Snob

For the past few weeks I’ve been doing an intermittent fasting-style diet, in which I don’t eat from roughly six in the evening until two in the afternoon the next day. The idea being that if I abstain from food for twenty or more hours at a stretch, my ravenous blubber will consume itself in a fit of “autophagy”, […]

También deduzco que este pais es màs machista del hecho de que practicamente todas las mujeres que veo leyendo en el metro lo hacen con revistas femeninas o novelas, también, de las llamadas “femeninas”.

Es que no puede haber mayor instrumento de dominacion sexista que la constante aprobacion y promocion de la frivolidad “femenina”.

Eres feminista? Pues deja de entretenerte con puta basura y hacer como que no pasa nada y estàs en lo correcto por querer recrearte un rato siendo estupida

LAS MUJERES NO PODEMOS PERMITIRNOS SER ESTUPIDAS PORQUE ESTAMOS EN UNA SITUACION DE DESIGUALDAD

Contra esto no se lucha, solo contra no poder colgar el conho en primer plano en internet y por la desestigmatizacion de querer vivir del dinero y regalos de un hombre (nos lo deben porque cobramos menos y lo pasamos peor, o algo asi) 

:((((((

Perras.

Yo no quiero que se me perdone o hasta se me admire por atreverme a ser una cabeza-hueca-vagina-llena segun un nuevo modelo que luchando contra el modelo se ha creado, sino que se asuma que puede interesarme el mismo fin y rechazar por completo los medios.

Si la herramienta no funciona, dejen un comentario con su email en ese post, el sistema los moderará y no los mostrará, pero nosotros los veremos y los agregaremos a nuestros listados.


Por el momento esto servirá para inscribirte y guardarte en nuestros listados. En el momento en que How To Arsenio pase a ser privado, solo los lectores inscriptos de esta forma podrán acceder.

Tengan en cuenta, también, que la inscripción real se hará el día que pasemos a ser un blog privado y las mismas se harán de forma manual, por lo que es probable que se tarde más de 24 hrs. en completarse la activación de todos los lectores.

Muchas de las herramientas que usamos hoy, los llamados “Gadget”, dejarán de funcionar, ya que la gran mayoría trabaja sobre el “feed” del blog, por lo que ya no llegarán por email las entradas diarias, no se mostrarán las imágenes en el slider con los últimos post, no estarán los listados de los últimos post, etc.

También es probable que el sistema de mensajes, Disqus tenga problemas al principio…

Esperamos tener su apoyo en estos momentos de angustia y sepan comprender lo terrible que sería para todos no seguir con nuestra labor de difundir la lectura de cómics en español por la red.

Preferimos hacer esto para pocos lectores que dejarlo.

It's a simple, excruciatingly catchy song with original lyrics sung in Spanish, and it seems many people have no idea what the lyrics to Los del Rio's hit song Macarena really mean.

People play it in schools, at weddings, at ballgames, and they generally think the song is about a dance or, if they understand a bit of Spanish, about a woman.

But who is this Macarena, and why was this song written about her? Watch this video by Distractify featuring 90s kids reacting to the true meaning of the lyrics to Macarena.

(YouTube Link)

So it turns out Macarena was far from "wholesome", and people have been dancing all happy to a tune about a girl who's livin' la vida escandalosa!

-Via Cheezburger

YouTube Link

This supercut of female seduction scenes in film is a virtual enclyclopedia of sexy actresses working their feminine wiles onscreen, to the excitement of their filmic counterparts. Revisit some of the film industry's sexiest scenes, set to the song "Wetter" by the band The Singularity. Via Laughing Squid

By Blair Dodge,Matthew Moffitt  Published: September 07th, 2015 

One of the factors that I think people tend to ignore when it comes to the idea of social skills is the world “skill”. If you want to get better at dating, you have to treat social skills like any other skill – and that means that you only improve with practice. The problem is that the idea of practicing the skills associated with dating can be intimidating. When we talk about practicing social skills, it’s only natural to imagine getting dressed up, having to go out to bars and clubs and make dozens of cold approaches every night. The mental image of pushing past your initial approach anxiety and courting rejection over and over again is enough to make anyone want to “Nope” so hard they leave a human-shaped cloud in their wake on the way to FuckThatShitville.

But while practice is important, improving your social skills doesn’t mean that you have to go hit the clubs. In fact, there are a number of small, simple ways that you can practice and improve your social skills every days without having to spin game or set foot in a loud, smokey bar.

5) Work On Your Eye Contact… With Yourself

One of the first things you want to do is start getting very familiar with your mirror.

One of the most powerful and versatile tools you have in your social skills toolkit are your eyes. Your eyes are one of the most potent forms of non-verbal communication you have – and frequently they’re also one of the most underutilized. Eye contact, when used properly, can be inviting or intimidating. Your eyes tell somebody whether you’re interested or if you wish they’d go away, if you’re lying, afraid or aroused. If you know what you’re doing, strong eye contact can even create an incredibly intense intimate connection between two people. But before you can use your gaze to it’s fullest potential, you have to master it first.

A lot of people have issues with making eye contact. Some people hold it for too long and end up being creepy by accident. Others have a hard time meeting people’s eyes at all and may seem nervous, arrogant or disinterested. Neither of these is terribly helpful when you want to meet new people…. but at the same time, it’s a difficult skill to practice without coming across as the weirdo at the Starbucks.

That’s where the mirror comes in.

You’re going to practice meeting your own gaze in the mirror. It’s very simple: you’re going to face the mirror head on and look yourself straight in the eyes for as long as you can. This is going to be harder than you might expect; you’re going to feel uncomfortable and weird. First you’ll feel absurd for doing it at all, then you’re going to get oddly intimidated at looking at yourself for that long and you’ll want to look away. Resist it. You’ll want to do little things to make it more comfortable, like letting your eyes go out of focus; resist this too. Part of the point of this exercise is the discomfort. You want to be familiar enough with it to recognize it in others, without necessarily feeling it as keenly yourself.

Hold your gaze for as long and as steadily as you can, then look away – either looking up or to the side. Give yourself a minute, then try again. The more comfortable you get with meeting your own gaze, the more comfortable you’ll get meeting other people’s eyes when you meet them while you’re out and about. That discomfort you feel is the same discomfort that other people feel when someone’s giving them the hairy eyeball.

Once you’re comfortable making eye contact with yourself, it’s time to practice strategic eye contact. Hold your own gaze, and when you start to feel the first stirrings of discomfort, look away (again, to the up or the side) and then reengage. Meet your eyes and give a slow smile. Look in your eyes, then give an eyebrow flash. Hold your eye contact for a beat too long and then break contact.

All of these little exercises can feel strange – after all, you’re practicing things that seemingly come natural to others – but there’s a point to it: you’re learning to become more aware of your face and how you use it. The more aware you are of your expressions and your face and the more comfortable you get with eye contact, the more you’ll be able to give off the vibe that you want – that you’re someone cool, approachable and good to get to know.

But while we’re speaking of awareness:

Record Yourself Talking To Yourself

Doing some mirror-work is only the first step in working on your social skills. Now we’re going to take it to the next level… with video. You’re going to have a conversation with an imaginary person. Sit down in front of your laptop, prop up your smartphone or tablet or just set your camera to record, then talk with someone as though you were having a conversation with somebody.

It can go as well or as badly as you want, as friendly, flirty or confrontational as you care to make it… all that matters is that you make it as natural and realistic as you can. Carry it on for at least five minutes before calling it quits.

Now, play back the video.

 

Yeah, it’s not going to be terribly comfortable. For the first time, you’ll be aware of what other people see when you’re talking to them and that’s going to be weird. You’ll see the times when you’re talking absurdly fast and all the nervous laughs. There will be any number of facial tics, habits and unconscious gestures that will make you feel even more self-conscious than you may have been before you hit record. That’s a good thing.

You see, until you’re aware of those tics, you can’t change them.

To give a personal example, I have a habit of what I call “chasing my thoughts around the room”. When I’m talking to somebody, you can actually see my thought process by the way my eyes bounce all over the place, especially if I’m talking about things I’m passionate about. This has the tendency to make me look either distracted or nervous. Even now, I still have to be careful to keep my gaze steady when I get worked up about a subject. But until it was pointed out to me, I had no idea that I was doing it – and until they did, that meant I couldn’t control it.

Recording myself was a critical part of learning to notice these habits, so I could be more conscious of them. Once I became more aware of when I did them, I was able to start practicing getting them under control.

So, as uncomfortable as it may be, record yourself talking and review the video. Take note of little idiosyncrasies – speaking too fast, twitchy movements, inconsistent eye contact, use of vocal fillers like “umm”, intimidated body language, speaking in a monotone – and try to remember how you felt at those points of the “conversation”. Then press record and begin again, trying to be more aware of yourself. As you improve, enlist a friend to help you out. Have them sit across from you and your camera and just talk with you as you record. See how much things change between talking with an imaginary stranger and someone you know.

You’ll have a little harder time keeping it natural at first – you’ll be dividing your attention between what you’re saying and self-awareness. That’s fine; it takes time to iron out these habits and commit the new ones to muscle memory. The more you do this, the easier it will become, until that awareness and control becomes second nature to you.

Write Out Your Stories

Part of being an interesting, charismatic person is having interesting things to talk about. For some people, this comes naturally; they have an instinctive grasp on social interaction and understand how to keep an audience entertained. Other people have to work at it… the secret is that they know how to make it feel natural. So if you feel like you never know what to say, then it’s time to plan it out in advance.

