Raw Reality | Facebook - "HER 7-WEEK-OLD SON WAS DYING IN A HOSPITAL BED. SHE WENT INTO THE BATHROOM AND FILMED A TIKTOK DANCE TO UPBEAT MUSIC. HE D!ED THE NEXT DAY.
On March 4, 2026, Lakewood, Washington police received a 911 call from 21-year-old Mark Anthony Labaco Clamor reporting that his 7-week-old son Nakoa was not breathing. The baby was rushed to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma, where doctors discovered severe brain bleeds, oxygen deprivation to the brain, and injuries described as consistent with abusive head trauma. A social worker alerted law enforcement, and natural causes were ruled out. What investigators uncovered next made the case even harder to process. Court documents revealed that before calling 911, the couple had noticed Nakoa in distress — weak, making grunting sounds, with irregular breathing. Rather than calling for help immediately, they took videos of the struggling infant and sent them to friends and family asking what they should do. Approximately an hour passed before they dialed 911. Clamor later admitted to investigators that he had handled the baby roughly, and when detectives asked Vanderbeck whether the shaking could have worsened his condition, she responded: "Like, he could have had minor shaken baby, and then it got worse cause we were so scared?" On March 8, while Nakoa lay in critical condition in his hospital room, his mother — 19-year-old Alyssa Jade Vanderbeck — went into the bathroom and filmed a TikTok video of herself dancing to upbeat music. She posted it. Nakoa M*chael Clamor d!ed on March 9. Prosecutors charged Vanderbeck with one count of second-degree m*rder. Clamor was charged with two counts of second-degree m*rder and hom*cide by ab*se. Both appeared in Pierce County Superior Court on March 12. Both cried. Bail was set at $1 million each. An officer noted the couple's demeanor was unusual given the gravity of what their child had just gone through. Nakoa was 7 weeks old. He never had a chance to be anything other than completely dependent on the two people charged with k*lling him. What goes through someone's mind that makes them think a TikTok dance is an appropriate response to their dying child? #NakoaClamor #AlyssaVanderbeck #MarkClamor #JusticeForNakoa #TrueCrime #Washington"
English 'doesn't exist' and is just badly pronounced French, linguist claims - "Bernard Cerquiglini, a linguistics professor from Lyon, points out that the English language uses thousands of words taken from French about 1,000 years ago. Ironically, many of these have since reentered the French language but in a bastardised English form – such as 'stew', 'people' and 'shopping'... Professor Cerquiglini's new book is called 'La langue anglaise n'existe pas. C'est du français mal prononcé' This translates as 'The English language does not exist. It's badly pronounced French'. 'French gave English essential vocabulary, that of law, trade, spirituality, art and government,' Professor Cerquiglini says, as reported by the Times. 'If English is a prestigious, international language today, it is thanks to French.' In his book, Professor Cerquiglini argues that French has been the 'official and common language' of England for several centuries... Professor Cerquiglini is not the only Frenchman with a dislike for English terms entering the French language. Another language professor, Jean Maillet, has labelled his countrymen as lazy for allowing an invasion of English words into the French vocabulary. For example, French people use the English word 'look' as a noun, rather than French variations like 'aspect', 'apparence', 'tenue' or 'allure'. Professor Maillet, who taught English at a Paris University, said: 'There's never been so many anglicisms in our vocabulary. 'There is as many as ten percent, and it's increasing exponentially. 'The reason is partly due to linguistic laziness, because many English words are shorter and more user-friendly than their French counterparts. 'They don't sound nice on the ear, but we use them because they have become automatic.'"
I was beaten up by Turkish police and jailed for 20 days because I 'looked gay' - "Miguel Alvaro, who is from Portugal, was on holiday alone in Istanbul on June 25 when he went out to meet a friend for lunch, and, unfamiliar with the city, asked officers for directions. To his horror, the holidaymaker said he was surrounded by up to eight officers and was immediately arrested... Mr Alvaro, who is gay, was unaware that an unsanctioned Pride parade was going on nearby, and was being met with a heavy police presence... He says he was kept in a police van for 13 hours before being taken to a police station for processing, where he described maggots in the bedsheets and other grim conditions. His hopes that he might be released soon after were quickly dashed. The ordeal did not end after his heavy-handed arrest, but continued for weeks after he was transferred to an immigration detention centre. He was driven 17 hours to the eastern border, he said, and was subjected to threats from homophobic inmates during weeks there. He claimed he was hardly given any water and barely slept as he was so fearful of being attacked. It was not until 12 July, 20 days after he was arrested, that Mr Alvaro says he was finally freed."
