Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 927
December 10, 2015
Nigella Lawson nails the smug #CleanEating trend: “People are using certain diets as a way to hide an eating disorder”
Let's make one thing very clear — eating kale does not put you on a higher spiritual level than everybody else. Speaking recently at the JW3 Speaker Series in London, domestic goddess Nigella Lawson has ripped, yet again, into the cult of "clean eating" and the hazards of equating food with virtue. The Irish Independent reports this week that the author and television personality has left no room for doubt about her thoughts on deprivation as a lifestyle. "People are using certain diets as a way to hide an eating disorder or a great sense of unhappiness and unease with their own body. There is a way in which food is used either to self congratulate – you’re a better person because you’re eating like that," she said, "or to self-persecute, because you’ll not allow yourself to eat the foods you want." It's a continuation of a theme she's been eagerly addressing while out promoting her latest cookbook, "Simply Nigella." On Ireland's "Late Late Show" last week, she observed, "When women say 'You have lost weight,' that is not a good thing. Generally I think it's not good if it's thought that being thinner is always better, and then what happens as a result of that is that somehow you're a better person. We've been reading about all this fat-shaming that's been going on. What's important is that you're healthy and you're fully embracing life. If you are naturally thin that's fantastic – but if you have to starve yourself to get thin, it is not good to encourage people to be that shape. I think my views are slightly different because I've seen people get very ill and very thin so I don't equate thinness with healthiness, so I think what looks healthy is when people have a bit of juice to them." Lawson's mother, sister Thomasina and first husband John Diamond all died of cancer. On her "Late Late Show" show appearance, she added that she realized "later" in life that her mother likely had an eating disorder, saying, "I kind of put two and two together. I knew she had a thing about thinness but I worked it out later. When she was dying she allowed herself to eat. To wait until you've got a terminal disease to enjoy eating is an awful thing." Earlier this year, Fast Company first reported that orthorexia — an unhealthy obsession with food believed healthy — was under consideration for entry into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And while lifestyle bloggers like the Balanced Blonde's Jordan Younger have gone public with their struggles with what they call "disordered eating habits," you need only look as far as the sudden spike in juice joints in your nearest gentrifying neighborhood, the bestseller list, your Facebook friend's epic, incessant accounts from a recent cleanse, or God forbid, the last time you went to a restaurant with a large group of people to recognize how emotionally fraught eating has become. And no phrase captures our cultural fetishization of food quite like the phrase "clean eating." There's a Clean Eating magazine. An Amazon search for cookbooks deploying those two words will yield a trove of results. You can find thousands of YouTube videos and nearly as many blogs devoted to the topic. Yet as Lawson told the BBC earlier this fall, "I think behind the notion of ‘clean eating’ is an implication that any other form of eating is dirty or shameful. I think that food should not be used as a way of persecuting oneself and I think, really, one should look to get pleasure and revel in what’s good rather than either think, 'Oh no, that’s dirty, bad or sinful' or that eating is virtuous." Obesity rates — and with them serious health consequences — continue to soar. We are in the throes of a climate change crisis that could be dramatically curtailed by consuming less meat. Eighty percent of Americans eat fast food at least once a month, and half of us drink soda every day. And 20 percent of our meals are consumed in the car. There's no denying our habits are hurting us and the planet. But making the daily act of consuming food into some kind of holy ritual is not helping. The clean eating obsession takes the basic and relatively simple work of making and eating food and turns it into a vicious cycle of self-congratulation and guilt. So especially in this season of indulgence followed by shame, take Nigella's words as a call to sanity. "There are times when you need a slice of cake," she says. "You don't eat it every day but life has to be balanced and not too restricted." 
Let's make one thing very clear — eating kale does not put you on a higher spiritual level than everybody else. Speaking recently at the JW3 Speaker Series in London, domestic goddess Nigella Lawson has ripped, yet again, into the cult of "clean eating" and the hazards of equating food with virtue. The Irish Independent reports this week that the author and television personality has left no room for doubt about her thoughts on deprivation as a lifestyle. "People are using certain diets as a way to hide an eating disorder or a great sense of unhappiness and unease with their own body. There is a way in which food is used either to self congratulate – you’re a better person because you’re eating like that," she said, "or to self-persecute, because you’ll not allow yourself to eat the foods you want." It's a continuation of a theme she's been eagerly addressing while out promoting her latest cookbook, "Simply Nigella." On Ireland's "Late Late Show" last week, she observed, "When women say 'You have lost weight,' that is not a good thing. Generally I think it's not good if it's thought that being thinner is always better, and then what happens as a result of that is that somehow you're a better person. We've been reading about all this fat-shaming that's been going on. What's important is that you're healthy and you're fully embracing life. If you are naturally thin that's fantastic – but if you have to starve yourself to get thin, it is not good to encourage people to be that shape. I think my views are slightly different because I've seen people get very ill and very thin so I don't equate thinness with healthiness, so I think what looks healthy is when people have a bit of juice to them." Lawson's mother, sister Thomasina and first husband John Diamond all died of cancer. On her "Late Late Show" show appearance, she added that she realized "later" in life that her mother likely had an eating disorder, saying, "I kind of put two and two together. I knew she had a thing about thinness but I worked it out later. When she was dying she allowed herself to eat. To wait until you've got a terminal disease to enjoy eating is an awful thing." Earlier this year, Fast Company first reported that orthorexia — an unhealthy obsession with food believed healthy — was under consideration for entry into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And while lifestyle bloggers like the Balanced Blonde's Jordan Younger have gone public with their struggles with what they call "disordered eating habits," you need only look as far as the sudden spike in juice joints in your nearest gentrifying neighborhood, the bestseller list, your Facebook friend's epic, incessant accounts from a recent cleanse, or God forbid, the last time you went to a restaurant with a large group of people to recognize how emotionally fraught eating has become. And no phrase captures our cultural fetishization of food quite like the phrase "clean eating." There's a Clean Eating magazine. An Amazon search for cookbooks deploying those two words will yield a trove of results. You can find thousands of YouTube videos and nearly as many blogs devoted to the topic. Yet as Lawson told the BBC earlier this fall, "I think behind the notion of ‘clean eating’ is an implication that any other form of eating is dirty or shameful. I think that food should not be used as a way of persecuting oneself and I think, really, one should look to get pleasure and revel in what’s good rather than either think, 'Oh no, that’s dirty, bad or sinful' or that eating is virtuous." Obesity rates — and with them serious health consequences — continue to soar. We are in the throes of a climate change crisis that could be dramatically curtailed by consuming less meat. Eighty percent of Americans eat fast food at least once a month, and half of us drink soda every day. And 20 percent of our meals are consumed in the car. There's no denying our habits are hurting us and the planet. But making the daily act of consuming food into some kind of holy ritual is not helping. The clean eating obsession takes the basic and relatively simple work of making and eating food and turns it into a vicious cycle of self-congratulation and guilt. So especially in this season of indulgence followed by shame, take Nigella's words as a call to sanity. "There are times when you need a slice of cake," she says. "You don't eat it every day but life has to be balanced and not too restricted."
