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“How I Met Your Mother’s” Cristin Milioti is a win for women [20 Sep 2013|11:00pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/how_i_met_your_mothers_cristin_milioti_is_a_win_for_women/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482109 Monday's season premiere of the ninth and final season of CBS’s "How I Met Your Mother" marks the bittersweet beginning-of-the-end for what is arguably the most beloved cast of friends since, well, "Friends." Given that we, though not Ted himself, have already met the mother, this season promises to be unlike any that has come before it. (When I say we have “already” met the mother, I say this not to casually brush off the years of agony experienced by "HIMYM" super fans when, at every turn, the producers left us hanging with yet another clever cliffhanger about the mother’s identity. I myself have had many a frustrated water cooler conversation with coworkers as we begged the showrunners to just get on with it already. Worry not; I am with you on this one.) Continue Reading... post comment

BlackBerry waves the white flag [20 Sep 2013|07:42pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/blackberry_waves_the_white_flag/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483079 The BlackBerry death spiral went into extreme-plummet mode on Friday. Trading on the Toronto and New York stock markets was halted moments before the company announced that it expected to register an operating loss of almost $1 billion in the second quarter of 2012, and planned to lay off 4,500 employees, or about 36 percent of its total staff. For case studies in how the mighty have fallen, BlackBerry is exhibit A. In 2009, just four years ago, it accounted for 50 percent of the market share in smartphones. By August of 2013, that number had dropped to 3 percent. Continue Reading... post comment

Italian lawmakers stage massive kiss-in for gay rights [20 Sep 2013|08:10pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/italian_lawmakers_stage_massive_kiss_in_for_gay_rights/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483105 Dozens of Italian lawmakers this week staged a massive "kiss-in" in support of a measure to prevent anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and called for even stronger laws to protect LGBTQ rights. (Why don't cool things like this happen in the United States Congress?) The measure passed the lower house, but is expected to fail in the Senate, according to the Local: The bill was passed on Thursday by the lower house and aims to see a 1993 anti-discrimination law extended to crimes motivated by homophobia or transphobia. A total of 354 politicians voted in favour of the bill and 79 against, La Repubblica reported. The parliamentary debate was interrupted when dozens of M5S politicians stood in unison and began kissing and hugging each other. Fellow politicians from Beppe Grillo’s party held signs that called for “more rights” for gay people. While the bill has now been passed by the lower house, Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party said it would fall in the Senate vote, La Repubblica reported. MP Federica Daga tweeted a photo of the protest and said, “Equal rights and dignity without gender. Because a kiss and a hug are not scary." You can watch it happen here: h/t Towleroad Continue Reading... post comment

Our national parks won’t have clean air for another 300 years [20 Sep 2013|08:32pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/our_national_parks_wont_have_clean_air_for_another_300_years/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483119 On a clear day in Yellowstone National Park, you could theoretically see for miles. But according to EPA calculations, about 53 of the miles are obscured by haze, which, along with blocking visibility, puts ecosystems and human health at risk. At our current rate of cleaning up air pollution, the park won't be back to "natural" air quality until the year 2163. A new campaign from the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) is seeking to remind federal officials that, back in 1977, Congress passed a law promising to restore the air quality of the nation's national parks and wilderness areas. The goal they set was to eliminate human-caused haze by 2064 -- but the NPCA estimates that it will be about ten generations before that could realistically happen. This interactive infographic shows how long it will take for the most polluted parks to recover at the current pace of progress: Continue Reading... post comment

Over 22,000 gallons of oil spilled so far in Colorado’s floods [20 Sep 2013|09:14pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/over_22000_gallons_of_oil_spilled_so_far_in_colorados_floods/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483214 Damaged and toppled storage tanks are releasing oil into Colorado's floodwaters, which remain too high for meaningful cleanup to take place. The Associated Press reports that four spills uncovered today bring the spillage total up to 22,060 gallons of oil, or the equivalent of 525 barrels. According to the Wall Street Journal, state inspectors and environmental protection specialists are doing aerial surveys for oil and gas damage in flooded areas. Hundreds of wells and pipelines were shut down by their operators when the flooding first began, and infrastructure damage will likely put a halt on much of the state's drilling activity for the next few months. This isn't quite a reassurance, but authorities in Weld County, where at least four spills have occurred, say their concern over the oil is "eclipsed by much greater volumes of sewage and other contaminants washing into local waterways." The Colorado Oil and Gas Association maintains that no major oil spills have occurred, and that despite fears to the contrary, no fracking fluids have been released. Governor John Hickenlooper adds that the sheer amount of water into which the oil and other pollutants have spilled will help dilute it all. Continue Reading... post comment

