hell is only one tweet away

As she made the long journey from New York to South Africa, to visit family during the holidays in 2013, Justine Sacco, 30 years old and the senior director of corporate communications at IAC, began tweeting acerbic little jokes about the indignities of travel. There was one about a fellow passenger on the flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport:

“ ‘Weird German Dude: You’re in First Class. It’s 2014. Get some deodorant.’ — Inner monologue as I inhale BO. Thank God for pharmaceuticals.”

Then, during her layover at Heathrow:

“Chilly — cucumber sandwiches — bad teeth. Back in London!”

And on Dec. 20, before the final leg of her trip to Cape Town:

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

She chuckled to herself as she pressed send on this last one, then wandered around Heathrow’s international terminal for half an hour, sporadically checking her phone. No one replied, which didn’t surprise her. She had only 170 Twitter followers.

Sacco boarded the plane. It was an 11-hour flight, so she slept. When the plane landed in Cape Town and was taxiing on the runway, she turned on her phone. Right away, she got a text from someone she hadn’t spoken to since high school: “I’m so sorry to see what’s happening.” Sacco looked at it, baffled.

Then another text: “You need to call me immediately.” It was from her best friend, Hannah. Then her phone exploded with more texts and alerts. And then it rang. It was Hannah. “You’re the No. 1 worldwide trend on Twitter right now,” she said.

Sacco’s Twitter feed had become a horror show. “In light of @Justine-Sacco disgusting racist tweet, I’m donating to @care today” and “How did @JustineSacco get a PR job?! Her level of racist ignorance belongs on Fox News. #AIDS can affect anyone!” and “I’m an IAC employee and I don’t want @JustineSacco doing any communications on our behalf ever again. Ever.” And then one from her employer, IAC, the corporate owner of The Daily Beast, OKCupid and Vimeo: “This is an outrageous, offensive comment. Employee in question currently unreachable on an intl flight.” The anger soon turned to excitement: “All I want for Christmas is to see @JustineSacco’s face when her plane lands and she checks her inbox/voicemail” and “Oh man, @JustineSacco is going to have the most painful phone-turning-on moment ever when her plane lands” and “We are about to watch this @JustineSacco bitch get fired. In REAL time. Before she even KNOWS she’s getting fired.”

The furor over Sacco’s tweet had become not just an ideological crusade against her perceived bigotry but also a form of idle entertainment. Her complete ignorance of her predicament for those 11 hours lent the episode both dramatic irony and a pleasing narrative arc. As Sacco’s flight traversed the length of Africa, a hashtag began to trend worldwide: #HasJustineLandedYet. “Seriously. I just want to go home to go to bed, but everyone at the bar is SO into #HasJustineLandedYet. Can’t look away. Can’t leave” and “Right, is there no one in Cape Town going to the airport to tweet her arrival? Come on, Twitter! I’d like pictures #HasJustineLandedYet.”

A Twitter user did indeed go to the airport to tweet her arrival. He took her photograph and posted it online. “Yup,” he wrote, “@JustineSacco HAS in fact landed at Cape Town International. She’s decided to wear sunnies as a disguise.”

By the time Sacco had touched down, tens of thousands of angry tweets had been sent in response to her joke. Hannah, meanwhile, frantically deleted her friend’s tweet and her account — Sacco didn’t want to look — but it was far too late. “Sorry @JustineSacco,” wrote one Twitter user, “your tweet lives on forever.”

be careful what you do on social media...the indelible past

In October 2012 a group of adults with learning difficulties took an organised trip to Washington DC. They visited the National Mall, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Smithsonian, Arlington National Cemetery, the US Mint. At night they sang karaoke in the hotel bar. Their caregivers, Lindsey Stone and her friend Jamie, did a duet of Total Eclipse Of The Heart. “They had the greatest time on that trip,” Lindsey told me. “They thought we were fun and cool.”

Lindsey was telling me the story 18 months later. We were sitting at her kitchen table, in a seaside town on the US east coast. “I like to dance and I like to do karaoke,” Lindsey said, “but for a long time after that trip, I didn’t leave the house. During the day I’d just sit here. I didn’t want to be seen by anybody.”

“How long did that last?” I asked.

“Almost a year.”

Lindsey and Jamie had been with Life (Living Independently Forever) for a year and a half before that trip. Life was a residence for “pretty high-functioning people with learning difficulties”, Lindsey said. “Jamie had started a jewellery club, which was a hit with the girls. We’d take them to the movies. We’d take them bowling. We heard a lot from parents that we were the best thing that ever happened to that campus.”

