This is so clueless, it’s stunning. Saturday Night Live star (and recent “Weekend Update” addition) Michael Che thought catcalling was an appropriate subject to joke about in response to a viral PSA meant to shed light on street harassment recently released by Shoshana B. Roberts and Rob Bliss.
Which is to say, specifically, Che made fun of women who were offended by catcalling all together, and compared it to the amount of times he’s approached by people on the street who want his photo because he’s on TV.
Seriously, what the hell?
Roberts and Bliss were on point with their video, which documented massive instances of catcalling and harassment she experienced during one full day of walking around New York City. You may have seen the video (but if you haven’t already, I urge you to watch it immediately here): Roberts, dressed in a simple black, crew cut top paired with black jeans, spends 10 hours total — in just one day — walks around New York, catching on video every instance of catcalling and harassment from men she came across during that time period. By the end of the day, she’s covered a massive amount of ground in the city — and her tally is up to over 100 instances of catcalling.
In addition to shedding light on a reality that woman all around the world face every day, the video was meant to open people’s eyes to the fact that, by catcalling a woman, you are not only devaluing her into nothing more than a sexual object, but you’re insinuating that she is meant for your personal visual pleasure. Catcalling is not paying a woman a compliment, nor is meant to be appreciated.
That said, I’m pretty understandably confused by how Che gave himself the right to joke about catcalling. I’m confused, and I’m pissed off — because, seriously, how did the impact of that video fly so over his head? I understand that comedians sometimes approach difficult issues to make jokes about them in an effort to seem outrageous, but there are some topics that should not be broached because it makes them into less serious matters than they are. Rape jokes are one example, and jokes about harassment and assault are too, especially when they come from men who don’t have to live in constant fear of being harassed.
As a woman having lived in NYC for just over four years now, catcalling from men is not just a constant occurrence in my life — it’s a daily occurrence. I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve been told to smile by a passing man I did not know; the amount of times men have yelled outrageous, lewd comments to me as I walked by; the amount of times men have followed me for blocks, tried to touch me without my consent, cornered me against a wall, made me afraid to walk alone even in broad daylight simply because I am a woman. Hell, it’s not even safe taking a cab home sometimes: I’ve had a cab driver lock me in his car before in an attempt to intimidate me into giving him my phone number, too. After four years of this, I won’t lie, you grow hardened to it. The desire to scrub every inch of your skin to wash away the dirty feeling that comes from being sexualized against your will never goes away, but you stop taking the time to flip them off and tell them off because it just happens too often to keep up with.
I have never met a woman in my life who did not have a catcalling story, and that is unacceptable. Roberts, who attempted to stand up to the men who give themselves the right to catcall women on the street, is already getting rape threats over the video.
All that — and still, Che thought making a joke about a daily horror that women experience was a good way to connect with his fans. Here’s the Instagram post, in case you haven’t seen it (UPDATE: It seems Che took the photos down, so I swapped in screencaps of the offending posts):
There is so much “UGH” here I want to scream. Does Che think he’s being funny? Does he think that a reality every woman has to go through on a daily basis is there for him to make fun of, similar to the way he clearly thinks women trying to go about their day are there simply for his visual stimulation?
Nope, I think we got that. It was basically you trying to demonstrate what a clueless human being you are.
And, because no one had the sense to take social media away from Che, it still gets worse:
You know what the most ironic thing about this dumb little statement is? He’s trying to make a point that he can say what he wants, because though he is famous, he’s entitled to his own opinions, and is not there to perpetually entertain the masses. Seems a little similar to, say, I don’t know — women walking down the street trying to go about their day when a man unconsciously decides that she is just there for his personal enjoyment and visual stimulation?
After Che retweeted some of the responses from (rightfully) outraged Twitter users, he followed up with this post swiftly trying to change the subject (simultaneously proving he learned nothing from his experience at all):
What is it going to take for everyone to understand what a nightmare having to experience unwelcome comments and catcalls on a daily basis is? Because, seriously:
Hip-hop mogul Suge Knight and actor-comedian Katt Williams were arrested Wednesday on "suspicion of stealing a camera from a female photographer," according to Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.
Knight was taken into custody Wednesday in Las Vegas. Williams was arrested while appearing in court on a separate assault case. The pair are accused of taking the camera of an unnamed "celebrity photographer" in Beverly Hills in September and have each been charged with one count of robbery. If convicted, Williams faces up to seven years in prison, while Knight faces 30 years due to a prior conviction for assault with a deadly weapon.
