Company apologizes and takes 'full responsibility' after writer dubs spot 'Arguably the Most Racist Commercial in History.'
By Rob Markman
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706630/tyler-creator-racist-mountain-dew-ad-commercial.jhtml
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LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Ever wonder what makes young, pretty, "good" girls pursue careers in porn?
So did Deborah Anderson, that's why she made a documentary and fine-art photography book on the subject. "Aroused" opens in select theaters Thursday and is available for download on iTunes. The book is available on Amazon.
Many of the 16 adult-film actresses featured in "Aroused" attended the film's premiere Wednesday night at the Landmark Theatre and hung around afterward to autograph the coffee-table book.
Anderson was inspired to explore these women's stories after casting a porn star in a photo shoot for a magazine. She was struck by the woman's warm personality and her stories of harsh treatment from the public despite contributing to a widely consumed product of a billion-dollar industry.
Porn stars are not failed actresses. They enjoy their work and see off-duty sex as having nothing to do with their day jobs. All have had sexually-transmitted diseases. Most shared concern for how others view their profession and worried whether it could impede future job or romantic prospects.
Anderson said she hopes the book and film will spotlight the humanity of these women and the sensuality of their work.
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter at www.twitter.com/APSandy .
___
Online:
www.thearousedproject.com
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May 1, 2013 ? Just as people have embraced computers and smart phones, they may also give their blessing to talking tissue boxes and other smart objects, according to Penn State researchers.
"Smart objects will become more and more a part of our daily lives," said S. Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory. "We believe the next phase is that objects will start talking and interacting with humans, and our goal is to figure out the best ways for objects to communicate with humans."
As sensors and computers increasingly become smaller and cheaper, smart objects will appear in more homes and offices and not be hidden or shielded from interacting with people, according to the researchers. For example, smart refrigerators could talk or send tweets to signal when certain food items are almost out, or when expiration dates are nearing, according to the researchers.
"We regularly communicate with objects by collecting data from those objects," said Haiyan Jia, doctoral candidate in mass communications, who worked with Sundar. "But we wanted to test what happens when objects talk directly to us in a social situation."
Researchers videotaped participants as they reacted to a talking box of tissues that was on a desk in the laboratory. Once a laboratory worker sneezed, the tissue box said, "Bless You." The tissue box also responded with two follow-up messages: "Here, take a tissue" and "Take care!"
Participants from two other groups heard the same messages from either a laboratory worker or a talking tabletop robot, according to the researchers, who presented their findings at the 2013 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris today (May 1).
The participants found the talking tissue box just as human-like and as autonomous as the robot, even though robots are more human-looking and human-acting. In actuality, a research assistant operated both the robot and tissue box by broadcasting the pre-recorded statements to the devices.
Researchers invited the 63 subjects to participate under the guise that they were taking part in a cognitive games study. In addition to watching their reactions on videotape, researchers asked the participants to fill out a questionnaire about the lab environment, including questions on the smart objects.
People seem to strongly respond to the voice of the object, said Jia. Sundar and Jia also worked with Mu Wu and Eunhwa Jung, graduate students in mass communications, and Alice Shapiro, graduate student in learning and performance systems.
Sundar said that the study may also help manufacturers design smart objects. While designers tend to make robots look human, many people consider robots that are too humanlike creepy.
"This study shows that speech is a social cue," said Sundar. "It may be enough to make the objects more social and not necessarily more human-like in appearance."
At least tentatively, Jia said this shows that people will accept smart objects. However, she added that future research should investigate if people will strongly connect with these objects and if long-term exposure to smart objects as social companions may change people's attitudes toward these objects over time.
