Russian Sledges

Theresa Harris with Barbara Stanwyck in the 1933 pre-code film, “Baby Face." Ms. Harris (1909-1985) played a series of maids to nearly every major Hollywood star of the time from Bette Davis and Jean Harlow to Ginger Rogers and Esther Williams. In “Baby Face," Ms. Stanwyck (1907-1990) played Lily Powers, an ambitious golddigger who later questions her ways (A little bit… Hollywood censors did some tweaking…). Ms. Harris played her best friend and “maid" Chico, who is with her every step of the way as she climbs the ladder of success, one man (or two) at a time. Ms. Harris also was the inspiration behind Lynn Nottage’s play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark." I never post about Theresa Harris without including the haunting quote from her I found in Donald Bogle’s book, “Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood. Bogle described her as “both outspoken and highly intelligent" and noted that she “didn’t mince words about the plight of colored actresses. She told Fay M. Jackson, of the California Eagle in August 1937: “I never felt the chance to rise above the role of maid in Hollywood movies. My color was against me. The fact that I was not ‘hot’ stamped me as either an uppity ‘Negress’ or relegated me to the eternal role of stooge or servant. I can sing but so can hundreds of other girls. My ambitions are to be an actress. Hollywood had no parts for me." Ms. Harris would later tell the same reporter that she enjoyed working in race movies “because In the picture I have the chance of wearing clothes." “Clothes" as a gorgeous wardrobe that Black women usually never had a chance to wear in white movies. Photo: Warner Brothers/Photofest.

John Lloyd: Lastly, here's a Freudian question for you. Freud once said, "The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is: what does a woman want?" What do you feel about that?
Natalie Haynes: I think... a woman wants not to be treated as some sort of exotic sub-species by a coke-addled creep like Freud.

rachel shared this story from Feministing.

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Trevor, who is really good at flirting, likes to get women’s attention by flashing them:

The woman Trevor texted this time was not having it, though.

Trevor doesn’t see the big deal, and starts insulting this woman he’s apparently trying to hit on. The conclusion of their conversation is after the jump – for the full exchange check out Happy Place. Spoilers: she forwards it all to Trevor’s mom. New technology means new places to harass people, but it’s also given us new ways to fight back. Because dick pics are forever. This woman rocks.

Story and images via Happy Place.

Limiting our discussion to what essentially boils down to a “do these pixels make me look fat” question is a waste of energy. Instead, design should boldly go where no user or interface has gone before.

Onyx Moonshine aging in small barrels.

EAST HARTFORD, CT -- Connecticut is getting in on the craft distilling craze.

Onyx Spirits Company has announced plans to release the state's first aged whiskey, although it bears a name similar to many unaged whiskies now on the market.

What they are calling Onyx Moonshine is presently resting in nearly three dozen charred American white oak barrels sealed in organic beeswax, the standard method for aging American bourbons and rye whiskies.

Don't start scrambling for your liquor store if you don't live in the state, however. The distillery says it will limit distribution to stores and restaurants in Connecticut, with only one barrel allowed per location.

The total release is expected to be just under 1,000 bottles, with a suggested retail price of $60.

adocica:

olha…

1 oz Bourbon (Four Roses)
1/2 oz Punt e Mes
1/2 oz Campari
1 barspoon Fernet Branca
2 dash Peychaud's Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
Two Sundays ago, we began the cocktail hour with the Southpaw that I found in Gary Regan's The Negroni book. The drink was created by Joseph Boley of Paris' Red House as a variation on Sam Ross' Left Hand. The Southpaw began with an orange and herbal aroma that led into a malt and grape sip. The swallow displayed the rest of the Bourbon notes along with the bitter Campari and Punt e Mes flavors and a Fernet Branca finish; indeed, the Fernet came across as rather tamed in the mix.

India’s population will overtake China’s by 2021, putting a huge strain on resources and public services. And though the country’s overall birth rate has fallen a lot, it’s still explosive in rural areas (pdf).

So how to get rural women to have fewer children? As we just discussed, coercive sterilization is probably not the best way to go. But things you might expect to bring the birth rate down, like higher female literacy or urbanization, don’t necessarily seem to do so, as Stanford professor Martin Lewis explains.

However, there’s one kinda bizarre thing that does correlate with lower fertility: cable TV.