Off-duty, she and Jamie had a running joke: taking stupid photographs, “smoking in front of a no-smoking sign or posing in front of statues, mimicking the pose. We took dumb pictures all the time. And so at Arlington [the national cemetery] we saw the Silence And Respect sign… and inspiration struck.”

Lindsey posed in front of it, pretending she was shouting and swearing – flipping the bird, and with her hand to her open mouth. “So,” Lindsey said, “thinking we were funny, Jamie posted it on Facebook and tagged me on it with my consent, because I thought it was hilarious.”

Lindsey Stone at Arlington Cemetery. Photograph: © Jamie Schuh

Nothing much happened after that. A few Facebook friends posted unenthusiastic comments. “One had served in the military and he wrote a message saying, ‘This is kind of offensive. I know you girls, but it’s tasteless.’ Another said, ‘I agree’, and another said, ‘I agree’. Then I said, ‘Whoa! It’s just us being douchebags! Forget about it!’”

After that, Jamie said to Lindsey, “Do you think we should take it down?”

“No!” Lindsey replied, “What’s the big deal? No one’s ever going to think of it again.”

Their Facebook settings were a mystery to them. Most of the privacy boxes were ticked. Some weren’t. Sometimes they’d half-notice that boxes they’d thought they’d ticked weren’t ticked.

Lindsey has been thinking about that “a lot” these past 18 months. “Facebook works best when everyone is sharing and liking. It brings their ad revenues up.”

Was there some Facebook shenanigan where things just “happen” to untick themselves? Some loophole? “I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist. I don’t know if Jamie’s mobile uploads had ever been private.”

Whatever: Jamie’s mobile uploads weren’t private. And four weeks after returning from Washington DC, they were in a restaurant, celebrating their birthdays – “We’re a week apart” – when they became aware that their phones were vibrating repeatedly. So they went online.

“Lindsey Stone hates the military and hates soldiers who have died in foreign wars”, “You should rot in hell”, “Just pure Evil”, “Spoke with an employee from Life who has told me there are veterans on the board and that she will be fired. Awaiting info on her accomplice”, “After they fire her, maybe she needs to sign up as a client. Woman needs help”, “Send the dumb feminist to prison”. There were death and rape threats.

“I wanted to scream: ‘It was just about a sign,’” Lindsey said.

By the time she went to bed that night, at 4am, a Fire Lindsey Stone Facebook page had been created. It attracted 12,000 likes. Lindsey read every comment. “I really became obsessed with reading everything about myself.”

The next day, camera crews had gathered outside her front door. Her father tried talking to them. He had a cigarette in his hand. The family dog had followed him out. As he tried to explain that Lindsey wasn’t a terrible person, he noticed the cameras move from his face down to the cigarette and the dog, as if they were a family of hillbillies.

Life was inundated with emails demanding their jobs, so Lindsey was called into work. But she wasn’t allowed inside the building. Her boss met her in the car park and told her to hand over her keys. “Literally overnight, everything I knew and loved was gone,” Lindsey said. And that’s when she fell into a depression, became an insomniac, and barely left home for a year.

That year, Lindsey scanned Craigslist for carer work, but nobody replied to her applications. She was eventually offered a job caring for children with autism. “But I’m terrified,” she said.

“That your bosses will find out?’

“Yeah.”

This was a likely scenario. The photograph was everywhere. It had become so iconic among swaths of rightwingers that one man had even turned it into patriotic wallpaper, superimposing on to the wall behind Lindsey’s shrieking face and upturned finger a picture of a military funeral, complete with a coffin draped in the American flag. Lindsey had wanted the job so much she’d been “nervous about even applying. I was conflicted on whether to say to them, ‘Just so you know, I am this Lindsey Stone.’ Because I knew it was just a mouse click away.” She left it until the moment of the interview. And then the interview was over and she found that she hadn’t mentioned it.

Now she’d been in the job four months, and she still hadn’t told them. “And obviously, you can’t ask them, ‘Have you noticed it and decided it’s not a problem?’” I said.

“Right,” Lindsey said.

“So you feel trapped in a paranoid silence?” I said.

“I love this job so much,” Lindsey said. “I love these kids. One of the parents paid me a really high compliment the other day. I’ve only been working with her son for a month and she was like, ‘The moment I met you, seeing the way you are with my son, and the way you treat people, you were meant to work in this field.’ But what if she found out? Would she feel the same way?”

Lindsey could never just be happy and relaxed. The terror was always there. “It really impacts the way you view the world. Since it happened, I haven’t tried to date anybody. How much do you let a new person into your life? Do they already know?”

coming out celebrity style

Ellen made gay OK on the networks.

