on the ballot. This time around, for the boring student council contingent, we had incumbent Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, who’s running for his third term, and State Sen. Russ Fulcher, who’s challenging from the right (and has the endorsement of tea party congresscritter Raul Labrador). Both of them are rightwing enough that in a normal setting, we might find something either said a little astonishing. But they actually seem like a couple of bland Rotarians in comparison to the two guys from Delta House: Perennial candidates Walt Bayes who likes the Bible a whole bunch (and once campaigned on a platform of separate bathrooms for straights and gays), and Harley Brown, a biker, former Navy Seabee, and all-around loony who is proud of his hilarious “Harleyisms,” which include some hilarious ethnic jokes — he doesn’t believe in “political correctness,” or any other kind, for that matter.

Missing from this year’s debate were other longtime Idaho “characters” Rex Rammell, who made a funny joke once about buying hunting tags for Obama season, and Pro Life, a gentleman who used to be Marvin Richardson but changed his name to the only issue that matters. (Pro-Life is running this year, but as an independent).

Just how nuts was the debate? Watch the highlight reel above. In the first few minutes of the debate, Harley Brown reminded viewers, “Don’t think I’m crazy, ’cause I’m not!” and Walt Bayes bragged that he’d been sent to jail for homeschooling his kids, but that they’d turned out OK: “I’ve got four sons that made rodeo cowboys, and one daughter.” He didn’t clarify whether she was a rodeo cowperson too, or if simply “daughter” was achievement enough. Bayes also warned America that we’re scheduled for our Divine Comeuppance: “I’m telling you folks, when you murder 56 million babies, you’re asking for our country to be demolished.”

Brown also went all Libertarian on the issue of same-sex marriage, which is quite the hot topic in Idaho at the moment:

“Discrimination! Let me tell you about discrimination. In 1990 — uh, belay that — in 1964, the blacks got the Civil Rights Act passed. We bikers! Discrimination? We are cop magnets, like a Playboy Bunny wearing’ a miniskirt gets hit on all the time! They pull us over without probable cause, and they bring up the sniffin’ dogs and they search us and our bikes, even when we’re not flyin’ our colors. If you’re a leather-clad Harley Davidson driver, you know, the cops are gonna zero in on you like a heat-seeking missile.

Okay. Discrimination. I used to drive taxis in Boise for 20 years. At night! And I’ve picked up my fair share of the gay community. And they have true love for one another. I’m tellin’ you, they love each other more than I love my motorcycle. And you know, they’re just as American as a Medal of Honor Winner. And, uh, liberty and justice for all! Equal protection under the law! I’m glad that judge made that decision, and I’m glad they wanna get married and live like that. I know I’m not really talkin’ like a Republican, but…

Belay that! Spoken like a true Seabee! Uh, Liberty and justice! And then his time ran out, and Walt Bayes read us the riot act about how Sodom and Gomorrah got exactly what they deserved, and that’s what God will do to Idaho too, probably.

We think maybe Otter and Fulcher may have said something about taxes and the oppressive hand of the federal government, too, but with a pair of Goofuses, we weren’t really listening to the Gallants. Below, the full hour of crazy, for your enjoyment, if that’s the word:

[Gawker / Slate / Idaho Public TV]

Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. He’s Idaho!

Tori Marlan discovered that “the rules that determine what babies can become citizens seem to be butting up against the modern circumstances under which Americans are having babies.” One example:

In Montreal, no official asked if my daughter came from my own egg because for heterosexual couples a genetic connection is usually presumed. That doesn’t hold true for same-sex couples.

After Laura Fielden, a U.S. citizen who lives in Spain, applied for citizenship for her daughter, an official asked for a hospital report to determine who was the mother. “I’m one of the mothers,” Fielden told the official. But her Spanish wife had been the one to give birth. Early in February, Fielden’s daughter was denied U.S. citizenship because the child didn’t have a genetic or gestational connection to her American parent.

Lisa Lynch, an American who lives in Montreal, also had to account for the circumstances of her daughter’s birth. But Lynch had a different outcome: After receiving an embryo transplant, Lynch’s Israeli wife gave birth to their daughter in Montreal. When Lynch applied for citizenship she was told her child had to be genetically American. “But my child is genetically American!” she told them. As it happened, an American couple had donated leftover embryos to the couple, and Lynch had the records to prove it, including receipts from the California clinic that had shipped the embryo to Montreal. “The consulate was sort of taken aback,” she says. Officials told Lynch they might need DNA proof from her donors; the couple was ready to comply.

