Between my keyboard-centric posts here on Kotaku and my Twitter feed, I’ve been posting a lot of pictures of very pretty keyboards lately, which leads to people asking me where they can buy those keyboards. For the most part, you can’t. You have to build them.
As the star of one of Marvel’s biggest franchises, no one would fault Chris Pratt for crapping all over DC. In fact, from the famously brazen and charismatic star, you might expect it. But when asked about the rival franchise, Pratt was objective but honest.
During CES 2017, Sennheiser took the wraps off a unique pair of earbuds that feature microphones built into the ear pieces for binaural audio recording. While binaural audio is nothing new, the ability to record it has largely been limited in the consumer world. Sennheiser’s Ambeo Smart Headset aims to change that by making so-called ‘3D audio’ (binaural) recording as … Continue reading
Earlier today, the hard-to-find NES Classic Edition was briefly available at Best Buy. As is usually the case with the NES Classic Edition, it sold out quickly, but there’s one big difference this time around: this could very well be the final restock Best Buy gets. We might see other retailers get more consoles sometime this week, but once April … Continue reading
WASHINGTON ― A mentally ill man who last year died of severe dehydration in a jail run by Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke was kept in his cell for seven days straight after jail employees cut off his water supply, a prosecutor in Wisconsin said Monday.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that prosecutors told a six-person jury on Monday that cutting off water to Terrill Thomas’ cell was “highly irregular and contrary to standard operating procedure in the jail.” The comments came as part of an inquest into Thomas’ death, in which the jury decides whether there’s probable cause to charge anyone with a crime in Thomas’ death.
Assistant District Attorney Kurt Benkley told jurors that it “became apparent” that Thomas “was unable to tell people about his basic needs,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The jury is considering whether there is probable cause to charge any jail officials with abuse of a prisoner.
In a court filing last month, the district attorney argued that abusing, neglecting, or ill-treating a prisoner is a public welfare offense.
“Inmates are at the mercy of their jailors for basic life-sustaining necessities like water, food, and medical care,” the district attorney wrote in a court filing. “When a mentally ill inmate, like Mr. Thomas, is locked in solitary confinement without access to water, his life is totally in his jailors’ hands. The law much strictly require jailors to safeguard lives which are so completely entrusted to their care. Stupidity, thoughtlessness, indifference, and incompetence are not morally sufficient excuses nor valid legal defenses.”
Thomas’ death was included in The Huffington Post’s investigative project examining jail deaths across the United States in the year after the high-profile death of Sandra Bland in police custody in 2015.
Clarke, a high-profile supporter of President Donald Trump who makes frequent appearances on conservative news outlets, appears to take a hands-off approach to managing the jail he’s charged with running and has deflected blame for the deaths that occurred on his watch. The Justice Department had been considering launching a civil rights investigation into the conditions at the Milwaukee County Jail, but the status of that potential investigation is unclear.
Erik J. Heipt, an attorney for Thomas’ family, noted that Monday was the one-year anniversary of his “senseless” death.
“He was a pretrial detainee in a mental health crisis. Instead of providing him with desperately needed treatment, the Milwaukee County Jail disciplined Terrill by locking him in an isolation cell, giving him inedible ‘nutraloaf’ to eat, and shutting off his drinking water supply for seven days—causing him to suffer and die from profound dehydration. Nothing like this should ever happen in an American jail,” he said.
“I am pleased that the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office taking this atrocity seriously and hope that the inquest is the first step toward justice for Terrill and his family,” he added.
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At first, Shannon Mackenzie’s “Rotatio” appears like a vast mandala of tally marks, arranged on a white wall in a six-foot wide circle. Look closer, however, and you will notice words embedded within the tallies, softly vying for your attention.
“His kiss was a bomb,” reads one. “I blacked out,” another. Together, these gasps of written texts tell a story ― the story of when Mackenzie was raped.
“When I first imagined the piece, actually making it felt like one of the scariest things I could do,” Mackenzie wrote in an email to HuffPost. “I was afraid to tell people what happened. I was afraid to share it with people I loved. I was afraid to use his name. I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to finish it. At the same time, I knew that not making it would hurt me even more.”
