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Black Widow #6 cover

Then and now, Kiev (larger)

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BREAKING: It's racist to say anything negative about Richard Sherman.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) January 20, 2014

We just got set back 500 years...

— Andre Iguodala (@andre) January 20, 2014

It's worth heading over to Deadspin for a moment and checking out both Greg Howard 's penetrating piece on the reaction to Richard Sherman and Samer Kalef's aggregation of the racist bile directed his way. Podhoretz was responding to a tweet he sent out asserting that Sherman was a "role model for today's Taliban youth," presumably because ... I because....I actually don't know. And neither did Podhoretz who deleted the tweet and claimed it was just a joke. The tweet from Iguodala just makes me sad, mostly because it reflects a rather ancient strain of thought in black America that which holds that men like Richard Sherman are the reason we can't have nice things.

A few points of biography: Richard Sherman is a the son of sanitation worker and teacher. He finished second in his class in high school and then went to Stanford. He graduated from Stanford with a 3.9 GPA. Here is how Sherman he describes his introduction to the school:

"I was with kids from prestigious private schools, and they were drawing comparisons between Plato and Aristotle," says Sherman. "A lot went over my head. I hadn't even read The Iliad yet. I had to check out all these books just so I could know what everybody was talking about."

Here is what Richard Sherman is doing now:

Beverly and Kevin now live in a well-landscaped community in Compton, but she still works for Children's Services and he still drives his truck every morning at 4 a.m., a Seahawks sticker plastered across his helmet. Their home is wallpapered with pictures of their children: Richard, Branton and 22-year-old Kristyna, who runs a hair salon out of the Shermans' garage. (Seahawks receiver Sidney Rice is a client.) The first photo you see, upon opening the front door, is of Richard's commencement ceremony at Stanford.

Across the street lives an English teacher from Dominguez named Michelle Woods who charters a bus every spring break for Dominguez students to visit colleges throughout California. "Most of them think Cal State is their only option," she says. When Sherman was at Stanford, he made sure the bus swung by Palo Alto, and he led the tours himself. "I'm here; you can be too," he told the group every year as he advised them on classes and grants.

Here is how Sherman describes himself:

I'm an awkward guy. People used to tell me all the time, You're not from here. And that's the way I felt, like somebody took me from somewhere else and dropped me down into this place. I was strange because I went to class, did the work, read the books and was still pretty good at sports. If you're like me, people think you're weird. They pull you in different directions. But those people aren't going where you're going. I know the jock stereotype—cool guy, walking around with your friends, not caring about school, not caring about anything. I hate that stereotype. I want to destroy it. I want to kill it.

I don't think this is what people think when they see Sherman trash-talking. There's some weird notion in our society that holds hold that trash-talking is for the classless and stupid. I don't know what it means to be "classless" in an organization like the NFL. And then there is the racism from onlookers, who are incapable of perceiving in Sherman an individual, and instead see the sum of all American fears—monkey, fears--monkey, thug, terrorist, nigger.

And then there is us, ashamed at our own nakedness, at our humanity. Racism is a kind of fatalism, so seductive, that it enthralls even its enthralls even it's victims. But we will not get out of this by being on our best behavior—sometimes behavior--sometimes it has taken our worse. There's never been a single thing wrong with black people people, that the total destruction of white supremacy would not fix.

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Lasrick writes "Chevron hopes that free soda and pizza can extinguish community anger over a fracking well fire in Dunkard Township, Pennsylvania. From the story: 'The flames that billowed out of the Marcellus Shale natural gas well were so hot they caused a nearby propane truck to explode, and first responders were forced to retreat to avoid injury. The fire burned for four days, and Chevron currently has tanks of water standing by in case it reignites. Of the twenty contractors on the well site, one is still missing, and is presumed dead.' The company gave those who live nearby a certificate for a free pizza and some soda."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Katsucon Tumblred this picture of cosplayer Iris, who has crafted a simply lovely Totoro gown, complete with Catbus clutch and a hemline that reveals an amazing illusion: that an ever swirling mass of soot sprites can successfully masquerade as a grown woman with mad sewing skills. Previously in Totoro

Plush toy company Squishable has crafted a ridiculously cute 15″ doll to resemble the visage of a red Shiba Inu, a breed of dog originally from Japan. Shiba Inus are currently quite popular on the Internet thanks to being the star of the doge meme.

The Squishable red Shiba Inu 15″ doll is currently available on Amazon.

via Boing Boing

Saritha Rai, reporting for the New York Times on India’s recent launch of a spacecraft to Mars: "It is the $75 million mission’s thrifty approach to time, money and materials that is getting attention. Just days after the launch of India’s Mangalyaan satellite, NASA sent off its own Mars mission, five years in the making, named Maven. Its cost: $671 million. The budget of India’s Mars mission, by contrast, was just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last year’s space-based hit, Gravity.” [NYTimes.com]

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fuckyeahspiritedaway:

Scultped model of the Spirited Away Bathhouse.

Earlier this month, Portland's Alta Bicycle Share announced it will be able to forge on with new bike share systems without its longtime supplier, the now-bankrupt Public Bike System Company (PBSC).