Yup. I’m suggesting you plan out your questions and your stories before you ever actually head out to a party or a networking event.

Weird? A little. But not as much as you think. See, while there’re are many people who are fast on their feet and incredibly inventive when it comes to asking good questions or dropping humorous bon mots… like something you drop a lot¹ most people who are telling their stories have told them before. Many times. As many a comedian can tell you, one of the keys to being funny is to hone your jokes over time until they’re just right.

So you want to do your own prep work. Start with your stories. Pick three or four of your best stories and write them down. Not sure which ones are your best? Test them out; how do people respond? Do they laugh? Do they say “awww?” or “that’s so cool?” No? Then it’s not a great story.

You want to hone these stories to their essence. Too long and too elaborate and it becomes a shaggy dog chasing it’s tail – running around in circles and never getting anywhere. Your stories should be like an angry drunk Tyrion Lanister: short and punchy.

Once you’ve written them down, you want to practice telling them. If you want, you can fold this in with recording yourself; hearing yourself read the story back allows you to practice your cadence and your timing. Through time and repetition, you’ll get to the point that you’ll be able to tell these stories on autopilot. This is when you workshop them in front of an audience. Tell the story one way to one group, then another to a different one. Which group responds more positively? Incorporate this into your story.

The same applies to questions. Just as you have three or four stories that you know work in your back pocket to pull out as needed, prepping some questions before going out helps ensure you don’t have to worry about what to say. Interviewers don’t just ask whatever comes to mind; they know what they want to ask and where they want to lead the conversation long before they ever sit down with their subject. You can follow the same guidelines Just follow the guidelines for making small talk: avoid questions that have binary answers and ask questions that prompt openings for follow-ups.

Speaking of…

Practice Making Small Talk

The Internet is screwing with your social skills. Stick with me here, this isn’t going where you think it is.

I’ll be the first to admit: I’m an Internet addict. I spend far more time than I’m proud of with my attention focused on some Internet-enabled device, whether it’s my laptop, my phone, my watch or my book.

(Can we just stop and appreciate the absurdity of that sentence? The future is weird, ya’ll.)

I’m not alone in this. A lot of us spend more and more time communicating through text than we do in person – whether it’s via conversations on Facebook, texting, emails, instant messages, SnapChats or any of any number of communication apps.

The problem is that this means that we start letting our in-person social skills get rusty. We’ve got dozens of ways of getting in contact with people, but in doing so, we start losing our ability to connect with strangers in the flesh. You see this all the time; people who’re chatty and verbose on Facebook are frequently the ones you can’t drag conversation out of with a crowbar and pliers. The key to getting more comfortable with connecting in person is simple: you’re going to practice making small talk.

Every day, we come in contact with dozens of people, whether it’s your co-workers, your barber, the barista who serves you your coffee, the waiter bringing you lunch or the person bagging your groceries.

(Well, unless you literally never leave the house and, I dunno, get your food delivered by drones or something.)

Each of these people represents a chance to practice your social skills by having a brief conversation. Simply ask something innocuous; how’s their day going, man that local sports team huh? Have a brief exchange or two, then say “thanks” and go about your day. Your goal here isn’t to make a new BFF; you are just working on getting into the practice of talking with strangers. Not only does this make it easier to initiate conversations when it counts, it helps get you out of that bubble of social isolation that so many of us live in.

Plus, it never hurts to develop a reputation the friendly regular at your usual haunts.

Pretend To Be Confident

People tend to assume that confidence is a binary: it’s something that either you have or you don’t. What they don’t realize is that not only is confidence something that you develop over time, it’s something you can practice. Sound weird? It’s less unusual than you think. If you behave as if you were confident, you become more confident. This is the core to “fake it ’till you make it”.

See, humans are bad at acting. The more we act in a particular manner, the more that behavior becomes natural to us. Our brains takes their cues from our bodies; we base how we feel on our behavior and come up with the rationale for it afterwards. Part of why actors and actresses playing couples fall in love so often is that they’ve spent months pretending to be in love with each other. All of that lovey-dovey behavior ends up sending the signals that say “well, I’ve been acting like I’m into her; must mean that I’m in love.” It’s so deeply ingrained into our brains that knowing that we’re faking it doesn’t make a difference. At the end of the day, we become who we pretend to be.

And you can become more confident by pretending to be confident.

It’s very simple. Just go about your day as you normally would… but doing so in a way that projects confidence. Keep your back straight and head level. Hold your shoulders back but relaxed with your chest out and your arms loose at your sides. When you walk, walk slowly but with purpose, as though you were hunting the Holy Grail. Move with careful, deliberate movements. Give the people you meet a smile and strong eye contact.  Every once in a while, stop and adopt a “power” pose – stand up straight, tilt your chin up and put your fists on your hips for a moment or two.

Now, observe how you’re feeling over the course of your day. As weird as it may seem, these little changes make a difference. It’ll be small at first – you’ll realize you’re not as nervous or worked up as you might otherwise be. You’re playing a role – giving yourself permission to be someone else for a little while. But as the day goes on, you’ll realize that you’re feeling more at ease. Practicing your social skills will feel more natural – starting those conversations won’t feel quite as weird, because you’re acting a though you do it all the time. You’ll feel more comfortable talking to others and making eye contact with them.

These are all little things, but little things build up quickly. These little tricks can provide the boost to developing your social skills and giving you the confidence to taking the next step towards greater social success.

1. See, should’ve planned this one in advance

The post 5 Simple Ways To Improve Your Social Skills Quickly appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

September 7th is Buddy Holly's 79th birthday. Restoration of the last guitar that he ever played: How to play Peggy Sue on guitar. The Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas. And, of course, the music (MLYT):
Not Fade Away
Maybe, Baby
That'll Be the Day
Every Day

Todaslas fotos del autor

"Note lo digo de coa", me explica Juan mientras salimos de laestacin. "sta es la mejor zona de Londres para vivir".

EstamosenManorHouse,estacinfrontera entre la zona 2 y 3 del metro de Londres. Detrs denosotros se extiende Seven Sisters, una de las arterias de cementoque escala el norte, desde Camden hasta Totenham Hale. Frente anosotros, la interminable cola de coches tan tpica de la GreenLanes. No hace falta que le pregunte a Juan dnde vamos.

"Vamosa casa", me dice.

Sonlas siete de la maana. Taxis privados y take aways se amontonan enla acera. El aire es helador pero ya apesta a kebab y a frituraatascada en los extractores. Echamos a andar hacia el norte por laGreen Lanes y, cmo no, se pone a llover.

HARRINGAY

Alas siete y cuarto llegamos a la estacin del Overground deHarringay Green Lanes. En las escaleras se apelotonan polacos yeslavos, peones de la construccin, todos ellos con Red Bulls yMonsters en las manos. Subimos la Green Lanes y anoto los precios delos take aways. El precio de una hamburguesa con queso puededescender una libra de una manzana a otra con facilidad. Las cadenasde comida cambian: de Sainsburys (pollo a 6 libras) pasamos a Tesco(congelado, 3 libras) y despus a Iceland (productos entre 2 y 3libras).

Dejamosatrs Mattison Road y nos internamos en una de las calles de laderecha. All las casas son idnticas: jardines descuidados en elmejor de los casos, piscinas de cemento y basura en el peor. Algunasde las casas tienen andamios. Se las sealo a Juan. "Vives ah?En una de las casas que estn arreglando?"

"Ojal",me responde riendo.

Entramosen una casa que hace esquina. Conozco en la cocina a Vctor. Tienetreinta y tres aos, ingeniero. Me comenta que pagan 500 libras cadauno. Nueve inquilinos en cuatro habitaciones.

Lesealo el candado del calentador. Me comenta que los de la agenciatienen la llave y abren el gas a partir de septiembre. "El candadolo rompemos una vez que llega el invierno, pero vuelven a ponerlo. Escomo un pacto: nosotros no vamos a quejarnos, ellos no quieren darnosms electricidad porque no estn dispuestos a pagar ms. Arreglanel candado y ya est. La verdad es que nos tratan bastante bien. Porlo que pagas no puedes pedir ms."

Juanme explica "quienes son los de la agencia": En Londres es fcilcomprar una casa y realquilarla. Se asume que ms de la mitad de lascasas del norte estn compradas y realquiladas, pero no existeningn control sobre el nmero de personas por casa. No hay datos.La agencia de la casa de Vctor es en realidad un matrimonio devenezolanos, pero, ni su nombre ni el de ella aparecen como dueos,sino el del primo de la mujer que vive en Caracas.

"Perono te cofundas", me explica Juan. "sta es la casa de lujo".

TURNPIKELINE

Seguimoshacia el Norte por la Green Lanes hasta llegar a Turnpike Line. Alllas obras por la remodelacin de la acera continan desde el aopasado. Salimos de Green Lanes y llegamos a una casa adosada que haceesquina. Conozco a Ivn, treinta y un aos, bilogo. Me cuenta queall viven ocho personas en cuatro habitaciones. La cocina no tienesuelo, pero eso no es lo ms importante.

