firehose

The Black Portlanders' Intisar Abioto gets her due at Duplex Gallery. by Megan Burbank

YOU KNOW Intisar Abioto. The artist behind the photo blog The Black Portlanders, Abioto regularly turns her lens to Portland's African American community in intimate, detail-oriented portraits. It's a conceit seemingly shared by the Sartorialist or Humans of New York, with one key distinction: Abioto really connects with her subjects. She talks to them. And she listens to their stories. Abioto's images almost always have a collaborative, communal feeling to them.

Contents, up through the end of April at Duplex Gallery, is a mix of Abioto's portraiture and documentary photography; not surprisingly, the portraits are the show's strongest pieces. Continuing her work on The Black Portlanders, Abioto shoots with the same careful attention, and rather than include dull, voice-of-god exhibition labels, Contents' accompanying text tells her subjects' stories. Admittedly, Duplex's sampling of portraits is small—I couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to see a larger photography space given over entirely to her work. (Confidential to Portland curators: You should actually do this.)

What's here, though, is more than worth a visit. In "Godbody," Abioto photographs Portland performance artist Keyon Gaskin from the side, capturing the way he carries himself as an off-duty dancer in a crowd. For "Daphne," Abioto traveled to Astoria to photograph a woman who works in a general store, learning along the way that while census figures suggest a population in Astoria of "around 60 people of African descent," locals reported numbers to her that were closer to "15 people, tops."

In "Keith," a high-school boy stands outside of King Elementary School, where, Abioto's text explains, he works with younger students. He looks straight ahead, almost beatifically, baseball equipment slung over his shoulder. "You don't really see images of young Black men as caretakers, as people with a particular kindness, as ones who can guide someone younger or older with care," writes Abioto. "You can read the image yourself."

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Catherine Elizabeth Middleton and William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor—better known as Britain’s Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge—are about to have their second child. St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, West London, where the baby will be delivered, has started preparation, putting up no parking signs in order to stop media and curious bystanders from loitering outside the hospital.

The Lindo Wing (where the couple’s son, Prince George of Cambridge, was born) is a private facility within a UK National Health Service (NHS) hospital, which means that both the mother and the child are entitled to the free services guaranteed by the NHS and responsible only for the additional fees incurred by the luxury facility. Based on the current prices (pdf), the cost of a deluxe room (the most luxurious option according to the hospital’s website) in the wing is £5,425 ($8,000) for the first night for a regular birth and £6,855 ($10,000) for a Cesarean birth, then an additional extra £1,155 ($1,700) for any following nights (one or two nights is the standard for a delivery with no complication; with her firstborn, the Duchess of Cambridge left the hospital the day after she delivered). The cost does not include the consultation of the royal family’s gynecologist, rumored to be £6,000 ($8,800).

So a two-night stay in the hospital, plus the doctor’s fee, would cost less than £13,000 ($19,000). Since this is her second child in the same facility, the Duchess will be given a 10% discount on the total, bringing it down to about £11,700 ($17,360). Even if the Duchess were to stay in a more expensive room, as some outlets have reported, her total would be around £12,300 ($18,250). It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of UK citizens don’t opt for private facilities and do not incur any fees.

Unless complications arise, the royal child’s birth will cost less than the average American delivery—paid for out of pocket without insurance—which is about $32,000 (pdf. p.3), and goes up to over $50,000 for C-sections. Even with private health insurance, the average out of pocket expense is $3,400, and insurers negotiate with healthcare providers to pay an average $18,000 for a vaginal delivery and $28,000 for a C-section.

The bill for an American family is significantly higher if the birth takes place at a luxury facility like the royal family’s. Delivering a child at Lennox Hill Hospital in New York City, where America’s version of royalty—Beyoncé and Jay-Z—had their daughter, Blue Ivy, is about $18,000 for vaginal birth and $25,000 for a cesarean (before insurance negotiations), plus $2,000 for the anesthesiologist’s fee, if one is used. On top of that, the cost of a luxury room is up to $2,400 a night (a standard room is $630 per night). This does not include other independently billed services, or the doctor’s consultation fee.

In the US, each service is billed independently rather than as a flat fee—as shown in the bill below, which went viral after the new American mother shared it online.

It does not appear that the higher price tags correspond to better care; the US has a higher infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate than its peers in rich countries.

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aurorahermione:

kylieseacat:

kristinnicolep hollaatkylee uwuc oh my god.

omg

This Sunday marks the return of the clone gang, and if you're still not caught up on the masterpiece that is Orphan Black, you're officially out of excuses — it's all available, right now, FOR FREE.

