A Train Runs Through It from Christine Stoddard/Quail Bell on Vimeo.
By Christine Stoddard for Quail Bell Press & Productions. Premiered at the New York Transit Museum in 2014.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
I’m intrigued by the reported trend that women are no longer wearing bras. Ditching your bra is supposed to make you feel more independent, liberated, and empowered.
Here are some headlines from the past few weeks: “Why Millenials Are Going Braless,” Why More Women are Freeing Their Breasts,” and “12 Reasons Going Braless is the World’s Best Feeling,” Social media rallied around a high school student sent home for not wearing a bra. It looks like an exciting new cultural shift is taking place.
Bloggers and others are reporting on the freedom that comes with ditching underwires or choosing to wear less structured bralettes. The premise of these pieces is that bras are at best an optional fashion accessory, and at worst a symbol of women’s societal oppression.
But I’m skeptical of these claims that women prefer not wearing bras. Why?
Natural Breast Sizes and Shapes. Breasts come in a multitude of sizes and shapes, from AAA to K cups and beyond. Unless you have smallish, firm boobs, going without a bra can be both impractical and physically painful. The only time I ever went without a bra was shortly after my breast lift, at the age of 49. Even during my more youthful but larger pendulous breast years, it was tough to go braless in hot weather. (A river of sweat kept my boobs glued to my rib cage.) As I’ve aged, I’m relieved to have heavier breast flesh lifted up and away from my body.
Areolae and Nipple Coverage. Bras do an excellent job of concealing nipples. It’s an important function, even if you support #freethenipple. Slapping on a couple of pasties will keep headlights under control. But areolae and nips still poke through clothes. Many women don’t like the look or prefer not to share that much information.
Fashion. I like how the right bra shapes the look of my clothes. I want my boobs centered on my chest, not floating around under my tops or dresses. That’s my personal preference, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Surveys report 80% of women don’t leave their house without first putting on a bra. Yes, gorgeous braless styles are fashionable (and have always been shown on runways), but not everyone can or wants to wear them.
Physical Activity. Women in ancient times understood the benefit of binding down their boobs during exercise. Studies show that female athletes perform better in well-fitting bras. It’s no surprise that jock straps were used in the design the first modern sports bra.
Body Shaming. It’s newsworthy when a celebrity is spotted out without a bra. Paparazzi lenses love to document these so-called wardrobe “fails.” Women who go braless are called out for “flaunting” their bodies or looking for extra (read: male) attention. It’s sexist public slut shaming. Should women be ridiculed for not wearing bras? Of course not. But that doesn’t stop the tabloid shame.
Bralette styles aren’t a realistic alternative for everyone. Yes, they fit into the athleisure fashion craze. But some argue that pushing the trend betrays women by selling them something less useful–and more cheaply made in some cases.
Not wearing bras can be liberating to some, but I find greater empowerment and freedom in wearing gorgeous, well-structured intimates. I don’t care if anyone else wears a bra. But let’s quit pretending that it’s some arbitrary fashion choice. Female ingenuity and design are what fuel today’s modern bra styles and designs.
Maybe it’s time to stop demonizing the bra, and it’s alternative (going braless). Both views hold women back and take away our personal choice. For most women, putting on a bra is like picking out footwear. Sure, I’ll go barefoot on the beach. But I prefer flip-flops for the sidewalk and heels when I head out to a nice restaurant. Bras allow me to work, play, run, and enjoy my life with ease. And the right bra will change where, and how far I go.
What’s your view? What do you think about the news stories claiming that women prefer not wearing bras? Is there a way to get rid of the stigma attached to going braless?
This article first appeared on The Breast Life.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Written by Anna Donnella
1504, a multimedia studio led by Tyler Jones, Nick Michael, and Mark Slagle, recently took some time to create a short documentary that explores race, urban development, and one of the largest murals in the country. Their film, America’s Boulevard, follows the creation of the 42,179 square foot mural on MLK Boulevard in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
1504 chose to follow the story of this mural in Chattanooga, knowing that it would resonate with people of a broader audience. “We knew that most people could relate to living in a city with a road named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” says Tyler Jones of 1504, “and we hoped to use the mural process as a lens for telling a broader story about a community trying to preserve its memory.”
We were interested in the role that public art can play in community development, especially when it encourages a dialogue about race and socioeconomic issues. Similar to the mural itself, one of our goals with the film was to explore how urban neighborhoods may retain their historical identities despite evolving with new residents.