Before her talk show, Ellen had her own sitcom with male love interests.

But after a few seasons, she decided to come out of the closet on the show. She announced her sexuality to a cheering, live studio audience, which was unheard of at the time. Although by 1997 there were 22 lesbian or gay characters in supporting roles, this was the first time we had ever seen a leading prime-time character come out.

well done media!!!

On the afternoon of Aug. 9, a police officer fatally shot an unarmed, black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. Details remain in dispute. Eyewitnesses have said that Brown was compliant with police and was shot while he had his hands up. Police maintain that the 18-year-old had assaulted an officer and was reaching for the officer's gun. One thing clear, however, is that Brown's death follows a disturbingly common trend of black men being killed, often while unarmed and at the hands of police officers, security guards and vigilantes.

After news of Brown's death broke, media-watchers carefully followed the narratives that news outlets began crafting about the teenager and the incident that claimed his life. Wary of the controversy surrounding the media's depiction of Trayvon Martin -- the Florida teen killed in a high-profile case that led to the acquittal of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman -- people on Twitter wondered, "If they gunned me down, which picture would they use?" Using the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, users posted side-by-side photos, demonstrating the power that news outlets wield in portraying victims based on images they select.

On Monday, Twitter user LordSWVP tweeted out a photo driving home another point: Media treatment of black victims is often harsher than it is of whites suspected of crimes, including murder.

This is by no means standard media protocol, but it happens frequently, deliberately or not. News reports often headline claims from police or other officials that appear unsympathetic or dismissive of black victims. Other times, the headlines seem to suggest that black victims are to blame for their own deaths, engaging in what critics sometimes allege is a form of character assassination. When contrasted with media portrayal of white suspects and accused murderers, the differences are more striking. News outlets often choose to run headlines that exhibit an air of disbelief at an alleged white killer's supposed actions. Sometimes, they appear to go out of their way to boost the suspect's character, carrying quotes from relatives or acquaintances that often paint even alleged murderers in a positive light.

Here are a few examples:

WHITE SUSPECT

That's how the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal chose to present the story of Amy Bishop, a former college professor who eventually pleaded guilty to killing three colleagues and wounding three others at a faculty meeting in 2010.

BLACK VICTIM

And that's the headline AL.com ran about the shooting death of a 25-year-old black man in Alabama earlier this year.

WHITE SUSPECT

This is how the Staten Island Advance covered the case of Eric Bellucci, a mentally ill New York man who allegedly killed his parents.

BLACK VICTIM

Meanwhile, NBC News ran this headline during ongoing coverage of the Trayvon Martin killing.

WHITE SUSPECT

This Fox News headline quoted friends shocked that 15-year-old Jared Michael Padgett had entered his high school heavily armed and killed a classmate, injured a teacher and took his own life.

BLACK VICTIM

But in Florida, this headline in the Ledger focused on a police account that made the death of a black 19-year-old seem somehow expected, or at least unsurprising.

WHITE SUSPECT

In the wake of the mass shooting in Santa Barbara, California, earlier this year, the Whittier Daily News offered a headline showing one man's disbelief that Elliot Rodger could have committed such a crime.

BLACK VICTIM

Earlier this month, the New York Daily News ran this headline, carrying comments by the Ohio attorney general that appeared to defend police afterkilling a black man at a Walmart.

WHITE SUSPECT

This was the headline given to an Associated Press story at Mlive.com about an Ohio teen who later pleaded guilty to a school shooting in which three students were killed and two were wounded.

BLACK VICTIM

But when an unarmed father of two was killed by a police officer while entering a vehicle that contained his own children, the Los Angeles Times served up this claim from officials.

WHITE SUSPECT

In 2008, 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger was accused of plotting to bomb his South Carolina high school. Ohio's Chronicle Telegram wanted readers to knowthat he was a straight-A student, running an AP story with this headline.

BLACK VICTIM

And according to the Omaha World-Herald, this is what you needed to know about Julius B. Vaughn, a 19-year-old gunned down in Omaha last year:

WHITE SUSPECT

Kerri Ann Heffernan was charged in 2012 in a string of bank robberies and stores. This headline at Wicked Local wonders how she'd come so far from her days as a smart high school student.

BLACK VICTIM

Of 22-year-old black man Deon Sanders' killing in Ohio earlier this year, WKBN's headline said "gang member," and that apparently was enough.

racism is everywhere

In July 2013, Ryan Carr tweeted what he thought was a "funny joke" and then probably forgot about it.

One year later, Asishpal Singh stepped in.