Eljardn es un terreno lleno de piezas y herramientas de construccin.Sacos con trozos de madera y losas. Juan me explica lo que no puedover: los materiales para la construccin son caros y difciles deconseguir en Londres, as que "La agencia" se encarga de"contratar" rumanos para que desmonten piezas de sus casas enTurnpike Lane y se las lleven a otras zonas situadas ms al sur."Puertas, tornillos, escritorios, estanteras, el suelo de unacocina...Lo que sea. Quitan piezas de una casa para ponerlas enotra".

Preciopor una habitacin: 300-400 libras.

SEVENSISTERS

Debidoa obras de mantenimiento, Seven Sisters se ha convertido este veranoen la ltima estacin al norte de la lnea Victoria. Cuatropolicas custodian la entrada y salida por las escaleras mecnicas.

PueblecitoPaisa est justo a la salida de la estacin. Se trata de un mercadocreado por la comunidad colombiana residente en Londres. El sitio hasido amenazado por la polica pero eso parece no haber afectado alos colombianos que han iniciado una campaa por defender PueblecitoPaisa.

Nosperdemos por sus pasillos donde slo se escucha espaol mientrassobre nuestras cabezas cuelgan cables de electricidad y calefaccin.Encontramos peluqueras, bares donde se ven partidos de ftbolretransmitidos desde Latinoamrica, un videoclub de pelculas enlatino y anuncios de conciertos acsticos. "Esto es el hogar",me dice Juan. "Los espaoles y los hispanos necesitamos un lugarpara formar una comunidad. Ese lugar es el norte de Londres".

WOODGREEN

Llegamosal final de la Green Lanes. "Fjate bien", me dice Juan.

Yentonces veo el cartel, al lado del graffiti.

"Hayanuncios como estos por todo el barrio, aunque la mayora de losespaoles funcionamos con contactos, grupos de Facebook y cosas as.Trabajamos en negro como una comunidad de carpinteros y albailes.Arreglamos entre nosotros las casas y la de algn paquistan oindio que no quiera hacer factura. Tambin gestionamos la comida yel transporte".

"Eltransporte?"

"Apartede comprar alimentos en Espaa y revenderlos aqu, tenemos uncontacto con un ingls del metro de Whitechapel que cada mes nos dadoscientos bonos de metro, zona 1 y 3, a precio reducido. Aqu nopuedes funcionar con la Oyster Card porque ests pillao,pero s puedes funcionar en papel".

Decamino a vuelta encontramos una cama en la calle. "Espera".

Juansaca su iPhone 6 del bolsillo y llama por telfono. Esperamostreinta minutos de reloj hasta que una furgoneta blanca aparece, dosecuatorianos bajan y cargan con la cama en la parte de atrs. Lafurgoneta se pierde enseguida ms all de la Green Lanes.

Bajamoshacia Harringay hasta llegar a un Barclays donde la cola del cajerorodea la manzana. Nos sentamos en el bar de enfrente". Siempre quehay partido nos dejan poner la bandera", me dice. "Ya nosconocen"

PedimosStella, la cerveza conocida en Inglaterra como la que beben los "wifebeaters", los maltratadores, por ser la ms barata. Brindamos.Cheers.

Brevekit kat: De acuerdo con las cifras de la Embajada Espaola, se creeque hay ochenta mil espaoles viviendo en Londres. Pero esta cifracontiene veneno: la Embajada cuenta los inmigrantes registrados, perode nuevo (si hacemos caso a sus propias mediciones) la cifra realpodra multiplicarse por tres, hasta los doscientos mil espaoles.Slo se sabe que no sabemos nada.

MANORHOUSE

Alas seis llaman a la puerta. Es David. Juan le da veinte libras yDavid le entrega una bolsita con marihuana

Juanme cuenta que conoci a David hace seis meses. Trabaja para una delas bandas de turcos, aunque los ms peligrosos siguen siendo lasbandas de ingleses. Juan me habla de cuando pens en hacerse mula,pero le dio miedo y se ech para atrs. Conoce a un chaval deSevilla que puede ponerle en contacto. Es relativamente sencillo:tragarte dos bolas, aguantar las nuseas, rezar para que no se abrala bolsa en el estmago, coger el avin y cagar la bolsa nada msllegar. El resto es fcil.

Sehace de noche. Desde el sof del saln distinguimos los zorros quese acumulan en el jardn de cemento, revoloteando entre los restosde basura. Me habla de que el fin de semana ir a la despedida de unespaol que vive en Turnpike Lane. "El cabrn ha conseguidodinero y ahora se va a un barrio bueno del sur, con su estudio bienamueblado y todo. Se va el domingo y el lunes ya entra en suhabitacin un pringado de Valencia que se cree que va a visitar elMuseo Britnico todos los das. Pero tendr tiempo de adaptarse.Como todos".

Lepregunto a Juan si l no piensa en mudarse de barrio. Es entoncescuando me cuenta su plan:

Juanquiere comprar una casa en Manor House. Concretamente, una casa enHarringay, o en Totenham Hale.

"Peroestas casas son una mierda", le hago ver. "Nadie querra vivirms de dos aos. Hara falta cambiar todo..."

"Cambiar?No, qu va, no hace falta cambiar nada. Por eso me saldr barata.El alquiler sube como la espuma en Londres cada ao. Si losespaoles estn pagando ahora quinientas libras podra hacer quepaguen seiscientos en cinco aos. Conozco a un par de chicos que yahan empezado a mirar precios as que tenemos que ser rpidos".

"Elnegocio en Manor House es comprar una o dos casas y alquilarlas aespaoles, o a los rumanos. Los pobres no hablan nada de inglspero trabajan como condenados y aguantan lo que les echen. Ganardinero con ello y me ir a la zona 6 de Londres donde todo es msbarato y alquilar un estudio mejor a los venezolanos o a lositalianos, o quizs me vuelva a Espaa. Si empiezo a ganar tres millibras al mes podr hacerlo".

Medoy cuenta de que hace fro. "Perdona. Los cabrones an no van aconectar la calefaccin hasta dentro de dos semanas. Espera", mepide Juan.

Enciendeel horno de gas y abre la puerta. La ola de calor nos llega enseguida. Empiezo a escuchar un ruido por las paredes. "No tepreocupes", me dice. "Son ratas. He tapado con maderos los huecosdel fregadero. Ahora ya no tienen dnde ir".

Yah nos quedamos.

I’ve got some bad news about sparrows.

Le ministre de l'Education a annoncé l'abolition de l'enseignement de la matière, taxée de «pseudo-science occidentale».

read more

To the American popular eye, pre-revolutionary Cuba was the island of sin, a society consumed by the illnesses of gambling, the Mafia, and prostitution. Prominent American intellectuals echoed that view. Even in 1969, when Cuban reality had changed drastically, Susan Sontag, in an article in Ramparts, described Cuba as “a country known mainly for dance, music, prostitutes, cigars, abortions, resort life, and pornographic movies.”

In a 2004 article for the Nation, Arthur Miller, based on what he had learned from people who had worked in the film industry in the island, described the Batista society “as hopelessly corrupt, a Mafia playground, a bordello for Americans and other foreigners.”

Although most Cubans would have readily admitted that Sontag and Miller had touched some of Cuba’s real wounds, they would have hardly seen them as the most representative, or as the most pressing problems that affected the island. The perceptions dominant in America’s media revealed far more about the North American colonial worldview than anything about Cuba itself, a feature of the mainstream culture of the US that continues to prevail today.

Gambling

To Americans, gambling in Cuba meant casino gambling.

Casinos began to develop in Cuba in the 1920s in connection with the growth of tourism. After several ups and downs in the following three decades, the casino industry took off in the mid- to late 1950s as Batista and his cronies, working together with American Mafiosi, used the resources of Cuban state development banks, and even union retirement funds, to build hotels, all of which hosted casinos, like the Riviera, the Capri, and the Havana Hilton (today’s Havana Libre). In the process both Cuban rulers and Mafiosi lined their own pockets, skimming the casinos’ proceeds, cheating investors, and trafficking drugs.

However, if the casino world of the island got ample coverage in the American media, it never became a central issue in the island’s media, and in the Cuban consciousness. Aside from the American tourists, who were the casinos’ principal customers, only a small number of Cubans — upper-middle and upper-class whites — gambled there. The casinos’ dress code and minimum betting requirements kept most Cubans out, though it is true that a relatively small but significant number of Cubans earned their living servicing the casinos and the hotels and nightclubs where they were usually located.

But the economic impact of casino gambling, and even of tourism, was greatly exaggerated in the US. In 1956, a good year for tourism, that economic sector earned $30 million, barely 10 percent of what the sugar industry made that year. This relatively modest performance was due in part to the fact that mass international tourism facilitated by widespread commercial jet travel had not yet begun. In the 1950s between 200,000 and 250,00 tourists visited Cuba annually, compared with slightly over three million in 2014, and likely more in 2015.

The casinos of Havana were looted immediately after the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959. The great majority of Cubans saw casinos — as well as the parking meters that had been installed in the capital a few months earlier — as odious expressions of the oppressive corruption of Batista and his henchmen.

But as Rosalie Schwartz, a historian of Cuban tourism, has pointed out, “disgust with government excesses preceded and outstripped outrage over casinos . . . Revolutionaries charged Batista henchmen with torture and murder — not casino operations — when they put them on trial.” Most Cubans also did not object to gambling, and many had been engaging in the practice for a long time, though in a manner that was worlds apart from the casinos populated by tourists and privileged Cubans.