Take a look at an abridged clip from America’s Boulevard:
At the start of the project, 1504 visited the artist, Meg Saligman, at her studio in Philadelphia to get some context and background on her design work. From there, they visited Chattanooga once a month for nine months, the duration of the mural’s creation. Wanting to grapple with the issues of gentrification and race in a way that offered a range of voices rather than promoted any one, they composed the video with interviews with many locals who had unique perspectives on the mural and the neighborhood. “Hopefully their voices stand out and, as a collection, provide an honest glimpse into this moment in time,” says Tyler.
America’s Boulevard premiered at the Chattanooga Film Festival in April, and the team at 1504 is looking forward to seeing how it will impact wider audiences and start conversations moving forward.
Be sure to check out the the full 25-minute film at americasblvd.com. And to see more work from 1504, visit 1504.co.
Wonderful Machine is a production company with a network of over 700 photographers around the world, and we love to share their stories. Check out more cool projects on the Wonderful Machine Blog!
If you’re interested in this story for your blog or publication, contact anna@wonderfulmachine.com or call (610)260-0200.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, whose eventual electoral domestication seems to be forever around the next corner, pivoted back in the direction of the surreal and reprehensible Wednesday morning at a press conference in Doral, Florida. And once again, Trump is taking fire from fellow Republicans in a way that shatters all precedent, as disaffected conservatives receive one more sign that their party’s nominee is catastrophically unfit for office.
Trump managed to reinflame his antagonists throughout his press conference, where ― among sundry bewilderments ― he at one point seemed to confuse Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine with former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean.
But if any of his various statements at the press conference really stood out, it was probably the part where he called for state-sponsored Russian hackers to conduct cyber espionage on the United States for his electoral benefit. (Security experts have found evidence that Russia was involved in the hack, and subsequent leak, of a cache of Democratic National Committee emails, which has cast a shadow over the Democrats’ convention in Philadelphia this week.)
Referring to the 33,000 emails deleted from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server, he addressed Russia like so: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”
And lest you think this was uttered in jest, he later reiterated the sentiment on Twitter:
The immediate impact of Trump’s statements ― besides perhaps some hasty revisions to forthcoming speeches at the Democratic National Convention, accepting this fresh anti-Trump ammunition as an unexpected gift ― came in the form of a gobsmacked press, swift condemnation from the Clinton campaign, and the briefest of statements from House Speaker Paul Ryan’s spokesman, who wrote, “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election.”
Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, released a statement soon after that seemed to attempt to steer the campaign back upon saner streets: “The FBI will get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking [of the DNC’s emails]. If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.”
However, John Harwood reported that Pence’s statement, which appeared to contradict Trump’s request to Russia, was drafted before Trump made the appeal, thus undermining all this talk of “serious consequences.”
But Republican officials and pundits living outside the Trump campaign and the legislative chambers were far less muted in their opprobrium. As Politico’s Nahal Toosi reported, at least one was more than willing to use the “T”-word:
William Inboden, who served on the NSC during the George W. Bush administration, said Trump’s comments were “tantamount to treason.”
“Trump’s appeal for a foreign government hostile to the United States to manipulate our electoral process is not an assault on Hillary Clinton, it is an assault on the Constitution,” said Inboden, who now teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.
Inboden was hardly alone in registering his disgust with Trump. GOP strategist Stuart Stevens, who advised Mitt Romney, the party’s nominee in 2012, suggested that Trump’s remarks would have merited an immediate court-martial if they’d been made by anyone answering to the commander in chief:
And The Weekly Standard’s Jay Cost laid his thoughts bare on Twitter, calling out Trump’s enablers along the way.
Michael Vickers ― who served in the Defense Department under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, eventually attaining the post of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence ― took to Politico Magazine after the press conference to argue that the national security policy of a future Trump White House is already substantially degraded, thanks to the GOP nominee’s constant displays of ignorance and brashness:
Even more worrisome, Trump has so alienated Republican national security professionals that he will likely have great difficulty attracting top advisers to staff his administration were he to be elected. Presidents cannot make effective national security policy by themselves. The experience and judgment of their advisers is strongly correlated to their national security success.
“We need an experienced and steady hand to guide us through the current challenges to American leadership and world order,” Vickers wrote.
