Google has revealed its new Android design language, Material Design, cleaning up the smartphone and tablet UI by taking inspiration from paper and ink along with depth. “We took real inspiration from paper and ink,” Google’s Matias Duarte said during the I/O opening keynote, “but unlike real paper our digital material can reform and shape.” Material Design pares back the … Continue reading
There are times in life where one will definitely reminisce about the good old days, and this seems to happen more and more often when one gets older and closer to the grave, at least, until your memory fails you. Here is the $19.99 Star Wars Tin Wind Ups, where you will be able to choose from the following: Boba Fett, C-3PO, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, or Stormtrooper models. All that you need to do is to wind them up, and let them be on a flat ground, where they will then roll forward like the good automaton that they are.
What makes the Star Wars Tin Wind Ups so special would be the fact that the design of these bad boys look as though they do not belong in this particular century, but rather, would fit in better in another era when smartphones and tablets do not exist. I suppose you can classify these under the steampunk banner to a certain extent, which is an imagined past that peers ahead into the future. Regardless of the particular Star Wars character favorite that you pick, they will all arrive with features such as an on/off switch on the side, so that your little ones with fingers so tiny need not worry about winding these up in the first place.
[ Star Wars Tin Wind Ups brings back childhood memories copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
First days on the job are memorable occasions, but a certain White House intern probably wouldn’t mind forgetting hers.
According to a Politico report, a White House intern fainted and fell to the ground during Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s Tuesday briefing. The young girl’s spill happened in the line of the C-SPAN camera and unfortunately made it onto broadcast.
The intern — who appears to be fine now — is in good company with Earnest, who had an infamously less-than-ideal first day on his job, as well.
Watch the clip above to see the intern’s unfortunate fainting incident.
Yesterday, the FBI proudly announced the completion of Operation Cross Country VIII. During the past week, the FBI, its local, state, and federal law enforcement partners, conducted a week-long enforcement action to address commercial child sex trafficking throughout the United States. 168 children were recovered from being bought and sold for sex. And 281 pimps were arrested on state and federal charges. According to the FBI’s Director, James B. Comey, the operations were designed to “crush these pimps” and show that children are not for sale.
So, what about the persons who did think the children were for sale, and purchased them? The politely termed “Johns” who purchased children for sex? Shouldn’t the FBI “crush” them too?
Of all the arrests made during Operation Cross Country VIII, there was not one arrest of a buyer.
In any other context, what happens to girls who are purchased by “Johns” would be construed as statutory rape or sexual assault of a minor.
In the marketplace of child trafficking, there is a culture of impunity for buyers. As if when the act of child rape is purchased, it is somehow less violent. But why is the rape of a child not considered a crime when it is paid for?
The FBI might tout its numbers of arrested pimps and saved children, but the decision to excuse the Johns or buyers — as the FBI has done in previous Operation Cross Country raids — entrenches a culture of impunity for the purchase of children for sex. Individuals can confidently buy children for sex, without fear of punishment (which is one reason why many gangs have started selling girls instead of drugs: the buyers are not afraid of getting arrested).
Despite the FBI’s raid, we are no closer to demonstrating that children are not for sale. In fact, the FBI and the Department of Justice’s continued focus on arresting pimps at the exclusion of buyers, signals that children are still very much for sale in the United States.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — An explosion rocked a shopping mall in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and witnesses say at least eight people have been killed.
They said body parts are scattered around the exit to Emab Plaza.
The explosion is the latest of a series of violent attacks suspected to be by Islamic extremists. Nigerian security forces appear incapable of curtailing the near-daily attacks by extremists in the northeast.
Two separate explosions in April killed some 120 people in Abuja. Both were claimed by Boko Haram Islamic extremists who threatened further attacks.
A bomb at a medical college in northern Kano killed at least eight people Monday.
Boko Haram attracted international condemnation for the April mass abductions of more than 200 schoolgirls, and is blamed for this week’s abductions of another 90 people.
For most of my life, I’ve believed that if a guy didn’t like me, it was because I wasn’t as pretty or skinny as other girls — or because he thought I was fat. I grew up being told I was ‘big-boned’ and if I just exercised more, I would tone up and look better. There was always a striving and never-ending feeling of not being enough.
I didn’t want to be big-boned and I didn’t want extra meat on my bones; I wanted to be the enviable thin girl — the one with the perfect hair, body, clothes and life.
As an adolescent, I begged my mom to send me to fat camp. I mail-ordered juice fasts and she would go ahead and send them right back. I resented her for that. I went to the doctor and exclaimed I was too short and must have a growth problem because I should have been taller.
