Patrick Kennedy

This event, which appears to ask its participants to stand in a small ring and wait for a charging bull to visit its fury upon them, is hard to understand. Why would any human being volunteer for this?

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The US Senate has just voted in favor of REVERSING the #NetNeutrality rollback which Trump FCC chairman, Ajit Pai put in place. This is a major win for the internet, Net Neutrality, and the American people. (more…)

As we’re learning on The Takeout, people have super-strong feelings about condiments. In our own in-house taste test, most people could identify Heinz ketchup in a blind taste test, but preferred a more savory version. And three of our staff members have markedly different opinions on their preferred sauce in which…

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Back in 2013, Kendra Jackson was in a pretty nasty car accident. The vehicle she was in was hit, hard, from behind. The force of the impact propelled Jackson's head into the dash in front of her. She recovered from her injuries and got on with her life. A few weeks after the crash, however, she came down with a serious case of the sniffles. She'd sneeze, cough and blow her nose throughout the day. In bed, the fluid running down the back of her nose from her sinuses would make her cough and keep her up at night. It had all the hallmarks of a bad cold. But bad colds don't typically last for years at a time. She saw doctors for the problem. They told her that all the stuff running out of her head was likely due to allergies.

Nope.

Seeking out a second opinion, Jackson discovered that what she thought to be snot was actually due to a cerebrospinal fluid leak (CSF): her head was leaking brain fluid.

From Newsweek:

“This fluid serves the function of providing mechanical protection of the brain through cushioning or buffering, as well as playing a role in its immunologic protection,” Dr. Brad Marple, chair of otolaryngology at the University of Texas Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, told Newsweek.

“Normally, it is contained within the water-tight confines of the skull, but occasionally an area of disruption can develop between the intracranial cavity and air-filled spaces within the skull. The sinuses are examples of air-filled spaces within the skull that share a thin common wall with the intracranial cavity and serve as a common route for a CSF leak. Under these circumstances, CSF can drip from the nose and be mistaken for a runny nose.”

Apparently a CSF can heal on its own, but with the way that the leak in Jackson's head was impacting her life (you gotta sleep, man), doctors felt that an intervention would do her some good. Using a tiny camera and medical instruments to get at the site of the leak inside of Jackson's head, they used fatty tissues from around the CSF to plug it up.

Having read this, have fun trying to convince yourself that it's only a cold the next time you get a runny nose.

Image via Flickr, courtesy of _DJ_

“I guess that’s what life has come to mean to me: It’s not ever quite right, but that’s okay,” Scott Hutchison told us in 2016. Josh Modell, our devoted ambassador to Frightened Rabbit, had asked him what he liked best about his job. Scott (forget journalistic practice; “Hutchison” doesn’t feel right for someone who’s…

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Photographer Pelle Cass has been constructing composite photos of groups of people for some time now, photoshopping the action from dozens of photos into a single frame.

With the camera on a tripod, I take many dozens of pictures, and simply leave in the figures I choose and omit the rest. The photographs are composite, but nothing has been changed, only selected. My subject is the strangeness of time, the exact way people look, and a surprising world that is visible only with a camera.

More recently, Cass has turned his attention to sporting events, capturing competitors playing basketball, diving, playing lacrosse, running track, and playing hockey. The project is called Crowded Fields; it’s not up on his website yet, but you can see some of the images on Instagram and Booooooom.

I love this sort of thing, whole stretches of time compressed into single frames or short videos. See also time merge media, Peter Funch’s Babel Tales, Dennis Hlynsky’s bird contrails, and busy day at the airport. (via colossal)

Tags: Pelle Cass   photography   remix   sports

In an article in Vanity Fair, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, proclaimed, “I’m the guy who would take a bullet for the president.”

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In You Should Be Watching, the staff of The A.V. Club advocates on behalf of the hundreds of TV shows you’re not watching but should.

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I’m the kind of idiot who believes what I read at the grocery store or bakery, rarely following up to find out how “sugar-free” something actually is, for example. I don’t follow a gluten-free diet, but I’m sure I would be just as lackadaisical about it. Granted, I don’t have celiac disease, a case in which it’s…

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The Atlantic posted a big-picture gallery of unusual homes from around the world. My favorite is this profusely overgrown shack built on top of a high-rise tower in Guanghzhou. The owner has evaded legal service for 10 years. Photo: Reuters / China Daily

Man, you really can’t make this stuff up, and if the stakes weren’t so high and the repercussions so tragic, it would be hilarious.

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Without much fanfare (totally apropos, given what’s been happening in the world of the White House in the last 72 hours), President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that will force recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, Medicaid and low-income housing subsidies to find work or…

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John Boehner's eyes will be bleary, liquid and reddened for another reason, henceforth: he's got a job as a marijuana industry spokesman.

I’m joining the board of #AcreageHoldings because my thinking on cannabis has evolved. I’m convinced de-scheduling the drug is needed so we can do research, help our veterans, and reverse the opioid epidemic ravaging our communities.

