About that war on terror: "[W]e spend $17.2 billion in classified funds a year fighting terrorism through the intelligence community, and the Department of Homeland Security spent another $47.4 billion last year. And we have very little idea whether any of it is preventing terrorist attacks."
It's been 20 years since Nirvana's In Utero came out. If you want to feel old and young again at the same time, you can listen to Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic reflect on it—and hear Steve Albini's remixes—in this NPR interview.
Ariana Grande’s Yours Truly Is the Pizza Hut of R&B Albums
If this week’s deluge of new R&B releases were dining experiences, John Legend’s fourth album, Love in the Future, would be a sort of traditional Italian, white-table-cloth, ancient-waiter affair. Tamar Braxton’s Love and War, meanwhile, would be more like a visit to Olive Garden – its charm is in its tacky populism.…
Cow Tipping Is Fake, But the Panopticon Is Real
Modern Farmer magazine has an engaging roundup of the reasons why "cow tipping" is not and has never been an actual thing. There's the behavioral argument (cows are wary of strangers), the physics argument (knocking a cow over would require five or six people's worth of force), and the argument by veterinary analogy…
Here's a Video of a Kangaroo Fighting a Dog
This interspecies battle comes courtesy of Anthony Gill, a father and dog-caretaker living in from Australia, where kangaroos are very prevalent creatures. One afternoon, Gill's great dane Max decided to run after a small mob of roos and ended up getting slapped around by one of the aggressively defensive marsupials. …
Here Is a Picture of an Elephant Wearing a Raincoat
The shot above comes from photographer Michael Nichols' photoessay on the New York Times' Lens blog, "Documenting Elephants’ Compassion, and Their Slaughter." Nichols spent 20 years in the Central African Republic documenting the lives of elephants. Many of his photos appeared in National Geographic, and they're…
This 12-Year-Old Is a Vine Genius
Nobody on Vine amuses me more consistently than a 12-year-old girl from Birmingham, Michigan, who goes by the name Lillian Powers. She started posting her absurd, awkward-funny 6-second videos on June 11. In the time since, she has posted 95. I assume this is something of a summer-vacation project. It's been time well…
Just Some Fashionable Animals from an Alternate Universe
Miguel Vallinas, a photographer based in Madrid, created a marvelous mix of fashion photography and animal close-ups, so that all wondrous creatures of the earth can wear the trendiest attire, and they wear it so much better than you. It's like an alternate universe with swans, gazelles, deers, and donkeys looking all…
Here Is an Illustration of Donald Trump With a Dick for a Nose
Submitted by Gawker reader Steve Madonna. Thanks, Steve!
The Sharpest Photos of the Stars Ever Taken
Here are some photos of stars in the Orion nebula. They are the sharpest photos ever taken of the night sky. Ever in human history. Heck, that's something to be proud of. Take a minute out of your busy day to contemplate them. [University of Arizona]
As gun violence continues to plague Chicago, the Chicago Tribune presents its series "Chicago Under the Gun." The project, which pairs up Tribune crime reporters with photographers and videographers, offers small but heartbreaking and important slice-of-life glimpses into some of the city's shootings.
What Are These People Holding In Their Hands?
This crazy new Phil Morrison-directed Superchunk video for "Me & You & Jackie Mittoo" features comically oversized CDs or something?
In 2008, journalist Brian Beutler was shot three times in an attempted robbery in DC. Today, at Salon, he tells that story for the first time. Read it.
Cutie and the Boxer is a Tough Love Story
In one of the final scenes of Zachary Heinzerling's documentary, Cutie and the Boxer, the 80-year-old artist Ushio Shinohara looks over a book of his works entitled Love is a Roarrrr!!. He likes the final word, but says he doesn't understand why it's preceded by a comparison to love. "Who put 'love is'?" Ushio asks…
Here's a Glimpse Into America's "Scary" Ku Klux Klan Hovels
When I was a kid, my parents let me watch the great 1988 Hackman-Dafoe film Mississippi Burning at probably too young an age. For years afterward I was tormented by the thought that, like in the movie, there were Klansman somewhere who were stalking my interracial family and me and who would one day come to my house…
Meet the Racketeers Who Control Russian Ballet Applause
Ellen Barry, relocating from Moscow to Delhi for the New York Times, bids farewell to Russia with an incredible account of the claqueurs, the secretive middle-aged gang that runs the professional-applause racket at the Bolshoi:
Local Detroit News Reporter Outs Internet Troll In Hilarious Fashion
Local TV news has produced many of the classics in the "out of touch news reports about the internet" genre. (Remember Pedobear Panic?) Fox 2 Detroit's hysterical exposé of internet troll "Ebayisajoke" is another amazing specimen:
Lionel Shriver's Paragraph on the "Crack High" of Beauty Is Perfect
For New York magazine's fall fashion interview, Lionel Shriver (known for novels like We Need To Talk About Kevin and So Much for That, as well as her journalism) wrote an essay about beauty and obesity and their manifestations in literature and life. The whole of "Warning: I Will Employ the Word 'Fat'" (posted two…
This is the sound of taking pop music so seriously that it aches: Alt-bubblegum singer-songwriter Charli XCX covers the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way."
Kirsten Dunst is Winning Those Miranda July Emails
Inscrutable person who does things Miranda July announced earlier this summer that she was up to her old tricks, doing a thing yet again. This time the thing was a series of private emails from celebrities’ personal inboxes (grouped by theme), and what she was doing was forwarding them to anyone who wanted to read them
