Here are 5 important reasons to stop talking sh*t about people from the South

If I ever hear another elitist jerk use the term flyover people, I’ll punch him in the mouth.”

— John Waters, Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America

I don’t approve of threats of physical violence. Not even hyperbolic ones. But I absolutely know where John Waters is coming from. And while I don’t intend to punch anyone in the mouth, I completely understand — and share — his anger at this bullshit notion of “flyover country.”

I recently did a speaking tour of the Midwest, promoting my new book. This isn’t new for me: I’ve been doing public speaking for years, and I do it a lot in the Midwest and South. And every time I come home from one of these trips, I bring back a huge suitcase full of respect for people in the Midwest and South — and a hearty desire to say “Fuck You” to anyone who makes snotty remarks about “flyover country” or “flyover people.” Not all progressives do this, of course — but I hear it often enough that I need to say something. Here are five reasons coastal progressives need to permanently purge these phrases from their vocabulary.

1. It’s dehumanizing. Think about what the terms “flyover country” and “flyover people” mean. They say, essentially, that people on the East and West Coasts are worth engaging with — and that people in the Midwest and South are not. They say that people in the Midwest and South are time-consuming annoyances, to be flown past on your way to the important people.

This is dehumanizing. And progressives should not be dehumanizing people. Nobody should be dehumanizing people — and progressives especially are supposed to be fighting for the dignity, equality, and humanity of everyone. It is hypocritical for us to claim to be doing that, while treating hundreds of millions of people as placeholders.

2. It’s classist. One of the distinguishing features of big progressive coastal cities is that they’re often expensive. If someone lives in Columbus or Memphis instead of San Francisco or New York, there’s a reasonable chance that they’re doing it because that’s where they can afford to buy a house, put their kids through college, work for a small business or a non-profit, start a small business or a non-profit, even simply pay rent. Living in San Francisco is becoming increasingly impossible for anyone who isn’t a tech millionaire.

So dismissing people from the Midwest and South, to a great extent, means dismissing people who aren’t rolling in dough. Progressives should really not be doing that. Again — nobody should be doing that, but it’s especially hypocritical when progressives do it.

And of course, the assumption that every decent interesting person would want to live in the big coastal cities if only they could — that’s classist in its own way. Some people don’t like crowds, prefer a slower pace, care more about access to wilderness than access to foofy restaurants. I don’t happen to be one of them myself. Foofy restaurants mean a lot to me. But we need to recognize that a taste for foofy restaurants is not the marker of decency, compassion, or even progressive politics.

3. It enables the right-wing agenda of making citizens feel detached from politics and government. The disengagement with the political process is one of the greatest hurdles facing American progressives. Historically, demographics that skew liberal tend to have lower voter turnout than demographics that skew conservative (with a couple of exceptions, gender being one). If everyone in the United States who could vote, did vote, politics in this country would be radically changed. (The increased voter turnout in 2008 of young people and people of color is widely considered one of the major factors in Obama’s election.)

A lot of factors go into this, of course, including roadblocks to voter registration, voter ID laws, insufficient polling places, cutbacks on voting hours and early voting, and other forms of voter suppression. But voter disengagement, citizens’ sense that government isn’t about them and voting doesn’t make a difference, sure doesn’t help. And getting more people to the ballot box who can vote is one of the ways we can push back against the overt forms of voter suppression — thus getting even more people to vote.

But being dismissed as “flyover people” doesn’t instill folks with a burning desire to get involved in progressive politics. See 1 and 2 above. If we want more Americans to think of government as Us rather than Them, as the way a society pools its resources and makes decisions about those resources rather than as the evil cackling villains lording it over the plebes, we need to not play into the “plebes” narrative ourselves. Voter suppression and discouraging turnout is a major conservative tactic. Let’s not help them.

4. It feeds into the “red state/ blue state” myth, which is inaccurate and hurts progressives. We need to get past the myth of “blue states” and “red states.” It’s crap. When you look at voting maps weighted by population and divided by district or county rather than state, what you see is a whole lot of purple, with liberal voters concentrated in cities and conservatives voters concentrated in rural areas across the country.