Alabama to animal rescuers: Let the baby raccoons die [20 Sep 2013|09:42pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/alabama_to_animal_rescuers_let_the_baby_raccoons_die/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483298 The Alabama state conservation agency sent out a letter this month to wildlife volunteers to stop rescuing orphaned and injured raccoons. Instead, would-be do-gooders were told, the animals should be left to their fate -- or shot. Rehabbers, as they call themselves, love the creatures, which are cuddly and easy to train when they're still young. Conveniently, they release them back into the wild once they reach adolescence and are no longer so friendly. Doing so, say state officials, raises the risk of rabies and messes with the food chain. But the rehabbers allege that the animals are victims of anti-coon bias in a state that's always been friendly to hunters. According to a brief history of the state provided by The New York Times, they might have a point: Continue Reading... post comment

Doctors vacuum a 2-foot-long clot out of man’s leg [20 Sep 2013|09:56pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/doctors_vacuum_a_2_foot_long_clot_out_of_mans_leg_newscred/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482637 The human body is so weird. So we don't know how 62-year-old Todd Dunlap is feeling right now. We just can't imagine. Last month, doctors vacuumed a two-foot-long clot out of his leg veins-a first for the state of California, according to UCLA, where Dunlap was treated. Dunlap's doctors used a device, called AngioVac, that pulls blood out of veins and removes problematic materials, such as clots and tumors, according to a description from Angiodynamics, AngioVac's maker. The device then returns the cleaned blood to the body. This is the first time California doctors have ever suctioned a clot out of someone's veins. A quick literature search found individual cases of doctors using this technique in New York, Pennsylvania and Germany; in general, it seems very new. Continue Reading... post comment

Before Elliott Smith was Elliott Smith [20 Sep 2013|11:00pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/elliott_smith_partner/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483489 Chapter I 1. Come here, Dear Reader, and I will tell you a story. It’s not a happy story; it’s not an easy story to tell. And I’m going to ask of you a favor: one of the people in the story became famous while I knew him, and then he died, and what I am hoping you can do is put aside your own knowledge of this person and hear this tale from my life. 2. I walked in on the aftermath of an intervention. Elliott* had played a very short set, and I vaguely remember being startled and disappointed by it. It was the Knitting Factory, September 1997. “Friends staged an intervention in Chicago in the middle of the Either/Or tour,” said Jonathan Valania in his article “Emotional Rescue” for Magnet Magazine. The way I remember it was this: I threw open the door to the green room, the way I had done the last time he played at the club. There he was, on the grungy sofa again. But now, friends I mostly didn’t know or had only met in passing—a few of his Portland friends and newer friends from his year of dropping into and out of New York—surrounded him, leaning against the ugly brown laminate conference table and the emergency exit door. Beautiful Joanna was there, looking anguished and pissed off, arms crossed. I had no idea if she was still Elliott’s girlfriend. When I had met her the year before, she was (or seemed to be) giddily happy with him. Now Elliott got up and hugged me and explained that an intervention was underway and that he would soon be checked into a facility in Arizona. He did not seem to be suffering over the pain he had caused others. Misery was missing. From his raised eyebrows and the scornful twist in his voice, he made it clear to me that he was disappointed in his friends for staging an intervention, but he had no choice but to indulge them. It seemed to be a kind of embarrassing joke to him, almost like a practical joke. This was New York City, but he mentioned Chicago. Now I understand that the intervention had actually occurred earlier, at a friend’s house in Chicago—but the participants had agreed to let him play this Knitting Factory gig.  It’s been hard to get the facts straight. Continue Reading... post comment

Sid the Pangolin [20 Sep 2013|06:57pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/sid_the_pangolin/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482850 post comment

The pangolin is the strangest creature you didn’t know was endangered [20 Sep 2013|06:57pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/the_pangolin_is_the_strangest_creature_you_didnt_know_was_endangered/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482911 Earlier this week, Thai police detained two pickup trucks. Hidden inside were 200 live pangolins. While the fact that pangolins are even something that exists isn't exactly common knowledge, their illegal trade is a growing problem. The small, scaly mammals are heavily poached; their thriving black market trade is worth an estimated $19 billion per year. According to a report from Yale360, two of the four pangolin species in Asia are classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and two in Africa are nearing threatened status. All eight species are in dramatic decline. Continue Reading... post comment

North Carolina county reconsidering ban on “Invisible Man” [20 Sep 2013|07:00pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/north_carolina_county_reconsidering_ban_on_invisible_man/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482982 Following a national outcry over its decision to ban Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," one of the most important books on African American identity in contemporary American literature, North Carolina's Randolph County Board of Education is reconsidering. On Monday, the board members voted 5-2 to remove the book from all schools in the county after one Randleman High School parent wrote a 12-page letter claiming it was "too much for teenagers." One board member, Gary Mason, said, "I didn't find any literary value" in the book. Continue Reading... post comment