Craigslist — the omnipresent digital billboard for questionably stained furniture, casual sex, and free DNA — doesn’t have the best reputation. It has long made headlines for the part it plays in violent crimes, hoax sales, and theft, even producing a slew of “Craigslist killers.”
Now, Philadelphia’s Montgomery County plans to reduce those crimes by establishing what FOX 29 Philly calls “one of the nation’s first Craigslist Transaction Safe Zones.”
It’s a very brief exchange (see clip below) in American Hustle: Jennifer Lawrence’s character Roslyn tells her husband, Irving, played by Christian Bale, that microwaves take the nutrition out of food. “That’s bulls--t,” Irving replies, and his wife shows him a magazine and says, “It’s not bulls--t. I read it in an article. Look, by Paul Brodeur.”
The real Brodeur is a science journalist who was a staff writer at The New Yorker for nearly 40 years. He’s even written books (such as The Zapping of America) about the dangers of microwave radiation. But he’s never said that they take the nutrition out of food, he claims in a new lawsuit.
Link
I'm no criminal mastermind but I'm pretty sure having the Bentley logo tattooed on your forehead is a dead giveaway for being identified as a criminal, like Derek Denesevich above, who, of all crimes, got caught for identity theft.
I try and bring up how he ruined free in state tuition in the name of hippie bashing when he was California’s governor often, but don’t exactly have the biggest platform.
"Worst of all, these students’ sense of the future is constrained by planning for and then paying down their student loans, often for decades. Economists are waking up to the fact that when young Americans enter the workforce burdened with over a trillion dollars in cumulative debt, they become risk averse, unwilling to move, less able to make major purchases, and slower to become homeowners. Not coincidentally, they don’t feel safe enough to register any major protests against the society that’s done this to them.”
Damn.
i am reblogging again because….. fuck ronald reagan forever and ever and ever and ever.
In11 Questions,The A.V. Clubasks interesting people 11 interesting questions—and then asks them to suggest one for our next interviewee.
With upcoming appearances at the New York Comedy Festival and on USA’s new legal comedy Benched, Maria Bamford is having a busy fall. The surreal comedian has long been a fan favorite, having released four albums since 2005, in addition to the work she did with the Comedians Of Comedy. Her latest, Ask Me About My New God, is available now wherever comedy records are sold.
1. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Maria Bamford: The worst job I’ve ever had, which wasn’t too bad really, was at a laundry factory where you had to take the wire hangers and unwind them. Like, unwind the part of the wire hanger so they weren’t hangers anymore, they were just a ...
Arizona House Bill 2625, a controversial bill will allow employers to fire women for using contraceptives based on faith.
"On Monday, Oct. 20, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-2 to endorse the Arizona House Bill 2625, which would allow Arizona employers to repudiate health insurance coverage for contraceptives based on religious affirmations. This would give Arizona businesses license to request that female personnel being prescribed birth control pills verify they’re using them for intentions that are non-sexual or non-reproductive, such as acne treatment or hormone control.”
WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS GOING ON
Another day, another step closer to the fucking Handmaid’s Tale.
ArKay is the world’s first alcohol free liquor, which means it tastes like liquor, looks like liquor, smells like liquor, but has never been fermented or aged in a wooden cask and contains no alcohol. This version of the popular spirit is ideal for anybody who – for personal, philosophical or religious reasons – cannot drink alcohol or simply doesn’t want to indulge.
A fragment of Amelia Earhart's lost aircraft has been identified to a high degree of certainty for the first time ever since her plane vanished over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.
Deadline reports that Craig Ferguson will get a little help from Metallica as he winds down his tenure as host of The Late Late Show. Following in the footsteps of Justin Timberlake and Foo Fighters, the elder statesmen of metal will drop in for a weeklong musical residency from November 17 to 21 that will see them performing and chatting with the outgoing host. They’ll be plugging both their new vinyl reissue campaign and the 10th anniversary re-release of the documentary, Some Kind of Monster, the movie that revealed that watching Lars Ulrnich and James Hetfield bicker like an old married couple is totally metal. While Metallica can’t ride the lightning like it used to, building some shared buzz with Ferguson during a Nielsen sweeps week may be the next best thing.
daten writes A coalition of security companies has hit a sophisticated hacking group in China with a heavy blow. The effort is detailed in a report released today by Novetta. The coalition, which calls itself Operation SMN, detected and cleaned up malicious code on 43,000 computers worldwide that were targeted by Axiom, an incredibly sophisticated organization that has been stealing intellectual property for more than six years. The group united as part of Microsoft's Coordinated Malware Eradication (CME) campaign against Hikit (a.k.a. Hikiti), the custom malware often used by Axiom to burrow into organizations, exfiltrate data, and evade detection, sometimes for years.
