Hasta La Gadget!

A movie theater in Belgium is under fire for handing out diet pill pamphlets and sponges to women who went to see “Wonder Woman.” 

Every month a Kinepolis theater in Leuven, Belgium has a “ladies at the movies” night where the theater screens movies for only women. (Kinepolis is a chain of movie theaters in Belgium, similar to AMC Loews or Regal Entertainment in the U.S.) For every screening, the theater hands out small gift bags for the female viewers. Unfortunately, the gift bag for Kinepolis’ latest ladies night was completely tone-deaf. 

According to Mashable and Belgian News Outlet VRT, on June 6 Kinepolis held a ladies night screening of box office hit “Wonder Woman.” The goodie bags given out that night included diet pill pamphlets, and cleaning products such as a dish sponge and a squeegee. 

Some of the women at the screening were not too pleased with the contents of said goodie bags ― especially given that “Wonder Woman” is a superhero film about female strength that largely challenges gender stereotypes.

Twitter user Laurent Delbar tweeted a photo of the goodie bag and wrote: “@Kinepolis exclusive goodiebag at ladies at the movies. A sponge, brush and a squeegee. Perfect tools for a Wonder Woman?”

Another Twitter user named Mattias De Vuyst tweeted a photo of the goodie bag that a female friend had received at the screening.

“Content of goodiebag @Kinepolis after ladies night WonderWoman,” he wrote. “If someone gave this to a friend of mine or my girlfriend, I’d be furious!”

Diana Goodwin went to the all-female screening and told VRT that the gift bag “felt a bit absurd.” “Especially since you’re watching a movie that is completely about a strong female superhero,” Goodwin added. 

The movie theater recognized its error, telling VRT that the gift bags were not meant to be offensive.

“The goodie bags are filled with products we are offered by our sponsors,” the theater said in a statement to VRT. “It’s random. So it’s possible that there’s a sponge in it, but this was definitely not done on purpose, we don’t chose these products ourselves. It definitely wasn’t the intention to appear inconsiderate to women.” 

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Lately I have been thinking that the whole “obstruction of justice” issue that we are all focusing on has allowed President Trump and his supporters to evade the larger issue: what exactly is his relationship with the Russians all about and how much is it damaging our country?

I take exception to all the comparisons with Watergate. We all know that Watergate was about covering up a break-in into Democratic party headquarters. President Richard Nixon went down because he was caught on tape saying that the CIA should block the FBI from digging further into the break-in because he knew that following the trail would lead to the Oval Office and to him.

But even now no one argues that Nixon knew about the break-in, only that he directed the cover-up. Hence, obstruction of justice and Nixon’s resignation to avoid impeachment and, likely, conviction.

The Trump story is entirely different, as Monday’s New York Times reports. It’s not just the cover-up; it’s what he was covering up. More than that it is whether or not the president of the United States is working against the interests of our country, intentionally or not, out of some bizarre fealty to Russia.

The long investigative report by David Sanger and Eric Schmitt reveals that U.S. intelligence agencies have pretty much failed in their efforts to penetrate ISIS and thereby discover what the terrorist organization is planning in order to disrupt those plans. That is because “cyberwarfare techniques, first designed for fixed targets… must be refashioned to fight terrorist groups that are becoming more adept at turning the web into a weapon.” In other words, it’s a new day and U.S. and allied intelligence agencies are having a hard time keeping up.

But there is the occasional bit of good news too. According to the Times story, Israel has somehow figured out how to break into ISIS and eavesdrop on its plans. And they are sharing the information they gather with us.

According to the Times one of our “rare successes” against ISIS came when “top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago…That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.”

The Times called the Israeli intelligence “exquisite” because it “enabled the United States to understand how the weapons could be detonated…”

The result was the ban on laptop computers, iPads and other electronic devices (larger than cell phones) from being carried on to international flights from ten countries. The ban might be extended or dropped depending on future intelligence gathered from ISIS sources.

But how will we get that intelligence, given that the hole in ISIS’s communication system that was uncovered by the Israelis could now be blocked due to the actions of President Trump.

Trump, who had pledged during his campaign to redouble the war against ISIS, instead gave it an invaluable gift when, at a May 10 Oval Office meeting, he bragged to Russia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the United States that we know all about ISIS’s plan to take down airliners by using laptops and iPads as weapons. The Russians, of course, are close allies of Syria and Hezbollah, both of which have their own convoluted relationships with the Islamic State, ensuring that the secret Israeli intelligence op is secret no more. And all thanks to Trump.

How bad is this? Former Yale Law professor, Alan Dershowitz, had it exactly right when he told CNN that if Trump did spill the beans to the Russians, it is the “most serious charge ever made against a sitting president of the United States.” When Dershowitz said that it was only a charge but now it has been confirmed by Trump himself.

During his visit to Israel in late May Trump responded to a reporter who asked him if he had given the Israeli intelligence to the Russians. His response: “Just so you understand, I never mentioned the word or the name Israel in conversation. Never mentioned it.”

That, of course, was all the confirmation anyone needed. No one had accused him of telling the Russians “I got this information from Israel.” The Russians could reverse engineer that fact for themselves. The key point was that Trump told them about the intelligence itself. A few days later he tweeted that he had the “absolute right” to share any information he chose to with the Russians. Or anyone else, one assumes.