"You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the state of its women"

Jill Abramson’s salary at the Times has been revealed and yes, it was lower than her male predecessor’s was.

Salary transparency can be tricky but is important for exactly this reason, argues Felix Salmon.

Here’s some (relatively recent) salary transparency, via NYMag. You’re welcome!

To Politico, the bottom line is clear: Abramson is NOT a feminist martyr.

The Washington Post politely suggests that she is. The Wire agrees, only with less politeness and more supernova-strength sarcasm:

Lesson: Don’t politely ask anyone anything. Stare at your male colleagues until you can see their last paycheck behind their eyes.

Lesson: Be confident, but definitely don’t ever argue with men in your office,especially if you’re their superior or they’re your superior.

Lesson: Before you Lean In, think about whether or not your male boss will be inconvenienced by that lean.

Politico, citing anonymous sources, calls the Washington Post and The Wire “pushy.”*

By the way, lest this fact get lost in the shuffle, Abramson was very good at her job:

Women are sometimes advised to keep a low profile and let their work “speak for itself.” But in Abramson’s case, eight Pulitzers did not speak loudly enough. Revenue growth did not speak loudly enough. Successful new digital products did not speak loudly enough.

Regardless, she has decided not to accept an honorary degree from Brandeis after all this spring, meaning poor Brandeis has now had two cancelations. Unless the students of Wake Forest object, though, she will be giving their commencement address as scheduled.

*Dramatization, may not have happened

In cheerier news, some nice college kids found $40,000 in a couch they had bought at a thrift store. As Upworthy would say, WHAT HAPPENED NEXT MIGHT SURPRISE YOU:

Though Werkhoven, Russo, and Cally Guasti all had things they wanted to do with the cash (pay off student loans, go on “an epic road trip around the United States,” etc.), they noticed that a name was written on one of the envelopes. With the help of a phone book (Werkhoven’s mom helped), they tracked down the couch’s previous owner, a 91-year-old widow who “doesn’t trust banks.” The woman told the kids that she stashed the money in the fold-out over the course of 30 years, only to have her daughter (who didn’t know what the piece of furniture was worth) donate it while she was recovering from back surgery. She also gave them $1,000 to split as a reward, which is more than most people get out of their crappy thrift store couch.

Nine times out of ten, trusting a bank is going to be a safer bet than trusting a poor college kid, but yay! I’m glad this worked out for everybody. Also, it’s an excellent reason to use the phrase, “There’s always money in the Banana Stand.”

photo by Robin Prime

On Wednesday, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of the New York Times and chairman of The New York Times Company, mystified many of his employees by announcing that he had just fired Jill Abramson, who had been the paper's executive editor since 2011. He didn't explain why, and declined to substantively answer questions on the subject posed by the journalists he employs.

So: Sulzberger unceremoniously dispatches the first female head editor of the most important and prestigious newspaper in the world without explanation. Prior former editors, including the one who was there during the troubles with plagiarism and fabrication and war-mongering backed by trumped-up intelligence from disreputable sources, received gracious, dignity-preserving send-offs. (In fact, the one who was there during all the troubles got a moose.) Sulzberger then sort of sits there looking like an idiot while other outlets report that Abramson's firing came shortly after she complained that her compensation was less than that of her immediate male predecessor.

This isn't a piece about whether or not Jill Abramson was a good or a bad editor, or what led her to be unceremoniously axed this week. I don't work for the Times, I don't personally know any of the players involved, and I don't pretend to know What Actually Happened. I am just a guy who makes fun of Times opinion columnists and does the crossword (Sundays through Thursdays). This is a piece about how the actual act of the axing became a P.R. disaster of nearly Bundy Ranchian proportions, thanks to the man who inherited the paper from his father, who inherited it from his father, who inherited it from his father-in-law, the last man in this chain of publishers who had to do anything resembling work to earn the position.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. is sometimes referred to as "Pinch," a mocking variation of his father's nickname, "Punch" (probably more often by media writers looking to sound knowing than by normal humans he knows). It is a mocking nickname because almost no one who comes into contact with Sulzberger has any respect for him, as a businessman or publisher or intellect. Years ago he was undeservedly handed what was then a great prize. Now he is responsible for preserving that prize in a recognizable form for the future. It is just really, really clear that he is not up to the task.