“Only one candidate in this presidential race can supply that,” he concluded. Hint: It’s the Democratic nominee.
Clinton’s relative experience and steadiness is something that Democrats have already worked to emphasize at the convention. They’re also hoping to play up the extent to which Republican foreign policy officials and conservative writers echo the kinds of remarks that Trump’s press conference elicited over the course of the day. This video, produced by the Democratic National Convention, highlights all of this:
The only problem is that this was obviously produced before Trump invited the Russians to engage in cyber espionage. But that’s nothing a little editing can’t fix.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.
~~~~~
Jason Linkins edits “Eat The Press” for The Huffington Post and co-hosts the HuffPost Politics podcast “So, That Happened.” Subscribe here, and listen to the latest episode below.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Isabelle Lassiter has a beef with a Japanese steakhouse in Tennessee, where a chef sprayed her in the face with a pee-pee doll in what her husband called a “sexual-style assault.”
Lassiter said she and her family were dining at the Wasabi Japanese Steakhouse in Murfreesboro on Monday when a chef produced a plastic doll resembling a little boy and pulled down its pants. A thin stream of water spurted from a hole located in the doll’s genital area and hit Lassiter in the face, she said.
She wasn’t happy.
“He pulled his little shorts down and it had a wanger and he squirted me right in the face,” Lassitter told Fox17.com.
Restaurant manager Johnny Huang said the doll is a common part of the show patrons get at dinner. Chefs use it to control flames on the hibachi, he said.
“The kids like it, they think it’s a water gun,” Huang told TV station WREG.
Lassiter’s husband, James, called the spraying “a sexual-style assault on my wife,” according to NBC4i.com.
The couple called the police and filed a report.
The episode happened “in front of our minor children and grandchildren,” James Lassiter said, according to Cleveland19.com.
Isabelle Lassiter added: “It really didn’t have a wiener, but you got the point.”
James Lassiter said the lack of genitalia isn’t the issue.
“Just because somebody cut off a piece of plastic, OK, it’s not there anymore, doesn’t change the fact that you’re getting peed on,” he said.
Police haven’t filed any charges, and even if they did, it’s unlikely they would stick, according to Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney Adam Sostrin.
“As far as I can tell, there was no sexual assault made by the obnoxious yet marginally entertaining toy at the hibachi restaurant,” Sostrin told HuffPost. “Nor should any humans be found criminally culpable.”
The restaurant wants to avoid pissing off other customers. It has instructed employees to ask before spraying people with the pee-pee doll.
Read the police incident report:
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
PHILADELPHIA ― High-dollar Democratic donors are frustrated their gifts to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation haven’t bought better access at the Democratic National Convention, according to Democratic fundraisers here.
The issue isn’t necessarily about access to policymakers for the purpose of pressing a particular regulatory or legislative agenda. Instead, it’s about admittance to exclusive events, where high-rollers can see and be seen hobnobbing with celebrities and other millionaires.
Convention events come with a price tag, and can cost more than $50,000 to get into. But that’s just campaign money. Some donors are annoyed their charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation aren’t being taken into account.
“They want it included in their tally, and Dennis is saying no,” said one fundraiser, referring to Dennis Cheng, one of the most powerful if low-profile managers at the convention.
Cheng is finance director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He also served as Clinton’s New York finance director from 2005 to 2008, raising money for Clinton’s campaigns for both Senate and president. He then became head of protocol at the State Department under Clinton, handling visits of heads of state. From there, he became the top fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation, before going back to the Clinton campaign.
“There’s no consideration for, ‘Yeah, well, I shouldn’t let you in, but you did give me $5 million for the foundation,’” said another fundraiser. She said donors are thinking, and saying, “I just gave you 100k, I gave you a million for the foundation ― and you can’t let me into this event?”
Donors are also having trouble getting flexibility to include members of their family in convention-related events. “Can I bring my son? No, that’s another $100. Really? My son’s 12,” the fundraiser said, before offering a measure of admiration for Cheng. “He is really being a hard-ass. I kind of give him credit for that.”
At political conventions, the quality of the credentials hanging around your neck is a status symbol, as is the ability to dole out tickets to parties and small gatherings.
One fundraiser said that Cheng is forced to be a hard-ass because the Clintons have been in politics for so long that they’ve accumulated an enormous number of friends ― long known as Friends of Bill ― who want access for themselves and their friends to exclusive events. It’s impossible for them to turn away many of these longtime allies, so newer friends are now facing stricter rules.