I'm certainly looking forward to high John Boehner tweets, but let's not forget that he and his party spent decades using drug policy to marginalize, incarcerate and politically neuter minorities. He's woke for money, not justice.

When Prince died in 2016, California artist Christine Stein painted a piece of plywood in the likeness of the late artist under a shrub outside her Citrus Heights home.

It originally looked like this: https://www.instagram.com/p/BExx9aILhjF/?taken-by=christinesaart

Two years later, the shrub is in full bloom and Prince fans are now making the pilgrimage to visit it, according to KTVU:

The bush – specifically, a Red-Tip Photinia – appears perfectly around Prince’s head, and looks like a flowery halo of hair. Her husband is supposed to trim the bush, but hasn’t in a year, which is why the bush has grown so large.

Stein... thought the image was so stunning that she posted in on Facebook on Easter. The post went viral... and the news trucks – and the Prince pilgrims – have been flocking to her home ever since.

“I’ve had people from LA, Minnesota, and Georgia come to my house and lay down in the driveway,” Stein said. “They leave their own art. Someone from Anchorage just called me to say they’re coming to visit.”

On the one hand, she said she finds it “kind of creepy” to find people “worshipping” Prince on her property.

But on the other hand, she also wants to conjure up the altruistic spirit of Prince, who had supported many charities and acted with kindness and generosity throughout his life, much of which had remained private until his death in 2016.

You can get a print of the flowering mural for $10 over at Stein's Etsy shop.

photo by Christine Stein, used with permission

I’d never seen this stunning aerial photograph of Edinburgh taken by Alfred Buckham circa 1920. Buckham was a pioneer of aerial photography, a profession he continued after getting discharged from the Royal Naval Air Service after crashing nine times and being declared “a hundred per cent disabled”. Very little slowed him down apparently, as Buckham himself wrote about his working setup:

It is not easy to tumble out of an aeroplane, unless you really want to, and on considerably more than a thousand flights I have used a safety belt only once and then it was thrust upon me. I always stand up to make an exposure and, taking the precaution to tie my right leg to the seat, I am free to move about rapidly, and easily, in any desired direction; and loop the loop and indulge in other such delights, with perfect safety.

But back to that photograph, it looks like a dang painting! Instant favorite…I can’t believe I’d never seen it before. (via sam potts)

Tags: Alfred Buckham   photography

Arsenal blew the doors off a geriatric CSKA Moscow team in the Europa League today, winning by a score of 4-1. The best goal of the bunch was this beautiful little flick that came off the side of Aaron Ramsey’s foot:

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If the Sedins’ careers had to end with a meaningless game in April, it’s absolutely perfect that they ended like this. Daniel and Henrik Sedin led the Canucks to victory in their final game on Vancouver ice before retirement, with Daniel scoring both a second-period goal and the overtime winner off Henrik assists.

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The sharp, thin metal bristles of grill brushes end up in your food and then in your throat, from where there is "no surefire way of removing them," say surgeons. Throw them out.

That was the case for Lisa Wadden two years ago. The Dartmouth, N.S., woman ate a burger her husband had barbecued and noticed something pierce her throat.

"Every swallow, it just was this crazy pain, burning," she said.

"It was like I was being poked again with it every single time that I swallowed."

X-rays showed Wadden had swallowed a thin wire about 1.5 centimetres long, which had become embedded in her throat.

Over four months, she had multiple CT scans, X-rays, scopes and two unsuccessful attempts to remove it through surgery. Dempsey, who was Wadden's otolaryngologist, told her it was best to wait for scar tissue to build up around the wire and lessen the pain.

Get yourself a grill stone at Amazon, folks. Or if that's too rustic for you, one of these fancy copper scrapers.

From Evan Puschak, a quick video on dark patterns, UI design that tricks users into doing things they might not want to do. For instance, as he shows in the video, the hoops you need to jump through to delete your Amazon account are astounding; it’s buried levels deep in a place no one would ever think to look. This dark pattern is called a roach motel — users check in but they don’t check out. I wonder how much this single pattern has added to Jeff Bezos’ personal net worth?

Tags: Amazon   design   Evan Puschak   video

Mookie Betts chatted with the ESPN announcing crew during the top half of the third inning in a spring training game today. Hey, it’s an exhibition game.

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Embed from Getty Images

Because of course he has, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has taken out a full-page advert in Friday’s LA Times newspaper to trumpet his grand arrival in the US.

After having the remaining four months of his Manchester United contract mulched earlier this week, Ibrahimovic has reportedly signed a two-year deal with LA Galaxy

While we’re still awaiting confirmation of the transfer, the 36-year-old took the time to address the entire city of Los Angeles in his own typically humble style…

Well worth the packet it doubtlessly cost, we’re sure you’ll agree.

He may be a total plum, but at least he’s completely self-absorbed with it.