Cuba had an official national state lottery that had existed since Spanish colonial times. Every Saturday afternoon, a drawing took place sponsored by the Renta de la Lotería, an agency of the Cuban government created for that purpose. The Renta had become a massive source of corruption, although some legitimate charitable organizations obtained funds from the lottery’s proceedings. Even the Cuban Communists shared in those proceeds when, in control of the trade union movement during their alliance with Batista from 1938 until 1944, they built a new union headquarters at least in part with the money that the government granted them from the national lottery.

The lottery drawings were broadcast over the radio featuring a peculiar mixture of modernity and the Middle Ages. The weekly spectacle, worthy of a Luis Buñuel film, had the orphan and abandoned children raised by the nuns of the Casa de Beneficencia announce the different prize numbers with a distinctive chant in a characteristic voice, tone, and cadence. But the fact that even the smallest fractions of the official lottery tickets were relatively expensive stimulated the growth of an informal, illegal lottery based on the results of the official lottery that accepted bets as small as five cents.

This illegal lottery, referred to as “la bolita,” became big business and had its own capitalists, or “bankers,” some of which came to be well-known. The bankers, however, could not have survived without their numerous agents (“apuntadores”) in the barrios. They were the equivalent of the “numbers runners” in the United States. The anthropologist Ulf Hannerz suggested in his book Soulside that the numbers game of the American black ghettoes may have originated in Cuba.

There was little if any connection between the people who owned and ran the casinos and the bankers who ran the illegal bolita — except for the peculiar case of Martin Fox, the owner of the Tropicana night club and casino, who had made his initial capital as a bolita banker but left that world behind when he became the owner of Tropicana in the early fifties. What the bolita bankers and casino owners did have in common was that they had to pay off high government functionaries and the police.

The “bolita” was primarily a gambling activity for poor people. But for many poor and even some middle-class people, la bolita also became a means to support or to supplement their income by working as apuntadores, or numbers runners.

Even my parents, immigrant small-business people whose obsessive dedication to work and saving could not have been further removed from any gambling mentality, participated in the bolita. They did so not because they expected to win anything, but because their small weekly bets — always the same number — were a way of helping a poor neighborhood woman who worked as an apuntadora to survive.

The Big Crooks

For a long time, several Mafia families entertained the idea of taking their business to Cuba both as a means to expand their enterprises and to escape the reach of the FBI and the IRS, among other US government agencies. In December 1946, Havana’s classic Hotel Nacional hosted an important gathering of the Mafia attended by the heads of the most powerful families and organized by Lucky Luciano, who had been residing in the island since October of that year. But under heavy American pressure, the Cuban government deported Luciano in February of 1947.

Some other gangsters, such as Meyer Lansky and Tampa’s Santo Trafficante Jr, had a much longer stay on the island and were closely connected to casino gambling. Ironically, part of Lansky’s task was to eliminate the petty trickery of fast-paced games, such as the one called “razzle-dazzle” (a casino equivalent of the “two-card monte”) used to trick gullible tourists. Even Richard Nixon had complained to the US Embassy in Havana about the victimization of one of his rich and influential friends.

According to historian Rosalie Schwartz, in response to the threat that these games posed to the Havana casinos, Lansky opened a school to train and screen casino employees. Only trained and trustworthy individuals were to gain access to the world of blackjack dealers, croupiers, and roulette stickmen. Eliminating the petty chiselers from his casinos, Lansky ran an efficient operation that attracted big-time professional players to his crap tables, and gamblers who could trust the fairness of the games.

At Lansky’s Montmartre nightclub, businesslike table crews conducted the game; dealers dealt blackjack from a box, not from the hand, and floormen watched the action for any sign of impropriety. The big crooks were not going to let the small crooks discredit and ruin their business.

There were undoubtedly strong links between the Mafia and the Batista regime, but some observers have greatly magnified and distorted the nature of those links. Journalist T. J. English, for example — the author of an earlier book on the Westies, Manhattan’s Hells Kitchen’s gang — claims in his 2007 book, Havana Nocturne: How the Mob owned Cuba and then Lost it to the Revolution, that the mob “had infiltrated a sovereign nation and taken control of financial institutions and the levers of power from top to bottom.” According to English, Batista had embraced the dictates of the American mobsters and had become the muscle behind the Havana mob.

English may have taken his cue from Cuban writer Enrique Cirules‘s book El Imperio de la Habana. Cirules, who later accused English of plagiarism, argued that the power of the Mafia, in a permanent alliance with the US intelligence services, had taken over every level of power in Cuba. Batista’s 1952 military coup, which brought the retired general back to power, was not the cause of the power that the Mafia had amassed, but the coronation of its power, and led to a power triangle formed by the dominant financial groups, the Mafia, and US intelligence.

Cirules also makes the fantastic claim that the gains from the Mafia’s cocaine trade were even bigger than those of the sugar industry. However, the Mafia in Cuba was only one, albeit highly corrupt, interest group. The Mafia had no interest whatsoever in running Cuba; it just wanted a place to pursue their interests, primarily in gambling, and also in the drug trade, unmolested by the US or the Cuban government. Rather than trying to control the government and the political and economic life of the island, these mobsters focused their efforts on preventing other criminals from invading their turf.

That’s how, for example, internal mob disputes about gambling interests in Cuba led to the murder of gangster Albert Anastasia in a New York hotel barbershop in October 1957. The Mafia’s association with Batista fit the needs and requirements of the mob, but it is wrong to claim that its power in the island was greater than that of Batista and his military forces — just as the power of the mob in the United States of the twenties was not greater than that of the largest corporations, the Pentagon, and the Democratic and Republican parties.

Sex Work

Sex work was relatively common in the pre-revolutionary Cuba of the fifties, but North American opinion gave it a lot more importance than people did in Cuba, including the most radical critics of the island’s social and economic status quo.

It is estimated that by the end of the fifties Havana had 270 brothels and 11,500 women earned their living as sex workers. Compared with New York City in 1977, where 40,000 female sex workers were reportedly working, the ratio of sex workers in 1950s Havana, with a population of 1 million people, was approximately double the amount of the one in New York City, with 8 million people.

Considering the much greater poverty, unemployment, and the sexual double standard geared to preserve the virginity of “decent” girls — not men — until they were married, the difference at the time between the two cities is not as stark as one might expect.

Sex work in Havana attracted more attention than the one in New York not because there were more sex workers, but because of its greater concentration in certain urban areas (the neighborhoods of Colón, San Isidro, and Pajarito street, for example). The salient role that sex work played in the tourist industry, as well as the flamboyance of some of its venues, contributed in a major way to its visibility and notoriety.

Despite the high number of Cuban women engaged, and exploited, in the industry, there were many more Cuban women in other highly exploited sectors. Poor and unemployed young rural women, a major recruitment zone for the Havana bordellos, were far more likely to end up working as maids in a middle- or upper-class urban household than as prostitutes. The moral economy of the Cuban peasant and agricultural proletariat, which included notions of dignity, strong parental authority, and folk religion, were powerful forces against sex work.

According to the 1953 Cuban national census — the last census held before the revolutionary victory in 1959 — 87,522 women were working as domestic servants, 77,500 women were working for a relative without pay, and 21,000 women were totally without employment and looking for work. Moreover, an estimated 83 percent of all employed women worked less than ten weeks a year, and only 14 percent worked year-round.

These were the far more shocking realities of the uneven economic development induced by the US empire and Cuban capital on the island. But the work and the problems of being a maid, or a seamstress, may not have been as risqué and exciting to North American observers, whether left- or right-wing, interested in Cuban exoticism and difference.

The Revolutionaries Respond

If many Americans, including sections of the American liberal and radical left, saw casino gambling, the Mafia, and prostitution as defining characteristics of what was wrong with the Cuba of the 1950s, the Cuban opposition on the island had bigger fish to fry — dictatorship, widespread corruption of public officials, the evils of the one-crop economy and extreme rural poverty, high unemployment (particularly among young people, in both urban and rural Cuba), and in the case of the Communist opposition to Batista, US imperialism. (Fidel Castro made no public mention of imperialism until after the revolutionary victory.)

At his 1953 trial for the failed attack he led on the Moncada military barracks in eastern Cuba, Castro delivered a radical speech entitled “History Will Absolve Me.” In the speech Castro mentioned the need for an agrarian reform law that would have granted small allotments to landless peasants with compensation to the landlords, and demanded the participation of the workers in the profits (30 percent) of all large industrial, mercantile, or mining concerns, including sugar mills. He promised also that his revolutionary government would nationalize the electricity and telephone monopolies and confiscate the wealth of those who had misappropriated public funds.

Subsequent pronouncements made by Castro during the last two years of the struggle against the dictatorship were socially more moderate, as he successfully rallied a broad social and political coalition in support of the guerrilla and urban struggles of the 26th of July Movement. But even when the casinos and the Mafia became more important in the late 1950s, neither Castro, nor any other opposition leader, mentioned the Mafia, gambling, or prostitution in their political pronouncements.

That does not mean that Castro and other Cuban reformers and revolutionaries did not regard those phenomena as social ills or that they were indifferent to their effects. But they saw them as secondary problems, in a sense derivative from more fundamental issues that in their eyes characterized 1950s Cuba.