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In this photo taken on Sunday April 28, 2013, volunteer workers protest when they were told that the search would have to stop as they want to continue searching for victims believed to be alive and still trapped. When the Rana Plaza, a garment factory building collapsed, many of the first responders were neighborhood residents, fellow garment workers, relatives of the missing and charity workers, and they repeatedly took some of the most dangerous work.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
In this photo taken on Sunday April 28, 2013, volunteer workers protest when they were told that the search would have to stop as they want to continue searching for victims believed to be alive and still trapped. When the Rana Plaza, a garment factory building collapsed, many of the first responders were neighborhood residents, fellow garment workers, relatives of the missing and charity workers, and they repeatedly took some of the most dangerous work.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
FILE - In this April 29, 2013 file photo, Volunteer Saiful Islam Nasar poses in front of the rubble of a building collapse in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Nasar had no training and almost no equipment. He?s a mechanical engineer. Like Nasar, hundreds of volunteers rushed to the site of a building that collapsed last week to rescue thousands of people trapped in the rubble. They were ordinary folk - self-taught medics and neophyte rescuers. (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous, File)
In this photo taken on Saturday April 27, 2013, a volunteer worker is assisted as he experienced a sudden loss of Oxygen when trying to help with rescue work. When the Rana Plaza, a garment factory building collapsed, many of the first responders were neighborhood residents, fellow garment workers, relatives of the missing and charity workers, and they repeatedly took some of the most dangerous work.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
In this photo taken on Saturday April 27, 2013 volunteer workers help their colleagues as they were experiencing a sudden loss of Oxygen when trying to help with rescue work. When the Rana Plaza, a garment factory building collapsed, many of the first responders were neighborhood residents, fellow garment workers, relatives of the missing and charity workers, and they repeatedly took some of the most dangerous work.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
In this photo taken on Sunday April 28, 2013, volunteer workers bear with the stench from decomposing bodies as they transport them out of the disaster site. When the Rana Plaza, a garment factory building collapsed, many of the first responders were neighborhood residents, fellow garment workers, relatives of the missing and charity workers, and they repeatedly took some of the most dangerous work.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) ? The heat in the rubble was sweltering. It closed in on his body like the darkness around him, making it hard to breathe. Working by the faint glow of a flashlight, he slithered through the broken concrete and spotted a beautiful young woman, her crushed arm pinned beneath a pillar. She was dying, and the only way to get her out was to amputate.
But Saiful Islam Nasar had no training, and almost no equipment. He's a mechanical engineer who just days earlier rushed hundreds of kilometers (miles) from his hometown in southern Bangladesh when he heard the Rana Plaza factory building had collapsed and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of garment workers were trapped.
He also understood that maimed women can be cast from their homes.
"I asked her, 'Sister, are you married?' She said 'Yes.' I asked her, 'If I cut off your arm, will your husband take you again?' She said, 'My husband loves me very much.' And then I started to cut," he said.
He had brought a syringe loaded with pain-killer ? his father was a village medic, and had taught him how to give injections ? and he cut through her arm with a small surgical blade. It was easier than he expected because the arm had already been so badly damaged.
He pointed at fading specks of blood staining his vest and pants. He began to cry.
"There was no alternative," he said.
Bangladesh is well-versed in tragedy, a country where floods, ferry sinkings, fires and cyclones strike with cruel regularity. But with state services riven by dysfunction and corruption, often the only hope is the person beside you.
It is a country that makes heroes out of everyday citizens.
Many of the first responders at Rana Plaza were men like Nasar ? neighborhood residents, fellow garment workers, relatives of the missing and charity workers ? and they repeatedly took some of the most dangerous work. Using little more than hammers, hacksaws and their bare hands, they crawled into tiny holes in the wreckage, breaking through concrete and steel bars and working around the clock to drag out the victims.
They knew they were risking their lives.
Hemaet Ali, a 50-year-old construction worker who came to volunteer, told the people around him that his identity card, with his home address, was in his shirt pocket.
"If I die inside, please make sure that my body reaches my family," he told them.
Nasar came to Savar with 50 other men from the small volunteer organization he runs, Sunte Ki Pao. Normally, they assist people who have been in traffic accidents, offering basic first aid, securing valuables and contacting relatives. During seasonal floods, they help however they can when the waters rush into town. Nothing had prepared them to work the front line of their country's largest industrial accident.
"It was beyond imagination," he said Monday, six days after the collapse, when the search for survivors had given way to the search for bodies, and heavy equipment had replaced the rescuers.
Thin and lanky, the 24-year-old was well-suited for crawling through the tight tunnels he cut. At first, he had only his mobile phone to light the tiny spaces. He could see shattered chairs and tables. Sewing machines and fabric. And the battered bodies of the men and women who were crushed when the walls and ceilings came crashing down.
"I could just fit my shoulders in," he said. "I often felt like I would die and I would call out to my God."
The rescues, each of which could take many hours, were exhausting, both physically and emotionally.
"We would shout 'Is there anybody here? Please make a sound.' Sometimes you would hear an 'Oooh, oooh' and you knew someone was there," he said.
Over six days, he pulled six people out alive, and removed dozens of bodies. He would work until exhaustion set in and then attempt to sleep ? the first night on the roof of the collapsed building, the next two in a nearby field. Even now that he has moved into a tent, rest does not come easy.
"The images of the bodies flash in my mind," he said.
Eating also has been a problem.
