Jian Ghomeshi is absolute garbage AND he choked and beat Lucy from Trailer Park Boys, who a) I adore and b) is going on the record about it:
Over the course of the Star’s investigation, women who say they were victimized said they did not feel comfortable putting their name to the allegations. Some say they feared retaliation from Ghomeshi, online harassment and a negative impact on their careers.
DeCoutere said it was time for someone to speak publicly about the matter.
She first met Ghomeshi at a barbecue at a Banff television festival in 2003. They chatted and, in time, she visited Toronto and they had dinner at a restaurant on the Danforth. She recalls him telling her how famous he was and “how lucky you are to be with me.” They went back to his house in Riverdale. DeCoutere said they began making out and then she alleges he pushed her against the wall, choked her with his hands around her neck and then slapped her three times.
Obviously, DeCoutere is in a better position to come forward than many of his victims, and we shouldn’t NEED her to come forward, but I’m so glad she did, and she’s a rockstar, and this guy is a serial predator and his hair is STUPID.
My intense fear of portraits of big-eyed kids duels with my hatred of dudes jacking the credit for women’s creativity:
This conversation apparently took place at an outdoor art exhibition in San Francisco in 1955. Walter was still an unknown artist. He wouldn’t become a phenomenon for another few years. Later that night, his memoir continues, Margaret told him: “You are the greatest lover in the world.” They married.
Margaret’s memory of their first meeting is quite different.
HATRED WINS.
This is what happens when you criticize Teach for America:
An internal media strategy memo, obtained by The Nation, confirms Chovnick’s concerns, detailing TFA’s intricate methodology for combating negative media attention, or what it calls “misinformation.” Given that TFA takes tens of millions of government dollars every year, such strategies are troubling. According to its last three years of available tax filings, Teach For America has spent nearly $3.5 million in advertising and promotion. As the strategy memo indicates, much of this promotion goes toward attacking journalists, including ones previously published in this magazine.
RIP, Galway Kinnell
This Politico investigation of the state of the ACA in Mississippi is fucking brutal:
It is difficult to untangle the state’s dismal health from its past. For African-Americans, even going to a doctor can be a fraught historical act in Mississippi. There are the practical reasons that come from being poor and uninsured, but there is also a toxic legacy: the Jim Crow laws of living memory that barred blacks from most doctors’ offices, the widespread practice of sterilizing black women as a form of birth control, a practice so common it became known as “Mississippi appendectomies.” Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Mississippians today are less likely than the rest of the country to seek primary care for chronic conditions and more likely to turn to hospitals when those ailments become more serious and expensive.
Archie was due on a Saturday. The show that night would be Jon Hamm’s first time hosting. The musical guest was Coldplay. The Friday before the show, I was in the middle of rehearsing a Mad Men parody, and I called to confirm my three P.M. appointment with Dr. G. The receptionist answered the phone crying. She told me Dr. G had passed away from a heart attack in his sleep. I burst into tears so loudly and violently that I think water was squirting out of my eyes like in a Cathy cartoon. Nothing is more horrifying than a giant pregnant lady sobbing. Everyone got very quiet. I hung up the phone and told Jon and the hair and makeup people that my doctor had just DIED. And I was DUE TOMORROW. And that I knew it seemed like a weird punch line, but my beloved and dear Italian grandpa was not going to be able to help me. I felt so terrible about the fact that all I was thinking was “What about meeeeeee!” I cried and cried in my Mad Men dress. Jon Hamm held me by the shoulders and looked at me and said, “I know this is very sad, but this is a really important show for me, so I’m going to need you to get your shit together.” This made me laugh so hard I think I peed. Going from crying to laughing that fast and hard happens maybe five times in your life and that extreme right turn is the reason why we are alive. I believe it extends our life by many years.
Short women got one reason to live: goin’ to Mars.
Couponing is for layabouts, sweeping is the new game in town:
Plus, real-life, non-sweeper friends and family members can get a bit concerned. “My parents think I’m a little crazy, because I do have a degree and I’m not really using it,” says Ambrea Kuhn, a 25-year-old in Utah. She cater-waiters part-time and is able to cobble together a living through that and sweeping. A fast typer, she manages to enter 1,500 “dailies” and 200 new contests a day, all in about two hours.
Though the internet has helped the sweeping community diversify, there remains a large contingent of sweepers who are stay-at-home mothers. For them, sweeping starts off as a way to pass time, occasionally growing into a noteworthy source of income. “When I started hardcore sweeping again in May, part of my goal was winning Christmas presents,” says Thompson. “But the other part was to show my husband that this is a viable work alternative, because my four-year-old’s going to go into kindergarten next year.”