Over a three-year period, academics Robert Jensen and Emily Oster researched rural villages in five Indian states. They found that once the village got cable TV access, fertility declined within a year (pdf):

This has happened elsewhere too. Fertility dropped markedly as more and more Brazilian villages got on the cable grid (pdf) from 1970 to 1999, according to research by academics Eliana La Ferrara, Alberto Chong, and Suzanne Duryea. Here’s how birth rates declined in Brazil over the years that cable availability spread:

One thing stands out in that study, though. Fertility only declined among poor rural women who could access Rede Globo, the network with a corner on the telenovela market. Why? Perhaps because, at a time in the 1970s when fertility was running at around 5.8 births per woman, nearly three-quarters of female characters of child-bearing age on Globo’s telenovela shows had no kids and 21% had just one child.

Also notable: When Brazilian women were exposed to imported TV shows, nothing happened. The authors note that “programs that are imported from Mexico and the US…are generally not perceived as realistic portraits of Brazilian society.” This suggested to them that “TV programs that are framed in a way that makes them immediately relevant for people’s everyday life may have significant effects on individual choices.”

Though Jensen and Oster’s research in India didn’t focus on the impact of a single type of program, they too conclude that Indian soap operas, which tend to feature independent urban women, might be the critical factor in driving down birth rates. Exposure to TV also tended to accompany a shift in values—fewer rural women who had TV said they found domestic violence acceptable or expressed a preference for male children.

So perhaps the Indian government should consider ramping up the reach of cable, and churning out Bollywood-style telenovelas with strong, compelling and—most importantly—childless female leads. It’s got to be a lot cheaper than sterilization camps.

1 1/2 oz Cardamaro
3/4 oz Cocchi Americano
1/4 oz Amaro Sibilla

Build in a Highball glass filled with ice. Top with 2 oz tonic water, garnish with an orange twist, and add a straw.

A few Wednesdays ago, I ventured over to the Blue Room where Chris Danforth was bartending. For a first drink, I asked Chris for the Honey & Thistle from the menu, and he believed that it was one of Matthew Schrage's creations. I surmise that the drink's name refers to the honey in the smokey and bitter Amaro Sibilla and the blessed thistle in the Cardamaro, respectively.
The orange twist contributed greatly to the Honey & Thistle's nose and prepared the mouth for the refreshingly light, carbonated, and citrussy sip. Next, the swallow was pleasantly herbal, and the quinine from the tonic worked rather well here with the Cocchi Americano and amaros. Chris accidentally made this drink the first time with Cocchi sweet vermouth instead of the Cocchi Americano, and he let me taste the error; while it was still a solid drink with richer grape notes on the sip and swallow, the Cocchi Americano version was indeed the winner.

Here's a beautiful, super-hi-rez, freely usable photo of a 1969 Russian Polar Expedition watch -- an absolutely droolworthy bit of horological sweetness. (Click to embiggen)

Russian Polar Expedition watch from 1969 - produced by Raketa [Sosoev/Wikimedia Commons]

(Thanks, Jim!)

Read Drew's blog: The Worst Things For Sale.

Five years after her three year old daughter died from malnutrition and dehydration, a woman who played World of Warcraft obsessively every day is now in prison. Rebecca Colleen Christie of Las Cruces, NM has been sentenced to 25 years in prison, almost two years after her 2009 conviction on second-degree murder and child abandonment charges.

As Owen Good at Kotaku wrote:

The case against Christie showed that the day the girl died, Christie had been playing Warcraft and chatting with friends she'd made online for 15 hours. Prosecutors said there appeared to be so little food that the girl ate cat food.

In a ruling from the US Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit (PDF) this week, judges confirmed the right of the state to search computers for evidence. The ruling contains some extremely upsetting details about the life and death of Ms. Christie's toddler (referenced in the court documents as "BW"), but if you can make it past that, there are some interesting 4th Amendment considerations.

The ruling also references Christie's former husband, Derek Wulf, a man enlisted in the Air Force who was also an avid (or, one might argue, pathologically obsessive) gamer.

An excerpt:

Because BW died on an Air Force base, federal authorities bore the responsibility to investigate and the power to prosecute. They proceeded against Ms. Christie and Mr. Wulf separately. In our proceeding, a federal jury found Ms. Christie guilty of second-degree murder, two assimilated state law homicide charges, as well as an assimilated child abuse charge. After trial, the district court dismissed the two assimilated homicide charges and entered a twenty-five year sentence on the remaining second-degree federal murder and the assimilated child abuse charge.

It is this judgment both sides now appeal.