'Day 1: Because the café I normally frequent only takes cash, debit or credit, I reluctantly head to Starbucks'
I quit
It’s the morning after the JP Morgan cyber breach, in which hackers stole the information of 76 million households. I’m holding my phone over my debit card, taking a picture that will automatically decipher the digits so the LevelUp app can link directly to my bank account.
It seems like a terrible idea, but I’m on a mission: I’m going to spend the whole week using digital payments, to find out if, as many tech pundits have asserted, we’re headed toward a cashless society. According to the research firm Gartner, mobile payments will top $720 billion a year by 2017, up from $235 billion last year. Wikipedia lists 75 different online payment service providers internationally, from user-to-user mobile payments like Square Cash or Venmo, or user-to-vendor like LevelUp. Apple Pay, introduced last month, promises to add to the digital payment gold rush.
Since I don’t have the iPhone 6, required for Apple Pay, I pick the following apps:
LevelUp lets me pay participating businesses like CHOP’T or Umami burger
The Starbucks app works like a digital coffee card, keeping track of my purchases and offering me rewards
Square Cash and Venmo allow me to pay friends and to view their transactions
The Passbook app on my iPhone includes apps for Target, Walgreens and Kroger, as well as REI and Air Canada, Macy’s and Office Depot and Pinkberry, and the Apple store
Google Wallet started as user-to-vendor and now works mostly as user-to-user and stores various gift cards
Day 1
Because the café I normally frequent only takes cash, debit or credit, I reluctantly head to Starbucks. I order, then hold up my phone to the scanner affixed to the back of the register. “What do I do?” I ask the barista.
“There’s no money on it,” he says.
“How do I get money on it?” He tells me what to tap and swipe, but in the interest of time suggests that I give him $5 that he will then add to the balance of my app. I shake my phone, the balance shows and I hold my phone up to the scanner to pay for my burned-tasting coffee and way-too-soft bagel.
“What is the point of this?” I ask him. He gives me the spiel about earning stars and points and rewards, which is what most of these mobile payment apps offer.
This is the question that sticks with me throughout the week. Why is it better for me to use the Starbucks app instead of my credit card, which offers me points of its own? Will Hernandez, editor of MobilePaymentsToday.com tells me: “You’re using that app to track your rewards. Making the payment is kind of an afterthought.” As the Discover Card pioneered the concept of cash back for purchases in 1996, these companies are battling for, and thus rewarding, our loyalty: the more you give your money to them, the more they offer you in return. With LevelUp, for instance, if you spend $60 at some restaurants, you get $6.00 in credit. Each app or site is designed to keep your money within its own financial ecosystem.
Day 2
Patronizing Starbucks instead of my local café leaves me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Already we’re living in a world of retail supergiants—Amazon, Target, and Starbucks. And the more I rely on Passbook’s or LevelUp’s family of apps, the more my money stays in that circumscribed set of businesses.
Case in point: On the way home, I’m planning to stop at our local food co-op to pick up some groceries, but, sorry kids, no strawberries or bean salad for you. The co-op only takes cash, debit or food stamps.
Day 3
I discover the best part of my alterna-money week: I’m spending far, far less money than usual. I can’t just grab a non-Starbucks cup of coffee or a newspaper. I can’t even put more money on my MetroCard for the subway, forcing me to use my bike or walk. (Upside of cashless week: I may lose some weight). Most of my monthly bills are deducted automatically from my bank account. There are some things I absolutely cannot avoid spending cash for, like my daughter’s school lunch. I cheat, getting my husband to give her the $1.75.
As for my own lunch, since I wasn’t able to buy groceries—I’m adamant about shopping at the co-op, since we have to work each month in order to shop there. I consult LevelUp, which shows nearby businesses that accept the platform. JustSalad it will be; the app encourages me to choose it by way of a $1 discount. This time I’ve already linked my card and have fewer problems using my phone for food.