When I got my period at age 12 and developed faster than other girls, the boys on the school bus called me Thunder Thighs. I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be accepted and cool. But beyond that, I wanted to feel wanted and loved and chosen for just being me. And because I wasn’t, I felt something was wrong with me. Otherwise, I would have had a boyfriend.
Instead, I tried and chased and needed and pleaded to be loved in all the wrong places and with all the wrong faces. I kept piling up evidence of my life-long belief of not being ‘enough’ and figured that if I were thin, if I were skinny, that would solve all of my problems. Most of all, I’d be wanted.
It’s a creeping old thought that sometimes resurfaces as an adult: if only I were thinner, blonder or or had bigger boobs, then life would be good. However, now that I see this thought for what it is — so limited and small and vain — I can choose a new one to replace it.
People value, respect and choose us when we value, respect and choose ourselves.
It has taken me years to discover this. I set parameters for myself, followed them for a bit and then fall off the bandwagon. I started over and asked myself the same questions and came up against the same challenges and struggles — and it all comes down to the lack of consistency I have in my routine for how I care for myself.
Whether its managing my time — balancing meditation, writing and exercising; sleeping at a consistent time; or taking breaks from work instead of piling through when I’m exhausted or need a break — those choices impact whether I indulge in foods that are not good for my body, or whether I drink too many cocktails to numb myself out. It has been a journey to realize the many things I put before my own care in order to achieve something or please someone. I’m learning how to manage my energy and I’m learning what drains me and what truly feeds me.
In the past 90 days I’ve started listening more and talking less. Partially, because I’ve been sick a couple times and from that place of forced surrender, I have seen how everything is energy. What I put out to the world, what I give, what I receive and the people I’m around all impact my ability and level of focus and energy.
After launching the Bare Campaign by Women Enough, I shut down. I received a lot of media attention for the cause and subsequently, many women reached out with interest to partner, be involved or go bare. Now, while it’s something that I’ve wanted and I’m grateful for, I didn’t know how to energetically respond to it all. I felt like everyone wanted something from me and it was overwhelming.
And the reason why I shut down and felt overwhelmed was because I’m learning how to really care for myself, how to manage my energy and time and it takes practice to discern what feels and what is really right for me.
I’ve observed that boundaries come up when we aren’t comfortable managing some aspect of our lives, and when we are learning to love, care, value, choose and respect ourselves, it can be difficult to define what is ‘right’ for us and subsequently communicate it to others.
As I’ve ventured further into the unknown, with a nomadic lifestyle that’s outside the prescriptive “American Life,’ I’ve become more deeply attuned with myself. I believe that when we take ourselves out of our comfort zone — the world of distraction from life and work and technology and accessibility — that’s where we are forced to deal with ourselves.
And in that dark place, that little dark room is where the self love is developed.
For more information please visit www.WomenEnough.com @Women_Enough
or email Michelle@WomenEnough.com
R. Kelly spoke out for the first time about his transgender son, saying that when it comes to having kids it’s about offering support.
When the rapper sat down Sunday for an interview with Chicago’s WGCI at Summer Jam 2014, host Nina Chantele asked him about his 14-year-old son, Jay. Earlier this month, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender blogs began reporting that Jay had come out as transgender on his Ask.fm page.
“There [are] reports of your daughter becoming, you know, your son,” Chantele said. “Would you like to address that? Because … a lot of blogs are saying that you’re not addressing it.”
“You don’t wanna really open it up with saying my daughter’s becoming my son,” Kelly replied. “You know what I’m saying? … Always believe what you see, with your own eyes, that is. Always believe what you see. That’s the best way to go about this business. I’ve heard a lot of things about a lot of people, and it was never true.”
(Story continues below.)
R. Kelly’s son Jay.
“You save money so your kids can go to college,” he said later in the interview. “No matter what they are or who they are, they’re still your kids, you love them, you know? You’ve got to support them. You want to support them. … At the end of the day it’s not about me no more. It’s about three lovely, lovely kids that I am in love with and that’s in love with me.”
When co-host Tony Sculfield asked about his son again, Kelly responded: “Even when you see it with your own eye, you gotta know [there’s] a backstory, [there’s] a background. You can’t judge nobody that you don’t understand.”
Chantele later tweeted about why she asked Kelly about his child.