“Dennis is not being warm and fuzzy, but he can’t, because that’s how they used to be,” the fundraiser said. “They’ve got so many old friends they have to take care of, there’s not room.”
The flow of money into the Clinton Foundation has long been a source of suspicion among progressives, who worry Clinton is too beholden to major donors. Donald Trump and the GOP make the same case, and many Republicans still believe the FBI will come down on Clinton for a quid pro quo setup. FBI Director James Comey, testifying before Congress, was pointedly asked if the bureau was looking into the activities of the foundation, and declined to comment. (A campaign spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.)
One fundraiser said that while donors are complaining in Philadelphia, they should be glad they weren’t in Cleveland for the GOP convention. “You couldn’t go to the bathroom in Cleveland for less than a million dollars,” he said.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
This bridal portrait will surely make the album:
The pic, taken by photographer CM Leung in Iceland, depicts an Icelandic Coast Guard helicopter flying dangerously close to a bride posing for portraits.
According to PetaPixel, the chopper wasn’t a planned part of the shoot; it flew overhead on a mission to rescue a man who had fallen down a cliff. An eye witness told PetaPixel the helicopter was actually a “relatively safe distance away.”
In the end, CM Leung ended up with a pretty dramatic shot ― and right in the nick of time, as the helicopter’s downdraft knocked the bride off-balance (and sent her veil flying!) seconds later. Check out the crazy moment and more from the shoot in the behind-the-scenes video below.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
History? It is what we remember. When I try to imagine a President Trump — God help us — the only former president who comes near to him is Andrew Jackson. From what I recall of our history President Andrew Jackson kept 150 slaves, brutally drove the Native Americans from their lands into a terrible exile so he could grab their lands — an early form of real estate dealing — the art of the steal. He is famous for having lived a rowdy life, enjoying the company of “loose women” and fighting a duel over Rachel his beautiful “was she still married to someone else” wife (dueling was then the preferred form of tweeting). Like Trump he bragged about speaking his mind — although the mind was filled with bigotry and rage, a rage that stirred mobs and decimated rivals.
Despite a few good acts — it is difficult when you do so much not to let a few good deeds slip through the net of cruelty — like Trump building an ice skating rink in Central Park, he was an abomination before the Lord in his own time and in ours. Vain, cruel, rowdy and quick to anger — he was the last thing one needed or wanted in a leader, yet the good folks voted him into power. The country survived him because it was a world of muskets, dueling pistols and personal insults, not hydrogen bombs and internet slams and international treaties — he was also, I believe, a notable warrior who won a famous battle long after the War of 1812 was over, email in those days was a slightly battered carrier pigeon. And glory came with the devil on horseback.
The point of this very rough exercise in history — which would earn me a passing C plus — is to note that the country was once able to survive abominable leaders — although even these had a great capacity to do harm to “the other” — the less technically advanced Native Americans and, of course, their chattel slaves. We can no longer afford the innocence of our guilty pleasures in having a strong-man as a leader — a proudly ignorant man who equates his own personal glory with the good of his country, and uses bluster instead of brains to lead. No, Trump is not the first bad man to seek power in this country, Jackson — at least — had the courage to match his cruelties. Trump hides behind his little snarling insults building a wall of needle sharp meanness to protect himself from reality. His is the pain of the injection in the roof of the mouth that makes you numb and renders you helpless on the dentist’s chair. You can see where I have spent the past few days. It was Andrew Jackson who, ironically started the Democratic Party, and stumbled through his Presidency without doing greater harm than his ignorance and bigotry permitted. But we no longer live in a world where a foolish, ruthless adventurer can lead with his harmful ignorance and merely have it touch the present as it did in the Jacksonian era. Such a person as Trump can mean the very end of the future of this country as we know it — the end of the rule of law. No, I am not “for her” — I am for my family, my friends and my country — and that means I will be voting for Hillary with a prayer as well as a ballot.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Mercedes-Benz has introduced the Urban eTruck, a fully electric transport truck with a total admissible weight of up to 26 metric tons and travel range up to 200 kilometers. The model is said to be the first fully electric truck able to haul heavy loads, and it aims to help usher in a future of emissions-free transportation in the distribution … Continue reading
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.