When the media reporter writes Times Kremlinology, it is customary to refer to the mood of The Newsroom as an undifferentiated whole, as in "It's not that Abramson was adored in the newsroom," or "Abramson has become a source of widespread frustration and anxiety within the Times newsroom." Most of the time, we hear what The Newsroom thinks of its editors. Usually they are annoyed with their editors, because otherwise media reporters wouldn't be writing media reporting about it. Few bother to measure the newsroom's feelings about the person who's really in charge. This is, I think, because the answer would just be too predictable to be noteworthy. Does anyone imagine that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. has the respect of The Newsroom?

Times journalists think of the boss (correctly) as a dilettante and a flake, whose ignorance and insecurity leave him vulnerable to scammy corporate gurus and management fads. Sulzberger would probably say, as I'm sure he did to Abramson on multiple occasions, that Times journalists are too pretentious and idealistic to understand what it will take to make the New York Times work as a business in the 21st Century. But I find it hard to believe that the business side at the Times has any more respect for Sulzberger — and his flailing, transparently desperate attempts to make the business work — than the supposedly lofty-minded newsroom veterans do.

Arthur Sulzberger is in over his head. He's clearly not up to the challenge of being the publisher of the nation's last newspaper during the newspaper extinction era.

In some accounts of the Abramson firing, the last straw was an "innovation report" prepared, at Sulzberger's request, by his son, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, a reporter at the paper. The report describes the Times as existentially endangered, and unable to compete with nimbler digital journalism startups. The idea is that Abramson was unable to steer the Times toward its glorious digital future, and had to go. (I picture Joseph Cotten in stagey old-man makeup telling a faceless media reporter: "Well, Pinch and I had a disagreement about social. I suppose Pinch died without ever truly having a social strat…")

The report essentially identifies a set of tech-related problems that need to be addressed, and then packages those problems with a set of ideological recommendations to change the "culture" of the Times. The paper needs to improve the backend, and needs better tools for creating digital content, the report says. OK, sure, that sounds good! But also:

“The very first step … should be a deliberate push to abandon our current metaphors of choice — ‘The Wall’ and ‘Church and State’ — which project an enduring need for division. Increased collaboration, done right, does not present any threat to our values of journalistic independence,” the report says.

Ah, yes, you mean this kind of "innovation." The report also suggests "TED-style talks" because everyone and everything in the 21st century is terrible and stupid.

It's probably true that the Times is full of print-era dinosaurs in positions of authority. But… so what? The product is generally good. Not only that, but the Times is in the enviable position of being the last national newspaper left standing. It doesn't need to worry about Vox.com. It doesn't need to sweat losing Nate Silver. They can hire another one. It is the business side's responsibility to sell that product. It is Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.'s job to ensure the survival of this institution without sacrificing the things that actually make it valuable. The answer is not TED talks or branded content that looks deceptively like non-branded content.

But if the end goal is to break down the wall between business and editorial, and to make Times reporters waste as much time on bullshit marketing activities as "digital natives" do, then the report is a masterstroke. A.G. Sulzberger might be a lot cleverer than his father. (I'm not the only one who thinks so!) I'm sure the business side can't wait for his ascension.

Alex Pareene is a digital native and the executive editor of a mysterious secret project at First Look Media. Photo by JD Lasica.

The post Pinch Sulzberger, Fire Yourself Today appeared first on The Awl.

Jill Abramson's 'Badass New Hobby' http://t.co/xTSuvjiITL via @mashable pic.twitter.com/WwAqVTIQ9c

— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) May 15, 2014

Ken Auletta reports on one reason Jill Abramson may have been fired as NYT editor:

Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect … Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson’s total compensation as executive editor “was directly comparable to Bill Keller’s”—though it was not actually the same.

I was also told by another friend of Abramson’s that the pay gap with Keller was only closed after she complained. But, to women at an institution that was once sued by its female employees for discriminatory practices, the question brings up ugly memories. Whether Abramson was right or wrong, both sides were left unhappy. A third associate told me, “She found out that a former deputy managing editor”—a man—“made more money than she did” while she was managing editor. “She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off.”