Now imagine if former President Obama or would-be President Hillary Clinton gave our secret intelligence about our worst enemy in the world, ISIS, to the Russians. Imagine how quickly impeachment proceedings would begin. Imagine how the word “treason” would be shouted from Fox News and from other outlets as well. Imagine the shame and despair of Democrats who, as Americans, would be appalled that the candidate they supported had behaved with such, at best, recklessness and dishonor.

But, of course, the president isn’t Obama or Clinton. It’s Trump and for his supporters in Congress and his voters in the heartland, everything he does is fine. Even if it makes getting on an airplane a lot scarier than it should be, along with everything else. After all, he’s not the black guy and he’s not the woman. That’s all they need to know.

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If you want to see what it looks like to call out white privilege with class, look no further than the heated exchange between actress Amanda Seales and Caitlyn Jenner that took place Sunday night. 

Seales and Jenner joined Van Jones, Margaret Cho, Sally Kohn, Anna Navarro and Yung Skeeter for a “Dinner and Discourse” with Katy Perry, streamed live to the Perry’s YouTube channel. 

In a snippet from the conversation, Seales confronts the notoriously conservative Jenner on her reluctance to discuss race during the dinner. 

“It’s an insult to me that you’re not listening to what I’m saying,” Seales told Jenner. “If this is a conversation about having conversations, then we have to be listening to each other.”

The comedian and actress continued by spelling out that Jenner needs to acknowledge that her privileged experiences as a white person in America make it more difficult to understand Seales’ perspective.

“The reason I am so passionate ― and I’m not hostile, I’m passionate ― is because I’ve had such a different experience in this country than you” Seales continued. 

“Because as a black woman, the government is so much in my life, and it always has been… I think there’s a lot to understand for why people are talking the way they talk about different things. I understand why you’re talking the way you’re talking.”

“I just don’t understand,” Jenner responded, “I just said I believe in this country.”

“Yes. You can say that in a way that I cannot,” Seales replied. “Because you’ve had a different experience. Because this country is here for you. This country ain’t here for me in the same way, sis.”

On Monday, Seales posted the clip to her Instagram account, where she wrote in the caption: 

“I don’t take being in these conversations lightly. As a black woman they will far too often consider your intellect a threat and your passion a problem. I hope I inspired others last night to live in your truth no matter who is at the table. Let’s grow not just a discourse of love but a DISCOURSE OF COURAGE. Because that’s what it takes to face and deliver these inconvenient truths”

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Obesity is a “rising pandemic” afflicting one in 10 people around the world, causing health problems and premature deaths, according to a new study.

Obesity rates have risen over the last three decades in the 195 countries examined by the sweeping study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday. In more than 70 countries, including the United States, obesity rates at least doubled from 1980 to 2015. The world’s population of 7.5 billion now includes more than 2 billion people who are overweight or obese, according to the study. 

The U.S. rate of childhood obesity is more than 12 percent, the highest among the world’s most populated countries. While obesity is less common in children than adults, childhood obesity rates are climbing faster in many countries.

“This study shows what we know: No country in the globe has reduced overweight or obesity levels,” Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, told The New York Times. “This is astounding given the huge health and economic costs linked with overweight and obesity.”  

In general, women had higher rates of obesity than men at all ages, according to researchers who prepared the report through the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The study, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, analyzed others’ research.

The study defines adult obesity as having a body mass index ― a number derived from weight and height ― greater than 30, and overweight as having BMI of 25 to 29. Those definitions also are used by the National Institutes of Health. International Obesity Task Force ranges were used to define child obesity. 

Using those measures, nearly 108 million children and 604 million adults are obese, according to the study.

Alarmingly, the study found that excess weight accounted for about 4 million deaths worldwide in 2015, a 28 percent increase in the global death rate since 1990. More than two-thirds were caused by cardiovascular disease. Diabetes was the second-leading cause of death. 

Obesity rates jumped in both poor and wealthy countries, “which indicates that the problem is not simply a function of income or wealth,” the study says. The decline in activity preceded sharp increases in obesity, so that is unlikely to be a main cause, the authors noted.

Instead, the study suggested that major drivers in the obesity trend are food systems and eating habits, including “increased availability, accessibility, and affordability of energy-dense foods, along with intense marketing of such foods.” 

Some recent research has shown a relationship between a lower risk of death and being overweight, but not obese. But authors of the new study found that 39 percent of the 4 million deaths in 2015 occurred among people who were in the overweight BMI range.

The authors pointed to suggestions to lower obesity rates, but said those programs needed more evaluation. They had little optimism for the immediate future:

During the past decade, researchers have proposed a range of interventions to reduce obesity. Among such interventions are restricting the advertisement of unhealthy foods to children, improving school meals, using taxation to reduce consumption of unhealthy foods and providing subsidies to increase intake of healthy foods, and using supply-chain incentives to increase the production of healthy foods. … In recent years, some countries have started to implement some of these policies, but no major population success has yet been shown. … In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for zero increase in the prevalence of overweight among children and in the prevalence of obesity among adults. However, given the current pace of increase and the existing challenges in implementing food policies, achieving this goal appears unlikely in the near future.

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 Hello, the makers of the bedside sleep tracker Sense, is shutting down as after looking for a buyer, according to a blog post from the company. The news was first reported by Axios, which said the company has laid off most of its employees and sought a buyer of its assets. We’ve also heard that the details via Axios are on-point, including talks with Fitbit for the company’s… Read More