It is true that in those times there still floated the old pre-independence notion, based on the Enlightenment politics propagated by, among others, the Masonic lodges to which must Cuban leaders of the wars of independence against Spanish domination belonged, that Cuba suffered from three vices that a future Cuban Republic should eliminate: bullfighting, cockfighting, and the lottery.

Bullfighting was indeed outlawed, but cockfighting, seen as a more Cuban than Spanish “hobby,” persisted, although more in rural than urban areas, and had nowhere near the massive cultural impact as that of the official lottery and its derivatives. But that notion had been fading away for some time.

The Cuban pre-revolutionary state also occasionally undertook actions against sex work. For example, in January 1951, under the constitutional government of the Auténtico Party’s Carlos Prio Socarrás, the minister of interior, Lomberto Díaz, launched a campaign to “clean” the Colón neighborhood, the area most associated with prostitution in the capital.

The campaign was welcomed by many Cubans, especially by the middle classes, and was widely reported and discussed in the media. But since there was no attempt to provide alternative employment to sex workers, the sector returned in full force to the Colón neighborhood soon after.

Colonial Folklore

As far back as the nineteenth century, many US politicians and ruling-class leaders saw Cuba as a potential target of annexation, a strategy that was ideologically justified by a body of assumptions that, as historian Louis A. Pérez has pointed out, regarded Cubans as a people ill-fit to govern themselves, ruled by a country (Spain) ill-equipped to govern anyone. It was this notion that supported the US intervention in Cuba’s war of independence against Spain and that, notwithstanding the genuine sympathy and compassion that many Americans felt for the oppressed Cubans, justified its imperialist design for the island.

After Spain lost the war, Cuba became independent in 1902, although only in a very limited sense considering the Platt Amendment granted the US government the right to militarily intervene in Cuba. As Pérez has indicated, the new reality of the island became represented in the predominant American ideology as a nation of children, or schoolchildren, with the Americans as their teachers.

Although this conception was not universally shared, and was even criticized in the US, it persisted as a kernel of the American popular conception of Cuba. As the island became the pioneer of tourism in the Caribbean beginning in the 1920s, it acquired an aura of sensuality, lack of moral inhibitions, and a hint of uncensored primitiveness highlighted by the American Protestant puritanism.

In the last analysis, the American emphasis on gambling, prostitution, and the Mafia as the central elements of the ills that affected pre-revolutionary Cuban society was, besides the general American fascination with the Mafia, a form of colonial folklore and ideology that also influenced Americans who would not consciously support colonialism or imperialism.

It was an ideology that was also present in the other imperialist power of that era, the USSR, as echoed in the 1964 Soviet film Soy Cuba. As Jacqueline Loss, a scholar of Soviet cultural influence in Cuba, has argued, the Soviet film represented Cubans as hot-blooded, sexy, impoverished, and in need of civilizing.

The American view of pre-revolutionary Cuba also stems from some assumptions that underlie the concept of underdevelopment. Aimed at replacing the “Orientalist” biases of the older notion of “backwardness,” underdevelopment — and later the Global South — was often superimposed on the earlier meaning instead of replacing it with modern objectives.

The terms were often also used as a rigid dichotomy — development versus underdevelopment — instead of as a continuum, which hindered the understanding of a country like pre-revolutionary Cuba and its contradictory combination of development and underdevelopment, its high modernity mixed with powerful remnants of the past, precluding a conception of complexity and nuanced analysis and leading to a simplistic image of a “primitive” country governed by sex and crime.

When applied to countries like Cuba, the American popular perception of “culture” was also homogeneous and unchanging, resulting in a distorted, caricatured image of Cubans. The complexities of Cuban society were reduced in the American popular media to cultural clichés and subsumed into an undifferentiated whole.

Cubans living on the island in the 1950s were not just dancers and fun people with a good sense of humor, but were also, for most of the time they were awake, working very hard either at ruling over the country (all the way down from dictators, capitalists, and landlords to soldiers and policemen) or, as for the great majority, at surviving as workers, peasants, public employees, students, professionals, shopkeepers, or intellectuals.

Whatever cultural behavior these various Cuban groupings may have shared, they were also substantially different from each other, sometimes even having more in common with their occupational and class counterparts in the United States than with other Cubans. After all, oppressed people in all countries act on the basis of the same drives and aspirations, trying to defend their standard of living, meet certain nutritional requirements, and limit if not eliminate their oppression.

This view of pre-revolutionary Cuba as a culturally homogeneous society so “exotic,” so far away from any similarity to a “developed” society, and fatally afflicted with the ills of gambling and Mafia control, suggested the image of an exhausted lumpenized society devoid of any political, moral, and spiritual resources and thus — unable to engage and conduct its own struggle for self-emancipation — dependent on saviors from above.

In the very early stages of the successful revolution, before it adopted the Soviet model, the Mafiosi were unceremoniously kicked out of the country, casino gambling was abolished (after some initial difficulties addressing the problem of substantial numbers of casino employees who would be left unemployed.) In February 1959 the national lottery was converted into the INAV (National Institute of Savings and Housing) — a transitional measure channeling the proceeds remaining from pre-revolutionary gambling into a savings fund dedicated to housing.

Sex work was initially allowed, but reformed, with the extortions by pimps and police abolished. Later on the sex workers were trained and provided alternative employment, but sex work eventually reappeared with the severe economic crisis of the nineties and the exponential growth of tourism.

In the last several years, bolita gambling (based on the results of the Florida lottery) has experienced a rebirth, although it has not yet reached the volume and cultural impact of its pre-revolutionary equivalent.

Still, whether one approves or disapproves of the present Cuban government, it’s undeniable that the changes in the country, including the establishment of a one-party state, grew out of internal social and political realities in Cuba that were radically different from the American perception of Mafiosi decadence and lapsed island morals.

What were the food and cooking techniques of the Viking Age? you could ask The Viking Answer Lady or get pollen analysis, reconstruction tips, and recipes from The Viking Food Guy, or you could just ask Chef Jesper Lynge (Daily Mail) who is attempting to revive Viking Cusine from his cafe in an Danish Iron Age graveyard. ( Recipies and descriptions )

Granite countertops have become a stone idol. If you've ever seen an episode of House Hunters, half of those people would rather have granite countertops than a roof.

It hasn't always been that way. In 1986, when legendary graphic designer Deborah Sussman used granite countertops in her kitchen, the New York Times called it a "down-to-earth" choice. The next year, it was singled out as a cutting-edge material in the Los Angeles Times, but still too expensive for most people. Throughout the '80s, granite was still jockeying with marble for favor among California yuppies.

So how did granite go from niche countertop to mass fixation? American imports of granite have increased about tenfold in the past 20 years. It's not only changing consumer tastes that caused the shift — big global market forces have a hand in the granite takeover as well.

Emerson Schwartzkopf has been covering stone for more than a decade and is the editor of the industry publication Stone Update. He used his expertise to guide me through how homebuyers became granite-obsessed maniacs.

1) More countries started getting into granite. Especially Brazil.

Ricardo Funari/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images

If you're a bettor, it's generally a safe wager that someone's granite countertops came from Brazil.

Before the mid-'90s and 2000s, Italy had a leading position in granite processing, but things opened up after that. "In the early 2000s," Schwartzkopf says, "you started to have a number of different countries enter." More were both quarrying granite (getting it out of the ground) and processing it into worked granite (refining it to be cut). The United States has granite, but other countries could provide more at a lower price. That led to more countertops, creating a cycle in which supply and demand surged.

For the most part, American imports of finished granite are dominated by Brazil, China, and India, with Brazil providing about half of the worked granite supply. That means your granite probably came from an international market and likely landed somewhere in Brazil or China along the way.

Just what kind of scale are we talking about? It's massive. Based on estimates from the US International Trade Commission, total United States imports of processed granite were about 206,000 metric tons in 1996. In 2014, they exceeded 2 million metric tons.

"In the real heights of 2006," Schwarzkopf recalls, "importers from Brazil were going around the United States trying to find excess capacity to take granite." Granite supply isn't a problem — it's about which countries can get it out quickest and cheapest, and right now those countries are Brazil, China, and India.

2) Shipping granite got easier

DeAgostini/Getty Images

In the past, people typically got their domestic granite from local suppliers, and that kept them roughly in sync with local costs. As global granite became more easily shippable, it became more affordable for builders and consumers.

"Containerized shipping is not the newest thing on the block," Schwartzkopf notes, but its rise had an influence in lowering granite prices.

Because granite slabs intended for countertops could be precut on site and then safely packed and shipped, which was largely new to the '90s, it became possible for people to get granite from around the world.

3) Granite became easier to cut

Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images

When a granite slab arrives at a shop, it gets cut into the appropriate rough size and is then hand-shaved by someone operating an industrial grinder. But today, computer controlled saws can make major cuts, like the hole for where your sink goes, more easily.

"Everything has been influenced by computerized controls," Schwarzkopf says. While granite used to be impractical and niche, computer cutting has made it much easier to work with.

4) The housing boom exaggerated every trend

Nicole Wilder/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

The timing of the granite boom is closely tied to that of the housing bubble of the 2000s. That's probably not a coincidence. Trends in home construction during that period probably helped change public opinion on what a "good" countertop looked like.

As builders put granite into their homes, it quickly became a standard. In turn, even older houses needing renovation latched onto that granite mania. One trend — a boom in home construction — took granite along for the ride and perpetuated the impression that granite was the prime material of a "new" building.