Bryce Covert points out that such executive pay disparities are common:

Many women who reach the top are still paid less than their male peers. The highest paid female executives at S&P 500 companies still make 18 percent less than the men in these roles, on average. For example, Heather Bresch, CEO of pharmaceutical company Mylan, makes about a third less than average CEO pay in her sector, and Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison makes about a quarter less.

Olga Khazan comments:

Economists have suggested that one factor driving the gender wage gap is that women “don’t ask” for as much money in negotiations. The implication is, then, that women should ask, since they supposedly have nothing to lose. But both social-science research and real-life job sagas have shown that women sometimes do pay a price for self-advocating. A few months ago, the story of one female job candidate went viral when her offer to teach at Nazareth College was allegedly retracted when she asked for better compensation.

Times national editor Alison Mitchell suggested to Capital New York Tuesday that Abramson’s firing “wouldn’t sit well with a broad swath of female Times journalists who saw her as a role model.” But what would be even more demoralizing is if it turns out to be true that a woman as powerful as Abramson was punished for being “pushy”—and, worse yet, if the pay gap between the two editors was real.

Chadwick Matlin observes the sizable pay gap in journalism:

If the pay gap did exist, Abramson wouldn’t have been the only woman in journalism paid less than her male peers. According to the Census Bureau’s 2008-2012 American Community Survey, the median annual earnings for a male editor was $59,183 (+/- $1,467). Female editors made $51,249 (+/- $844).

Hadas Gold notes that Abramson wasn’t always the easiest person to work with:

[S]ome who worked with her said she fostered an atmosphere of insecurity by seeming to regard disagreement as a personal challenge or even betrayal. In contrast to her careful and fastidious style as a reporter, her opinions as editor, some believed, were prone to snap judgments that hardly braked for conflicting evidence or points of view. She struck a note of disdain for people who considered job offers elsewhere, as though the Times were the only worthy place to practice one’s craft, and even had a tattoo with the “T” of the Times — an institutional loyalty that did not protect her from the whims and changing moods of her own boss when the going got tough.

I can imagine a man with that rep being lionized as an old-school character. A woman? Not too much. Weissmann believes “whatever the reasons for her abrupt departure, by pretty much any meaningful measure, Abramson seemed to be doing an excellent job piloting the Times into a bright digital future”:

Consider: Bill Keller led the paper from 2003 until mid 2011. During that time, its finances degenerated so thoroughly that the company was forced to borrow a glorified payday loan from Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim. Near the very end of Keller’s tenure, however, the Times finally began implementing the online paywall that’s resurrecting its business. It has almost 800,000 digital-only subscribers—the vast majority of whom have been acquired on Abramson’s watch—and is now turning a decent operating profit.

Yglesias also defends the business side of Abramson’s NYT tenure:

You often see companies change management amidst business crises. But one thing that is clear is that amidst a generalized crisis for the American newspaper industry the Times is doing quite well as a business. In the first quarter of the year, the Times scored a $22 million operating profit on $390 million in revenue. That revenue figure represented a 2.6 percent increase from the year-ago quarter, including a 3.4 percent increase in ad revenue.

The overall newspaper industry, meanwhile, is a disaster area.

Rebecca Traister calls Abramson’s firing “among the most harsh and humiliating I’ve ever seen play out in the media’s recent history”:

Within minutes of the editorial meeting at which the turnover was announced, Abramson’s name had been scrubbed from the masthead of the paper she’s run for the past two and a half years. A Times spokeswoman told Buzzfeed that Abramson would not be remaining with the paper in any professional capacity and would have no involvement in the transition of power. Sulzberger made no pretense that this was anything other than an unceremonious dump. When staffers reportedly expressed concern that Abramson’s firing would be a blow to women, he helpfully explained that that women in top management positions are just as likely to be fired as men in top management positions.

Ezra cautions:

“As part of a settlement agreement between her and the paper, neither side would go into detail about her firing,” reports the New York Times. Perhaps that’s not true. With anonymous sources you never really know who’s talking and who isn’t. But at this juncture it’s probably mostly true. The Sulzbergers are likely trying to ride this out. It sounds like Abramson is legally barred from discussing the break. Friends and allies might step into the breach, but so too will hanger-ons, troublemakers, and earnest observers who think they know a lot more than they do. Moreover, this seems to have been an incredibly well-kept secret in the Times newsroom. The universe of people who know the real story is, for now, quite small — and they’re only in the know because one side or the other is sure they won’t talk.

