“‘Manspreading’ — the act of a someone, usually a man, taking up two subway seats by spreading his legs — has rankled many train passengers for years. It became enough of an annoyance that the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York put anti-manspreading public service announcements on subway cars,” writes The Huffington Post.
Is the campaign against “manspreading” left-wing? Right-wing? Is it “anti-man?” Can women get arrested for it?
Or is it “anti-poor?”
(Updated article)
According to the New York Times, the shift on same-sex marriage has captured the headlines, but the changes on views toward marriage are much broader than one issue.
The latest Gallup social issues survey shows changing social views since 2001. They show that not just support for same-sex marriage is changing.
Approval of unwed parenthood (45 percent in 2001, 61 percent now), divorce (59 percent then, 71 percent today), and premarital sex (53 percent then, 68 percent now) are on the rise.
Also, the acceptance of polygamy has more than doubled. Support for “plural matrimony” rose from 7 percent to 16 percent during the same period.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-the-prospects-for-polygamy.html?_r=0
President Obama sent his inaugural Twitter post from the Oval Office on Monday, writes The New York Times.
The White House heralded the event with fanfare, and displayed a photograph of him perched on his desk tapping out his message on an iPhone.
The account is @POTUS — named for the in-house acronym derived from “President Of The United States.”
A White House aide wrote that it would “serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him.”
According to The New York Times, however, it took only a few minutes for Mr. Obama’s account to attract racist, hate-filled posts and replies.
“They addressed him with racial slurs and called him a monkey,” wrote the Times.
One post had an image of the president with his neck in a noose.
Racial hostility toward the nation’s first black president has long been expressed in stark terms on the Internet, where conspiracy theories thrive and prejudices find ready outlets, writes The New York Times.
“But the racist Twitter posts are different because now that Mr. Obama has his own account, the slurs are addressed directly to him, for all to see,” writes the Times.
(Updated article to add link)
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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (a Democrat) said Sunday on Meet The Press that he would not back Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign until she clarifies her message for voters, according to The Hill magazine.
De Blasio was still confident that she would make a good candidate, and referred to her as “one of the most qualified out of everyone that had announced their bid for the Presidency.”
However, Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist and supporter of Mrs. Clinton, chastised Mr. de Blasio on Twitter, writing that Mrs. Clinton fought for the middle class and poor families long before the mayor “could even articulate any vision at all,” states the Wall Street Journal.
Ms. Rosen wrote that Mr. de Blasio’s “self-aggrandizing” won’t go unnoticed. Later, she wrote she meant no disrespect to the mayor but thought he should have been more sensitive on her announcement day.
(Updated video)
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio discussed a controversial Indiana religious freedom law recently, telling reporters that it is “deeply disturbing” and “doomed to failure,” according to observer.com.
Following the lead of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mr. de Blasio also said he would ban non-essential city travel to Indiana.
“It’s a deeply disturbing reality right now in Indiana and I hope before it’s too late, they turn back,” said Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, at an unrelated press conference in Brooklyn.
He said that the law, which critics say will allow businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, will backfire on the Republican-led state.
“Absolutely, I will instruct all New York City agencies to prohibit any non-essential travel to the State of Indiana,” he continued.
“This proposal [in] Indiana really undercuts decades and decades of progress on human rights and civil rights in this country. The notion that a government would allow a version of discrimination undercuts so much of what we fought for.”
“I also know it’s doomed to failure,” he added.
More here:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-cuomo-bans-state-funded-travel-to-indiana-1427849308
Several incidents of alleged police brutality have made headlines in recent months, it seems police in New York have come up with a new way to bolster their public image.
By editing Wikipedia pages on alleged police brutality incidents, they have made them look more favorable to the officers involved.
CapitalNewYork has checked recent edits to the Wikipedia pages for Eric Garner, Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo — all of whom died at the hands of NYPD officers under controversial circumstances.
They found discrepancies and tracked them to computers at the NYPD’s headquarters at 1 Police Plaza.
The edits were made to make the circumstances surrounding the shootings more favorable to the police officers.
In the case of Eric Garner, who died last year after an officer placed him in a chokehold that was prohibited by NYPD’s own rules, CaptialNewYork found that the following changes were made:
“Garner raised both his arms in the air” was changed to “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke.”
“[P]ush Garner’s face into the sidewalk” was changed to “push Garner’s head down into the sidewalk.”
“Use of the chokehold has been prohibited” was changed to “Use of the chokehold is legal, but has been prohibited.”
The sentence, “Garner, who was considerably larger than any of the officers, continued to struggle with them,” was added to the description of the incident.
Instances of the word “chokehold” were replaced twice, once to “chokehold or headlock,” and once to “respiratory distress.
The Fire Department of the city of New York made history last week when it swore in its first female and first openly lesbian chaplain, the Reverend Ann Kansfield.
Reverend Kansfield joins Thomas Roberts to discuss it.
According to ny.curbed.com, the SHoP-designed “skinny minny” apartment building at 111 West 57th Street will have condos in the Nine-Digit Club.
According to filings obtained from the Attorney General’s office, the most expensive units in the 1,421-foot tower, developed by JDS Development Group and Property Markets Group, will ask around $100 million, writes ny.curbed.com. The preliminary price list shows that there will be homes available in the “landmarked” Steinway Hall, as well as the tower. The “landmark units” will be smaller and cheaper, starting at $1 million for a studio, while the “tower units” will start at $13 million for a three-bedroom.
(Updated tags, categories)
Several construction workers were injured when an MRI machine they were disassembling in a New Jersey animal hospital exploded on Friday morning, authorities say.
None of the 60 or so animals in the Oradell Animal Hospital in Paramus, New Jersey, were hurt during the explosion, claims NBC New York.
Charlotte, a five-month old cat, was being spayed on an operating table when the explosion occurred, said her owner Cheryl Dearborn of Northvale, NJ. To wrap Charlotte’s surgery up quickly, the veterinarians told Dearborn that they had to use staples instead of stitches. The cat was fine, Dearborn said, according to NorthJersey.com
One of the workers was taken to the hospital in critical condition with lacerations and crushing-related injuries to his body; the two others had respiratory complaints and other, mostly minor injuries, police said.
After the explosion there was a small leak of helium, which is used as a cooling agent inside of the MRI machine.
MRI explosions are rare but can be deadly, said Wlad Sobol, Ph.D., a medical physicist and professor of radiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, according to NorthJersey.com.
Sobol, who has studied MRI explosions, said that there are two potential causes.
An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine is a superconductive device, meaning it contains wire that can conduct electrical current without generating resistance, or heat, according to NorthJersey.com.
Superconductivity happens at extremely cold temperatures, made possible by bathing the wire in liquid helium.
If one of the magnets in the device is dropped or the helium runs out, superconductivity is lost, and the large amount of energy stored inside the magnet quickly encounters resistance and releases heat. This can cause an explosion.
The other possible scenario is that the ventilation system for the liquid helium becomes clogged. “The pressure will build up and the magnet will explode,” Sobol said.
“The amount of energy stored in a magnet like that is not trivial,” Sobol said, adding that it is equivalent to several kilograms of TNT — “It’s like a bomb in its ability to destroy stuff.”
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., explains to MSNBC why he decided to attend PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech after initially indicating he would not.
Mr. Rangel had previously slammed the protocol behind the invitation to the speech—a letter inviting Mr. Netanyahu supposedly included Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s name, even though she was not party to the invite, and the invite comes as Mr. Netanyahu faces re-election back home.
Was it political?
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OK, Fine. 