Let's make one thing very clear — eating kale does not put you on a higher spiritual level than everybody else. Speaking recently at the JW3 Speaker Series in London, domestic goddess Nigella Lawson has ripped, yet again, into the cult of "clean eating" and the hazards of equating food with virtue. The Irish Independent reports this week that the author and television personality has left no room for doubt about her thoughts on deprivation as a lifestyle. "People are using certain diets as a way to hide an eating disorder or a great sense of unhappiness and unease with their own body. There is a way in which food is used either to self congratulate – you’re a better person because you’re eating like that," she said, "or to self-persecute, because you’ll not allow yourself to eat the foods you want." It's a continuation of a theme she's been eagerly addressing while out promoting her latest cookbook, "Simply Nigella." On Ireland's "Late Late Show" last week, she observed, "When women say 'You have lost weight,' that is not a good thing. Generally I think it's not good if it's thought that being thinner is always better, and then what happens as a result of that is that somehow you're a better person. We've been reading about all this fat-shaming that's been going on. What's important is that you're healthy and you're fully embracing life. If you are naturally thin that's fantastic – but if you have to starve yourself to get thin, it is not good to encourage people to be that shape. I think my views are slightly different because I've seen people get very ill and very thin so I don't equate thinness with healthiness, so I think what looks healthy is when people have a bit of juice to them." Lawson's mother, sister Thomasina and first husband John Diamond all died of cancer. On her "Late Late Show" show appearance, she added that she realized "later" in life that her mother likely had an eating disorder, saying, "I kind of put two and two together. I knew she had a thing about thinness but I worked it out later. When she was dying she allowed herself to eat. To wait until you've got a terminal disease to enjoy eating is an awful thing." Earlier this year, Fast Company first reported that orthorexia — an unhealthy obsession with food believed healthy — was under consideration for entry into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And while lifestyle bloggers like the Balanced Blonde's Jordan Younger have gone public with their struggles with what they call "disordered eating habits," you need only look as far as the sudden spike in juice joints in your nearest gentrifying neighborhood, the bestseller list, your Facebook friend's epic, incessant accounts from a recent cleanse, or God forbid, the last time you went to a restaurant with a large group of people to recognize how emotionally fraught eating has become. And no phrase captures our cultural fetishization of food quite like the phrase "clean eating." There's a Clean Eating magazine. An Amazon search for cookbooks deploying those two words will yield a trove of results. You can find thousands of YouTube videos and nearly as many blogs devoted to the topic. Yet as Lawson told the BBC earlier this fall, "I think behind the notion of ‘clean eating’ is an implication that any other form of eating is dirty or shameful. I think that food should not be used as a way of persecuting oneself and I think, really, one should look to get pleasure and revel in what’s good rather than either think, 'Oh no, that’s dirty, bad or sinful' or that eating is virtuous." Obesity rates — and with them serious health consequences — continue to soar. We are in the throes of a climate change crisis that could be dramatically curtailed by consuming less meat. Eighty percent of Americans eat fast food at least once a month, and half of us drink soda every day. And 20 percent of our meals are consumed in the car. There's no denying our habits are hurting us and the planet. But making the daily act of consuming food into some kind of holy ritual is not helping. The clean eating obsession takes the basic and relatively simple work of making and eating food and turns it into a vicious cycle of self-congratulation and guilt. So especially in this season of indulgence followed by shame, take Nigella's words as a call to sanity. "There are times when you need a slice of cake," she says. "You don't eat it every day but life has to be balanced and not too restricted."
Blaming Beyoncé and pop stars for crime? Ted Cruz backs insane theory that female sexuality causes violence
While the media devotes most of its attention to being horrified by Donald Trump, the equally repellent Ted Cruz continues his project of collecting support from some of the nastiest characters on the Christian right. His latest dear buddy is E.W. Jackson, an extremely nutty religious right activist who endeared himself to the conservative movement in the 1980s by being a black man fighting against desegregation efforts in Boston. The Cruz campaign's national director for faith and "religious liberty" (which is the new conservative code phrase for forcing their faith on the non-believers), Buddy Pilgrim, came out Wednesday to endorse Jackson's new project, called "Project Awakening: A Recovery Plan for American’s Inner Cities." Jackson and his group Stay True to America’s National Destiny (STAND) argue that the main problem facing black people in America today is not poverty, racism, or police violence, but the fact that women, especially black women, have sex. “In a world where Beyoncé shakes her ‘bootie’ and Miley twerks, it is difficult to imagine a culture of sexual responsibility, let alone abstinence,” the document announcing the project explains. And this failure to abstain from sex is, Jackson and his followers believe, the main and possibly sole cause of black people's woes. How women can destroy their own community with the choices they make behind closed doors might not seem immediately apparent, but the folks at STAND have a theory. The document argues that "the single greatest predictor of poverty is not race but the lack of a father in the home" and that this supposed fatherlessness is caused by a lack of "sexual morality." The document went on to explain that women don't have sex because they like it — which, to be fair, may not be these men's personal experience in these matters — but because women are in thrall to a "pattern of sexual exploitation" that is caused by, you guessed it, not having daddy knowing best in the home. "Ultimately, the absence of a caring father causes girls to go looking for love in all the wrong places.” "Our welfare policies have incentivized cohabitation, single motherhood, and unemployment," added Rev. Cecil Blye, the vice president of STAND under Jackson, at a news conference highlighting Cruz's endorsement and rolling out this project. It's an argument based on a number of risible and false assumptions: That no one will marry a woman unless she's a virgin. That marriage is incompatible with enjoying your sexuality. That women have sex because they are lost and broken, not because they derive pleasure from it. That a man cannot be a father unless he is married to a woman. That women are incapable of teaching children values and self-esteem. That getting married is some magical cure for poverty. That marriage is inherently such a miserable institution that the only way to get women to do it is by strong-arming them into it. Perhaps Jackson and Blye should spend less time bashing Beyoncé and more time listening to her, because she and her husband Jay-Z are an excellent example of how marriage can be fun and sexy and entered into willingly by both parties, instead of using sex to lure men and the threat of starvation to lure women. Versions of the loose-vaginas-cause-all-the-world's-ills argument have been banging around in conservative circles for decades now, and are a particular favorite to turn to when the issue is gun violence. Mitt Romney trotted out a truncated version of the sex=single motherhood=gun violence argument during the 2012 debates in an effort to deflect a question about guns. Don't worry, men! Your substitutes phalluses are not the cause of crime. Women cause crime, by having sex on their own terms like their bodies belong to them! But is it really safe to say that single motherhood, much less female sexuality itself, is the root cause of crime? This is a question that can be looked at from many angles, starting with Jackson's assertion that Beyoncé's bootie and the shaking of it is a major instigator of crime. Destiny's Child, the band that kickstarted Beyoncé's rise to fame, was founded in 1990 and their first record came out in 1998. Since then, Beyoncé had a string of hits, both with Destiny's Child and as a solo artist. During that time, which involved innumerable instances of public bootie-shaking, the violent crime rate in the U.S. plummeted, as this Brennan Center chart demonstrates.
It's highly unlikely that Beyoncé's career, much less any ass wiggling contained within, had any impact on the crime rate, but it did, then clearly the effect was a positive one. It is true that single motherhood, which is caused by sex (as is married motherhood, but don't tell Cruz and Jackson that), has been on the rise. But I refer you back to that chart and suggest that, if single mothers are the cause of crime, they are doing a really poor job at it, since violent crime rates have largely been trending down for the past few decades, even as single motherhood has become less stigmatized. As for the claim that poverty is caused by people being too busy bumping nasties to get married, research shows that poverty is caused more by lack of economic opportunity than who touches what naked bits to who. Research shows that while there is a lot of poverty in cities with high rates of single motherhood, families that have both parents at home experience the same lack of upward mobility as their single mother-led neighbors. Getting married doesn't mean that job opportunities simply appear out of nowhere. The correlation between non-marriage and poverty suggests less that non-marriage causes poverty than that being poor makes it hard to get married. The claim that men will not lower themselves to marry non-virgins has been thoroughly tested through basic reality. Ninety-five percent of Americans have had premarital sex, but four out of five American adults have been married at some point in their lives. Of course, there's very little empirical research on the question of whether or not women will shun marriage unless their only other option is to starve. That said, the existence of the wedding industry and all the sentimental claptrap around weddings that is served to and eaten up eagerly by a mostly female audience suggests that there is some draw there amongst the American female populace. Which, in turn, suggests that single women aren't so much turning their noses up to wedding rings as they just haven't met the right guy yet. Perhaps, just perhaps, a world where economic opportunities are fading and incarceration rates, especially for black men, are high is one where the number of marriageable bachelors is dwindling all the time. If you want women to get married, maybe the solution is to scold them less about what they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, and start working on an economically viable society that produces men with good jobs and good futures, the kind of men that women are willing to marry. 