Had to ask. Wanted to give Kells a safe space to share his thoughts RT @tbella12: @PerezHilton @NinaChantele looks at ya! #chitown
— Nina Chantele (@NinaChantele) June 24, 2014
On Tuesady, Jay took to his Ask.fm page to answer some questions, including one about the recent media focus on his life. He responded: “Because i’m transgender and the son of r.kelly. I don’t know why that is such a HUGE deal.”
Watch R. Kelly’s full interview with WGCI below.
In an unprecedented statement, over 40 senior academics including more than a dozen former presidents of the most important professional association for scholars of the Arab and larger Muslim world, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), have signed a letter to U.S. President Obama and Secretary State John Kerry calling for the Administration to demand the immediate release of blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah and other political detainees in Egypt, for Egyptian officials to suspend the protest law of 2013 and end the repression of free speech rights guaranteed by the Egyptian Constitution and international law, and end the regime of violence, including torture and extra judicial execution, that still governs Egypt after the electoral victory of Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as President. Rarely, if ever, has such a group of such high-level academics has ever come together on a single issue before, including the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Underscoring the importance of the letter, only days after it was first published Secretary of State Kerry visited Cairo where he announced a full resumption of military and other aid, completely disregarded human rights concerns and the ongoing authoritarianism in Egypt. The Egyptian government responded by arresting more protesters and, just yesterday, sentencing three al-Jazeera journalists to a minimum of seven year prison terms in a trial that exceeded Abdel Fattah’s trial in its kafkaesque proportions.
Even as Iraq is engulfed by violence and Syria continues its brutal civil war, these scholars and officials, with literally centuries of experience in Egypt and the broader region between them, warn that growing political violence in Egypt epitomized by the recent reimprisonment of Alaa Abdel Fattah and ongoing rights abuses, risks permanently destabilizing Egypt, and with it, the region more broadly. Especially in light of the actions of the Egyptian government after Kerry’s visit, they reiterate their call to the Obama administration to suspend non-humanitarian military, security, political and economic cooperation with Egypt until the government heeds these demands.
—
To President Obama and Secretary Kerry,
We, the undersigned academics and policy-makers condemn the intensifying assault on basic political and civil rights in Egypt, most recently epitomized by the June 11 sentencing of two dozen activists associated with the No to Military Trials movement, including well-known blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah, to fifteen years imprisonment.
The sudden conviction in absentia and incarceration of activists while police blocked them and their attorneys from entering the courtroom on a day scheduled for lawyers’ briefs, is the latest and most glaring example of the systematic violations of internationally recognized rights of assembly, of freedom of expression, and of due process characterizing the political environment in Egypt today.
They are accompanied by the ongoing and widespread use of deadly violence by security forces on Egyptian citizens exercising their internationally recognized right to protest, the application of mass death sentences after severely flawed and politicized judicial processes, and the use of torture, long-term detention without trial and other forms of mistreatment of detainees by the government.
Such practices and policies undermine whatever positive impact elections and other formal democratic processes may bring to Egypt. Instead, they lay the foundation for deepening marginalization of ordinary citizens, intensifying social and political conflict, and ultimately even more violence. As we watch with great alarm the descent of Iraq into a potential civil war, and the even greater carnage next door in Syria, we note that beneath the sectarian and ethnic tensions considered to be driving these conflicts lie the long-term denial of basic rights to citizens, systematic corruption, and violence by governments against their peoples–dynamics that continue to define Egypt’s political environment even after last month’s Presidential elections.
The present regime of political violence, which began with and remains most fiercely directed against the Muslim Brotherhood, is increasingly focused on silencing all remaining revolutionary voices associated with the January 25-February 11, 2011 uprising. As we have seen in so many other countries, these policies require the demonization of more and more citizens as “terrorists,” “traitors” and “enemies,” against whom all manner of violence and repression are justified. In Egypt as elsewhere the end result of such policies, which have occurred with the acquiescence and even support of Egypt’s regional and international allies and patrons, will inevitably be the disintegration of bonds of common citizenship and intensifying of social, political and economic conflict.
Such an outcome is unfolding in Iraq, as it did in Syria before it — and closer to Egypt, in neighboring Libya. It is also increasingly and dangerously evident in the Sinai Peninsula. The costs to Egypt of such destabilization, and through it regional and even global security and stability, are almost impossible to calculate. Yet the steps necessary to prevent such an outcome are clear.