"Granite went from being a premium option to a sales come-on," Schwarzkopf says. "You started seeing ads for 'free granite countertops!'"

Post-bust, granite fell, but it's picked up again without the housing boom's artificial highs.

Admittedly, there are some benefits to granite as a material. New varieties have given it more color and range since the '80s, and it has some advantages over competitive materials like marble, which is likely to etch or stain. But a big part of its appeal is an impression of luxury that, thanks to changing globalization, technology, and housing trends, makes it an affordable indulgence for the middle class.

Can anything stop granite mania?

A lot of people like granite well enough. But for anyone who's spent too much time watching HGTV, it's hard not to wonder if our nation's brightest minds will ever break free from their granite addiction.

For now, it's granite ho, Schwarzkopf says, but with a few important caveats. Marble is rallying as white becomes a big color again, and there's a strong trend in recycled surfaces that allow for both flash and environmental consciousness. Quartz is also starting to gain on granite. In a few years, you might see more countertops made from materials like recycled Skyy vodka bottles:

Still, for the most part, there's little reason to believe that the granite fervor will disappear. The big trends that helped it become a hit continue to make it a realistic luxury option for the middle class. So be prepared — you'll probably be seeing people screaming, "Oh my god, granite countertops!" for a while, even as quartz gains ground.

Fucking millennials and their social media, part 2.  … More »

The influential "Lord of Lowbrow", The Pizz (born Stephen Pizzurro), passed away in Long Beach on Sunday shortly after posting a final photo to Instagram. He was 57.

The Pizz is well-known in the Kustom Kulture scene and collaborated with visual artists such as Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, as well as musicians such as JG Thirlwell .

More examples of his work can be found on his Instagram, on the Instagram tag #thepizz, and at Hi-Fructose (NSFW). Past interviews can be found at Color Ink Book and Last Gasp.

Safety tech for women is always controversial. Although it’s reassuring for me personally in the short term to carry pepper spray or other precautions, it’s also frustrating to see tech that places more responsibility for sexual assault prevention on women rather than on addressing the culture that encourages sexual assault to occur in the first place.

Last year we wrote about Undercover Colors, a nail polish designed by a team of college students to detect the presence of date rape drugs in a drink. The product sparked a necessary conversation about the precautions women are encouraged to take in order to not be raped, and the money, time, and commitment we’re told we must invest in order to remain safe.

Now, another prevention tool designed by colleges students is receiving mainstream attention; and although the Companion App has a similar aim to Undercover Colors, it does seem like more of a step in the right direction for safety tech.

Designed by five students from the University of Michigan, the free app allows users to request virtual walks home from friends or family members, even those who haven’t downloaded the app themselves.

If you agree to “walk” a user home, Companion sends you a text message with a link to an interactive map that depicts their progress. If the user moves off their intended course, falls, starts running, etc., the app will ask them if they’re OK. If the user doesn’t reply within 15 seconds, Companion sets off an alarm on the user’s phone designed to scare off attackers and alert police, and offers the option to instantly call the police for them.

Since the app was specifically designed to protect students walking home alone on college campuses, Companion will also automatically call campus security for students at US universities that have agreed to work with the app.

Personally, the most intriguing aspect of Companion for me is the “I am nervous” feature, which allows users to press a button to let the app know if they’re sensing danger. Within a week of launching, Companion’s creators claim that students at participating colleges reported 500 incidents where they felt nervous.

Ideally, a feature like that may help shift the onus for preventing sexual violence off of women and onto schools that might not have otherwise known the frequency with which their campus culture makes women feel unsafe.

Companion co-founder Lexie Ernst explains, “In future, people can specify what makes them nervous and why, and we hope to open a dialogue between campus safety departments and students.”

Companion will likely prove useful outside of college campuses as well. According to Ernst, “Both men and women from all demographics have emailed us saying they’d love to use the app. Lots of parents want to use the app for their children, and some people want their elderly parents to use it, too, to make sure they don’t get lost.”

What do you think, gang? Does Companion sound like a better option than other tools? Will you consider downloading it?

(via Business Insider)

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

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El hombre, a diferencia de la mayoría de mamíferos no tiene épocas de celo, o al contrario, está en celo todo el año. Posiblemente eso se deba a que muchos animales acoplan su época de reproducción y cría a las épocas del año con mayor disponibilidad de alimentos o de clima más benigno. Gracias a la civilización el hombre ha conseguido tener una disponibilidad de alimentos regular y protegerse de las inclemencias del tiempo, lo que le permite criar durante todo el año y que los cumpleaños no se concentren en un solo mes.

Será incinerado a las 20.30 horas del sábado en Boisaca

Voy a dejar también clara mi manida opinion sobre esto: Trabajar es un timo. No lo entiendo, me parece absurdo pensar que todos tengamos que pasar ocho horas al dia, cinco dias a la semana; que descontando el tiempo que se duerme es la inmensa gran parte de nuestra vida; haciendo una unica actividad, cuando hay tantas cosas que hacer. Ninguna vocacion o interés de la tarea justifican empezar a hacerla nada mas comenzar el dia y no dejarla hasta un momento en que ya se està agotada o se debe dedicar el resto del tiempo a diversas gestiones para preparar la jornada siguiente. Es un asunto terrible e imposible de evitar, me doy cuenta de ello y lo unico que puedo hacer es abrazarme sobrecogida a la persona a la que amo y junto a la que quiero pasar mi vida, no junto a toda la gama de productos de Adobe, y a quien solo veo unas cuantas horas al salir de nuestros trabajos y mientras hacemos tareas a toda prisa hasta que uno de ambos se queda inevitablemente dormido antes de haberlas siquiera terminado.

Se supone que construyo una ciudad y apenas la veo porque paso mis dias sentada dentro de un lugar.

Y LO PEOR DE TODO, es que mi actitud no es la normal. Lo normal es querer mostrarse constantemente agradecido y entusiasmado por poder vivir la vida de esta forma. Mis companheros estudiantes llegan aqui media hora antes que los empleados fijos porque les han dicho que esa es la hora de entrada y tardan màs en salir pese a que la hora fijada de salida anhade ocho mas a la semana, a mayores una jornada, sobre las horas legales fijadas (Y PAGADAS) en los contratos. No se piden dias libres pese a tener derecho a ellos. No se pide cobrar a principios de cada mes pese a ser ilegal cobrar todo en un unico cheque al finalizar las pràcticas. Hay un par de parques en torno a la oficina en los que como sola entre mendigos y negros que fuman y escuchan rap porque el resto de mis companheros comen delante de sus pantallas, pese a haber también una mesa con espacio para todos. Soy la unica que tarda una hora en comer, y no hacerlo anhade a las jornadas de los demàs otras tres horas no reconocidas, no pagadas y no necesarias.

PARA ESTAR RECORTANDO FONDOS BLANCOS DE JPGS DE LA BIBLIOTECA DE BLOQUES DE PHOTOSHOP ES QUE ME CAGO EN DIOS

Me gusta la arquitectura. Me gusta la ciudad. Me gusta aprender y conocer todo lo que puedo. Los proyectos en los que participo me parecen muy interesantes y buenos para las personas que los disfrutaràn y las zonas de Paris que reavivaràn o haràn màs comodas, bellas, seguras, accesibles o sostenibles. PERO NO PIENSO HACER COMO QUE TRAZAR PLANOS CAPA POR CAPA EN AUTOCAD ES LA ILUSION DE MI VIDA. Por qué esta farsa o, todavia peor, no farsa sino disfuncionalidad de espiritu.

Trabajar es un timo.

US parents are weaponizing their babies, christening them with names associated with killing and maiming. Here's a sample of baby names, many of which are on the rise: Danger, Arrow, Rebel, Pistol, Arson, Gunner, Cannon, Trigger, Shooter, Caliber, Magnum, Pistol, Mace, Blade, Saw, Dagger, Archer, Arrow, Chaos, Rambo.

Read the rest

Photo via Flickr user Hey Paul Studios

Lying across a turquoise rubber plinth, my legs in stirrups, a large blue sheet of paper draped across my pubes (for "modesty"), a doctor slowly pushes a clear plastic duck puppet up my vagina and, precisely at that moment, Total Eclipse of the Heart comes on over the radio and it's hard not to love the genitourinary medicine, or GUM, clinic.

I mean that most sincerely: I love the GUM clinic. It is wonderful beyond orgasm that in the UK anyone can walk into a sexual health clinic—without registering with a doctor, without an appointment, without any money, without a chaperone—and get seen within a few hours at most. It brings me to the point of climax just thinking about the doctors and health professionals who dedicate their life to the nation's ovaries, cervixes, vaginas, and wombs.

And yet, not all women are apparently so comfortable discussing their clitoral hall of fame with a doctor. According to a recent report commissioned by Ovarian Cancer Action, almost half of the women surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24 said they feared "intimate examinations," while 44 percent are too embarrassed to talk about sexual health issues with a GP. What's more, two thirds of those women said they would be afraid to say the word "vagina" in front of their doctor. Their doctor. That is desperately, disappointingly, dangerously sad.

In 2001, I went to see a sexual health nurse called Ms. Cuthbert who kindly, patiently and sympathetically explained to me that I wasn't pregnant—in fact could not be pregnant—I was just doing my A-Levels. The reason I was feeling sick, light-headed, and had vaginal discharge that looked like a smear of cream cheese was because I was stressed about my simultaneous equations and whether I could remember the order of British prime ministers between 1902 to 1924. My body was simply doing its best to deal with an overload of adrenaline.

