Sex, Drugs & Tapas

For the past few weeks, as part of my project exploring black women, relationships and marriage, I’ve been immersing myself in books, films, blog posts and other media on the subject. Last week I read Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man and am still trying to wash off the film and stink of patriarchy. I told my husband over the weekend that I am unbelievably proud of black women. As a group we are able to hold our heads high in the face of the relentless narrative that there is something wrong with us that needs to be fixed; that, for us, admirable qualities like independence, only make us more unlovable–a narrative not only championed by the mainstream, but, too often, by members of our own communities.

So, singer, actor and (God help us) author Tyrese decided to drop a little wisdom on the black lady folk during a recent interview with NecoleBitchie.com. (above) He warns us about being “too independent.”

Huh.

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Bet Chick-fil-A wishes this month would end. Over the past few weeks, the restaurant chain’s deep ties to the anti-gay movement have been exposed and uncovered by a number of activists, most notably Jeremy Hooper at Good As You. Whether it’s Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Marriage, the Pennsylvania Family Institute, or Exodus International, Chick-fil-A ties run deep.

Of course, the President of Chick-fil-A wants gay people to share no hard feelings. The restaurant will gladly feed homosexuals gobs of chicken sandwiches, after all. But when it comes to marriage, Chick-fil-A believes strongly that same-sex couples just don’t deserve equal rights.

As we wrote about a few weeks ago, Chick-fil-A’s charitable arm, the WinShape Foundation, has been particularly active in the fight against marriage equality. They’ve hosted conferences with some of the leading opponents of gay marriage in this country. A higher up at WinShape has even praised the efforts of anti-gay activist David Blankenhorn for working against marriage equality, and for articulating a solid reason why American culture should reject same-sex couples.

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Stealing information can be just as lucrative—and destructive—as stealing anything else. Our look at the history of data theft touches on some of the major (or just really interesting) crimes in history. The father of the American Industrial Revolution? A glorified data thief. That tea you’re drinking (let’s say just for the duration of this sentence, you are drinking tea)? That’s a stolen secret recipe, the theft of which involved a Scotsman dressed up in “traditional mandarin garb.” And if you’re a PlayStation Network user or a Gawker commenter, you’ll be familiar with some of the latter items on our list.

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In the annals of Thomas’s loose relationship with judicial ethics, Thomas and Crow’s involvement with this museum is a fairly minor incident. The many personal gifts Thomas accepted from wealthy benefactors, including Crow, are much more disturbing. Beyond the Bible Crow gave Thomas — which is valued at $19,000 — and the half-million in start-up funds Crow provided Thomas’s wife, Thomas also accepted a $15,000 gift from a corporate-aligned think tank that occasionally files briefs in Thomas’s very Court.

This kind of gift-taking is obviously quite rare on the Supreme Court, but it is not exactly unprecedented. Forty years ago, Justice Abe Fortas accepted $15,000 to teach a series of seminars — funded by the leaders of frequent corporate litigants including the vice president of Phillip Morris — and he accepted a $20,000 retainer from a stock speculator who was eventually convicted of numerous securities violations. This gifting scandal, which is remarkably similar to the scandal Thomas is currently embroiled in, forced Fortas to resign from the bench in disgrace.

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By Rachel Adams

A colleague in a wheelchair goes into an underground passage connecting two campus buildings. Once the entrance locks behind him, he discovers that the door at the other end refuses to open with his swipe card. Although he is a vigorous man of middle age, the maintenance worker who comes to his rescue calls him Pops.

A student with a sensory-processing disorder needs to sit in the front row of class and take notes on a laptop computer, but the professor insists that laptops may be used only in the back of the room. After the student explains her situation, he announces to the entire class that he is making a “special exception” for her.

I heard these and other stories about broken elevators, stairs without handrails, and inaccessible bathrooms at a recent panel on disability and the university that I organized on campus for students, faculty, and staff from our Office of Disability Services.

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37thstate:

Since restrictions on drug trials were relaxed in 2005, the industry in India has swollen to the point where today more than 150,000 people are involved in at least 1,600 clinical trials, conducted on behalf of British, American and European firms including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Merck. There may be more.

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The issue of whether — or how much — social-media tools such as Facebook and Twitter influenced the “Arab Spring” revolutions in Egypt and elsewhere has been a contentious one since the first rock was thrown in Tunisia earlier this year. But as more experts have studied the events in those countries, it has become increasingly clear that social tools and networks played a fairly critical role in helping turn what had been undercurrents of dissent into open revolt. Although they didn’t cause those revolutions to happen by any means, it’s arguable that they would never have happened — or at least would have happened in very different ways — if it wasn’t for the use of Facebook and other forms of social media.

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runt-of-the-web:

Young Love

Raising The Dead

It’s A Wall Street Miracle!

That Took An Unexpected Turn

God Is Dead, And We Have Killed Him

Why Was She Searching That In The First Place?

He Had It Coming

Original Article