Much of the evidence presented at trial against Ms. Christie came from the computer she so prized. From their forensic analysis, FBI investigators learned that Ms. Christie's online activities usually kept her busy from noon to 3 a.m. with little pause. They learned that she was in a chat room only an hour before finding BW near death, and that she was back online soon afterwards. They learned from Ms. Christie's messages to other gamers that she was annoyed by her responsibilities as a mother and “want[ed] out of this house fast.” When Mr. Wulf was slated for deployment, she announced to online friends that she would soon be free to “effing party.”

Ms. Christie contends this evidence and more from her computer was uncovered in violation of her Fourth Amendment rights and the district court should have suppressed it from her trial. Because the court didn't, because it admitted the proof against her, Ms. Christie says a new trial is required. To be precise, Ms. Christie doesn't question whether the government's seizure of the computer satisfied the Fourth Amendment. The government took possession of the computer in May 2006 with Mr. Wulf's consent. Everyone accepts that he was at least a co-owner of the computer—it was a gift from his father—and everyone accepts he had at least apparent authority to relinquish its control. Instead, Ms. Christie attacks the propriety of the two searches the government undertook once it had control of the computer. To justify its searches the government does not seek to rely on Mr. Wulf's consent but points to a pair of warrants it sought and received, one for each search. It is these warrants Ms. Christie challenges, arguing they were issued in defiance of the Fourth Amendment.

The judges conclude by stating:

So it is we decline to reverse the district court on this score, just as we find no other reversible error anywhere else in its careful treatment of this sad case. The judgment is affirmed.

Korean pop music is rigorously produced, stunningly choreographed and filled with beautiful people. Most K-Pop groups are manufactured through contests and production companies looking to capitalize on swoon-worthy heartthrobs. So when this effervescent music turns to dystopian and post-apocalyptic motifs, things get weird.

Read more...

Mark Regnerus, one of the most careful and thoughtful social scientists who studies these matters, has a very interesting piece up at Public Discourse: "Yes Marriage Will Change -- And Here's How." While the evidence is still accumulating, Regnerus offers some reflections about what we know about same sex relationships and divorce.

He also reviews what we know about the expectations of monogamy among male gay partners. It's not the white picket fence. Women, you see, tend to be the gatekeepers of monogamy. Here's the trap door: women tend to support gay marriage in far higher numbers than men. Regnerus's speculation is that the more relaxed attitude toward infidelity that marks gay unions will soon bleed into the culture in general as same sex marriage becomes more widespread. Once again, women are unaware that they are hurting themselves. 

Fuck your flower wall. 

Congressman Trent Franks said on the Hill today, “The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” Chait steps in to clarify and defends Franks from charges of Akinism:

Franks didn’t say the “rate” of pregnancy from rape is low. He said the “incidence” is low. He didn’t say it’s hard to get pregnant when you’re raped. He said rape-induced pregnancy doesn’t happen very often.

Is that claim, which is different than Akin’s, true? Well, there are about 30,000 pregnancies from rape a year. I’d say that’s a lot. I suppose that if you’re comparing it to the total number of abortions, a figure that’s 20 to 30 times larger, you could argue it isn’t so many. From Franks’s starting point, in which which abortion is murder, the United States allows massive murder of human beings on an unthinkable scale, next to which 30,000 annual pregnancies looms small. If (like me) you don’t share his view of abortion, that 30,000 pregnancies looms large.

In related news, Amanda Marcotte comments on the story of a 13-year-old girl who was impregnated through rape, chose to keep the baby, and has gotten shamed for it:

This sort of thing reveals the inescapable contradiction at the heart of the anti-abortion movement: The very same sexual conservatism that gives rise to anti-abortion sentiment also produces slut-shaming and social ostracism of pregnant young and single women (not to mention rape victims). Avoiding the shame may actually drive a woman to get an abortion—not exactly the end result the anti-choicers want. For single pregnant women who are grown adults, this contradiction is finally collapsing under its own weight, contributing to the rise in single motherhood in red states. But for teenagers, the loving support for “choosing life” promised by the anti-abortion movement remains elusive.

East German girls train with air rifles for the Sport and Technology Association championships, 1967.

When Scott Jarrett arrives at TD Garden today for the Boston stop of the Rolling Stones 50 & Counting tour, he’ll be able to declare, accurately and proudly, “I’m with the band.” Thanks to a serendipitous series of events and the close-knit nature of the choral community, BU’s own Marsh Chapel Choir, directed by Jarrett (CFA’99,’08), has been accorded the rare privilege of accompanying the Stones on their iconic anthem “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Originally recorded with London’s Bach Choir for the 1969 album Let It Bleed, the song has become one of the band’s most recognized and is featured in the current tour of 10 North American cities. At each stop, the band is teaming with a local choir to perform the song. The 2013 tour marks the first time the Stones have performed it with a live choir, and fans are forking over as much as $500 for tickets.