A turntable orchestra that includes several past DJ world champions recently performed Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E Minor, which was the first LP released back in 1948.

I love everything about this: the history, the music, and the aesthetic of the performers sitting on the floor with their shoes off, wearing tuxedos with optional non-fancy headwear.

Tags: Felix Mendelssohn   music   remix   video

Dries Depoorter & David Surprenant's Die With Me is a chat app available for iOS and Android, but only if your device is on its last legs: "The chat app you can only use when you have less than 5% battery. Die together in a chatroom on your way to offline peace."

This ad, featuring happy people grinning in clinically perfect environments, is immeasurably improved by having its soundtrack replaced by remarks from comedian Bill Burr concerning his experience with the 3D-printed transparent braces. I found my way to it after reading this article about smarmy "free speech grifters" who decry political correctness while supporting the status quo: it leads with a funny anecdote whereby oleaginous creep Bill Maher expects Burr to agree with his anti-PC whining but is instead berated by him.

The LeBron James of hockey did yet another gorgeous thing that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before tonight against Montreal, one that required perfect awareness, hand-eye coordination, and stick control. It ruled.

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The last male white Rhino in the world has died at 45 years of age.

The rhino, named Sudan, had been suffering from age-related ill-health for some time, according to AFP.

During the 1970s and 1980s the white rhino was damn near wiped out in Africa, thanks to the high demand of its horn for use in dagger handles in parts of Yemen and as a medicinal ingredient in China. Sudan's death all but cinches the death of the white rhino sub-species. Early in the new millennium, the species was nearly obliterated in the wild, as the few remaining white rhinos, numbering perhaps 20 to 30, were killed in the crossfire of the First Congo War, among other conflicts, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

With Sudan's passing, you'd think that the fate of the white rhino would be cinched. And you'd be right--theoretically.

While there are no more male specimens of the species, thanks to us, a few females remain. It's hoped that it may still be possible to use Sudan's genetic material to keep the species going:

"Sudan was the last northern white rhino that was born in the wild. His death is a cruel symbol of human disregard for nature and it saddened everyone who knew him," said Jan Stejskal, Director of International Projects at the Dvur Kralove Zoo.

"But we should not give up. We must take advantage of the unique situation in which cellular technologies are utilized for conservation of critically endangered species. It may sound unbelievable, but thanks to the newly developed techniques even Sudan could still have an offspring."

Image: Coralie - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

A ski lift in Georgia (the country, not US state) went haywire went it lost its brakes and sent passengers downhill, picking up speed and flinging skiers off the lift. The stuff of nightmares.

Snowboarder Alena Pakhomova posted this footage on her Instagram page:

#гудаури

A post shared by Алена Пахомова (@pahomova_enduro22) on Mar 16, 2018 at 3:33am PDT

According to The Telegraph:

Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed emergency ski patrols were quickly dispatched to the scene and a helicopter helped transport injured parties to hospital.

“Among the injured are Swedish and Ukrainian citizens,” said Mr Sergeenko [translated].

“Only two cases need to be monitored,” he added. “One of the injured, a Ukrainian citizen, broke his hand during the incident, and has a small head injury, while a Swedish citizen is pregnant and feels pain in her waist.”

A spokesperson for Austrian-based ski-lift producer, the Doppelmayr Garaventa group, confirmed to The Telegraph it does not yet know what caused the incident.

Image: Alena Pakhomova/Instagram

The White House is proving that when it comes to drugs destroying white communities, there are no limits to what it is willing to do to stop the threat, including death: to the dealers, not the users.

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When a beloved teacher at Palmerston North Boys' High School in New Zealand passed away in 2015, young men from the school -- both past and present -- performed a rousing haka in his honor. Powerful, literally gave me chills!

A commenter explains:

A little background to this haka I'm apart of the school and new mr tamatea better than most at the school. He was originally one of the creators to this haka and this is our school haka. Only our school and the old boys of the school perform this haka so it is unique to us. Mr tamatea was the head of Maori achievement in our school and he would always try (and successfully so) uphold the Maori traditions not within our school but the entire community. He was involved in one of the leading kapa haka groups in the country i.e the world ( kapa haka group being a group in which perform traditional Maori songs and Hakas) and I believe the Maori culture and maintaining the culture was engrained in his life. So to farewell this awesome teacher we did this haka and the significance of this haka as a farewell and the passion in which the boys performed it with can only be understood by the people who really knew him. But I hope that this helps others around the world understand how fitting that we perform this haka for him.

The teacher, 55-year-old Dawson Tahana Tamatea, was head of Te Reo Maori and Dean of Student Achievement at the school and died in his sleep.

(reddit)

Several people died when a 950-ton pedestrian bridge collapsed over a roadway near Florida International University (FIU). Live video footage of the incident shows 5 or 6 cars flattened beneath, pinned down by enormous concrete slabs. It is hard to imagine any of the people inside having survived, but some have.

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