It's highly unlikely that Beyoncé's career, much less any ass wiggling contained within, had any impact on the crime rate, but it did, then clearly the effect was a positive one. It is true that single motherhood, which is caused by sex (as is married motherhood, but don't tell Cruz and Jackson that), has been on the rise. But I refer you back to that chart and suggest that, if single mothers are the cause of crime, they are doing a really poor job at it, since violent crime rates have largely been trending down for the past few decades, even as single motherhood has become less stigmatized. As for the claim that poverty is caused by people being too busy bumping nasties to get married, research shows that poverty is caused more by lack of economic opportunity than who touches what naked bits to who. Research shows that while there is a lot of poverty in cities with high rates of single motherhood, families that have both parents at home experience the same lack of upward mobility as their single mother-led neighbors. Getting married doesn't mean that job opportunities simply appear out of nowhere. The correlation between non-marriage and poverty suggests less that non-marriage causes poverty than that being poor makes it hard to get married. The claim that men will not lower themselves to marry non-virgins has been thoroughly tested through basic reality. Ninety-five percent of Americans have had premarital sex, but four out of five American adults have been married at some point in their lives. Of course, there's very little empirical research on the question of whether or not women will shun marriage unless their only other option is to starve. That said, the existence of the wedding industry and all the sentimental claptrap around weddings that is served to and eaten up eagerly by a mostly female audience suggests that there is some draw there amongst the American female populace. Which, in turn, suggests that single women aren't so much turning their noses up to wedding rings as they just haven't met the right guy yet. Perhaps, just perhaps, a world where economic opportunities are fading and incarceration rates, especially for black men, are high is one where the number of marriageable bachelors is dwindling all the time. If you want women to get married, maybe the solution is to scold them less about what they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, and start working on an economically viable society that produces men with good jobs and good futures, the kind of men that women are willing to marry.
Ted Cruz’s junk science: GOP candidate denies climate change while citing debunked data and touting his inherited math skills
Most of the Republican presidential candidates are either vaguely skeptical of climate change or desperate to avoid talking about it. Climate change has become so ideologically charged that merely acknowledging the science is a political hazard in the GOP. It’s no surprise, then, that Republican candidates would prefer not to deal with it all. Ted Cruz is an exception. From the beginning of his campaign, Cruz has been conspicuously opposed to climate science, which he insists is a liberal phantasm. On March 24th (the week Cruz announced his candidacy), he gave an interview to The Texas Tribune in which he solidified himself as the intrepid science-denier in the field: 
Most of the Republican presidential candidates are either vaguely skeptical of climate change or desperate to avoid talking about it. Climate change has become so ideologically charged that merely acknowledging the science is a political hazard in the GOP. It’s no surprise, then, that Republican candidates would prefer not to deal with it all. Ted Cruz is an exception. From the beginning of his campaign, Cruz has been conspicuously opposed to climate science, which he insists is a liberal phantasm. On March 24th (the week Cruz announced his candidacy), he gave an interview to The Texas Tribune in which he solidified himself as the intrepid science-denier in the field:
“On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don’t engage in reasoned debate. What do they do? They scream, ‘You’re a denier.’ They brand you a heretic. Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers. It used to be…accepted scientific wisdom that the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.”Cruz continued:
“If you look at global warming alarmists, they don’t like to look at the actual facts and the data. The satellite data demonstrate that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years. Now that’s a real problem for the global warming alarmists. Because all those computer models on which this whole issue is based predicted significant warming, and yet the satellite data show it ain’t happening.”There’s a lot of sophistry to unpack in those two paragraphs. To begin with, it’s absurd to equate people who accept climate change with “flat-Earthers.” There was never a scientific consensus on the earth’s flatness, because that’s a pre-scientific intuition, an intuition that was later falsified by actual science. Secondly, Cruz calls Galileo the world’s first Flat-earther skeptic, but the earth was known to be spherical at least as early as the 3rd century BC, when Greek astronomers proved it (Side note: Galileo was born in 1564). Galileo was labeled a heretic not by scientists but by the church because he affirmed that the Earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. Cruz is educated enough to know this, but he isn’t making a serious argument here. To appear interested in the facts, Cruz references satellite data showing “that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years.” What he doesn’t say is that his claim is based on a single study, conducted at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, which has since been discredited because it failed to account for the fact that satellites drift in their orbits over time, an error known to distort temperature records. Conveniently, Cruz ignores the findings of NOAA and NASA and the global scientific community which show that the earth is, in fact, warming. Even Exxon Mobil now accepts the reality of climate change. So, either Ted Cruz, a lawyer turned politician, is wrong about climate change or nearly every major country and scientific authority is right – which seems more likely? Despite all of the contrary evidence, Cruz continues to peddle his casuistic non-arguments. In an interview with NPR yesterday, Cruz basically restated his claims from March, only with an interesting caveat:
“Well, I believe that public policy should follow the science and follow the data. I am the son of two mathematicians and computer programmers and scientists. In the debate over global warming, far too often politicians in Washington - and for that matter, a number of scientists receiving large government grants - disregard the science and data and instead push political ideology…The scientific evidence doesn't support global warming. For the last 18 years, the satellite data - we have satellites that monitor the atmosphere. The satellites that actually measure the temperature showed no significant warming whatsoever…Climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory for a big government politician who wants more power. Why? Because it is a theory that can never be disproven.”Cruz then unironically fumed that “Anyone who questions the science – who even points to the satellite data – they call you a, quote, ‘denier.’ Denier is not the language of science. Denier is the language of religion…It’s [climate change] treated as a theology.” Even for a shameless rhetorician like Cruz, this is remarkably disingenuous. Cruz claims to have inherited an ability to interpret science from his parents and then immediately confuses the political debate surrounding climate change with the actual science of climate change. Scientists aren’t in the business of labeling non-scientists and politicians “deniers” – though perhaps they should be. Scientists develop and test hypotheses, following the data wherever it leads. Belief and heresy have no place in a scientific context: There’s the evidence (the facts) and a working theory or framework that explains it. Cruz fatuously uses the phrase “accepted scientific wisdom,” but it’s utterly meaningless. There is no “accepted” wisdom in science. The best explanation we have is cautiously accepted until new evidence and a better theory supplants it – wisdom has nothing to do with it. And the reality, confirmed time and again, is that the earth is warming – that part of the debate is over. But Cruz and his ideological bedfellows won’t accept that. Instead, they distract and obfuscate, pretending to care about the science, only to ignore it when it contradicts their narratives. Meanwhile, the world burns and Americans continue to debate whether or not a problem exists at all.