Which isn’t to say the reporting coming out now is wrong. It’s just not quite right, either. There’s some truth in it, a lot of truth missing, a few lies mixed in for good measure, and it’ll be a long time till we can tell which is which.

"I remember I was told when I started at SNL – it was good advice – it was like, 'Here’s what the show finds funny and there's what you find funny and you have to find the Venn diagram of where they overlay.' And there were some people in my time there like John Mulaney, Kristen Wiig – what they found funny and what the show found funny was the exact same thing. There was no overlay; it was like a carbon copy. Mike was someone that didn't give a shit about the Venn diagram."

-Bill Hader, quoted in a piece for Screencrush about the unique comedy of longtime SNL writer and freshman cast member Mike O'Brien.

dani-saur:

prokopetz:

“You were so focused on whether you COULD do it, you never stopped to ask whether you SHOULD.” - Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Oh my God who are you

Bring her a gift:

The scientists collected 53 male spiders from the wild who were found to be carrying gifts for females. Amazingly, 70% of these males were holding worthless gifts such as prey leftovers, presumably after having eaten the prey themselves. … The researchers then brought all of these spiders (both the ones holding worthless gifts and what I like to think of as the more earnest males carrying genuine gifts) into the lab. The male spiders were then given either a real gift to give to a female spider (a big juicy housefly), a worthless gift (an insect skeleton), or no gift at all.

So how did the females react?

Females were equally likely to mate with males who carried real gifts as those who carried leftovers from their dinners. This is not surprising, given that since the gift was cleverly wrapped by the male, the female may not have been able to tell what the package contained before ‘agreeing’ to mate with her male suitor. Instead, females much preferred to mate with males in good body condition rather than skinny, underfed males. Therefore, those males that ate their gifts were actually the ‘smart’ ones (whether they knew this or not) as it was better to be in good shape having had a full meal, but courting the female with the equivalent of an empty box of chocolates than to court her looking wan but holding the equivalent of a roast dinner. The well-fed males not only had a higher chance of mating a female, but females also let them mate with them sooner and for a longer period of time.

More surprisingly, females also didn’t seem to care about whether males even carried a gift at all. They were actually as likely to mate with males without a gift as males with a gift (as long as their bodies were in good condition).

let-them-eat-vag:

Fuck me this is the cutest fucking duck video I’ve ever fucking seen in my whole fucking life it’s a huge fucking deal

This is terrific news for combating the resilient transmission of HIV among gay men:

“HIV infection is preventable, yet every year we see some 50,000 new HIV infections in the United States,” stated CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. “PrEP, used along with other prevention strategies, has the potential to help at-risk individuals protect themselves and reduce new HIV infections in the United States.” The new guidelines also stress that patients be tested for HIV prior to starting PreP and be tested again at three-month intervals so if someone on PrEP does become infected with HIV they discontinue taking the drugs and begin HIV treatment.

Soon to follow: a serious public health education campaign. The CDC report is here (pdf). The Dish’s extensive recent coverage of this issue can be read here.

unclefather:

goodbye

In a report on BYU’s gay community, Emily Shire observes that “coming out of the closet is often a two-part process for LGBT Mormons”:

The first is admitting you “suffer” from same-sex attraction. During this stage, “People often are very warm,” says Cary. “That’s the norm. They say ‘We’ll help you through this.’”

The second is actually accepting being LGBT. “I had to come out a second time. ‘No, Mom and Dad, I’m actually gay and date boys and will hopefully marry one some day,’” recalls Cary. “That was a much harder coming out. The first often serves as a buffer to the second.”

It’s not just that BYU treats homosexuality as a temporary condition. Sam (not his real name), who is currently a student at BYU, says he’s bothered that the Honor Code reduces LGBT students to their sexual behavior. “It is simplistic to view homosexuality that way, to say that I’m only gay when I’m committing a homosexual act,” he tells me. “I breathe gay. I‘m never not gay. But apparently, when I do something sexual, BYU draws the line. I’m more than my sexual urges.”