"I have lost my taste," he explained. "I just keep smelling the smell of dead bodies."
The sickly sweet waft of rot from the building was ever present, and rescuers routinely sprayed cheap floral air freshener around the site in a futile attempt to control it.
Not all of the rescue workers at Rana Plaza were untrained. The government sent some 1,000 soldiers and firefighters to the site. But from all appearances, the majority of the rescuers who went into the rubble were volunteers. Altogether, some 2,500 people were brought out alive from the wreckage. The death toll stands at 386, but will surely climb as the largest pieces of rubble are moved.
The military, which oversaw much of the rescue efforts, dismisses the notion that they let volunteers take the lead.
"I have not heard of rescuing so many people in recent history anywhere in the world in case of such disaster," said Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, a top military officer in the Savar area. "What we have done is excellent."
But it is clear that volunteers once again carried more than their share of the country's burden.
Sayed Shohel Harman, an unpaid community volunteer for the fire department, found a survivor whose arm was pinned under a concrete slab. The man begged Harman to give him a knife so he could cut off his own arm and free himself. Harman refused, saying he would go and get help.
"The doctors said it was too risky for them to go inside," Harman said. "They told me to go back and try to drag him out."
When he returned, the man was there, but his arm was gone. Another volunteer had given the man a knife and he had cut through his own flesh and crushed bones.
"I just sat down after seeing that," Harman said. "It was horrible."
Nasar said he will soon return to his hometown, where he will comfort his worried mother and look for a new job. He was forced to resign from his to join in the rescue. But most of all, he will think of the beautiful young woman whose name he never heard and whose fate he never learned.
"I pray to Allah that she has been saved, is alive and can return to her husband."
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KABUL, Afghanistan With the combat role of U.S. troops in Afghanistan tapering off, aircraft accidents emerged as the biggest killer of U.S. troops here during the first four months of the year. Since Jan. 1, 13 service members have been killed in five crashes.
U.S. troop deaths remain at their lowest levels here in recent years. The number so far this year, 33 through Tuesday, is the lowest at this point since 2008.
After air accidents, the next biggest cause of death was improvised bombs, which claimed at least eight service members. Four died from causes unrelated to combat.
In all, 42 members of the international coalition have been killed in Afghanistan this year, including three of unknown nationalities, whose deaths in an explosion in southern Afghanistan were announced Tuesday night.
Commanders with the U.S.-led coalition say the obvious reason that casualties remain low is that Afghan security forces are doing the fighting now in most parts of the country, and they?re expected to take the lead completely in the next two months
Deaths and injuries among Afghan security forces, consequently, are reaching new highs. A Ministry of Defense spokesman would release only the number of Afghan National Army deaths from Feb. 21 through the end of March, which was 107, up from 97 for the same period the previous year. U.S. military officers say large numbers of Afghan police officers also are being killed.
Civilian casualties are up sharply, too, as are estimates of the number of insurgent attacks, which soared 47 percent in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period in 2012, according to a recent report by the Afghan NGO Safety Office, which monitors violence in Afghanistan for nongovernment aid agencies.
Civilian casualties climbed almost 30 percent, with 475 people killed and 872 injured, compared with the first quarter of 2012, according to the United Nations? senior envoy in Afghanistan, Jan Kubis. Insurgents caused most of the civilian deaths.
?Afghans in the lead? means U.S. forces aren?t exposed to risk as often as they were when Americans led much of the offensive operations in Afghanistan. Hundreds of small and medium-sized outposts have been torn down or handed to Afghan forces, and many of the 66,000 remaining U.S. troops work mainly on heavily secured bases, where they focus on advising and training with large units of the Afghan security forces rather than working with front-line units on patrols and assault operations.
Casualties from so-called green-on-blue attacks ? in which Afghan forces turn on their coalition allies ? also remain low so far this year. Such attacks caused 62 deaths last year, according to the coalition. This year, though, there have been just two incidents so far, resulting in the deaths of one British and two U.S. service members.
The drop in attacks is at least partly due to several measures the coalition put into place last fall to reduce their likelihood, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James L. Terry, the outgoing leader of the international joint command, said Tuesday in his last news conference here.
"I think we?ve come a long way in the last year in countering that threat," he said, pausing briefly to knock on the wood of his lectern. "We?re not over it, and I?m sure there will be more attempts as we look down the road."
He noted that the Taliban have threatened recently to increase their infiltration of Afghan forces to give them a chance to stage more attacks, but he said the leaders of the Afghan security forces were working diligently to reduce the chances of more.