However, it’s a challenge to get the rest of my errands done. I need to download the CVS app to get toothpaste. OpenTable, which started as a restaurant reservation app, now lets you pay your bill that way, but, according to OpenTable’s website, only one restaurant in Brooklyn takes it. To really navigate the world walletlessly, I would need a lot more apps, a lot more room on my phone, and a lot more time.
This is perhaps the biggest hurdle that digital payments face: accessibility. “It’s a very fragmented market right now,” says Hernandez. “The infrastructure’s really not in place yet to make this happen.” Apple Pay may be all the rage, the greatest digital payment platform yet, but not everyone accepts it.
Day 4
The Brooklyn Public Library’s café doesn’t take it, either. I’m working next to my friend,a mom in her mid-30s who only recently upgraded her decade-old computer at the library, when she asks if I want anything from the cafe.
“Do you have any apps on your phone like Venmo or Square Cash?” I ask her. She looks at me as if I’m speaking Martian.
“My phone is too old for those kinds of things,” she says. “You want me to buy you something?” I demur. Man am I hungry.
Day 5
I’m able to use my L.L.Bean gift card and Amazon points for some sartorial purchases. When I need something else from Amazon, my only non-traditional option is the Amazon Store Card. It’s a kind of Amazon-only Amex; if you don’t pay in full by the end of the month they charge you a serious APR, in this case 25.99%.
Rather than sign up for anything else, I have my friend buy something for me and say I’ll pay her via Square Cash. She reminds me that she actually owes me money so she sends me $5using the app. A text telling me so pops up mere seconds later. It’s true: once you’ve put in the work of entering your data, actually paying, or getting paid, is incredibly fast and easy.
Day 6
I want to give up. We need milk. And stain remover. And tortilla chips for the rapidly aging avocados that I don’t want to waste. It seems unfair to ask my husband to buy the milk because my hands are tied, so I go to our local bodega, take out my wallet and pay cash. I feel liberated, so much so that I added items I’d felt deprived of (sadly, mostly cookies) to my pile. It’s $14.51, and I hand the guy a $20. I remember that I owe him fifty cents from when I was short last week, before my week of alterna-money began, so he hands me back one smooth five-dollar bill. I feel giddy.
The lesson
Clearly, I’m not ready to go cashless, but plenty of folks think cash will go the way of snail mail and VHS. “One day, we’ll all be paying for things with our phones,” CNET predicts. Still, the research company Forrester reported that only 11% of Americans used a mobile wallet in 2013.
Convenience is part of the marketing platform, too, though I don’t thinkthe cashless economy has yet delivered on this promise. Removing your wallet from your pocket or bag, opening it, taking out the credit card, swiping it vs. removing your phone out of your pocket or bag, pressing the button, entering your code, opening the app, tapping it, turning it off. “I’ve timed it,” says Hernandez. “There’s not much of a difference.” Hernandez admits that using a credit card might actually be easier at times.
Then there’s the issue of safety. While it frightened me to input my bank information into my phone, I know that most millennials are well-accustomed to the one-device-does-all world and are less afraid.
And perhaps with good reason. The number of credit card breaches—Target, Home Depot—reveal just how outdated our magnetic strip credit card technology is. In Europe and elsewhere, there’s no strip but a chip, which is scanned and then used in conjunction with a PIN; it’s supposed to be much safer. And perhaps some digital payment technologies will be even safer than that. “Apple Pay is definitely safer than the technology on which the card system is based now,” says Hernandez.
The problems of access, of smaller companies—and less tech savvy people—being able to keep up with rapidly evolving technology, and of course the digital divide (you have to have enough money for a smart phone and then enough disposable income to use the apps) are all in the way of a cashless society. At least for now. Millennials are already on it, partly because of their comfort and partly because of their affinity for design. “There really isn’t much of a difference between paying with a card and a phone,” says Hernandez. “It’s just that paying with a phone looks cooler.”
My week is over. I go through and delete the apps one by one. I go back to cash—the truly safest way to pay, assuming you don’t lose it—and my rewards-granting credit card, and remember something else that Will Hernandez told me. No matter whether we go cashless or not, “We’re still going to carry around our physical wallets,” he says. “We still have our IDs in there.”
