| “Nine Pounds of Uncooperative Flop” |
[30 Jun 2015|09:30am] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/06/mommy_and_baby_fitness_class_what_it_s_like_to_work_out_with_your_infant.html From his spot on the floor, my son looks up at me with a furrowed brow. He scans the left side of the room with suspicion. His peer Jeremy is lying a few feet away but doesn’t make any acknowledgement. They might be friends in another context, another time. In the corner, there are new additions to the class, beefy and older. They are sitting up with dark, unblinking stares. One is wearing a bandana over thin spikes of hair. The other has animal ears built into the hood of his sweatshirt. Eccentrics. In the back, several in the crowd look disoriented, a couple drunk and bloated, their handlers arranging objects of distraction within reach.
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| Hi, Pluto. It’s Me, NASA. |
[30 Jun 2015|11:13am] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2015/06/new_horizons_spacecraft_set_to_fly_by_pluto_in_two_weeks_video.html Nearly 10 years ago, NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft into space to get a closer look at Pluto. The spacecraft woke from hibernation last December and has been sending telemetry and images back to Earth ever since. On July 14, it will finally fly by Pluto, culminating a historic mission 85 years in the making.
Learn more about the mission—and the celestial bodies we’ll be seeing for the very first time—in the slick announcement video from NASA below.
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| Channing Tatum |
[30 Jun 2015|06:00pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/assessment/2015/06/magic_mike_xxl_and_channing_tatum_a_great_dancer_and_physical_actor.html “When shit’s not going your way, getting a little crazy with some random friends can help you sort out your shit.” This sage advice, dispensed in Magic Mike XXL by construction worker–turned-stripper-turned–furniture-maker Mike Lane, sounds curiously profound coming from the mouth of 35-year-old construction worker–turned–perfume salesman-turned-stripper-turned-model-turned–movie star Channing Tatum. Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to Steven Soderbergh’s 2012 summer hit Magic Mike, is the ultimate cinematic expression to date of that it’s-all-good-bro Channing Tatum ethos. Tatum’s career—which keeps getting more surprising, and more promising, with each new movie—has been built on gradually coming to embody that “random friend,” a down-to-earth, caring goofball with whom both audiences and his fellow actors can feel free to “get crazy” and play.
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| The Decline of Western Civilization |
[30 Jun 2015|08:00pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/06/penelope_spheeris_the_decline_of_western_civilization_the_finest_cinematic.html “It’s not bullshit; there’s no rock stars now,” says a youngster named Eugene at the beginning of Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization. He’s speaking of the L.A. punk scene of the early 1980s, a musical underworld whose mythic iconoclasm has long since become, well, iconic, thanks in no small part to Spheeris’ landmark debut film. The Decline of Western Civilization is the finest cinematic distillation of punk ever made, not simply as music but as ethos. Featuring performances by X, the Germs, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks, the film is frantic, caustic, electric, imbued with all the rage and love of a pogoing teen throwing punches at his friends. More than 1,000 fans showed up for the film’s L.A. premiere—after only two screenings (one at midnight and another at 2 a.m.), Police Chief Daryl Gates banned the film from the city.
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| If You See a Chance, Take It |
[30 Jun 2015|10:23pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/chris_christie_presidential_announcement_why_he_should_have_run_in_2012.html With his announcement Tuesday to a gymnasium full of supporters in the Livingston, New Jersey, high school he once attended, Chris Christie is the 14th Republican to enter the presidential race. Americans, he said Tuesday, are “filled with anxiety” that can be “swept away by strong leadership and decisiveness to lead America again.” But with 3.3 percent support, he is near the bottom of the polls. Worse, he’s hit rock bottom among New Jersey residents, with the lowest approval ratings of his career, battling a still-beating scandal over lane closures on the George Washington Bridge.
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| Is Bail Unconstitutional? |
[30 Jun 2015|11:49pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/06/is_bail_unconstitutional_our_broken_system_keeps_the_poor_in_jail_and_lets.html Anthony Cooper was going to jail because he couldn’t afford to buy his way out. After being picked up for public intoxication at a bus station in Dothan, Alabama, at about 1 a.m. on June 13, Cooper was told that unless he paid $300 in bail money, he would have to spend six days behind bars while awaiting a court hearing. If Cooper, who is illiterate and suffers from mental illness, had had the money on hand, he could have gone free on the spot. But the 56-year-old’s only source of income comes from his Social Security benefits, and he didn’t have $300. And so Cooper, like many down-on-their-luck Dothan residents before him, was locked up.
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