Most of the Republican presidential candidates are either vaguely skeptical of climate change or desperate to avoid talking about it. Climate change has become so ideologically charged that merely acknowledging the science is a political hazard in the GOP. It’s no surprise, then, that Republican candidates would prefer not to deal with it all. Ted Cruz is an exception. From the beginning of his campaign, Cruz has been conspicuously opposed to climate science, which he insists is a liberal phantasm. On March 24th (the week Cruz announced his candidacy), he gave an interview to The Texas Tribune in which he solidified himself as the intrepid science-denier in the field: “On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don’t engage in reasoned debate. What do they do? They scream, ‘You’re a denier.’ They brand you a heretic. Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers. It used to be…accepted scientific wisdom that the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.”Cruz continued:
“If you look at global warming alarmists, they don’t like to look at the actual facts and the data. The satellite data demonstrate that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years. Now that’s a real problem for the global warming alarmists. Because all those computer models on which this whole issue is based predicted significant warming, and yet the satellite data show it ain’t happening.”There’s a lot of sophistry to unpack in those two paragraphs. To begin with, it’s absurd to equate people who accept climate change with “flat-Earthers.” There was never a scientific consensus on the earth’s flatness, because that’s a pre-scientific intuition, an intuition that was later falsified by actual science. Secondly, Cruz calls Galileo the world’s first Flat-earther skeptic, but the earth was known to be spherical at least as early as the 3rd century BC, when Greek astronomers proved it (Side note: Galileo was born in 1564). Galileo was labeled a heretic not by scientists but by the church because he affirmed that the Earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. Cruz is educated enough to know this, but he isn’t making a serious argument here. To appear interested in the facts, Cruz references satellite data showing “that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years.” What he doesn’t say is that his claim is based on a single study, conducted at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, which has since been discredited because it failed to account for the fact that satellites drift in their orbits over time, an error known to distort temperature records. Conveniently, Cruz ignores the findings of NOAA and NASA and the global scientific community which show that the earth is, in fact, warming. Even Exxon Mobil now accepts the reality of climate change. So, either Ted Cruz, a lawyer turned politician, is wrong about climate change or nearly every major country and scientific authority is right – which seems more likely? Despite all of the contrary evidence, Cruz continues to peddle his casuistic non-arguments. In an interview with NPR yesterday, Cruz basically restated his claims from March, only with an interesting caveat:
“Well, I believe that public policy should follow the science and follow the data. I am the son of two mathematicians and computer programmers and scientists. In the debate over global warming, far too often politicians in Washington - and for that matter, a number of scientists receiving large government grants - disregard the science and data and instead push political ideology…The scientific evidence doesn't support global warming. For the last 18 years, the satellite data - we have satellites that monitor the atmosphere. The satellites that actually measure the temperature showed no significant warming whatsoever…Climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory for a big government politician who wants more power. Why? Because it is a theory that can never be disproven.”Cruz then unironically fumed that “Anyone who questions the science – who even points to the satellite data – they call you a, quote, ‘denier.’ Denier is not the language of science. Denier is the language of religion…It’s [climate change] treated as a theology.” Even for a shameless rhetorician like Cruz, this is remarkably disingenuous. Cruz claims to have inherited an ability to interpret science from his parents and then immediately confuses the political debate surrounding climate change with the actual science of climate change. Scientists aren’t in the business of labeling non-scientists and politicians “deniers” – though perhaps they should be. Scientists develop and test hypotheses, following the data wherever it leads. Belief and heresy have no place in a scientific context: There’s the evidence (the facts) and a working theory or framework that explains it. Cruz fatuously uses the phrase “accepted scientific wisdom,” but it’s utterly meaningless. There is no “accepted” wisdom in science. The best explanation we have is cautiously accepted until new evidence and a better theory supplants it – wisdom has nothing to do with it. And the reality, confirmed time and again, is that the earth is warming – that part of the debate is over. But Cruz and his ideological bedfellows won’t accept that. Instead, they distract and obfuscate, pretending to care about the science, only to ignore it when it contradicts their narratives. Meanwhile, the world burns and Americans continue to debate whether or not a problem exists at all.
They have no shame: It’s confirmed, Fox News lied egregiously (again) in its latest Benghazi “bombshell”
On Wednesday, I picked apart the latest attempt by conservatives to churn up some old-fashioned Benghazi conspiracy theorism, as Fox News used some clumsy sleight of hand to suggest that the Obama administration had lied about not being able to save the people under attack at the Libyan diplomatic outpost. Fox’s entire argument was based on a newly released, partially redacted email that, per the conservative network, “contradicted” former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s claim that there were no military assets capable of arriving to Benghazi in time to make a difference. As I and others noted, the email didn’t actually contradict Panetta, and the whole thing was trumped-up nonsense. Well, now the Democrats on the Benghazi committee have released the full, unredacted email, and it confirms what we already knew: Fox News lied, and rather egregiously so. To refresh everyone on what happened: On the evening of the Benghazi attacks, Panetta ordered special operations and Marine anti-terrorism teams in Europe to deploy to Benghazi, but they arrived in Libya well after the attacks concluded due to logistical and diplomatic hurdles. Fox News reported on an email that Panetta’s then-chief of staff sent while the attacks were happening, which said that the Pentagon had “identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” In Fox News’ version of the email the forces in question had been redacted out, and the conservative network interpreted the message to mean that there were military assets that could have been moved to Benghazi immediately but weren’t. The rest of the conservative media took it as confirmation that the Obama administration had purposefully let people die in Benghazi. But, as the unredacted version shows, the forces identified in the email were the same special operations and Marine anti-terrorism teams that Panetta had ordered to respond. As I wrote yesterday, “all Fox News has done is confirm what we already knew: the Defense Department ordered military assets to respond to Benghazi.” There is no story, there is no new information, and there is no conspiracy. Ideally, this revelation would spark a round of retractions, corrections, and apologies from all the people who passed along bad information – Fox News especially – but that obviously won’t happen because the conservative media values the politically damaging Benghazi narrative more than it does an accurate portrayal of what happened. But there’s another interesting wrinkle here: the role of the Republicans on the Benghazi committee in nudging this story along. Fox News’ original story notes that the network contacted the Benghazi committee for comment on the redacted version of the email, and here’s the statement a spokesman for the Republican majority offered, highlighted for emphasis:
“The Select Committee has obtained and reviewed tens of thousands of documents in the course of its thorough, fact-centered investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attacks, and this information will be detailed in the final report the Committee hopes to release within the next few months," Matt Wolking told FoxNews.com. "While the Committee does not rush to release or comment on every document it uncovers, I can confirm that we obtained the unredacted version of this email last year, in addition to Jake Sullivan’s response."So the Republicans on the committee knew that the email did not contain any new information. They knew that the unredacted version didn't back up Fox News’ allegation that it “contradicted” anything the administration had said. But they sat on that info and instead offered a tantalizingly cryptic hint that their final report would reveal… something about this. They could have waved Fox News off this one, but they didn’t because they share the network’s goal of creating a politically damaging narrative about Benghazi. I know there’s been some clamor for the Democrats on the Benghazi committee to resign in protest over the investigation’s obvious politicization and bad-faith behaviors. But as this little dust-up makes clear, they have an important role to play in exposing the shenanigans of their colleagues in the majority.