Quit hiding behind the First Amendment [20 Sep 2013|07:30pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/quit_hiding_behind_the_first_amendment/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483012 Gilberton Police Chief Mark Kessler, the "only full time member" of his small Pennsylvania town's police force, is about to join the ranks of the unemployed. Why? Well, as he and his supporters put it, it's "because elites in Washington D.C. demanded his JOB for videos depicting the Chief exercising his First & second amendment right." (sic) Ah yes, of course, that all too common problem that cruelly targets the mouthy and stupid – looks like somebody must be having his constitutional rights violated! The colorful Kessler has gained Internet fame of late thanks to his strongly worded videos regarding "libtards." Most of those words start with the letter F. Let it not be said Kessler is unclear on his opinions -- in one of the videos, he sports a t-shirt that spells out the portion of the anatomy in which liberals prefer to "take it." He also has a Twitter stream, in which he helpfully separates the "terd munchers" from the "dick bags" and jokes about shooting "a libtard out of a tree :)." The smiley is a nice touch, don't you think? Oddly enough, this kind of behavior did not endear him to his bosses. But when he was suspended in July, it was not for his word choices but for what the town claimed was "misuse of borough property." Yet as a member of Kessler's "Constitution Security Force" told the press Friday, "Mark has gotten railroaded. He was exercising his First Amendment rights by backing it up with his Second Amendment rights." Continue Reading... post comment

Sam Rockwell: “My whole career has been an afterlife” [20 Sep 2013|11:00pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/sam_rockwell_my_whole_career_has_been_an_afterlife/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482753 “That’s my dog,” says Sam Rockwell as I join him in a cluttered office at Tribeca Enterprises. Well, I knew it wasn’t my dog – and the somnolent German shepherd taking up most of the floor space between us barely gives me a glance before resettling himself to sleep. Rockwell has a reputation for playing eccentric characters who are often full of crap – “used-car salesmen,” as he puts it – but in person he’s entirely low-key and charming. I’m meeting him in New York to talk about “A Single Shot,” a gripping neo-noir mood piece from director David M. Rosenthal in which Rockwell plays a West Virginia deer hunter who makes a fatal mistake that alters the direction of his life. John Moon in “A Single Shot” isn’t the first serious role on Rockwell’s résumé, but he’s definitely better known for playing unhinged comic figures, clear back to his breakthrough performance in Tom DiCillo’s “Box of Moonlight” in 1997. Roger Ebert once described Rockwell as a younger version of Christopher Walken, but when Rockwell started talking about his passion for 1970s American cinema, it occurred to me that in that era he could’ve been a major star. Nowadays you need classic good looks and a chiseled physique to be a Hollywood leading man; compare that to the days when Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson were the biggest and most honored actors in the business. Continue Reading... post comment

“Boardwalk Empire” puts black characters front and center [20 Sep 2013|11:00pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/boardwalk_empire_puts_black_characters_front_and_center/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13483034 There's a pretty well-known episode of "Mad Men" from several years back wherein tenacious advertising executive Pete Campbell essentially discovers black people by reading an issue of Ebony magazine. His eureka was the moment when many a loyal viewer thought that show would begin integrating more developed black characters. Up until around that time, most of "Mad Men's" African-Americans were maids, housekeepers, elevator operators -- subservient wraiths, sliding quickly out of frame whenever cornered in the foreground. It was a sly and appropriate choice given the milieu in which the drama was initially set. It's unlikely that there were many black captains of industry sipping whiskey and smoking cigars with Don Draper types in the early 60s. But as the Civil Rights era encroached and it felt like the right time to open up the spectrum, the showrunners still seemed a tad too timid about fleshing out those Ebony men and women. Sure, "Mad Men" gave us Dawn, Don's doe-eyed secretary, but her goals and drive remain fuzzy and uncertain. Continue Reading... post comment

Don’t look back — the machines are gaining on you [20 Sep 2013|05:53pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/dont_look_back_the_machines_are_gaining_on_you/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482848 A new working paper from researchers at Oxford University poses an important question: "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization?" The answer? A lot. "According to our estimate, 47 percent of total US employment is in the high risk category, meaning that associated occupations are potentially automatable over some unspecified number of years, perhaps a decade or two. The authors, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, describe their study as an attempt to quantify "what recent technological progress is likely to mean for the future of employment." Advances in machine learning, they believe, including, but not limited to, improvements in pattern recognition derived from crunching "big data," will vastly increase the number of clerical and administrative support jobs that can be replaced by machines. Self-driving vehicles will eviscerate employment in the transportation industry. And so on. Continue Reading... post comment