Read more...

“Chewie” is a parody by Nerdist of the Louis C.K. series Louie that replaces the popular comedian with Chewbacca from the Star Wars universe. The short video is modeled after the opening sequence for Louie, and replicates it shot for shot. They even have a stormtrooper give the camera the middle finger, and replace all the cast and crew credits with names that reference Star Wars characters.

For comparison, the original opening sequence for Louie.

Attorneys for Missouri man had raised concerns about his mental health and his conviction for the 1998 killing by an all-white jury.

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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“Ultron’s pain is very, very real to me,” said Whedon. “He can’t control the way his pain makes him behave.” Whedon pauses, his soft voice grown even softer. “And I can relate to that.”

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destroy jossrey (via winecat)

#tbh if a white man said this to me it would be a RED FLAG #to get the fuck away from him

(via ladysaviours)

once again a white man identifies with everything except poc folks and women in general. especially the killer robot pain that matches his dudebro pain.

—–

“He can’t control the way his pain "MAKES” him behave"??? (caps and quotes mine)

That is, literally, abuser logic.

1. Someone is doing something I don’t like

2. I’m experiencing strong feelings because of this

3. To show other people how hurt I am, I will hurt them. Then they will see how much it sucks to be hurt, and stop hurting me.

4. The act of causing others pain on account of my pain feels good, and I’ve now given myself permission to keep doing it, since the other people aren’t sorry (enough) yet nor are they grateful (for some reason), but letting myself off the leash at them is giving me some temporary joy in my endless suffering that is entirely caused by others doing things that hurt me. I “can’t” “control” myself (but I could totally stop if only the other person would admit I was completely right and they were completely wrong and gave me total control of their industry/social circle/life/whatever)

To quote from the (mandatory reading) “Why Does He Do That”: They’re not abusive because they’re angry, they’re angry because they’re abusive.

Fuck Joss Whedon and this whole line of reasoning that tries to excuse the consequences of abuse.

PARIS—Shortly after returning Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous portrait to its home at the Louvre for the second time this week, Interpol officials admitted Wednesday that a full 89 percent of its work involves locating and recovering the Mo...

We here at The Mary Sue obviously spend a good portion of our days trying to think critically about how female sexuality is portrayed in media like comics and film, and a common response to criticism of pieces like the now-notorious Milo Manara variant cover is that it can seem difficult to tell the difference between empowering sexuality and objectification.

Thankfully, Ronnie Ritchie has written and illustrated an awesome comic that clearly lays out how power plays a role in the empowerment vs. objectification debate, both in art and IRL. Head over to Everyday Feminism and take a look at the whole thing!

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

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

New York Magazine

Obviously Terrified Harry Reid Refuses to Finger Mafia Assailants New York Magazine Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) maintains implausible story. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images. In January, Harry Reid, sporting a bandaged eye, told reporters he had suffered an exercise mishap in his home. The cover story was obvious bunk. and more »

By default termsql reads from stdin and converts each incoming line into a row it stores inside a sqlite database in a temporary file. It separates columns by whitespace, because on the command line most programs usually present information in the output in that way. You can supply option -d to change that behavior and split columns by any character or string of characters of your choosing. Option -l/--line-as-columns on the other hand splits columns by newlines, and expects a number by the user to know how many columns the table has. The most powerful part of termsql is that it allows users to query these newly created databases with the full power of sqlite. When no user query is supplied as last argument it defaults to "select * from tbl", as you can see from this the default name of the table is tbl. You can change that table name with the -t option.

submitted by goalslammer [link] [2 comments]

OED Word of the Day: adultescent, n. An adult who has retained the interests, behaviour, or lifestyle of adolescence

submitted by SumoSizeIt [link] [64 comments]

During a speech at the National Association of Broadcasters event on April 13, writer and director Shonda Rhimes expressed her frustration around people constantly questioning and discussing her choice to diversify the casts of her shows. 

In Shondaland, our shows look like how the world looks. ...To me, that was not some difficult, brave, special decision I made. It was a human one. Because I am a human. It wasn't something we had to bravely fight for. ... This is not the Jim Crow south. We're not ignorant. So why wouldn't we do that? I still can't believe I get asked about it all the time as if being normal, TV looking like the normal world, is an innovation. ... You'd think people would be embarrassed to ask the question in the 21st century. Write about the people asking the questions because I'm busy talking about something else, writing about something else.

See full speech above. 