Back then, my GUM clinic was in a small health center opposite a deli that would sell Czechoslovakian beer to anyone old enough to stand unaided, and a nail bar that smelled of fast food. I have never felt more grown up than when I first walked out of that building, holding a striped paper bag of free condoms and enough packets of Microgynon to give a fish tits. My blood pressure, cervix, heartrate, and emotional landscape had all been gently and unobtrusively checked over by my new friend Ms. Cuthbert. I had been given the time and space to discuss my hopes and anxieties and was ready to launch myself, legs akimbo, into a world of love and lust—all without handing over a penny, having to tell my parents, pretending that I was married or worry that I was being judged.

My local sexual health clinic today is, if anything, even more wonderful. In a neighborhood as scratched, scored, and ripped apart by the twin fiends of poverty and gentrification as Hackney, the GUM clinic is the last great social leveler. It is one of our last few collective spaces. Sitting in reception, staring at the enormous pictures of sand dunes and tree canopies it is clear that, for once, we're all in this together. The man in a blue plastic moulded chair wishing his mum a happy birthday on the phone, the two girls in perfect parallel torn jeans scrolling through WhatsApp, the guy with the Nike logo tattoo on his neck getting a glass of water for his girlfriend, the red-headed hipster in Birkenstocks reading about witchcraft in the waiting room, the mother and daughter with matching vacuum-sized plastic handbags talking about sofas, the fake flowers, Magic FM playing on the wall-mounted TV, the little kids running around trying to say hello to everyone while the rest of us desperately avoided eye contact—the whole gang was there. And that's the point: you may be a working mum, you may be a teenager, you may be a social media intern at a digital startup, you may be a primary school teacher, you may be married, single, a sex worker, unemployed, wealthy, religious, terrified, or defiant but whatever your background, wherever you've come from and whoever you slept with last night, you'll end up down at the GUM clinic.

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Which is why it seems such a vulvic shame that so many women feel scared to discuss their own bodies with the person most dedicated to making sure that body is OK. "No doctor will judge you when you say you have had multiple sexual partners, or for anything that comes up in your sexual history," Dr. Tracie Miles, the President of the National Forum of Gynecological Oncology Nurses tells me on the phone. "We don't judge—we're real human beings ourselves. If we hadn't done it we probably wish we had and if we have done it then we will probably be celebrating that you have too."

Doctors are not horrified by women who have sex. Doctors are not grossed out by vaginas. So to shy away from discussing discharge, pain after sex, bloating, a change in color, odor, itching, and bleeding not only renders the doctor patient conversation unhelpful, it also puts doctors at a disadvantage, hinders them from being able to do their job properly, saves nobody's blushes and could result in putting you and your body at risk.

According to The Eve Appeal—a women's cancer charity that is campaigning this September to fight the stigma around women's health, one in five women associate gynecological cancer with promiscuity. That means one in five, somewhere in a damp and dusty corner of their minds, are worried that a doctor will open up her legs, look up at her cervix and think "well you deserve this, you slut." Which is awful, because they won't. They never, ever would. Not just because they're doctors and therefore have spent several years training to view the human body with a mix of human sympathy and professional dispassion, but more importantly, because being promiscuous doesn't give you cancer.

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"There is no causal link between promiscuity and cancer," says Dr. Miles. "The only sexually transmitted disease is the fear and embarrassment of talking about sex; that's what can stop us going. If you go to your GP and get checked out, then you're fine. And you don't have to know all the anatomical words—if you talk about a wee hole, a bum hole, the hole where you put your Tampax, then that is absolutely fine too."

Although there is some evidence of a causal link between certain gynecological cancers and High Risk Human Papilloma Virus (HRHPV), that particular virus is so common that, 'it can be considered a normal consequence of sexual activity' according to The Eve Appeal. Eighty percent of us will pick up some form of the HPV virus in our lifetime, even if we stick with a single, trustworthy, matching-socks-and-vest-takes-out-the-garbage-talks-to-your-mother-on-the-phone-can't-find-your-clitoris partner your entire life. In short, HRHPV may lead to cancer, but having different sexual partners doesn't. Of course, unprotected sex can lead to an orgy of other sexually transmitted infections, not to mention the occasional baby, but promiscuity and safe sex are not mutually exclusive. And medical professionals are unlikely to be shocked by either.

We are incredibly lucky in the UK that any woman can stroll into a sexual health clinic, throw her legs open like a cowboy and receive some of the best medical care the world has ever known. We can Wikipedia diagrams of our vaginas to learn the difference between our frenulum and prepuce (look it up, gals). We can receive free condoms any day of the (working week) from our doctor or friendly neighborhood GUM clinic. We can YouTube how to perform a self-examination, learn to spot the symptoms of STIs, read online accounts by women with various health conditions, and choose from a military-grade arsenal of different contraception methods, entirely free.

A third of women surveyed by The Eve Appeal said that they would feel more comfortable discussing their vaginas and wombs if the stigma around gynecological health and sex was reduced. But a large part of removing that stigma is up to us. We have to own that conversation and use it to our advantage. We need to bite the bullet and start talking about our pudenda. We have to learn to value and accept our genitals as much as any other part of our miraculous, hilarious bodies.

So come on, don't be a cunt. Open up about your vagina.

Follow Nell on Twitter.

Also, take more of them. But better.
Anand Prasad offers a guide to selfies for men, and more importantly: why we should take them.

Maybe you haven't seen it, but something extraordinary is growing on social media: a culture of unconditional self-acceptance and mutual reinforcement. It was never planned by the people who made Twitter or Instagram, never designed as a product feature, but it's happening, and it's empowering and healing people every day. Selfies are a huge part of the process, each one a focal point for loving ourselves or others.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm having a good hair day and have a date with Instagram.

He's sold eight million CD's, has two No. 1 singles in almost every country in the world, counts 14 gold and 18 platinum records to his credit, and even had his image imprinted upon millions of Coke cans across Europe. This all came late in his life, after decades of quietly playing jazz piano. John Larkin became a pop hit in 1994, thanks to Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop- Bop), a dance single from his first album as Scatman John. But he wasn't a one-hit wonder for the radio only, and released five albums, three as Scatman John. He died in 1999, and left a legacy thanks to his work with young stutterers around the world.

Here's a short documentary (YT, 6:36) featuring interview clips of John Larkin talking about his life, from his stressful youth, his troubled adulthood and finally his international success as Scatman John. You can also see his keynote presentation at the NSP Convention in 1995 (YT, 8:52), where he also talks a bit about his story.

For a taste of his work pre-Scatman, you can hear his entire album, released as John Larkin in 1986, on YouTube, featuring abstract, raw, avant-garde jazz, very different from that pop hit to say the least.

Jump forward nine years, and you have Scatman's World, a semi-autobiographical, semi-concept album about an imaginary Utopian society named "Scatland", which is currently the 9the best selling album in Japan by a non-Japanese artist. It's very much a 1990s dance album, and you could say it has not aged well, or was simply a product of its time.

1. Welcome to Scatland (video) | 2. Scatman's World (video, alternate video) | 3. Only You | 4. Quiet Desperation | 5. Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop) Extended radio version* | 6. Sing Now! | 7. Popstar | 8. Time (Take Your Time) | 9. Mambo Jambo | 10. Everything Changes | 11. Song of Scatland (official video) | 12. Hi, Louis | 13. Scatman (Game Over Jazz) bonus track

A year later, Scatman John returned with Everybody Jam! and cemented his popularity in Japan. It also charted in Switzerland, and resulted in two international singles (noted as ^{1, 2} below), plus a third for Japan (^J). The album is a diverse offering compared to its predecessor. The overall production of this album is superior, with improved sound quality, packaging, and music. Because of the broad musical scope, the album also features a wide-ranging group of musicians, including a gospel choir.

1. Stop the Rain | 2. Everybody Jam!¹ | 3. The Invisible Man (cover of Queen [official video]) | 4. Let It Go² | 5. Message To You | 6. (I Want To) Be Someone | 7. Scatmusic | 8. Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Mind | 9. (We Got To Learn To) Live Together | 10. Ballad of Love | 11. People of the Generation | 12. Lebanon | 13. U-Turn | 14. Everybody Jam! (Club Jam) || Japanese bonus tracks: 15. Paa Pee Poo Pae Po | 16. I'm Free | 17. Jazzology | 18. Pripri Scat (Radio Edit) (also featured in a Japanese pudding commercial, with Scatman John himself) | 19. Su Su Su Super Ki Re i^J - apparently the last video Scatman John made, according to a YouTube comment

In 1999, Scatman John released his final album, Take Your Time. The album had three associated singles (^{1, 2, 3} below). It's more euro-pop cheese, but also more matured, plus touching when you realize he was dying of lung cancer at this time.

1. Take Your Time (original extended version)³ * | 2. Scatman's Dance | 3. The Chickadee Song² | 4. Take Me Away | 5. Scat Me If You Can | 6. I Love Samba | 7. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word | 8. Ichi Ni San... Go! | 9. Dream Again | 10. Everyday | 11. Night Train | 12. Scatmambo¹

The final album from John Larkin was released posthumously by the Danish jazz label, Stunt Records, not as Scatman John, but under his own name on the album Listen to the Scatman in 2001. As you might expect, this isn't another Euro-Pop album, but looks back to Larkin's jazz roots (plus a bonus remix, for everyone who was looking for that sound). You can hear the 12 tracks in a slightly jumbled, repetitive YouTube playlist.