Albino musicians aren’t a novelty act! [20 Sep 2013|06:13pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/albino_musicians_arent_a_novelty_act/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482156 Following Miley Cyrus’ disastrous performance at the VMAs, several articles have criticized her use of black women as props. She is not the first artist to “accessorize” with members of a certain group. In 2005, Margaret Cho labeled Gwen Stefani’s use of Harajuku Girls in her videos and performances as a minstrel show. Apparently neither Cyrus nor Stefani saw a problem with objectifying these women and putting their bodies on display for public consumption, or with the way their acts set up an uneven power dynamic between the more privileged person in the spotlight and the often marginalized group in the background. There is another artist perpetuating this disturbing trend. No, it’s not another blond, pop princess — it’s Sly Stone. For the millennials who don’t know about his band, Sly and the Family Stone pioneered funk music in the late 1960s and 1970s. They were hugely successful with a soul, funk, pop and psychedelia-infused sound that captivated black and white audiences alike. By the mid-1970s, drugs and infighting led to the demise of the band. Continue Reading... post comment

Transgender student fights for his right to run for homecoming king [20 Sep 2013|06:34pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/transgender_student_fights_for_his_right_to_run_for_homecoming_king/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482853 For many high school students, the election of a homecoming king and queen is little more than a popularity contest. But for Kasey Caron, a high school senior and transgender teenager, running to be homecoming king of his Pennsylvania high school has turned into a battle for LGBTQ rights. As Caron writes over at xoJane, his story actually has a pretty happy beginning. At the start of the school year, he was called in for a meeting with his guidance counselor and asked if he would prefer to be listed on the male or female ballot for the homecoming court. Having his school recognize his gender identity was an incredibly validating and empowering moment, he says. Though he hadn't considered it before, after the meeting, Caron decided that he would run for homecoming king -- and felt pretty good about his chances of winning: Continue Reading... post comment

Elites’ strange plot to take over the world [20 Sep 2013|06:53pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/elites_strange_plot_to_take_over_the_world/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482930 The idea of a country seems pretty simple. I live in America, and I’m an American. She lives in France, and she is French. The Americans have a president who is their leader, the British have a prime minister, the French have their own president, and so forth. But the way political decision-making around security issues ricochets around the world, from Western capital to Western capital, is making a mockery of commonly held conceptions of national sovereignty. In recent weeks, a British parliament vote on Syria forced the U.S. president to seek authorization from Congress, while leaked documents detailed extensive cooperation between the intelligence services of the U.S. and other nations. The president of Bolivia was forced to down his plane by Italy and France, just because he joked about having Edwards Snowden on board. And so on, and so forth. This all demands the question: Why do we hold the conception that we live in separate nation-states? Well, it turns out that this question was actually asked after World War II, and the answer American leaders came up with was ... we shouldn’t. Continue Reading... post comment

Gretchen Carlson: No pants allowed on “Fox & Friends” [20 Sep 2013|05:40pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/gretchen_carlson_no_pants_allowed_on_fox_friends/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482806 If you have never had the unpleasant task of searching for Gretchen Carlson clips on YouTube, I will save you the trouble: Before getting to her horrendous commentary, you will first have to sift through several depressing montages devoted to Carlson's "thick n'juicy thighs" and upskirt shots. It should come as no surprise, then, that the former "Fox & Friends" co-host revealed that the show (being the bastion of feminism that it is) had a "no pants" rule for women. On Fox News Radio's Thursday broadcast of "Kilmeade & Friends," Carlson proudly announced that she's wearing pants: "Guess who just walked in? If you're watching -- if you have the podcast. Gretchen Carlson's in, dressed casual, kind of. Very nice," announced Kilmeade. Continue Reading... post comment

Homeless paid to stand in line for new iPhones [20 Sep 2013|05:53pm] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/homeless_paid_to_stand_in_line_for_new_iphones/ http://www.railrode.net/?p=13482893 Well-to-do Victorian British households were known to pay small sums to have a destitute homeless person sit at their stoop -- a ward of sorts -- as a show of wealth and beneficence. Fast forward to 2013 and the bourgeoisie are still using homeless individuals for their petty whims. According to reports, homeless people have been paid by eager Apple consumers to wait in line overnight in preparation for the first sales of the new iPhone models. "Several homeless people Friday were being paid to stand in line for the release of the iPhone 5C and 5S," the AP and CBS Local reported from Los Angeles: Continue Reading... post comment

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