How do you say "chickenshit" in Hebrew? Jewish Telegraphic Agency Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confronted quite a challenge when the Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg quoted Obama administration officials calling him a “chickenshit.” Israeli reporters, in turn, faced their own challenge: How to translate “chickenshit” into ...
Two students suspended after posting controversial Facebook photo kfor.com MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. — Two high school students say they're facing expulsion over a photo posted to Facebook. Tito Velez, 16, and his girlfriend, Jamie Pereira, are shown holding airsoft guns in a homecoming photo they posted on Facebook last ...
'Many Redditors are careful to advertise that they comply with the law when shipping across state lines. But in-state sales are another matter—including the potential to exploit a well-known loophole in federal law, which exempts "private transactions" from background checks. The guidelines page for GunsForSale instructs Redditors to suffix the title of their posts with the states they operate in, noting: "Sellers can prefer not to ship a firearm out of state, but do an in-state face-to-face transaction." '
Gun is in great condition, I've put 150-200 rounds through it at shooting ranges. Comes with the following:
'“The parents can be the scary part,” said Danko, noting some have unrealistic expectations or are very demanding or overprotective. They also may show up with questions “at the most inopportune time,” or with unreasonable requests.'
The scariest jobs aren’t necessarily the most dangerous.
In a new survey of more than 3,100 workers from CareerBuilder, kindergarten teachers are among the 10 jobs that strike fear in American workers. Crime scene investigator, mortician, and politician also made the list.
“Workers have told us that the idea of working with young children is scary,” a CareerBuilder spokeswoman told Quartz. But teachers themselves don’t necessarily agree.
“They’re sweet and funny and make me look at things differently every day, ” says Kim Danko, who has taught Kindergarteners for 19 years in Riverside, California.
In addition to germs and the weight of shaping young minds, kindergarten teachers must often deal with larger groups of children than preschool or day care teachers. The average, among 19 OECD countries, is 18 students in Kindergarten for one staff member compared to seven at childcare centers. The largest kindergarten classes are found in Japan, France, Spain, Korea, Italy and Portugal, with more than 20 children per classroom.
“Definitely there’s no down time,” Danko told Quartz. Her 26 students mostly have “five-minute attention spans.” In the US in 2012, the annual median pay for kindergarten teachers was $53,090.
“The parents can be the scary part,” said Danko, noting some have unrealistic expectations or are very demanding or overprotective. They also may show up with questions “at the most inopportune time,” or with unreasonable requests. (Parenting also is among the CareerBuilder scary jobs.)
Let’s hope the survey won’t scare off prospective teachers. The world faces a shortage of teachers with around 1.4 million new primary educators needed by next year and 3.4 million required by 2030.
“Men’s style clothing for women” line Dapper D has a mission to reach as many people within their under-served demographic—from tomboy to transman—as possible. The latest offensive on that front is a three-day pop-up shop adjacent to Cupcake Jones, with a portion of proceeds going to benefit one of the city most vital resources, Outside In. Social Hall, 307 NW 10th, Fri Nov 14-Sun Nov 16, 11 am-7 pm
'they’re also a reminder of why NASA was willing to scrub a previous launch attempt when a sailboat ventured into the hazard area of the coast of the launch site. Had it been there when the rocket exploded, it could have been caught in the wave of debris shown above.'
The explosion of Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket at the Wallops Island launch facility last night was something to see—even if you’re seeing with radio waves. These animations, provided by Baron Weather, show how debris and smoke from the accident were visible at a weather station in Dover, Delaware, over 100 miles away.
After the initial explosion, then the south-westerly winds carry the smoke and debris out into the Atlantic ocean. “You see that sometimes with tornados and squall line events and severe weather events that push through and cause a lot of damage,” Stephen McCloud, a weather operations manager at Baron, says. “The radar sees it and detects it as debris.”
The next animations uses more advanced radar analysis to try identify the different kinds of debris scattered by the rocket accident. This kind of radar can differentiate between rain, snow and hail, for example.
Investigators will use these images to help collect the remnants of the rocket and determine the cause of the explosion. And they’re also a reminder of why NASA was willing to scrub a previous launch attempt when a sailboat ventured into the hazard area of the coast of the launch site. Had it been there when the rocket exploded, it could have been caught in the wave of debris shown above.