The Egyptian government must immediately release not only Alaa Abdel Fattah and other protesters most recently sentenced in absentia, but all political prisoners and detainees. At the same time, it must end the politicization of judicial proceedings, halt the still rampant use of torture and other forms of violence and mistreatment of Egyptian citizens, and suspend the protest law issued on November 24, 2013, whose severe restrictions on the right of assembly and political expression violate core principles of both the Egyptian Constitution and international law. Such measures are the sine qua non for any meaningful transition to democratic accountability in Egypt.
We call upon President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and the Administration in all its capacities, to demand these moves and, moreover, to suspend normal cooperation with the Egyptian government — including the provision of military aid or sales and non-humanitarian economic assistance — until such practices are in place. Ignoring or excusing gross violations of fundamental human rights in Egypt, particularly with other countries in the region in the midst of dangerous political meltdowns, cannot be considered constructive or sound policy, or justified on the grounds of realpolitik. They will serve only to produce enmity, violence, destabilization and chaos on an ever-wider scale across Egypt, and through it, the region.
The world community, and particularly Egypt’s most important ally, the United States, cannot afford to sit by while this happens.
Sincerely,
Nezar AlSayyad
Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
University of California, Berkeley
Paul Amar
University of California, Santa Barbara
Barbara Aswad
Wayne State University
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Beth Baron
Graduate Center and City College, City University of New York
Director, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, Graduate Center, CUNY
Editor, International Journal of Middle East Studies
Joel Beinin
Stanford University
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Sheila Carapico
Coordinator, International Studies Program
University of Richmond
Juan Cole
Director, Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of Michigan
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Elliott Colla
Georgetown University
Michele Dunne
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Alexander E. Elinson
Director of the Hunter College Summer Arabic Program
Hunter College of The City University of New York
John L. Esposito
Georgetown University
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Michael Gilsenan
Director, Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
New York University
William Granara
Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Harvard University
Frank Griffel
Chair, Council on Middle East Studies (CMES)
Yale University
Bassam Haddad
George Mason University
Editor, Jadaliyya
Yvonne Haddad
Georgetown University
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Sondra Hale
Outgoing Director, Center for Near Eastern Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Coordinator, California Scholars for Academic Freedom
Mervat Hatem
Howard University
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Steven Heydemann
Georgetown University
Eric Hooglund,
Editor, Middle East Critique
Nubar Hovsepian
Chapman University
Michael C. Hudson
Georgetown University
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Hunter, Robert E (Amb. ret.)
Hunter, Shireen
Georgetown University
Adel Iskandar
Georgetown University
Toby Jones
Rutgers University
Suad Joseph
University of California, Davis
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Kimberly Katz
Towson University
Amb. Richard Kauzlarich (ret.)
School of Public Policy, George Mason University
Mark LeVine
University of California, Irvine
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University
Ann Lesch
The American University in Cairo
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Zachary Lockman
New York University
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Kevin W. Martin
Indiana University
Ellen McLarney
Duke University
Norma Claire Moruzzi
Director, International Studies Program
University of Illinois at Chicago
Karen Pfeifer
Smith College
William Quandt
University of Virginia
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Hesham Sallam
Stanford University
Laila Shereen Sakr
University of Southern California
Jillian Schwedler
Hunter College, CUNY
Sherene Seikaly
Director, Middle East Studies Center
The American University in Cairo
Jonathan Shannon
Hunter College
Samer S. Shehata
University of Oklahoma
Jeannie Sowers
University of New Hampshire
Joshua Stacher
Kent State University
Christopher Stone
Hunter College, CUNY
Ted Swedenburg
University of Arkansas
Chris Toensing
Editor, Middle East Report
John O. Voll
Georgetown University
Jessica Winegar
Northwestern University
I William Zartman
The Johns Hopkins University–SAIS
Past President, Middle East Studies Association
Stephen Zunes
University of San Francisco
Affiliations are provided for identification purposes and should not suggest institutional endorsement of this letter.
For media inquiries, please send an email to EgyptLetter@hushmail.com
[This letter was modified slightly at the request of the signatories]
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Filmmaker and author John Waters is funny, brash and brilliant. For decades, the so-called “Pope of Trash” has been peddling camp and gore — and then some — with films like “Pink Flamingos,” “Female Trouble” and “Hairspray.”
For his latest literary endeavor, “Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America,” Waters hitched rides from his home in Baltimore to his San Francisco apartment in just eight days, armed with little more than a cardboard sign that read “I’m Not Psycho.” The first two novellas imagine best and worst case scenarios: a kindly drug dealer hands him a bunch of cash, no strings attached; Waters is taken hostage by a wild drunk. The third part recounts actual events.