Ashishpal Singh @YungAshuSingh

Follow

@HardRCarr ugh I know what you mean, I get really uncomfortable whenever I see a white man walk into a movie theater or elementary school

5:00 AM - 6 Aug 2014

His comeback, posted on Tuesday, quickly went viral and for good reason: It's brilliant.

THE PINK REVOLUTION

THE Pink Dot mass picnic started out in 2009 as a small group of people from the gay community celebrating the "freedom to love", as they put it, regardless of sexual orientation.

Over the years, organisers adopted a non-confrontational approach to gay rights. Pink badges - the movement's symbol - sprouted and the event has become Singapore's biggest civil-society gathering. About 21,000 turned up last year.

2014 - a turning point, one that raises the question of whether Singapore is seeing the advent of culture wars, where issues of ideology and behaviour become polarising forces in society, as in the US.

That is because this year, religious groups have come out directly to protest against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) event. They are against homosexuality and see the mass event as undermining traditional family values.Islamic religious teacher Noor Deros has launched a "Wear White" campaign, calling for Muslims to don the colour of "purity" at mosques today, the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

And in what is possibly the first inter-faith cooperation of its kind against the LGBT issue, some Christian groups have come on board.Outspoken pastor Lawrence Khong has pledged the support of his Faith Community Baptist Church and the LoveSingapore network of churches, asking members to wear white today and tomorrow at church.

MAGDALENE: WHY DO THEY NEED TO HOLD A MASSIVE EVENT TO PROCLAIM THEIR SEXUAL PREFERENCE. I DON'T ORGANIZE A RALLY TO SAY - HEY LOOK AT ME - I AM A REBEL AND YOU MUST LEARN TO ACCEPT ME

CECELIA: GAYS ARE COOL! SOME OF THE FINEST PEOPLE I HAVE MET.

SANE THOMAS: HOMOSEXUALS WANT TO BE ACCEPTED BY SOCIETY. THEY NEED ALL THE LOVE THEY CAN GET. IT IS NOT EASY BEING THE SUBJECT OF RIDICULE AND CRITICISM. LEAVE THE JUDGING TO GOD. BE NICE.
AT THE SAME TIME, I DO NOT THINK A MEGA EVENT LIKE THIS IS NECESSARY TO GAIN ACCEPTANCE. IT IS OUR DAILY ACTIONS,OUR SINCERITY AND OUR RESILIENCE THAT WOULD HELP. JUST STAY CALM AND CARRY ON....IT IS A MATTER OF TIME THAT YOU WILL BE ONE OF US, WITH MORE PEOPLE LEARNING TO ACCEPT AND UNDERSTAND YOU.

media control and sanctions

THE Thai junta has decided to set up four panels to monitor 

various media outlets in the country, despite facing pressure 

from the West for suppressing media freedom. The United 

States, for one, has suspended security-related aid and 

cancelled high-level engagements. 

does education make people more educated?

Controversial columnist Dr Ridhuan Tee Abdullah is now perturbed by the size of the Calvary Convention Centre (CCC) in Bukit Jalil, the largest church in Southeast Asia, saying that Christians did not deserve such a big place of worship given that they only make up 10% of Malaysia's population.

The lecturer said instead, Buddhists deserved bigger temples because they accounted for 20% of the population.

"We have been too good in allowing them to build the biggest church here when they make up less than 10% of the population.

"This does not include the churches in each state, district and also those in shophouses and in Orang Asli settlements.

"To be fair, the Buddhist deserve more as they make up more than 20%," he said in his article in Sinar Harian titled “What is fair and what is not”.

The RM200 million 55,700-square-metre building which began operations in July last year, boasts a 5,000-seat auditorium, as well as a multi-purpose hall, classrooms, lecture halls, a nursery and retail stores and cafes.

According to Ridhuan, Muslims in Malaysia were so good, adding that the comfortable conditions enjoyed by the non-Muslims here did not exist in neighbouring countries.

He added that the government has given a lot of leeway to other groups to air their views to the extent it was now posing a problem.

"I remember the saying, 10% of conflicts arise from opposing views, 90% from the wrong voices.

"What is happening today is that we have given freedom to the 90% immoral voices that keep talking about their rights. In the end, we feel pressured."

The Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia lecturer also reminded Muslims not to be too trusting towards the “ultra kiasu” as they might find themselves trapped in the end.

He said there ought to be suspicion as it was the strategy of the “ultra kiasu” who hold the view that there was no 

"Ultra kiasu" is Ridhuan’s favourite euphemism for those deemed as going against the Malays.