Mackenzie began sketching and participating in drawing exercises following her assault as a way to alleviate stress and anxiety. The simple action of applying thousands of tick marks, one after another, became, for the artist, a means of survival, a reason to keep going and keep marking. One night, the artwork she’d subconsciously embarked upon revealed its final shape: a conglomeration of simple tally marks stretched into a dark orb of uniform markings. A shadowy circle, whose edges were already bleeding beyond their allotted edges.
“The circle has always been a powerful symbol,” Mackenzie said, “representing a whole, feminine energy, cycles, the universe.” She was particularly influenced by a Thomas Moore quote, which she shared: “All the work on the soul takes the form of a circle, a rotatio.”
For 33 hours over the course of two weeks, Mackenzie participated in the meditative ritual of applying mark after mark, sprinkling in the painful details of the night she was attacked. She includes the name of her rapist in the piece, a decision not rooted in revenge, as the artist explained, but in her desire to tell her story without shame or censorship, relieving herself of some of the weight of the abuse she’s continued to carry.
“Its creation was about storytelling, but only to those who wanted to hear the story, to read it,” the artist said. “It was a way for me to finally share what happened to me so that I could stand on it and justify its reality in my life.”
Many of the people who saw the piece in person, Mackenzie recalled, didn’t even realize that language was buried amid the lines. They took in the image as a whole but did not absorb the entirety of the narrative and the strength it required.
At the end of the performance, Mackenzie painted over the outcome of her work with white paint, marking the piece’s conclusion with a blank canvas, a new beginning. The only record of the piece lives in a short documentary Ian McClerin made of the piece in 2015, also titled “Rotatio.”
Initially Mackenzie never intended the piece to be viewed by a large public audience; it was her project, her story, her healing process. But McClerin, who documented the piece from start to finish on film, encouraged Mackenzie to share her story, “take the leap,” submit to film festivals and reach out to a wider viewership.
“To be completely honest, I made this piece with no expectations of feedback beyond the small group of people that saw it in person,” Mackenzie said. “I was terrified of what the feedback might be. And now, I am blown away by the responses ― so much positivity, from individuals who I’ve never met to people in my own community, that have been able to reach out to me in collective support. The feedback and the entire process has truly changed me life in a way that I never could have imagined.”
Under four minutes long, McClerin’s short film has now been viewed over 80k times on Vimeo. The simple image of a floating circle infested with tally marks speaks to the universality of the pain of being a survivor of rape. The language interspersed throughout reveals the individuality of every unique instance.
Mackenzie’s ritual was a monumental purge ― a rejection and ejection of fear, of shame, of painful memories, of fragments of old self, of silence. “There is a saying that you get out as much as you put in,” the artist says in the video, while painting over her labor-intensive creation, ruminating on its lasting impact. “This is post-traumatic growth. This is something you carry forever, regardless of how it affects you.”
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Emmy-winning journalist María Elena Salinas is searching for answers in her new TV series.
The Univision anchor is reexamining old headline-making crimes to offer new perspectives and updates in her new show, “The Real Story with María Elena Salinas”
In the first episode of the series, which premieres Monday at 10 p.m. on Investigation Discovery, Salinas delves into the wrongful conviction of Martin Tankleff. In 1988, 17-year-old Tankleff found both of his parents murdered. He was later convicted for their deaths and sentenced to 50 years-to-life.
In 2008, that decision was overturned because of new evidence and Tankleff was set free. Salinas spoke to Tankleff and others involved in the case decades after the crime.
During the first season of the show, Salinas also plans to reinvestigate other high-profile crimes like the Deltona Massacre and the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando.
In an exclusive clip for HuffPost, Salinas interviews Tankleff’s half-sister Shari Mistretta about the case. Watch the minute-long preview above.
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In urging President Donald Trump to put aside his signature campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Fox News host Geraldo Rivera on Monday relied on racial stereotypes to make his point.
In a tweet, Rivera argued that the wall would not address border security problems such as drug smuggling, but it would “keep out gardeners, baby sitters, pizza delivery boys, dishwashers and fruit pickers.”
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly denigrated Mexican immigrants, saying that building the border wall would keep out “the bad ones” and characterizing Mexicans as “criminals” and “rapists.”
Mexico’s government has repeatedly said that it would not pay for the wall, and the Trump administration now wants taxpayers to foot the bill, including partial funding for it in the administration’s proposed budget. This week, amid a looming deadline to fund the government, Democrats have threatened a government shutdown over the proposed funding for the wall.