The Huffington Post sat down with the cult icon for a conversation in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Peering through dark sunglasses, Waters didn’t hold back discussing hitchhiker sex, heterosexual discrimination, jazz junkies and his mustache:
I’ve never hitchhiked.
You never did? You pussy! You should try it up here [in Provincetown], to the beach or something, ease into it. I always hitchhiked. I mean, I never did this far when I was young, but I was raised that it wasn’t bad to. All the kids in private and Catholic school hitchhiked home every day — the parents expected you to. I had nostalgia for hitchhiking I guess, and so I thought of the idea like, let me challenge myself. Let’s not play it safe.
Honestly, when have you ever thought to “play it safe”?
Fair point.
It gets a little graphic, so to speak, in “Carsick,” the fictional parts at least …
I imagined first, though, all the best and the worst that could happen so I could get all my fears and excitement and fantasies over with before I did it for real. I was preparing myself for reality.
If I hitchhike — and I’m not saying I’m going to — what’s the etiquette I should know to follow?
First of all you, never do business in front of them, you don’t talk on your cell phone, you don’t check your emails. When you get into the car, it’s improv — you’re in a little play and they’re in charge. But you can take over psychologically, depending if they want to listen or talk, and I prefer that they talk because I feel like I have to do interviews all the time, you know what I mean? [laughs]
I think I do know what you mean. You were much more interested in their lives.
Yes, I was. I could tell if they had never heard of me, and that was fine. If they had never heard of me and they asked what I did and I’d say I make movies, I could tell when thought I was a liar, some homeless man with delusions of grandeur. Some came over to give me money and started screaming and laughing when they realized it was me. But they were all people who were trying to help me.
You didn’t publicize the trip, so were people surprised to find you when they did recognize you?
I never even answered the press when the story did break. I didn’t confirm that I was doing it. And it wouldn’t have helped me anyway because I didn’t know where the hell I was, standing on some road. It’s not like fans are going to come running 200 miles into the middle of Kansas to give me a ride to California.
You’ll never know. Was there anybody that you …
Did I have sex?
Sure. Did you?
No. I didn’t. But in the good and the bad part of the book I do. And when I was young I always did, yeah. I would’ve, but it’s different when you’re 66 and not 18.
Did anyone offer a ride and you thought to yourself “nope, too creepy”?
No. After waiting for eight hours, you get in with anybody. I didn’t want to hitchhike at night and I probably wouldn’t have gotten on a motorcycle, but that was never at option. At the end, I was desperate enough, I would have gotten on a motorcycle, I think. I waited 10 hours one day, almost had to sleep on the ground.
Where is the worst and the best place to hitchhike in America?
Bonner Springs, Kansas — the worst. Ohio was bad everywhere. The best? Truckee, California — nice air, I knew I was going to make it. It gets easier as you go West. People are going further. The worst is cities. The enemy is a local ride.
Is there anything that you quickly realized you had forgotten to pack?
The scissors for my mustache. I had to go into a damn Walmart for the first time in my life. I use cuticle scissors.
You write in “Carsick” — a joke, I’m sure — that an idea for your next book might be, “I’ll retake every drug I ever took, in order (hash, pot, LSD, amphetamine, morning glory seeds, glue, heroine, MDA, opium, mushrooms, cocaine) and then do bath salts”?
A joke, I’m sure. Well, I think I’m joking. I wouldn’t look forward to tripping though. I took a lot of acid — I loved it. I don’t take drugs now. It’s just boring. And heroin, the only thing heroin is good for is listening to jazz. Jazz is the sound of heroin. You can’t be a jazz musician and not be a junkie — really!
Do you spend all summer in Provincetown?
I do. I wrote half this book here, a lot of my movies here. I’m not on vacation. I spend some of the winter here too, but not all of it. When I’m here and it’s quiet, I feel ghosts. I know so many people who died here from AIDS and I feel ghosts. It’s not a bad feeling, but it’s not something I want to spend the whole winter with.
The Provincetown International Film Festival is happening during this interview. Do you think its important to have an “unofficially queer” film festival?
I don’t think it’s a gay film festival. I mean, if it’s in Provincetown — everything is kind of gay. I’m an anti-separatist. I don’t think there should be gay film festivals. I think it should all be together. Gay is not enough.
Is it ever?
It used to be. When it was illegal it was. But now it’s hard to feel too discriminated against [laughs]. At least personally. In the arts, I mean, I think straight people get more discriminated against. I want to have a whole hetero pride parade here in Provincetown, and I’m the grand marshal, and it’s in February!
This interview has been edited and condensed.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