December 9, 2015
Can we call it “terrorism” yet? Suspected Planned Parenthood shooter says “I’m a warrior for the babies”
"I'm guilty, there's no trial. I'm a warrior for the babies," Robert Lewis Dear shouted in court today. Dear is the suspected rifle-clad white man who shot 12 people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in November in a bloody five-hour siege. He killed three people, including a mother of two. Dear made these comments, which were confirmed by Reuters, in El Paso County Court, where he was attending his initial arraignment hearing. Although the media was very slow to dub Dear a terrorist, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said the attack on the women's reproductive health facility was likely an act of terrorism. Dear's comments appear to confirm the mayor's suspicions. Authorities who questioned Dear initially insisted that he was "definitely politically motivated." Law enforcement officials said the suspected shooter -- who has a long criminal record, and was well known to local authorities -- admitted he has anti-abortion and right-wing, anti-government views. In questioning by authorities, Dear used the phrase "no more baby parts," referencing a thoroughly debunked myth about Planned Parenthood that has been spread by anti-abortion groups and right-wing politicians. Dear's neighbor told BuzzFeed that the suspected shooter had in the past handed out anti-Obama pamphlets, and authorities told NBC that Dear had made comments about Obama during questioning. Planned Parenthood initially stated that the shooter "was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion." Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the mass shooting a "crime against women receiving health care services." In the U.S., violent right-wing extremism is on the rise. The National Abortion Federation has documented at least 73 attacks on U.S. abortion providers since 1997."I'm guilty, there's no trial. I'm a warrior for the babies," Robert Lewis Dear shouted in court today. Dear is the suspected rifle-clad white man who shot 12 people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in November in a bloody five-hour siege. He killed three people, including a mother of two. Dear made these comments, which were confirmed by Reuters, in El Paso County Court, where he was attending his initial arraignment hearing. Although the media was very slow to dub Dear a terrorist, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said the attack on the women's reproductive health facility was likely an act of terrorism. Dear's comments appear to confirm the mayor's suspicions. Authorities who questioned Dear initially insisted that he was "definitely politically motivated." Law enforcement officials said the suspected shooter -- who has a long criminal record, and was well known to local authorities -- admitted he has anti-abortion and right-wing, anti-government views. In questioning by authorities, Dear used the phrase "no more baby parts," referencing a thoroughly debunked myth about Planned Parenthood that has been spread by anti-abortion groups and right-wing politicians. Dear's neighbor told BuzzFeed that the suspected shooter had in the past handed out anti-Obama pamphlets, and authorities told NBC that Dear had made comments about Obama during questioning. Planned Parenthood initially stated that the shooter "was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion." Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the mass shooting a "crime against women receiving health care services." In the U.S., violent right-wing extremism is on the rise. The National Abortion Federation has documented at least 73 attacks on U.S. abortion providers since 1997."I'm guilty, there's no trial. I'm a warrior for the babies," Robert Lewis Dear shouted in court today. Dear is the suspected rifle-clad white man who shot 12 people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in November in a bloody five-hour siege. He killed three people, including a mother of two. Dear made these comments, which were confirmed by Reuters, in El Paso County Court, where he was attending his initial arraignment hearing. Although the media was very slow to dub Dear a terrorist, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said the attack on the women's reproductive health facility was likely an act of terrorism. Dear's comments appear to confirm the mayor's suspicions. Authorities who questioned Dear initially insisted that he was "definitely politically motivated." Law enforcement officials said the suspected shooter -- who has a long criminal record, and was well known to local authorities -- admitted he has anti-abortion and right-wing, anti-government views. In questioning by authorities, Dear used the phrase "no more baby parts," referencing a thoroughly debunked myth about Planned Parenthood that has been spread by anti-abortion groups and right-wing politicians. Dear's neighbor told BuzzFeed that the suspected shooter had in the past handed out anti-Obama pamphlets, and authorities told NBC that Dear had made comments about Obama during questioning. Planned Parenthood initially stated that the shooter "was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion." Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the mass shooting a "crime against women receiving health care services." In the U.S., violent right-wing extremism is on the rise. The National Abortion Federation has documented at least 73 attacks on U.S. abortion providers since 1997."I'm guilty, there's no trial. I'm a warrior for the babies," Robert Lewis Dear shouted in court today. Dear is the suspected rifle-clad white man who shot 12 people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in November in a bloody five-hour siege. He killed three people, including a mother of two. Dear made these comments, which were confirmed by Reuters, in El Paso County Court, where he was attending his initial arraignment hearing. Although the media was very slow to dub Dear a terrorist, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said the attack on the women's reproductive health facility was likely an act of terrorism. Dear's comments appear to confirm the mayor's suspicions. Authorities who questioned Dear initially insisted that he was "definitely politically motivated." Law enforcement officials said the suspected shooter -- who has a long criminal record, and was well known to local authorities -- admitted he has anti-abortion and right-wing, anti-government views. In questioning by authorities, Dear used the phrase "no more baby parts," referencing a thoroughly debunked myth about Planned Parenthood that has been spread by anti-abortion groups and right-wing politicians. Dear's neighbor told BuzzFeed that the suspected shooter had in the past handed out anti-Obama pamphlets, and authorities told NBC that Dear had made comments about Obama during questioning. Planned Parenthood initially stated that the shooter "was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion." Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the mass shooting a "crime against women receiving health care services." In the U.S., violent right-wing extremism is on the rise. The National Abortion Federation has documented at least 73 attacks on U.S. abortion providers since 1997.
Stop texting like this: How 1 extra character turns a plain message into a passive-aggressive dig
One of the best things about modern technology is seeing your phone flash with a text message. The rapid-fire form of communication allows us to engage in conversation almost as fluidly as we would face-to-face. Some of the worst messages to receive are shorter messages that are made curt by a period. “K.” “That’s fine.” “Yeah.” Ugh. It’s hard to argue for terse texting as anything other than a form of passive aggressiveness. More often than not, a period doesn’t make sense grammatically because the upsetting statements are rarely complete sentences. The use of periods in this way signals the sudden end of a conversation, like slamming the brakes at full speed. A study published in Computers in Human Behavior explored the effects of punctuation on modern forms of communication, namely texting. Researchers found that text messages ending with periods are more likely to be perceived as insincere than those not ending with the formidable-looking dot. The study was led by Celia Klin at Binghamton University, and sought to determine whether the period has evolved from a standard form of communication to a social cue. Turns out, it has. Study participants were presented with a series of exchanges written either as text messages or by hand on a note. When the participants read a reply that was followed by a period, they noted the message read as insincere; but this wasn’t the case when read on a handwritten note. Because communication and correspondence via technologies like texts and emails dominate our lives, we’re now challenged to determine tone through grammar and syntax on a screen. In many ways it’s limiting, and automatically hardens a message’s meaning. The harsh light of the screen, block font of the words and lack of more human elements of communication like facial expressions and fluctuations in someone’s voice make us sensitive to interpreting the intended message. “Sure.” no longer reads as an agreement, but passive aggressive indifference. When we’re exposed to handwritten communication, like notes or letters, we’re less inclined to take offense to punctuation. Part of this may be because the act of reading something handwritten is associated with a certain degree of sentimentality. There’s something tender and romantic to thinking about someone picking up a pen and connecting mind to pen to paper, and then sending it off. In terms of handwritten correspondence, punctuation makes sense because it allows us to follow the writer’s train of thought. Messages written and punctuated via text message have the opposite effect. Texts are largely open-ended forms of communication, and ending a statement with a period seems like cutting off communication entirely. Exclamation marks, however, are having a moment. By reading text messages, email and correspondences over Facebook messenger, you’d think there’s never been a period in history in which so many people were so enthusiastic about everything. Klin’s research has suggested the exclamation mark now serves as a buffer to make messages read as more friendly or sincere, the same way “LOL” is used to connote lightheartedness. By manipulating the meaning behind punctuation marks, we’re now able to assess an interlocutor’s tone. No longer do periods and exclamation marks merely separate two thoughts from one another, but reveal a great deal about the person we’re communicating