The measures the coalition put in place include stepping up security between adjacent Afghan and coalition bases, and assigning armed "guardian angels" to stand watch when there?s interaction with Afghan security forces.
Meanwhile, such attacks have grown more common within the Afghan forces, perpetrated by those who are sympathetic to the insurgency.
There?s no particular pattern to the types of aircraft in the five crashes. They were a Black Hawk utility helicopter, an Apache attack helicopter, a small two-seat Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter, an F-16 jet fighter and a twin-engine MC-12 surveillance turboprop plane.
In each case the Taliban claimed credit, but NATO officials said all the crashes apparently were accidents. Taliban statements often prove false or wildly inflated.
On Monday, a Boeing 747 cargo plane under contract to the Department of Defense crashed on takeoff at Bagram, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, claiming the lives of seven civilian crew members. The massive jet had just refueled, and after it appeared to stall on takeoff, it fell inside the base?s security perimeter and burned fiercely. NATO officials said they weren?t aware of any insurgent activity at the time of the crash.
The Taliban claimed that one, too.
Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/30/4013520/as-combat-role-eases-aircraft.html
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UFC 159 had a run of some odd injuries. How are the fighters feeling now?
First up, Alan Belcher, whose eye gushed blood after Michael Bisping accidentally poked him. Belcher's career went on hiatus in 2010 and 2011 when he had to undergo emergency eye surgery to save his vision. The sight of a doctor checking out Belcher's vision was worrisome. Luckily, he just needed stitches on his eyelid.
I'm ok.. Just got back from e.r.8 stitches in eyelid. Disappointed. To my real supporters, I'm sorry, thank you once again.
? alan belcher(@alanbelcherufc) April 28, 2013
Here's a closer pic twitter.com/alanbelcherufc?
? alan belcher(@alanbelcherufc) April 28, 2013
Bisping beat Belcher on Saturday, but is facing some medical issues of his own. He is suffering from nerve damage that requires surgery.
"I have stenosis, which is a trapped nerve that causes atrophy and numbness in my right arm,? Bisping said on Fuel TV after his fight at UFC 159. ?It?s progressively getting worse and worse. I saw a surgeon about six weeks before this fight and they told me I needed surgery (but) there was no way I was going to pull out of this fight.?
He said that he will head home and sort everything out when he decides his next steps are.
Finally, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones' toe nearly tore off during his fight with Chael Sonnen. Doctors fixed it up, and here's his update:
Got my big toe back intact :) twitter.com/JonnyBones/sta?
? Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) April 28, 2013
Thankfully, bone is no longer sticking out of his body.
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Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now sitting in a 10-by-10-foot cell at Federal Medical Center Devens in Ayer, Mass. about 40 miles west of Boston. There, he awaits the next steps in the US government?s case against him ? first, a probable cause hearing scheduled for May 30.
Before Mr. Tsarnaev got to this point, there was debate among some lawmakers about whether Tsarnaev should be tried as an enemy combatant in a military tribunal or whether he should be tried as a civilian in the federal court system. The arguments from those who pushed for a military trial were at best misplaced. As a US citizen, Tsarnaev could not have been tried in a military tribunal. Those arguments also ignored the institutional safeguards that already exist in our federal court system to protect classified information, as well as the impressive track record of the Justice Department in prosecuting terrorism since September 11, 2001.
As the nearly 1,000 terrorism trials over the last decade indicate, the federal court system is well equipped to handle the complexities of terrorism cases. And it is well equipped to administer justice in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In fact, as global counterterrorism efforts have shifted to the legal arena across countries as diverse as Britain and Russia, Tsarnaev?s trial can show Americans the benefits of approaching terrorism as the serious international criminal threat that it is, rather than as part of the so-called global ?war on terror.?
OPINION: How to protect Americans from anti-terrorism data sharing
Europe has increasingly combated terrorism through the criminal justice system, significantly expanding laws for arresting, trying, and detaining terrorism suspects. The Tsarnaev trial may therefore help to harmonize US counterterrorism efforts with those of our closest international counterterrorism partners, while also allowing America to more effectively participate in the global counterterrorism conversation.
The US Justice Department has proven both remarkably efficient and effective at putting terrorism on trial. As research by NYU?s Law and Security Center shows, the Department of Justice has averaged about 30 terrorism indictments a year since 2001. (The exception to this statistic is from 2009-2010 when, on the heels of increased law enforcement sting operations and a renewed focus on extremists associated with the terrorist group Al-Shabaab, rates nearly doubled.)
