Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Police dashboard video showing the arrest of Sandra Bland in Prairie View, Texas released Tuesday evening includes a number of continuity issues that suggests the possibility that the video was edited before its release. The July 10 arrest video shows a confrontation escalate quickly from a traffic stop for failing to signal to a heated…
“After you see what occurred, I think you’ll agree with me, that she did not deserve [to be arrested.” Sen. Royce West said that at a press conference today, right before the dash cam video of Sandra Bland’s arrest was released by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Bland was stopped on July 10 for…
I’ve been an actress since age 13. You might be familiar with me from the TV show Neighbours, or from my current role on the CW’s Reign. But after a recent run-in with a crooked magazine editor, you might be familiar with me instead as an attention-seeking, hysterical lady human who endlessly cheapens feminism by…
Twitter campaign #TakeUsDown fights back against idea that men are oppressive A new Twitter campaign takes aim at the idea that white men are oppressive and privileged. Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who left the company in 2007, launched the campaign last week which uses the hashtag #TakeUsDown and features dozens of pictures of white men—and even babies and boys—lying face…
In a recent interview with an Australian news outlet, Emma Stone addressed the controversy surrounding her character in Cameron Crowe’s critically panned Aloha. Stone, who played an Asian-American woman in the movie, said that she became “the butt of many jokes” following the film’s release, but that Aloha taught her about the importance and history of…
Happy moon landing day! July 20, 2015 marks the 46th anniversary of Apollo 11’s arrival on the moon. The lunar lander holding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down at 4:18 PM eastern, and Armstrong became the first human in history to walk on the lunar surface at 10:56 PM. Huge amounts of aeronautical and hardware…
Selfies are, by name, if not in practice, a relatively new phenomenon. In the few short years since selfies became “a thing,” they’ve gone on to spawn (and facilitate) countless memes, jokes, and even a lucrative peripherals industry. They are a bona-fide sensation, albeit one that’s been derisively linked to narcissism and even psychopathy. But now, as selfies settle into part of the…
National Archives (United Kingdom) The official poverty line, as I wrote yesterday, is a dated and crude statistical concept that in many ways fails to capture America’s historical success at fighting economic need. It was based on the cost of food in 1963, mostly because the Department of Agriculture had some idea of what a basic grocery budget should…
Social Sharing Toolkit v2.2 Jess Zimmerman’s previous work for The Toast can be found here. I am not a big fan of psychic charlatanry, which often preys on people who are in genuine grief. So when I read about psychic fraud Priscilla Kelly Delmaro, arrested in May for second-degree grand larceny, I should have felt…
THE scene in Disney’s “Inside Out” might not have meant much to the kids in the movie audience, but for me, it was priceless: While riding on the Train of Thought, a character, Joy, tips over two cargo boxes, one labeled “facts,” the other “opinion.” The spilled pieces mingle, and she suggests that trying to…