This myth hurts progressives. If we’re going to change the politics in the U.S., we need to work harder for change in the blue cities of the red states, and we need to work harder to shift marginal regions from red to blue. And treating the Midwest and South as “flyover country” feeds into this myth — the myth that the Midwest and South are uniformly and hopelessly conservative, and we might as well not bother.

5. It’s just not true. In organized atheism, which is what I’m most familiar with, activists in the Midwest and South are amazing people, and they’re doing amazing work. They’re organizing secular communities, fighting right-wing religious intrusions into public schools, advocating for reproductive rights and other progressive causes, starting humanist soup kitchens, putting out voters’ guides, giving free classes in English as a new language, creating supportive places for people who have left religion. They’re speaking up at city council meetings; they’re running for public office. These folks are amazing: they’re smart, passionate, funny, imaginative, tireless. And they’re doing this work in the places where it’s most needed. Atheist communities actually tend to be stronger in more conservative and more intensely religious regions than they are in more progressive and secular cities — mostly because that’s where they’re most needed.

So if you’re a progressive who’s been talking smack about “flyover country” and “flyover people” — knock it off. If you hear other progressives do this — tell them to knock it off. Yes, there’s hostility and bigotry against coastal progressives, jabs about “the real America” which we’re supposedly not part of. It may be tempting to push back against that with our own snarky putdowns. But we should have moved past “feeling better about ourselves by putting other people down” in high school. It’s not helping. It’s self-defeating. And it’s — what’s the word I’m looking for here? — wrong.

Police open fire in room full of people at swingers costume party — despite being told ‘The Joker’ wasn’t a threat

Dale Ewins, 35, and his girlfriend Zita Sukys, 37, were shot by police while dressed as comic book characters The Joker and Harley Quinn.

Two revelers at a swingers’ costume party who were shot by police while engaged in an “intimate act” are speaking out about the ordeal for the first time, the Herald Sun reports.

Dale Ewins, 35, was dressed as comic book villain The Joker while his date, Zita Sukys, 37, was dressed as Suicide Squad character Harley Quinn when they were shot by police in Victoria, Australia in July. Ten officers dressed in tactical gear stormed the nightclub and opened fire 32 seconds later.

“They blew my leg apart,” said Ms Sukys. “I am mentally paralysed. I can’t do anything.”

Sukys was shot in her knee and thigh; Ewins was shot twice in the back. Victoria Police are claiming the shooting was “lawful self-defense.”

Martha Tsamis, the owner of the nightclub, said her security staff knew the patron had a plastic toy gun, told authorities he was not a threat and then was ignored by police.

“We are both parents. This isn’t what we expected for a night out,” Ewin explained.

Court documents say Ewins was performing oral sex on Sukys in the back corner of the nightclub, and was unaware of police presence before being shot in the back. He claims police tasered him multiple times after they shot him, handcuffed him, and stood on his hands.

“It’s alarming to learn that the people responsible for protecting the community and upholding the law will lie and hide the truth rather than accept responsibility for recklessly shooting and nearly killing two innocent people,” the couple told the Herald Sun.

Both victims are claiming ongoing impacts from their injuries and are suing the State of Victoria.

“I can’t even lift a shopping bag. We both have children and mortgages … I have no ­capacity to work,” Ewin said. “It’s taken away our quality of life.”

“My scars are horrible. I’m disgusted. When people ask how I got them, they are shocked,” Sukys said. “Before the shooting, I was a good organizer, but now I struggle with everyday tasks.”

Oxford Dictionaries Word Of The Year Is A Word Nobody Actually Uses

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2017 has been revealed and the winner is . . . "Youthquake."

Confused? You may not be the only one.

The word is defined as meaning "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions of influence of young people." It represents the awakening of millennials striving for change during a turbulent 12 months across the world.