* Extended versions used instead of album versions, for whatever that's worth

More old clips of Scatman John in action: I'm A Scatman Live @ Dance Machine 8 (1996) | Extended session on Mtv Europe (circa 1995/6) | Scatman John live on a Japanese show | Scatman John, Grand Prix Award Winner in Japan, performing Scatman's World & Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop) [1995] | Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop) on Top of the Pops (circa 1995).

RIP Rico Rodriguez, most commonly know simply as 'Rico', the reggae and ska trombonist. He worked as a solo artist as well as with many other bands and musicians including Prince Buster and Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra but was probably best known as a member of The Specials.

Rico Rodriguez, his time at The Specials

The Specials - A Message to You Rudy
Rico Rodriguez - Man From Wareika (the whole album)
Rico Rodriguez - Trombone Man
Jools & his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra with Rico Rodriguez - I'm in the mood for love.

FERROL360 | Viernes 4 septiembre 2015 | 15:07

El pleno del Concello de San Sadurniño se reunirá en la mañana de este sábado en sesión ordinaria, incluyendo en el orden del día la retirada del título de alcalde honorario de la localidad a Francisco Franco. La cita comenzará a las 11:30 horas y está abierta al público, ofreciéndose la posibilidad de que intervengan los vecinos en su tramo final.

La anunciada iniciativa afecta también a José Antonio Girón de Velasco, ministro de Trabajo durante la dictadura franquista. En su caso, fue designado como hijo predilecto del municipio. La corporación de San Sadurniño reconoció a Franco el 1 de junio de 1939 y a Girón el 2 de septiembre de 1950.

La resolución que llevará al pleno el actual gobierno del BNG apela a la condena del golpe de Estado de 1936, la Guerra Civil y el régimen de Franco y aboga por el compromiso municipal con las libertades, la justicia y la sostenibilidad social y ambiental. La junta abordará, asimismo, la determinación del Martes de Carnaval (9 de febrero) y Santa Isabel (4 de julio) como festivos locales.

En el cine español hay decenas de joyitas de lo más dignas. Yo he gozado lo máximo con cosas tan dispares como el cine kinki, Ilusión o La vida alegre. Lo malo es la cantidad de productos prescindibles, subvencionados y exhibidos que eclipsan las grandes obras del cine nacional.


Sé que hay mucha gente fan de "Amanece que no es poco" de Jose Luís Cuerda. Es una película muy mítica para muchos y -tal y como he  comprobado con la muerte de Saza Tornil- tiene mucho tirón. Recomiendo bastante fuertemente esta web para los amantes de la peli.

Aunque sí que es verdad que la gente se suele quedar con los hombres que nacen de un bancal y Luis Ciges con Antonio Resines (interpretando a padre e hijo) en la cama; los puntos álgidos se suceden sin parar y son bastante mejores que estos dos que acabo de nombrar.

La siguiente parte, una especie de secuela que se llama "Así en el cielo como en la tierra", es más floja, pero mantiene el tono de lo que en su día se denominó surruralismo, un género único que trata tema trascendentales desde una óptica a la vez cubista y rural.



En realidad se trata de una trilogía, y precisamente hoy quería hablarles a ustedes de la primera parte, "Total". La obra completa sería pues "Total, amanece que no es poco, así en el cielo como en la tierra".

Total es un mediometraje, de hecho no sé muy bien por qué, pero se creó expresamente para televisión, lo cual me fascina, dada la libertad formal y narrativa de la peli. Trata del fin del mundo, del futuro, de las pulsiones humanas, de cómo y cuánto estamos sujetos a nuestra circunstancia y duda. Trata de cómo se envenena y olvida el amor, de la lógica de la naturaleza frente a la barbarie humana, de creencias y tradiciones... trata de absolutamente todo.

La memoria de Total sigue muy viva y en aumento. Se hacen proyecciones y rutas; y hace unos días comprobé con gran alegría que estaba en la web de tve, donde por ahora parece que se quedará sin problemas.

Así que, encantada, deseo colaborar en su propagación y darla a conocer a todo el que se deje. Yo creo que me lo van a agradecer ustedes.

Disfrútenla.

Lo dice Diana Aller

1. Towels.

Dudes, there is nothing like a matching set of overpriced fluffy as hell towels that you personally, intentionally, fold and hang artfully in your bathroom. Sometimes I stare at my bathroom (when it’s actually, you know, clean) and just feel so god damn proud of how… real and grown up it looks. I just wanna bring everyone who happens to come into my house over and show them, point at it and go “Look how much of an adult I am! My bathroom is color coordinated! I spent way too much on those towels but they feel like the purest unicorn fur when I run them across my body and they match the fucking curtains!”

I don’t do this… but I want to. Man, do I want to.

2. Sheets.

So basically towels, but for your bed, and, you know, less absorbent I guess. I think it’s pretty common knowledge that freshly cleaned sheets is one of the best thing in the world (especially when combined with freshly shaven legs…mmmm) but this is further improved if the thread count is high (another important yet menial part of adulting happens to be understanding the importance of thread count, or at least pretending you do) and if they match the window curtains and rug. Toss in some useless throw pillows with rhinestones that could literally poke your eye out if you laid on it, and your metamorphosis is complete.

3. Couch Pillows or just pillows in general.

Never underestimate the power of a new pillow (minus rhinestones) on your bed. It’s like resting your weary adult head on a beautiful sea of golden clouds. Also, there is something horribly satisfying about finding pillows that match your cheap second-hand couch somewhere and then victoriously arranging them on said shitty couch. Look at that ascetic! Look at that decorative freaking comfort! LOOK AT IT!

Now buy an afghan and call it a day, you’ve done it: Ultimate Adulthood level reached!

4. Kitchen stuff.

If someone had told me at fourteen that I would be over-the-moon excited about a big electric mixer and a set of matching spatulas on Christmas morning, I would have thrown my emo/punk rock music collection directly into their faces. Then I probably would have run to my room and written really shitty poetry about the darkness inside my heart, or something.

5. Electric Teapots.

Okay, so maybe this is just me but basically it goes like this:

I went to China, I bought a fancy handmade tea set and all the trappings (like a tray and a strainer and mats and stuff, really highclass shit here guys), and put it in my office/study/hideawayfrommykidandhusband. I actually use this tea set alot but I found the trip to the kitchen and the added necessity of waiting for water to boil—tedious.

First world problems, right?

So I told the husband guy that I wanted an electric teakettle for my birthday (god, 13 year old me is so pissed at that sentence) and lo and behold, there it was! Beautiful and efficient, just like I wanted. And guys it was ceramic and adorable and everything I ever dreamed of.
There may have been tears in my eyes, I don’t even know (it might be worth noting that I also got a beautiful diamond necklace, but, well… I think you can guess now which I was more excited about). Somewhere in my soul a tiny voice cried out ‘what has happened to you, where have you gone astray!’ But the other part of me was too freaking excited about the teakettle and not having to leave my office to get my fancy-tea fix that I didn’t care (God, I sound so domestic, ugh).

This could probably apply to many basic and boring kitchen appliances, so pick your poison I guess.

6. Alcohol.

Am I the only person who still feels weirdly like an imposter when perusing the whiskey section? Like my grandmother is going to come barreling around the corner and beat me with a wooden cooking spoon or something. There’s this weird sensation of getting away with something every time I make it through the checkout line and I just kind of look at my booze collection on top of the fridge when I get home and think –yes, yes I am a grown human with mind-addling liquids of my own, admire me!

7. Silverware.

Recently my husband and I got legitimately and disgustingly excited about buying a really ‘cool’ set of silverware at the store impromptu one day. When we got home we actually -totally serious here- got in a fight over who would get to open them and then organize them in the drawer. I think he won, but I rearranged them later, so it’s all good.

8. Stuff that smells good.

Laundry detergent, dryer sheets, air fresheners, wax-melty-thingys, candles, bath bombs, soap –God, I just want all the best smells in the world and I want to put them directly in my house all the time for always and forever and ever. Consequently I have way more air fresheners than any human being could possibly go through in three life times.

I’m now picturing my grandchildren unearthing a box of Febreeze bottles and passing them down to their children very ceremoniously (do those things have an expiration date? Huh, I wonder.)

9. Wine Glasses (Bonus Points if they’re crystal).

Okay so I didn’t buy these, there were a wedding present, and they have our initials on them (classy, I know), but close enough. There is just something about those wine glasses, man. No matter how cheap the wine I actually pour into them is, they instantly adult the shit out of my evening. Like, I feel the need to play classical music and sit near a fire (in the middle of an Arizona summer) while reading poetry to my dogs… or something.

10. Buying a whole box of cookies, or a cake, for no reason.

This is not something I do often (I’ve only done it twice), but let me tell you, it was worth it. There is something powerful about the realization that you can quite literally mosey on down to your local grocery store and buy a cake for no reason other than that you really want cake. It could even say freaking ‘Happy Birthday!’ on it and it wouldn’t matter, because no one is going to care, no one is going to question you. Then you can take yourself back home and eat it, eat it all, every piece, you don’t have to share with a single person, and no one is going to yell at you.

That’s a true taste of freedom, my friend.