That's hopeful news, it seems, for Portland, since Alta's new agreement with PBSC's chief rival—Montreal-based 8D Technologies—makes it at least possible we'll see a bike share system launch this year as officials have promised.

What Alta didn't mention, and declined to answer questions on, is that it had looked seriously into purchasing the flagging PBSC (nicknamed Bixi) just a couple of months ago. According to a report today from the Montreal Gazette, Alta pulled out after it became clear the company was in far too great a hole. From the story:

Then, in December, Alta Bicycle Share offered to buy the company in a deal under which it would have taken on all of Bixi's debts, Massi said.

At last count, Bixi's debt was $46 million.

That Alta deal fell through because Bixi asked Alta to prove it had the financial capacity to pay, and Alta never produced the proof, Massi said.

Alta said it backed out after taking a closer look at Bixi's books.

PBSC supplied Alta with the docking stations and rental kiosks it used for bike share systems in places like Chicago and New York. So its bankruptcy filing on January 20 raised questions about how Portland will be able to launch bike share this year—a planned rollout already a year behind initial promises.

Alta's partnership with 8D seemed to answer at least some of those questions. The companies say an improved bike share system will be ready for purchase this summer. It's still unclear, though, how its cost will compare to PBSC's product, and that could further complicate Alta's attempts to get millions in sponsorship money to pay for the program.

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If the Crystal Head Vodka bottles were modeled on a real skull, what would the person have looked like when he or she was alive? A forensic artist has used facial reconstruction techniques to sculpt a face that could belong to the vodka bottle.

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It's by no means a done deal, but the mayors of several neighboring cities joined Mayor Charlie Hales in city hall today for a majorly hopeful announcement: Portland is one of nine metro areas (including 34 cities) in the running for a whiplash-fast Google Fiber broadband network.

Getting Google Fiber has been a city hall white whale for the past few years—the company's first foray into municipal broadband skipped over Portland and built in places like Provo, Utah, and Kansas City (both!). Portland even brewed a special beer to woo Google the last time it tried getting into the dance. Google's less interested in panache this time.

"We've got cool covered," Hales joked.

The company, instead, is looking for logistical details from the cities it's set up as suitors: Can it tap into existing fiber networks? Will a city's leadership help smooth the permit process? Will streets need to be torn up? How many? It hopes to have that information by May 1, with a decision at the end of the year on which cities will get the nod.

Hales has pledged to convene a series of regional meetings to that effect. And political consultant Mark Wiener has been lending his expertise to the effort. He was at the presser in city hall this morning and said he provided light background on Portland's nationally unique political system, in which city commissioners also lead city bureaus. Unlike other cities, Portland doesn't have a strong mayor who could make decisions and push staffers into whatever positions are needed.

Those challenges aside, I don't think I can recall seeing so much optimism after a city hall press event. People were beaming and shaking hands. Google's gigabit fiber network is 100 times faster than typical American broadband speeds—and cheaper. Bringing it to Portland will put pressure on current providers, like monopolist Comcast, to do more without gouging consumers.

But the cost of installation could be a major factor here or anywhere else. Google is putting cities through these paces so it can essentially study up—for free—the kinds of challenges underlying the expansion of a service that could become another profit center for the company. Cost estimates will flow from what the cities are able to tell Google about their infrastructure. Hales says he thinks he can work on permitting, for example, without having to hire extra staff. Permits are going to be very important, a Google rep said at the presser, saying the company wants to avoid "permit shock."

A FAQ on Google's website for its Fiber service lays that balancing act out.

There are also some physical characteristics of a city that might make it really complex for us to build Google Fiber. For example, underground construction might be really difficult due to bedrock or unusually hard soil. In these situations, we would share what we learned in our studies with city leaders and we hope they’d be able to use that information to explore other options for bringing super high speed broadband to their residents.

Hales and the city have decided that full-throated pursuit is worth the chance for heartbreak. With the region cultivating a reputation as a high-tech/information economy hub, he says having cheap, brilliant broadband connections before most other cities around the country can boast the same would be a boon for attracting and retaining businesses.

"It's a way to put Portland into the leadership of the new economy," Hales says.

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I feel like the most intense wave of pork-madness has already receded—you remember the one, in which chefs put so much bacon and/or pork belly everywhere on anything that people actually, en masse, started complaining about being sick of bacon? True story.

But Portland is still a charcuterie town, and people are still interested in learning new skills, especially when they're skills that, in the long term, can work to economic/environmental/bragging rights advantage (see: all aspects of urban homesteading). As such we've seen instructional demos about breaking down whole pigs before, but the one just announced by Old Salt—just the first of what they promise to be a whole series of "butchery intensive training courses"—is practically a graduate degree in comparison to what are usually one-shot affairs.