with. It’s a confusing and interesting example of modern language that suggests our language is somehow lacking in portraying sentimentality. We all need to be more sincere. Period.One of the best things about modern technology is seeing your phone flash with a text message. The rapid-fire form of communication allows us to engage in conversation almost as fluidly as we would face-to-face. Some of the worst messages to receive are shorter messages that are made curt by a period. “K.” “That’s fine.” “Yeah.” Ugh. It’s hard to argue for terse texting as anything other than a form of passive aggressiveness. More often than not, a period doesn’t make sense grammatically because the upsetting statements are rarely complete sentences. The use of periods in this way signals the sudden end of a conversation, like slamming the brakes at full speed. A study published in Computers in Human Behavior explored the effects of punctuation on modern forms of communication, namely texting. Researchers found that text messages ending with periods are more likely to be perceived as insincere than those not ending with the formidable-looking dot. The study was led by Celia Klin at Binghamton University, and sought to determine whether the period has evolved from a standard form of communication to a social cue. Turns out, it has. Study participants were presented with a series of exchanges written either as text messages or by hand on a note. When the participants read a reply that was followed by a period, they noted the message read as insincere; but this wasn’t the case when read on a handwritten note. Because communication and correspondence via technologies like texts and emails dominate our lives, we’re now challenged to determine tone through grammar and syntax on a screen. In many ways it’s limiting, and automatically hardens a message’s meaning. The harsh light of the screen, block font of the words and lack of more human elements of communication like facial expressions and fluctuations in someone’s voice make us sensitive to interpreting the intended message. “Sure.” no longer reads as an agreement, but passive aggressive indifference. When we’re exposed to handwritten communication, like notes or letters, we’re less inclined to take offense to punctuation. Part of this may be because the act of reading something handwritten is associated with a certain degree of sentimentality. There’s something tender and romantic to thinking about someone picking up a pen and connecting mind to pen to paper, and then sending it off. In terms of handwritten correspondence, punctuation makes sense because it allows us to follow the writer’s train of thought. Messages written and punctuated via text message have the opposite effect. Texts are largely open-ended forms of communication, and ending a statement with a period seems like cutting off communication entirely. Exclamation marks, however, are having a moment. By reading text messages, email and correspondences over Facebook messenger, you’d think there’s never been a period in history in which so many people were so enthusiastic about everything. Klin’s research has suggested the exclamation mark now serves as a buffer to make messages read as more friendly or sincere, the same way “LOL” is used to connote lightheartedness. By manipulating the meaning behind punctuation marks, we’re now able to assess an interlocutor’s tone. No longer do periods and exclamation marks merely separate two thoughts from one another, but reveal a great deal about the person we’re communicating with. It’s a confusing and interesting example of modern language that suggests our language is somehow lacking in portraying sentimentality. We all need to be more sincere. Period.One of the best things about modern technology is seeing your phone flash with a text message. The rapid-fire form of communication allows us to engage in conversation almost as fluidly as we would face-to-face. Some of the worst messages to receive are shorter messages that are made curt by a period. “K.” “That’s fine.” “Yeah.” Ugh. It’s hard to argue for terse texting as anything other than a form of passive aggressiveness. More often than not, a period doesn’t make sense grammatically because the upsetting statements are rarely complete sentences. The use of periods in this way signals the sudden end of a conversation, like slamming the brakes at full speed. A study published in Computers in Human Behavior explored the effects of punctuation on modern forms of communication, namely texting. Researchers found that text messages ending with periods are more likely to be perceived as insincere than those not ending with the formidable-looking dot. The study was led by Celia Klin at Binghamton University, and sought to determine whether the period has evolved from a standard form of communication to a social cue. Turns out, it has. Study participants were presented with a series of exchanges written either as text messages or by hand on a note. When the participants read a reply that was followed by a period, they noted the message read as insincere; but this wasn’t the case when read on a handwritten note. Because communication and correspondence via technologies like texts and emails dominate our lives, we’re now challenged to determine tone through grammar and syntax on a screen. In many ways it’s limiting, and automatically hardens a message’s meaning. The harsh light of the screen, block font of the words and lack of more human elements of communication like facial expressions and fluctuations in someone’s voice make us sensitive to interpreting the intended message. “Sure.” no longer reads as an agreement, but passive aggressive indifference. When we’re exposed to handwritten communication, like notes or letters, we’re less inclined to take offense to punctuation. Part of this may be because the act of reading something handwritten is associated with a certain degree of sentimentality. There’s something tender and romantic to thinking about someone picking up a pen and connecting mind to pen to paper, and then sending it off. In terms of handwritten correspondence, punctuation makes sense because it allows us to follow the writer’s train of thought. Messages written and punctuated via text message have the opposite effect. Texts are largely open-ended forms of communication, and ending a statement with a period seems like cutting off communication entirely. Exclamation marks, however, are having a moment. By reading text messages, email and correspondences over Facebook messenger, you’d think there’s never been a period in history in which so many people were so enthusiastic about everything. Klin’s research has suggested the exclamation mark now serves as a buffer to make messages read as more friendly or sincere, the same way “LOL” is used to connote lightheartedness. By manipulating the meaning behind punctuation marks, we’re now able to assess an interlocutor’s tone. No longer do periods and exclamation marks merely separate two thoughts from one another, but reveal a great deal about the person we’re communicating with. It’s a confusing and interesting example of modern language that suggests our language is somehow lacking in portraying sentimentality. We all need to be more sincere. Period.One of the best things about modern technology is seeing your phone flash with a text message. The rapid-fire form of communication allows us to engage in conversation almost as fluidly as we would face-to-face. Some of the worst messages to receive are shorter messages that are made curt by a period. “K.” “That’s fine.” “Yeah.” Ugh. It’s hard to argue for terse texting as anything other than a form of passive aggressiveness. More often than not, a period doesn’t make sense grammatically because the upsetting statements are rarely complete sentences. The use of periods in this way signals the sudden end of a conversation, like slamming the brakes at full speed. A study published in Computers in Human Behavior explored the effects of punctuation on modern forms of communication, namely texting. Researchers found that text messages ending with periods are more likely to be perceived as insincere than those not ending with the formidable-looking dot. The study was led by Celia Klin at Binghamton University, and sought to determine whether the period has evolved from a standard form of communication to a social cue. Turns out, it has. Study participants were presented with a series of exchanges written either as text messages or by hand on a note. When the participants read a reply that was followed by a period, they noted the message read as insincere; but this wasn’t the case when read on a handwritten note. Because communication and correspondence via technologies like texts and emails dominate our lives, we’re now challenged to determine tone through grammar and syntax on a screen. In many ways it’s limiting, and automatically hardens a message’s meaning. The harsh light of the screen, block font of the words and lack of more human elements of communication like facial expressions and fluctuations in someone’s voice make us sensitive to interpreting the intended message. “Sure.” no longer reads as an agreement, but passive aggressive indifference. When we’re exposed to handwritten communication, like notes or letters, we’re less inclined to take offense to punctuation. Part of this may be because the act of reading something handwritten is associated with a certain degree of sentimentality. There’s something tender and romantic to thinking about someone picking up a pen and connecting mind to pen to paper, and then sending it off. In terms of handwritten correspondence, punctuation makes sense because it allows us to follow the writer’s train of thought. Messages written and punctuated via text message have the opposite effect. Texts are largely open-ended forms of communication, and ending a statement with a period seems like cutting off communication entirely. Exclamation marks, however, are having a moment. By reading text messages, email and correspondences over Facebook messenger, you’d think there’s never been a period in history in which so many people were so enthusiastic about everything. Klin’s research has suggested the exclamation mark now serves as a buffer to make messages read as more friendly or sincere, the same way “LOL” is used to connote lightheartedness. By manipulating the meaning behind punctuation marks, we’re now able to assess an interlocutor’s tone. No longer do periods and exclamation marks merely separate two thoughts from one another, but reveal a great deal about the person we’re communicating with. It’s a confusing and interesting example of modern language that suggests our language is somehow lacking in portraying sentimentality. We all need to be more sincere. Period.