Data collected by editors at Oxford Dictionaries revealed a huge increase in usage of the word in 2017 compared to 2016. The U.K. election called for by Prime Minister Theresa May in early June is believed to have caused a spike in usage. The U.K. saw a huge turnout of young voters hoping to make an impact as they rallied behind Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Their collective actions were dubbed by the Guardian and other publications as a "Youthquake."

The word "Youthquake" may be the winner of 2017, but is not new. It was coined in 1965 by Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, who used it to highlight changes in the fashion and music industries driven by young people.

Despite having deep political and cultural roots in 2017, the winning word was met with a wave of skepticism on social media.

"I run a charity for young people. This is not a word that I have ever heard used. Anywhere. By Anyone. #Youthquake," tweeted Ruth Ibegbuna, CEO of a youth leadership and social change organization in the U.K.

"So, 'Youthquake' is Oxford English Dictionaries word of the year. Never heard it being said, no idea what it means...must have missed the memo on this one," wrote another baffled Twitter user.

While some mocked the winning word, others pointed out that "Youthquake" was the title of a 1985 album from British pop group Dead or Alive.

So how exactly is the word of the year decided?

Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year, held each year since 2004, is a tradition that many look forward to. Winners are selected due to their "lasting potential as a word of cultural significance."

"We try to choose a word that reminds us about where we've been," said Casper Grathwohl, president of the Dictionaries Division. "Sometimes our choice is serious, other times playful." Each year, the winning word is expected to reflect the mood or ethos of the past 12 months.

"Youthquake is not an obvious choice," Grathwohl wrote in a blog post. He went on to add that the word is "yet to land firmly on American soil, but strong evidence in the U.K. calls if out as a word on the move." Oxford Dictionaries states that the political word offers a beacon of hope after a "difficult and divisive year."

Just two years ago, Oxford Dictionaries sparked controversy after selecting "pictograph" as their word of the year for the first time. Many were confused that the word of the year was not a word but an emoji - the face with tears of joy emoji, to be precise.

Other words that made this year's shortlist include: milkshake duck, white fragility, unicorn, kompromat, brokflake, newsjacking, gorpcore and antifa.

Past winners of the Word of the Year include: post-truth (2016), vape (2014) and selfie (2013).

CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.

The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

In March, for example, HHS dropped questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in two surveys of elderly people.

HHS has also removed information about LGBT Americans from its website. The department’s Administration for Children and Families, for example, archived a page that outlined federal services that are available for LGBT people and their families, including how they can adopt and receive help if they are the victims of sex trafficking.

At the CDC, the meeting about the banned words was led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency’s Office of Financial Services, according to the CDC analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly. Kelly did not say why the words are being banned, according to the analyst, and told the group that she was merely relaying the information.

Other CDC officials confirmed the existence of a list of forbidden words.It’s likely that other parts of HHS are operating under the same guidelines regarding the use of these words, the analyst said.

At the CDC, several offices have responsibility for work that uses some of these words. The National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention is working on ways to prevent HIV among transgender people and reduce health disparities. The CDC’s work on birth defects caused by the Zika virus includes research on the developing fetus.

The ban is related to the budget and supporting materials that are to be given to the CDC’s partners and to Congress, the analyst said. The president’s budget for 2019 is expected to be released in early February. The budget blueprint is generally shaped to reflect an administration’s priorities.

Federal agencies are sending in their budget proposals to the Office of Management and Budget, which has authority about what is included.

The longtime CDC analyst, whose job includes writing descriptions of the CDC’s work for the administration’s annual spending blueprint, could not recall a previous time when words were banned from budget documents because they were considered controversial.

The reaction of people in the meeting was “incredulous,” the analyst said. “It was very much, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding?’ ”

“In my experience, we’ve never had any pushback from an ideological standpoint,” the analyst said.

News of the ban on certain words hasn’t yet spread to the broader group of scientists at the CDC, but it’s likely to provoke a backlash, the analyst said. “Our subject matter experts will not lay down quietly — this hasn’t trickled down to them yet.”

The CDC has a budget of about $7 billion and more than 12,000 employees working across the nation and around the globe on everything from food and water safety, to heart disease and cancer, to infectious disease outbreak prevention. Much of the CDC’s work has strong bipartisan support.

