Grantland has published a long apology from editor-in-chief Bill Simmons over last week’s feature on Essay Anne Vanderbilt, a.k.a. “Dr. V.” The site also ran a complementary piece by ESPN.com writer Christina Kahrl detailing the careless, serious errors of reporting, editing, and humanity in dealing with a transgender subject who did not want to be outed and who went on to kill herself. Tim Marchman broke down the situation and dropped the news that legal action may be forthcoming. Between that revelation and the fact that, well, people just don’t seem convinced that this is sufficient contrition, this story hardly seems over. For now, some advice for journalists covering stories about transgender people.
“‘Meltdowns’—which I don't call meltdowns at all, I call them ‘turn-ups.’”
MetaFilter helps decode the 20-year-old “cancer-addled ramblings” of one user’s grandmother, with pretty remarkable results.
On musical memory, and the how and why of “Hotel California” being (ugh) the world's most ubiquitous song.
From skin to snow for Shelley Jackson.
Occupy Mall Street and middle class panic—young, poor Brazilians think they have the same right to hanging out at the mall as everyone else.
Why zero tolerance makes for bad policy on prostitution.
Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman yelled after a football game on Sunday, which, judging by the reaction on Twitter, is something that only Hitlers do. Will Leitch suggested in his Sports On Earth column that Sherman—an extremely smart, engaging, highly skilled athlete—may in fact be a person worth cheering for. Greg Howard at Deadspin pointed out Sherman’s critical flaw: that “a public personality can be black, talented, or arrogant, but he can’t be any more than two of these traits at the same time.” Sherman, of course, actually has his own regular column at Sports Illustrated’s The MMQB, which he managed to file on time after Sunday night’s game despite being a me-first thug who screams on the tee-vee. “It’s sad and somewhat unbelievable to me that the world is still this way,” he wrote of the never-ending stream of racist invective thrown his way, “but it is. I can handle it.” As is to be expected, Ta-Nehisi Coates has a solution. Simply put: “There’s never been a single thing wrong with black people that the total destruction of white supremacy would not fix.”