Most of those trials have proceeded without the use of classified evidence, and over half have involved American citizens. Like Tsarnaev, 60 percent of these American defendants had no direct affiliation with a terrorist organization.
In choosing to charge Tsarnaev with using a ?weapon of mass destruction,? the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect falls under an infrequently used, but widely interpreted terrorism statute. Just 25 of all domestic terrorism cases since 2001 have involved a WMD charge. Yet the penalty has been leveled at an infamous group of confirmed and would-be terrorists, including September 11?s ?20th hijacker,? Zacarias Moussaoui, shoe bomber Richard Reid, and Najibullah Zazi, the individual who plotted to plant bombs in the New York City subway system.
Almost all terrorism trials since 2001, whether of domestic or international defendants, have also ended in convictions. In fact, with a conviction rate of nearly 90 percent, it is almost certain that if Tsarnaev?s case continues to the jury stage, he will be found guilty. That it will reach that point, however, is itself not guaranteed: Some two-thirds of all terrorism cases have ended in guilty plea agreements. While this is lower than the overall percentage of federal cases that end in plea agreements, coupled with the strong case against him, it suggests that the Tsarnaev trial may at least be very short.
The more interesting question in this case is what will become of Tsarnaev after his trial is completed, and what his story might mean for US counterterrorism efforts going forward. Much of the conversation since Tsarnaev was formally charged has questioned whether he will get the death penalty if he is convicted.
Given that America has executed just one convicted terrorist in the last two decades ? Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995 ? it is not likely. Indeed, my own research has shown that more than half of all convicted terrorists are sitting in federal prisons in the United States (at last count, there were 400 in total), serving an average sentence of at least 14 years.
Those serving time for the most egregious terrorism crimes are in for life. Among them is the ?Blind Sheikh,? Omar Abdel Rahman, who was charged with ?seditious conspiracy? after an investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
Convicted terrorists in US federal prisons have only severely restricted access to outsiders and outside information, and their activities inside prison walls are under heavy surveillance. They are also barred from significant contact with the general prison population, usually segregated from other inmates and confined to single cell blocks with single guards.
This correctional approach to extremism ? one that relies on the criminal justice system ? echoes trends across a number of other countries, including Britain, France, Italy, and Russia, and has helped the US to gain and share valuable intelligence about terrorism. Prison officers regularly report and exchange information with global partners about the activities of these inmates.
Indeed, it was such shared information ? gathered from phone calls and letters intercepted by guards ? that alerted authorities to a fatwa the ?Blind Sheikh? issued when he was first incarcerated that called on Al Qaeda to attack the US. It was also prison intelligence that linked the 2004 Madrid train bombings to a group of Al Qaeda members detained in Spanish jails after September 11. And it is prison intelligence that has in more recent years warned about the growing convergence between terrorist networks and transnational organized crime.
Moreover, both international and federal level law enforcement keeps tabs on inmates with past terrorist ties after they are released ? just as these agencies do with other types of violent criminals such as pedophiles or organized crime leaders.
The fact that probation officers with the Bureau of Prisons track formerly convicted terrorists for lengthy periods, and that they are watched closely by INTERPOL (the International Criminal Police Organization) and the FBI, appears to have been an effective deterrent to further radicalization, as these inmates have rarely re-offended. This is an important contrast to Guant?namo, where a full quarter of those who have been released from incarceration there have subsequently gone on to commit or are suspected of committing further terrorist crimes.
The outcome of the Tsarnaev trial, therefore, has broader implications for counterterrorism here at home and overseas. Until the marathon, America had arguably not had a major terrorist attack on US soil since September 11. This is a testament to the proactive, preventative work of international, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies ? work that has often gone unrecognized amid the race to assign blame for perceived failures and concerns over counterterrorism methods and resources.
The more important future challenge is how best to streamline the increased use of America's criminal justice system to counter terrorism with the efforts that have been developing simultaneously across the globe.
ANOTHER VIEW: After Boston bombings: Beware Russia-US cooperation on counter-terrorism
This coming summer, five high-profile terrorism suspects extradited from Britain will stand trial here in New York City for their role in the bombings of two US embassies in Africa in 1998 and for conspiring with individuals in Seattle to set up terrorist training camps inside the US. Together with the Tsarnaev trial, these cases should prompt a renewed look at counterterrorism efforts across the entire US criminal justice system to ensure that they are aligned with global trends, goals, and strategies.
Melanie Getreuer is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is writing a dissertation about the global use of criminal justice systems to counter terrorism. She lives and works in New York City.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/why-civilian-courts-best-terror-trials-especially-boston-162657255.html
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