Kelly told the analysts that “certain words” in the CDC’s budget drafts were being sent back to the agency for correction. Three words that had been flagged in these drafts were “vulnerable,” “entitlement” and “diversity.” Kelly told the group the ban on the other words had been conveyed verbally.

Feminist lawyer reportedly promised cash to Trump sexual harassment accusers

A high-profile feminist attorney promised two women they would be financially compensated for publicly accusing President Donald Trump of sexual harassment in the waning months of the 2016 presidential election.

Lisa Bloom, who represented four Trump accusers – two of whom came forward – told the women she could arrange paid media appearances and secure cash from donors in exchange for their public accusations, two of her clients told The Hill.

The California attorney told one woman, who ultimately decided against coming forward, that a donor was willing to shell out as much as $750,000 for the accusation and promised another woman a donor agreed to pay off her mortgage, according to contractual documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The Hill.

In a text exchange with one of the accusers, Bloom indicates that a pro Clinton PAC might also be willing to provide financial support.

Bloom, who has represented sexual harassment accusers as well as disgraced alleged sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein, acknowledged accepting donations on behalf of her clients in order to provide for their security and relocation, in a statement to The Hill.

“Donors reached out to my firm directly to help some of the women I represented,” Bloom said.

She further conceded her firm does take a 33 percent commission when arranging a paid media appearance on behalf of a client.

“Our standard pro bono agreement for legal services provides that if a media entity offers to compensate a client for sharing his or her story we receive a percentage of those fees,” she said. “This rarely happens. But, on occasion, a case generates media interest and sometimes (not always) a client may receive an appearance fee.”

Bloom, who represented the Bill Cosby and Bill O’Reilly accusers, established a crowdfunding campaign for former beauty contestant manager Jill Harth after the media exposed her 1997 sexual harassment lawsuit against Trump in the summer of 2016. Harth contacted Bloom to represent her in the fall after Trump publicly denied her allegations. Bloom later arranged her for a donor to pay off the mortgage on Hart’s Queens, N.Y. apartment.

“Nothing that you’ve said to me about my mortgage or the Go Fund Me that was created to help me out financially affects the facts or the veracity of my 1997 federal complaint against Donald J. Trump for sexual harassment and assault,” Hart told The Hill.

A second unnamed woman who decided not to go public with her accusation haggled with Bloom over how much money she might be able to secure from sympathetic donors, eventually reaching $750,000, according to text conversations between the two women.

At one point in their ongoing text conversation Bloom indicated she had reached out to a pro-Clinton PAC to solicit a donation.

“It’s my understanding that there is some Clinton Super Pack [sic] that could help out if we did move forward,” the woman wrote Bloom in Oct. 2016. “If we help the Clinton campaign they in turn could help or compensate us?”

The anonymous woman, who was a friend of Hart’s, told The Hill she decided to publicize her story after hearing that Bloom was representing Weinstein. Bloom discontinued her representation as the accusations against Weinstein mounted.

Both women maintain Bloom never encouraged them to publicly accuse Trump of any falsehoods.

Swedish Brothers Rape Children Over 1,000 Times. The Sentence They Get is Shocking.

Two brothers in northern Sweden in their mid-thirties have been convicted of sexually abusing five children between the ages of three and 14 over 1,000 times — and the harshest sentence they got was 14 years in prison.

The victims were apparently children who had been bullied in school or whose lives at home were difficult; the brothers plied them with drugs, alcohol and money, as testimony was given in Ångermanland District Court.

The older brother was convicted of more than 580 cases of aggravated child rape and at least 500 cases of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, The Local reported. The younger brother was found guilty of at least 500 child rapes and more than 50 cases of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor.

In Sweden, child rape is defined as sexual intercourse or equivalent acts with a person younger than 15. That definition was codified April 1, 2005. Thus, acts committed before that are described as sexual exploitation of minors. Sweden also treats each case of sexual violence as a separate incident, whether or not the victim is the same person.