Led by Old Salt's Master Butcher Christian Cleaver (get out of here with that name!) and Head Chef Ben Meyerheirs, theirs is set to take place over the course of six weeks, every Sunday from noon-4 pm starting March 16, and at $600 it's probably not something you'd want to do as a lark. But if you eat that much pork and you're serious about making this a regular part of your kitchen routine, it could save you money in the long run. Plus, you get snacks! And dinner party conversation for life. Then there's the fact that if you're going to learn this kind of thing from anywhere, you'd be hard pressed to find better tutors than the ones at Old Salt. Appropriately titled "Pork 101" they promise to cover everything from knife skills to how to cure and cook each bit, with no waste (cuz if you're going to eat an animal...):

Meet Mark Payne, our hog rancher. Discuss the specifics of how and why he raises pigs in the manner which his family has been doing for over 125 years here in Oregon —breeding, feed, and farming, flavor, texture and slaughter practices. Start with a whole side and learn the specifics of separate primals. We will spend six four-hour sessions covering the details of where different cuts reside, how to properly remove and portion them, and the best ways to cook, cure and utilize them. Each lesson will include method and recipes to take with you. We will discuss the muscle groups, how they work and how that affects flavor and texture. Our goal is for you to walk away with a full working knowledge of the beast, how to procure a whole carcass, and how to not waste a drop.

They're keeping the class to an intimate 10 students, so if you've got the money, the time, and the enthusiasm, holler at 'em sooner than later.

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The early incarnation of a douche — a hollow, cylinder with small holes at its top made from unidentified mammal bone — was found in a massive heap of buried garbage that dates back to between 1803 and 1815.

Karen Gillan won't be flitting back over the pond once her time as Guardians of the Galaxy's blue-skinned, bald lady space pirate Nebula is done. She's might have bagged the role of Eliza Dooley in a brand new sitcom from ABC.

IRL Captain Tightpants Tweeted the above, very rude, picture. What would Zoe say?! (via: blastr) Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Well this is definitely interesting. 

Just how bad was this winter? Bad. Really, really bad as this terrifying visualization of global temperatures during these last few months shows.

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photo by Sebastien Nogier/EPA

These fantastic citrus sculptures are from the 81st Lemon Festival in Menton, France. The large-scale sculptures, composed of hundreds of lemons and oranges, are based on this year’s theme: “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” The festival runs through March 5, 2014.

photo by Sebastien Nogier/EPA

photo by Olivier Anrigo/Reuters

photo by Lionel Cironneau/AP Photo

photo by Lionel Cironneau/AP Photo

via NY Daily News, Archie McPhee’s Endless Geyser of Awesome

[Prince Charles, dressed in traditional Saudi uniform, prepared to draw his sword during private visit to Saudi Arabia today. Image by Fayez Nureldine via AP.]

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Are you a bourbon whiskey fan? If yes, then you surely have a favorite brand for your drinking session with the boys. However, it may be fun to discover new labels too especially with the Orphan Barrel Old Blowhard Bourbon. This new brand offering is something too impossible for you to overlook when placed on the market shelves. This 26-year-old bourbon can be found in Louisville’s Stitzel-Weller facility. It is a distillery popular for the making of Pappy Van Winkle bourbons. The Old Blowhard is considered one of the best bourbon whiskeys to be released this year. You can get for $150 via Diageo.

I’m often asked for advice. I’ve decided it’s time I give less of it. There are things I used to know that I just don’t know anymore. I should stop talking about those things – it’s unfair to anyone who’s listening.

If you want advice on product design, copywriting, reducing complexity, business strategy for a well-established small business, or building a team – happy to help. I know I can be valuable there because those are things I’m thinking about and working on every day. I’m current.

But if you want advice on how to start a new business, how to get your first customer, how to hire your first employee, or anything related to starting something brand new, I’m not your man. It’s been 15 years since I started my company. I just don’t remember what it’s like anymore. I’m out of touch.

Advice, like fruit, is best when it’s fresh. But advice quickly decays, and 15 year-old advice is bound to be radioactive. Sharing a life experience is one thing (grandparents are great at this – listen to them!), but advice is another thing. Don’t give advice about things you used to know. Just because you did something a long time ago doesn’t mean you’re qualified to talk about it today.

Think you’ll get a good answer from a 30 year old telling you what it’s like to be 15? Or a 20 year old remembering what it’s like to be 5? Shit, I’m about to turn 40, and all I remember about being 25 is that I wasn’t 26. How clearly do you really remember anything from 15 years ago? And how many of those memories are actually marred by time and current experiences? How many of those things really happened the way you recall them today?

If you want to know what it’s like to start a business, talk to someone who just successfully started one. If you want to know what it’s like to hire your first employee, talk to someone who just successfully hired theirs. If you want to know what it’s like to make an investment, talk to someone who just made a successful one.

While distance from the event itself can provide broader perspective, the closer you get to the event, the fresher the experience. If I want to know what something’s really like, I’d take a fresh recollection over a fuzzy memory. I think the same is true for advice.

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Nun gets nearly 3 years in prison for nuke protest Houston Chronicle NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An 84-year-old nun has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison for breaking into and defacing a storage bunker holding bomb-grade uranium in a peace demonstration at a Tennessee weapons plant. Megan Rice was ... and more »