Jimmy Carter’s cancer treatment saved my life, too
This didn't used to be sort of thing a person comes back from. Trust me, I should know. And in the case of Jimmy Carter, it's a miraculous breakthrough for medicine, and a gift to the world that an extraordinary person gets to have more time in it. It's a sign of hope. It's not enough. On Sunday, the 91 year-old former president of the United States made the extraordinary announcement — first to his fellow parishioners at the Sunday school at Plains' Maranatha Baptist Church — and then via an official statement from the Carter Center — that "My most recent MRI brain scan did not reveal any signs of the original cancer spots nor any new ones. I will continue to receive regular 3-week immunotherapy treatments of pembrolizumab." In August, Carter announced that he had been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma — the deadliest form of skin cancer, and one that traditionally has offered few treatment options. As the LA Times reported at the time, "Former President Jimmy Carter can be thankful that he fell ill in 2015 instead of 2010." That just happens to be the year I was first diagnosed with melanoma —with a metastatic recurrence just a year later. It's a diagnosis that has typically offered patients a mere handful of months to live. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution noted this week, "Only a few years ago, Stage IV melanoma was tantamount to a death sentence." But fortunately for people like Carter — and me — the field of treatment is changing rapidly. Thanks to an innovative clinical trial, I was one of the first individuals in the world to be treated with a combination of two drugs designed to essentially take the brakes off the immune system so it can be activated to recognize and destroy cancer cells. Three months after starting the trial, I presented no evidence of disease. I'll be four years cancer free next month. And I could not be more thrilled or hopeful that in October, my drug combination became the first combination immunotherapy treatment approved by the FDA. Last month, one of my drugs — Opdivo — was approved for use in renal cancer; just earlier this year it was also approved for non-small cell lung cancer. And that's just my two drugs. There are many more, including Carter's Pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Meanwhile, ongoing immunotherapy clinical trials are also showing success with an array of other cancers. But despite the cause for hope, there are limitations. This week, as I was describing my cancer treatment to a fellow writer, I mentioned that it has had a roughly 30% success rate. He — like my oncologist when she first got me into my clinical trial — seemed impressed with the number. But it's a lot less cause for celebration when you're the one with a fatal form of disease. It's certainly not the kind of chance you'd be thrilled to take in say, your birth control. USA Today notes that Carter's treatment offers similar odds, reporting this week that "About one-third of patients who take Keytruda get a benefit, either because the cancer shrinks or stops growing." What happens to the rest? A few months ago, I became friends with a remarkable young woman, via a bond forged in one of the worst commonalities possible. Except for the gap in our ages, our stories were nearly identical. An initial diagnosis on melanoma on the scalp. Surgery — at the same facility and with the same surgeon. A seeming return to health, followed by a metastatic recurrence. Her doctor had been a fellow on my clinical trial; her first course of treatment employed similar science. The last time I saw her, at a friend's book party in late October, she was two days from starting on my drug combination. She said she was excited to get going. She looked healthy and full of hope — even when I noticed her with her eyes welling up as she watched the action up on stage. She had just passed the bar. She was 25. Less than three weeks later, she was gone. An announcement of her death noted her cancer, "which in her final weeks ceased responding to treatment." Because that's how it goes sometimes. How does a 91 year-old former farmer get through metastatic melanoma on immunotherapy, and a sunscreen and hat-wearing twenty-something not? Why am I still here, when my doctor has told me that for my trial, the overall survival at two years was 50 percent? That's the next big mystery our doctors and researchers are trying to unlock — the enigma of why this type of therapy works so swiftly and so conclusively on some of us and not others, why it's a success with a leader with a lifetime of service behind him, but not a woman who should have had the same in front of her. I believe that scientists will find the answers. They just won't find them soon enough for all of us. So right now, our cancer treatment is still nothing short of miraculous. But I can't wait for the day it's entirely run of the mill.
Bieber’s “Internet crush” stunt is creepy, not cute: It’s hard enough being a woman online without Beliebers tracking you down
At this point, it’s hard to be shocked by anything Justin Bieber does. Between drunk driving, egging a neighbor’s house, telling a blatantly racist joke, the charge of vandalism in Brazil, the eviction from an Argentine hotel, he’s shown what a disagreeable little guy he can be. But his latest stunt is pretty hard to take, especially because the celebrity media is treating it, so far, like a cute incident of “he’s so into you.” Apparently Bieber spotted a teenager on Instagram and asked his fans to help track her down. Was she interested in being identified in front of millions of people? Who knows – the beliebers were there to help. By the time this crush -- reportedly, a Spanish 17-year-old -- was identified, she was a little confused. US magazine headlined it like this: “Justin Bieber's Apparent Internet Crush Reacts: "I So Do Not Know How to Deal With This," and led the story this way:
How does it feel when Justin Bieber enlists the help of his fans to track you down after liking the look of your photo? A little overwhelming, that's how!Sounds fun, eh? The Daily Mail ran a similar story, complete with gossip about Bieber’s past girlfriends. “Do you know Justin's mystery girl?” the story asked, listing the reporter’s email and phone number. Apparently this 17-year-old, “wolfiecindy,” is a Bieber fan, and has lots of followers on Instagram. She’s not, it seems, a recluse. But, is it cool for Bieber – and the international media that follows his every move – to invade her privacy this way? It seems a bit like celebrity stalking in reverse, and you’d think that Bieber, who’s had the paparazzi’s attention for much of his life, would know better. He probably thinks she'll be flattered by the attention, that he's doing her an enormous favor. It’s no longer breaking news to say that women and girls often have an especially difficult time online. The journalist Amanda Hess wrote a truly frightening story last year in Pacific Standard documenting the problem. It described especially threats against her and other female writers, and then pivoted:
A woman doesn’t even need to occupy a professional writing perch at a prominent platform to become a target. According to a 2005 report by the Pew Research Center, which has been tracking the online lives of Americans for more than a decade, women and men have been logging on in equal numbers since 2000, but the vilest communications are still disproportionately lobbed at women. We are more likely to report being stalked and harassed on the Internet—of the 3,787 people who reported harassing incidents from 2000 to 2012 to the volunteer organization Working to Halt Online Abuse, 72.5 percent were female.And:
Sometimes, the abuse can get physical: A Pew survey reported that five percent of women who used the Internet said “something happened online” that led them into “physical danger.” And it starts young: Teenage girls are significantly more likely to be cyberbullied than boys. Just appearing as a woman online, it seems, can be enough to inspire abuse. In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.Will “wolfiecindy” be stalked any further? Let’s hope not. But it would have been nice for Bieber to communicate with her privately – or leave her alone entirely – before making her an Internet sensation. She’s feeling overwhelmed? Who wouldn’t be? For a while at least, she can kiss anything resembling privacy goodbye. Bieber has a very weird track record. But this may be his creepiest stunt yet. Please, everyone -- leave this girl alone.At this point, it’s hard to be shocked by anything Justin Bieber does. Between drunk driving, egging a neighbor’s house, telling a blatantly racist joke, the charge of vandalism in Brazil, the eviction from an Argentine hotel, he’s shown what a disagreeable little guy he can be. But his latest stunt is pretty hard to take, especially because the celebrity media is treating it, so far, like a cute incident of “he’s so into you.” Apparently Bieber spotted a teenager on Instagram and asked his fans to help track her down. Was she interested in being identified in front of millions of people? Who knows – the beliebers were there to help. By the time this crush -- reportedly, a Spanish 17-year-old -- was identified, she was a little confused. US magazine headlined it like this: “Justin Bieber's Apparent Internet Crush Reacts: "I So Do Not Know How to Deal With This," and led the story this way:
How does it feel when Justin Bieber enlists the help of his fans to track you down after liking the look of your photo? A little overwhelming, that's how!Sounds fun, eh? The Daily Mail ran a similar story, complete with gossip about Bieber’s past girlfriends. “Do you know Justin's mystery girl?” the story asked, listing the reporter’s email and phone number. Apparently this 17-year-old, “wolfiecindy,” is a Bieber fan, and has lots of followers on Instagram. She’s not, it seems, a recluse. But, is it cool for Bieber – and the international media that follows his every move – to invade her privacy this way? It seems a bit like celebrity stalking in reverse, and you’d think that Bieber, who’s had the paparazzi’s attention for much of his life, would know better. He probably thinks she'll be flattered by the attention, that he's doing her an enormous favor. It’s no longer breaking news to say that women and girls often have an especially difficult time online. The journalist Amanda Hess wrote a truly frightening story last year in Pacific Standard documenting the problem. It described especially threats against her and other female writers, and then pivoted:
A woman doesn’t even need to occupy a professional writing perch at a prominent platform to become a target. According to a 2005 report by the Pew Research Center, which has been tracking the online lives of Americans for more than a decade, women and men have been logging on in equal numbers since 2000, but the vilest communications are still disproportionately lobbed at women. We are more likely to report being stalked and harassed on the Internet—of the 3,787 people who reported harassing incidents from 2000 to 2012 to the volunteer organization Working to Halt Online Abuse, 72.5 percent were female.And:
Sometimes, the abuse can get physical: A Pew survey reported that five percent of women who used the Internet said “something happened online” that led them into “physical danger.” And it starts young: Teenage girls are significantly more likely to be cyberbullied than boys. Just appearing as a woman online, it seems, can be enough to inspire abuse. In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.Will “wolfiecindy” be stalked any further? Let’s hope not. But it would have been nice for Bieber to communicate with her privately – or leave her alone entirely – before making her an Internet sensation. She’s feeling overwhelmed? Who wouldn’t be? For a while at least, she can kiss anything resembling privacy goodbye. Bieber has a very weird track record. But this may be his creepiest stunt yet. Please, everyone -- leave this girl alone.At this point, it’s hard to be shocked by anything Justin Bieber does. Between drunk driving, egging a neighbor’s house, telling a blatantly racist joke, the charge of vandalism in Brazil, the eviction from an Argentine hotel, he’s shown what a disagreeable little guy he can be. But his latest stunt is pretty hard to take, especially because the celebrity media is treating it, so far, like a cute incident of “he’s so into you.” Apparently Bieber spotted a teenager on Instagram and asked his fans to help track her down. Was she interested in being identified in front of millions of people? Who knows – the beliebers were there to help. By the time this crush -- reportedly, a Spanish 17-year-old -- was identified, she was a little confused. US magazine headlined it like this: “Justin Bieber's Apparent Internet Crush Reacts: "I So Do Not Know How to Deal With This," and led the story this way:
How does it feel when Justin Bieber enlists the help of his fans to track you down after liking the look of your photo? A little overwhelming, that's how!Sounds fun, eh? The Daily Mail ran a similar story, complete with gossip about Bieber’s past girlfriends. “Do you know Justin's mystery girl?” the story asked, listing the reporter’s email and phone number. Apparently this 17-year-old, “wolfiecindy,” is a Bieber fan, and has lots of followers on Instagram. She’s not, it seems, a recluse. But, is it cool for Bieber – and the international media that follows his every move – to invade her privacy this way? It seems a bit like celebrity stalking in reverse, and you’d think that Bieber, who’s had the paparazzi’s attention for much of his life, would know better. He probably thinks she'll be flattered by the attention, that he's doing her an enormous favor. It’s no longer breaking news to say that women and girls often have an especially difficult time online. The journalist Amanda Hess wrote a truly frightening story last year in Pacific Standard documenting the problem. It described especially threats against her and other female writers, and then pivoted:
A woman doesn’t even need to occupy a professional writing perch at a prominent platform to become a target. According to a 2005 report by the Pew Research Center, which has been tracking the online lives of Americans for more than a decade, women and men have been logging on in equal numbers since 2000, but the vilest communications are still disproportionately lobbed at women. We are more likely to report being stalked and harassed on the Internet—of the 3,787 people who reported harassing incidents from 2000 to 2012 to the volunteer organization Working to Halt Online Abuse, 72.5 percent were female.And:
Sometimes, the abuse can get physical: A Pew survey reported that five percent of women who used the Internet said “something happened online” that led them into “physical danger.” And it starts young: Teenage girls are significantly more likely to be cyberbullied than boys. Just appearing as a woman online, it seems, can be enough to inspire abuse. In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.Will “wolfiecindy” be stalked any further? Let’s hope not. But it would have been nice for Bieber to communicate with her privately – or leave her alone entirely – before making her an Internet sensation. She’s feeling overwhelmed? Who wouldn’t be? For a while at least, she can kiss anything resembling privacy goodbye. Bieber has a very weird track record. But this may be his creepiest stunt yet. Please, everyone -- leave this girl alone.At this point, it’s hard to be shocked by anything Justin Bieber does. Between drunk driving, egging a neighbor’s house, telling a blatantly racist joke, the charge of vandalism in Brazil, the eviction from an Argentine hotel, he’s shown what a disagreeable little guy he can be. But his latest stunt is pretty hard to take, especially because the celebrity media is treating it, so far, like a cute incident of “he’s so into you.” Apparently Bieber spotted a teenager on Instagram and asked his fans to help track her down. Was she interested in being identified in front of millions of people? Who knows – the beliebers were there to help. By the time this crush -- reportedly, a Spanish 17-year-old -- was identified, she was a little confused. US magazine headlined it like this: “Justin Bieber's Apparent Internet Crush Reacts: "I So Do Not Know How to Deal With This," and led the story this way:
How does it feel when Justin Bieber enlists the help of his fans to track you down after liking the look of your photo? A little overwhelming, that's how!Sounds fun, eh? The Daily Mail ran a similar story, complete with gossip about Bieber’s past girlfriends. “Do you know Justin's mystery girl?” the story asked, listing the reporter’s email and phone number. Apparently this 17-year-old, “wolfiecindy,” is a Bieber fan, and has lots of followers on Instagram. She’s not, it seems, a recluse. But, is it cool for Bieber – and the international media that follows his every move – to invade her privacy this way? It seems a bit like celebrity stalking in reverse, and you’d think that Bieber, who’s had the paparazzi’s attention for much of his life, would know better. He probably thinks she'll be flattered by the attention, that he's doing her an enormous favor. It’s no longer breaking news to say that women and girls often have an especially difficult time online. The journalist Amanda Hess wrote a truly frightening story last year in Pacific Standard documenting the problem. It described especially threats against her and other female writers, and then pivoted:
A woman doesn’t even need to occupy a professional writing perch at a prominent platform to become a target. According to a 2005 report by the Pew Research Center, which has been tracking the online lives of Americans for more than a decade, women and men have been logging on in equal numbers since 2000, but the vilest communications are still disproportionately lobbed at women. We are more likely to report being stalked and harassed on the Internet—of the 3,787 people who reported harassing incidents from 2000 to 2012 to the volunteer organization Working to Halt Online Abuse, 72.5 percent were female.And:
Sometimes, the abuse can get physical: A Pew survey reported that five percent of women who used the Internet said “something happened online” that led them into “physical danger.” And it starts young: Teenage girls are significantly more likely to be cyberbullied than boys. Just appearing as a woman online, it seems, can be enough to inspire abuse. In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.Will “wolfiecindy” be stalked any further? Let’s hope not. But it would have been nice for Bieber to communicate with her privately – or leave her alone entirely – before making her an Internet sensation. She’s feeling overwhelmed? Who wouldn’t be? For a while at least, she can kiss anything resembling privacy goodbye. Bieber has a very weird track record. But this may be his creepiest stunt yet. Please, everyone -- leave this girl alone.