The verdict stated the brothers committed their crimes between 2001 and 2009 in Trelleborg, southern Sweden, and Sollefteå in northern Sweden.

The police investigation into the monstrous acts found over 250 hours of video footage and more than 5,000 indecent images of children in their home; some of the video and photos were of the rape victims.

The Local writes:

The brothers often played video games and roleplay games together with the children, alternating the games with sexual acts. The abuse became "normalized", the court wrote in the verdict. If a child was hesitant, the older brother in some cases is said to have offered them cannabis, alcohol and money. One of the victims said he saw the older man as a role model and "hero.” He did not want to lose him as a friend and "felt bad" to say no to sex. Another, who was bullied in school and had problems at home, said he thought of his time with the brothers as "a safe haven.”

 On Friday, the older brother was sentenced to 14 years in jail; the younger brother, 12 years. The lighter sentence for the younger brother was based in part on the fact that he was younger than 21 when he committed the crimes. The brothers were ordered to pay $350,000 to the victims.

From Depression to Dementia: Foods That Improve Your Mental Health After 40

The older you get, the more you start to worry about age-associated diseases. Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia affect millions of Americans, leaving many in search of ways to prevent poor health in their 40s and beyond.

It turns out your diet could improve your mental health and slow cognitive decline — but what you should eat changes as you age. Here are the foods you should be eating to save your brain and prolong your life.

Dark chocolate

If you’ve ever eaten large quantities of chocolate to ward off emotional distress, you’ve had the right idea. Chemically, chocolate really does have the power to enhance your mood, thanks to endorphins.

But that’s not all chocolate’s good for — especially dark chocolate. Its antioxidant properties can diminish the oxidative stress that often leads to cognitive decline. Eat a small amount every day to keep your memory sharp and your brain in good condition.

Brown rice

Are grain-based foods like bread and rice really as bad for you as everyone says? Not if you’re eating pure whole grains — which are more nutritious than the varieties you usually find in breakfast cereals and white breads. These grains are good for digestion and disease prevention, even in your brain.

People who eat whole grains are healthier and less likely to die from disease than those who don’t. Brown rice is just one of many foods that, if eaten regularly, could help you live longer.

Grapes

Your mom used to remind you to eat your fruits and vegetables so you’d grow up healthy. Don’t break that habit just because you’re getting older. Fruits, especially those eaten with their skin intact, provide fiber and other vitamins and minerals essential for healthy aging.

Grapes can improve and prevent a number of chronic conditions, like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Like other fruits, their antioxidant properties can boost your mood and decrease your dementia risk.

Sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes provide a variety of vitamins and minerals that could have anti-inflammatory benefits. Eating large quantities of potatoes won’t prevent or cure the world’s deadliest diseases, but they could help prevent symptoms you don’t want your body to have to endure in older age.

Some researchers believe that inflammation and dementia could share an important connection. Reducing inflammation overall could reduce your risk for a number of diseases and keep your brain healthy.

Spinach

Adding a little spinach to your diet may be one of the best things you can do to protect your brain. If you have high blood pressure, the plant’s high potassium content could actually save you from dementia.

One type of dementia, called vascular dementia, results from inadequate blood supply to certain parts of your brain. High blood pressure actually increases your risk of this disease, especially if it isn’t well maintained for long periods of time.

Mixed nuts

People often lump nuts in with other high-calorie, high-fat snack foods and warn against consuming them regularly. However, you shouldn’t avoid them completely if you want to protect your brain.

Many nuts, high in omega-3 fatty acids, decrease your risk of developing depression. Poor mental health and dementia share a possible link, so if you’re eating to fend off the devastating brain disease, add some walnuts or cashews to your shopping list ASAP.

Tuna

Omega-3 fatty acids, also present in substantial amounts in tuna and other fish, can also slow cognitive decline as you get older. The sharper your mind, the less likely you are to succumb to certain diseases.

In addition to plenty of omega-3 fatty acids, tuna proves to be an excellent source of lean protein. Protein is an essential component of healthy aging, especially for those making it a point to exercise regularly to maintain optimal health.