He also called for the powers of the Bar Council to be curbed, so that it did not behave like the opposition.

He added that those leading the Bar Council were made up of “ultra kiasu lawyers” and it was only they who attended the Bar's AGM.

The Bar had urged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to withdraw his suit against online news portal Malaysiakini and its editors, saying that it set a bad precedent as Najib was, in effect, suing the media for the views and comments of the public to whom he was accountable.

Bar chairman Christopher Leong had also said public officials, especially those holding high public offices, and political parties should not resort to defamation suits as an answer to criticism or comment.

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Keeping Schools Healthy

The White House sets new limits on advertisements for unhealthy snacks and drinks in schools

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

By Denver Nicks & David Winograd for TIME, with AP reporting

Print

MANDEL NGAN—AFP/GETTY IMAGES

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama makes an announcement about new school wellness standards.

On Tuesday, the White House and the U.S. Department of Agriculture laid out new limits for promoting junk food and sugary drinks in schools. The rules ban advertisements for unhealthy foods on school grounds during the school day. The ad ban includes sugary drinks that account for more than 90 percent of unhealthy ads in school. An ad for regular Coca-Cola, for example, would be banned from a scoreboard at a high school football game. But, ads for Diet Coke and Dasani water, owned by the same company, would be allowed.

The new rules are part of the first lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign to fight childhood obesity. Her goal is to get kids to eat healthier—like the new rules that require healthier cafeteria food. The marketing limits come after new USDA regulations that put a limit on the calorie, fat, sugar, and sodium in most school food items. The healthier food rules are criticized by people who think the government should not control what kids eat and by some students who don't like the healthier foods.

“The idea here is simple—our classrooms should be healthy places,” First Lady Michelle Obama said in a statement. “Because when parents are working hard to teach their kids healthy habits at home, their work shouldn’t be undone by unhealthy messages at school.”

A Healthy Message

According to the USDA, companies are spending $149 million a year on marketing to kids in schools. But, the big industry giants like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are supporting the new rules. Many have already started to advertise their own healthier products. For schools, junk food ads like a Coca-Cola scoreboard could be taken down over time—not replaced overnight. The next time the school needed to replace its scoreboard, it would have to get one with a healthier message.

“The new standards ensure that schools remain a safe place where kids can learn and where the school environment promotes healthy choices,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak said in a statement.

The new USDA plans announced today also aim to help feed hungry kids in need. They would allow the highest-poverty schools to serve breakfast and lunch to all students for free. The White House says that will help feed about 9 million kids in 22,000 schools. The rules will help guide schools on ways to create standards for foods and physical activity. They would require parents and the community to be involved in those decisions.

Good News

Obesity rates among toddlers in the U.S. have dropped greatly over the last 10 years. According to a survey done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there has been a 43 percent decrease. The obesity rate for American children in the two to five-year-old age group dropped from 14 percent in 2003-2004 to just above 8 percent in 2011-12.

“This confirms that at least for kids, we can turn the tide and begin to reverse the obesity epidemic,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden.

The exact reasons for the drop in obesity are unknown. But, the CDC mentions less sugary drinks and better nutrition and physical education programs at day care centers as possible causes.

First Lady Michelle Obama responded to the CDC report saying she was “thrilled at the progress we’ve made over the last few years in obesity rates among our youngest Americans.”

prudish, humorless or just conservative

In 2004, complaints were made to Singapore's Media Development Authority that he and his then co-host Daniel Ong made lewd remarks on air when a teenage male listener called in for advice on how to attract a girl he liked. As a result of these complaints, Ong was suspended from on-air duties while Sheikh was asked to leave. MediaCorp Radio's 987FM was cautioned and fined S$15,000.^[9] The same year, he was arrested in a major drug bust on suspicion that he possessed cocaine.^[10] He was later cleared of all charges.

SHEIKH HAIKEL has been fired from his DJ job at MediaCorp Radio's Perfect 10.

The rapper-actor, who signed a one-year contract with the station in April this year, used to host Perfect 10's Morning Madness show with Daniel Ong. His last day on air was on Aug 6.


HE'S OUT: Sheikh Haikel (left) has been fired. Yesterday, co-host Daniel Ong (right) went on air with Vernon A instead.
He was sacked following a complaint about comments he had made on the show last month.

To a listener seeking advice on how to approach a girl he fancied, Haikel said he should ask her if she was wearing white panties.

A listener complained about this in a letter to the Straits Times Forum Page.

OnTuesday, the Media Development Authority (MDA) said the incident breached the Radio Programme Code. That was also the day he received a letter of termination from MediaCorp Radio.