Sen. Tester all but supporting Snowden leak. "First of all, Snowden probably shouldn't have done what he did. But the fact of the matter is is I don't see how that compromises the security of this country whatsoever. And quite frankly, it helps people like me become aware of a situation that I wasn't aware of before because I don't sit on that Intelligence Committee." Read.

"The number of happy faces on Lego toy mini-figures has been decreasing since the 1990s, and the number of angry faces has increased, giving rise to concerns that children could be affected by the negativity of the toys."

"Lego people are right to be angry – they have to live with Barbie."

Know your airlines

The term “insurance” carries with it a boatload of connotations, so if you go into a UPS branch to ship a package and someone offers you “insurance” for a few extra dollars, you might think that you’ll be covered in case your shipment gets mangled along the way, but UPS employees are mis-using the term in order to upsell an add-on that doesn’t offer anywhere near the level of coverage one might expect.

San Francisco’s KPIX-TV recently spoke to an area man who thought he was buying insurance coverage from UPS on a shipment of two headlights. He says he’d already repacked the lights in their original packaging, thrown in a bit more foam padding and newspaper for good measure, but decided to fork over some more money for the extra peace of mind.

When one of the headlights arrived broken, he attempted to make a claim but it was denied because his package had included the newspaper padding inside. That’s when he fell into the Declared Value rabbit hole.

FIND THE FINE PRINT
See, UPS doesn’t actually sell insurance coverage on the packages you ship. Instead, it sells “Declared Value Coverage,” which allows the shipper to make a claim for the full declared value of the package (up to $50,000), so long as the packaging meets UPS standards.

The lengthy UPS Terms document [PDF] even states, somewhere on page #35, that Declared Value Coverage is not insurance:

“When a shipper declares a value in excess of $100, it does not receive any form of insurance. Shippers desiring cargo insurance, all risk insurance, or another form of insurance should purchase such insurance from a third party.”

Of course, for as detailed and lengthy as the Terms of Service are, the document points back to the UPS website when describing what isn’t covered by Declared Value:

–loss or damage resulting from improper, inadequate or unsafe packaging or wrapping that fails to meet UPS’s published standards related thereto set forth in the Terms or at ups.com

And so the fun begins at UPS.com, where there are multiple pages with shipping guidance.

Nowhere on the page with guidelines for preventing damage claims does it say that newspaper would be a reason for denying a claim.

Nor does it say anything on UPS.com’s FAQ about Declared Value Coverage, other than to say that its claims people use ISTA 3A standards for determining whether a package was properly put together.

There’s the Packaging Guidelines page, which only says “Use adequate cushioning material” and does not call out newspaper as a no-no.

Then there is the Packaging Materials Page, which doesn’t list any forbidden packaging but does link to further pages about acceptable materials. Following the link to the Loose Fill page brings up nothing about newspaper, even though we’d describe it as a “lightweight, non-fragile” material.

To get an indication that newspaper may void your claim — though it doesn’t say this explicitly — you have to go the Internal Packaging page, which lists both Kraft paper and “paper cushioning” as acceptable. However, each of those paragraphs include the qualifying parenthetical of “(not newspaper or newsprint).”

Finally, we stumble upon UPS.com’s step-by-step guide to packing your shipment, where on page 2 it reads, “Improper cushioning material includes clothing, blankets, towels, newspaper/newsprint, and pillows.”

Phew!

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
KPIX-TV went undercover to three separate UPS Store locations in the San Francisco area, and at each store the employee attempted to upsell them on “insurance” coverage, never mentioning Declared Value.

The UPS Store claims that it trains employees to use the phrase “Declared Value Coverage,” but says that “Unfortunately, there may be times when an employee thinks it’s easier to refer to it as insurance.”

Which is like those times when I find it easier to refer to myself as Ryan Gosling, because we’re both human and male, which makes us virtually identical in the big picture.

MAY WE MAKE A SUGGESTION?
If UPS and the UPS Store really want to stop this confusion, they will not only train employees to not say “insurance,” but will also train them to clearly explain the difference between the two.

Furthermore, the company could provide employees with a list of immediate no-nos that would allow the customer to know that his Declared Value claim stands a high risk of being denied. It could be a piece of paper or a poster that says something like, “If your package has any of the following… it is not considered properly packaged by UPS standards.”

But of course then UPS wouldn’t get to upsell an all but useless coverage to unwitting customers.

Submitted for your approval: Cats are always gonna be cats