Oh, also, here's a guy riding his bike while wearing a backpack with a Corgi in it. #Portlandia pic.twitter.com/g7DIdgWGQR

— Pat Mullin (@PatsHoppedUp) April 15, 2015

This photo raises a lot of questions. Most importantly: "Who's riding who?" It's easy to take a glance and assume this guy just wanted to have his dog with him when he went on a ride, but the reality could be very different.

Corgis may have taken over Portland and are using humans as transport. Shunning their stubby legs for people-powered palanquins of unlimited power. Corgis already conquered the Internet, now they're turning their sites to enslaving all of mankind.

Found guilty of first-degree murder, Aaron Hernandez has been sentenced to spend life in prison without parole:

Judge Garsh sentences Aaron Hernandez to MCI Cedar Junction for life with no chance of parole.

— WCVB-TV Boston (@WCVB) April 15, 2015

Cedar Junction happens to be just a few miles from Hernandez's former place of business:

sciencepatrolhq:

The Kaiju Bar is open for business! Originally conceived as a pop-up restaurant to be open for only one year, manager Baltan’s success with the Kaiju-themed eatery has led to a re-opening in a new location in Kawasaki. New foods (including some tasty looking Twintail fried ship), new merchandise (Birdon compressed air!?) and you can take a photo of yourself to recreate a scene from Ultraseven. Very cool!

Kaiju-Sakaba

_Sharp'r_ writes In the first "empirical study of sexism in faculty hiring using actual faculty members", Cornell University researchers found that when using identical qualifications, but changing the sex of the applicant, "women candidates are favored 2 to 1 over men for tenure-track positions in the science, technology, engineering and math fields." An anonymous reader links to the study itself.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Patricia Cohen, reporting for the NYT:

The idea began percolating, said Dan Price, the founder of Gravity Payments, after he read an article on happiness. It showed that, for people who earn less than about $70,000, extra money makes a big difference in their lives.

His idea bubbled into reality on Monday afternoon, when Mr. Price surprised his 120-person staff by announcing that he planned over the next three years to raise the salary of even the lowest-paid clerk, customer service representative and salesman to a minimum of $70,000.

“Is anyone else freaking out right now?” Mr. Price asked after the clapping and whooping died down into a few moments of stunned silence. “I’m kind of freaking out.”

jenniferrpovey:

markthemech:

marshybot:

I’m laughing because now that Ted Cruz is running for president, his wife (whose health insurance he was covered under) decided to take a leave of absence to help him campaign, causing them both to lose their health insurance. Now they’re forced to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act or become uninsured.

So since Ted Cruz decided to campaign to repeal Obamacare, he can now only get insurance through Obamacare.

And that, my friends, is a true example of irony.

This is glorious

And appears to be verified. Hahaha.

20sidedmom:

Christopher Eccleston: Why my Doctor had to be northern

“If you’re an alien how comes you sound like you’re from the north?” Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler asked The Doctor ten years ago – now Christopher Eccleston has finally revealed why his Time Lord had a northern accent.

“Lots of planet have a north” the Doctor told Rose way back then, but Eccleston (who returns to our TV screens in ITV’s new thriller Safe House on Monday April 20th at 9pm) gives a rather different answer in this week’s edition of Radio Times.

“I wanted to move him away from the RP (received pronunciation) for the first time because we shouldn’t make a correlation between intellect and accent” he says, “although that still needs addressing”.

The self-described working-class actor also says that cultural inequality is “much more pronounced” in Britain than it used to be, and that it would be difficult for a young actor with his background to succeed in the industry today.

“You can’t blame Eddie Redmayne or Benedict Cumberbatch but inequality will lead to a milky, anodyne culture. To an extent that’s already happened,” he argues.

Eccleston stresses that it’s not just about the working class though. “There’s not enough writing for women or people of colour” he says. “It frustrates me when they insist on doing all-male Shakespearean productions – a wonderful intellectual exercise, maybe, but it’s outrageous because it’s putting a lot of women out of work.”

pacrepublicpdx:

#Dog backpack ??? Only in #Portland #pdx #Oregon #bikes by filiptna http://pac.re/1cojDfI

seattlepi.com

College employee, accused killer struggled after suicides seattlepi.com GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Ron Lane was a 44-year-old gay man who worked for Wayne Community College for 18 years, most recently as the school's print shop director. Kenneth Morgan Stancil III was a 20-year-old welding student who tattooed a ... Police treat college worker's death as hate crimeArkansas Online Police: College shooting possible hate crime; victim was gayMiami Herald Authorities investigate college shooting as possible hate crimeTexarkana Gazette all 469 news articles »