Trump continues to insist that Mexico will pay for the wall’s construction “eventually, but at a later date,” as he tweeted on Sunday.
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WASHINGTON ― The U.S. State Department is officially promoting President Donald Trump’s personal real estate.
The department’s ShareAmerica website posted an article on April 4 celebrating Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate with glitzy photos and flowery descriptions of the “ornate Jazz Age house,” which was “designed with Old-World Spanish, Venetian and Portuguese influences.” The piece was featured the next day on the websites and social media accounts of various American embassies abroad, all of which went largely overlooked until Monday, when the posts sparked a furor online.
Norm Eisen, chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, lambasted the State Department on Twitter, arguing that it was illegal for the government to essentially advertise the president’s personal property.
The State Department did not respond to phone calls or emails seeking comment.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) mocked the Mar-a-Lago promotion for its “kleptocratic glory” on Twitter:
Former government ethics officials and independent anti-corruption experts have roundly criticized President Trump’s failure to divest his substantial business assets or place them in a blind trust. Trump aide Kellyanne Conway was sidelined weeks ago after promoting his older daughter’s clothing line on national television.
The State Department’s article recounts the efforts of heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post to establish Mar-a-Lago as a winter retreat for American presidents. Post built the estate in the 1920s and willed it to the U.S. government in 1973 as a retreat for presidents and visiting foreign dignitaries. The government returned Mar-a-Lago to the Post Foundation in 1981 because it was just too expensive to keep up. The State Department refers to Post’s thwarted last wish as “a dream deferred” ― a bizarre evocation of Langston Hughes’ 1951 civil rights poem “Harlem,” which begins, “What happens to a dream deferred?”
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Few things are as great as knowing something before you’re supposed to. It’s the same feeling you get from yelling at Steve on “Blue’s Clues” about what the clues actually mean. He’s giving you that blank stare, not because he’s actually staring into a camera lens and can’t hear you, but because you’re a total boss.
Jon Snow will never have that feeling. Jon Snow knows nothing. However, we might know something new about him and where “Game of Thrones” is going. It’s all because of this photo:
After HBO released Season 7 photos, including this one of Sam and Gilly, fans have been frantically trying to decode what Gilly is reading.
Now, apparently, they have.
As reported by “Game of Thrones” fan site Winter is Coming, Redditor itsjayrr pointed out that the page seems to be out of George R.R. Martin’s book The World of Ice & Fire, which tells the history of Westeros. The passage talks about Azor Ahai, the person who’s supposed to save everyone.
See it here:
Upon our own inspection, it does seem like key words in the image do match up with the text from the book.
On the page from The World of Ice & Fire, we hear about “The Long Night,” a time when winter supposedly lasted for a generation. Then, a hero known as Azor Ahai came along to help rid the land of the White Walkers. A prophecy tells of the return of Azor Ahai, sometimes used interchangeably with the term The Prince That Was Promised. Either way, this legendary character is seen as the person who will ultimately save Westeros.
The paragraph further emphasizes the importance of the prophecy within the “Game of Thrones” universe and makes us wonder: who will be Azor Ahai?
Is it Dany? Is it Jon Snow? Someone else? The debate can go on and on.
Kit Harington told HuffPost that he didn’t care if his character, Jon Snow, is the Prince or not, which is probably for the best. If the page Gilly’s perusing is from The World of Ice & Fire, Snow has bigger problems.
Something is coming to “Game of Thrones,” and it ain’t winter …
Oh what a tangled ice web we weave …
Following the revelation about the book, we checked out our own copy of The World of Ice & Fire.
When you look at the specific section of text, it’s easy to notice that the rest of the page has a reference to the White Walkers using giant ice spiders. There’s even a picture of White Walkers with the spiders. If the book Gilly is using is some version of The World of Ice & Fire, continued reading will reveal the same.
Giant ice spiders have already been mentioned on the show. Old Nan told Bran about them back in Season 1, saying the White Walkers’ spiders were as big as hounds.
Are the spiders coming? Time will tell.
But, yeah, duh, why not?
If this book on the show is being looked to as fact, Sam and Gilly better hope they have Hagrid from “Harry Potter” coming to help. That dude loves spiders. Ron will probably want to stay home.
Ice spiders are coming.
“Game of Thrones” Season 7 premieres July 16.
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