Time for the SF Chronicle to condemn the US for anti-gay laws (only to admit that they're talking about "anti-trans" laws)
Travellers invade school playing fields forcing furious head teacher to relocate lessons and admit it will be difficult to evict them - "Mr Wildsmith added that it was 'very difficult at this stage' for North Wales Police to evict the travellers from the land 'due to various legal processes'. Conwy County Borough Council meanwhile said it was trying to 'resolve the situation bearing in mind the relevant legislation, statutory and non-statutory guidance'."
Human rights strike again
Neanderthals fought humans in brutal global warfare for 100k years - "Finally, the stalemate broke, and the tide shifted. We don’t know why. It’s possible the invention of superior ranged weapons – bows, spear-throwers, throwing clubs – let lightly-built Homo sapiens harass the stocky Neanderthals from a distance using hit-and-run tactics. Or perhaps better hunting and gathering techniques let sapiens feed bigger tribes, creating numerical superiority in battle. Even after primitive Homo sapiens broke out of Africa 200,000 years ago, it took over 150,000 years to conquer Neanderthal lands."
Opinion | Don’t save Social Security. Better to try to achieve its goals. - The Washington Post - "Social Security sends only 7 percent of its benefits to the poorest 20 percent of senior citizens. The richest 20 percent receive 29 percent. The rationale for the disparity is that there should be some connection between how much a worker puts in and how much he takes out. But that link is pretty loose, and nearly all current retirees receive more than they paid. A middle-class worker who retires in the next decade will, on average, receive 47 percent more than the sum of what the person paid in taxes and the interest on that money. The skewed benefit structure means that even though Social Security paid out $1.6 trillion last year, around 6 percent of seniors still live in poverty. To get a sense of how perverse that is, consider another recent finding of the CBO: If everyone older than 65 were given a flat annual benefit worth 150 percent of the poverty line — that would be about $32,500 for a couple this year — the program would no longer be insolvent and senior poverty would be abolished. If we were starting over with a Social Security design, it would take into account the fact that middle-income and high-income workers have many more options for saving and investing than existed when the program began in the 1930s... People with high lifetime incomes would face a trade-off if the U.S. had a retirement system that gave them lower government-provided benefits: Their taxes would be lower and they would need to save more in 401(k)s, IRAs and the like. The CBO has modeled the effect of cutting future benefits across the board and found that people would work, save and invest more. In the long run, holding benefits to just the level that Social Security has the means to pay would make the economy 5 percent larger. That’s consistent with what happened when Congress cut some near-retirees’ benefits in 1977: The affected group did enough extra work to make up for about half of the cuts. The same thing happened when Congress gradually increased the retirement age a few years later. Speaking of which, any newly designed system would surely involve a higher retirement age, given that life expectancies have risen from 62 to 79 since Social Security began. That doesn’t mean everyone’s future benefits should be cut. A reform that shielded low earners from any cuts would presumably have a smaller but still significant pro-growth effect. We might even consider raising benefits for the lowest earners to end senior poverty. In any case, a better-designed system would take account of its effects on savings and economic growth, especially given that Americans now have longer retirements that require more savings than in the 1930s."
FIFA bans reusable water bottles at World Cup, says water can be bought on site - "FIFA is banning spectators at World Cup matches from bringing reusable water bottles into its stadiums, after initially saying it would allow them... a FIFA spokesperson said the decision was made as a safety precaution."
London 2012’s opening pomp hasn’t aged well - "Danny Boyle’s extravaganza felt quirky, irreverent and charmingly haphazard. It managed to avoid the mass rally vibes that can be a feature of such events. Beijing’s 2008 ceremony featured a group of 2,008 young men (geddit) drumming in perfect unison. We marvelled at this too but, in retrospect, those hyper-regimented drills look aggressive, militaristic – a terrifying foretaste of things to come. If Beijing 2008 serves as a reminder of Western complacency, London 2012 was the event that launched a thousand wistful think-pieces. Commentators, usually male, middle-class and of a particular centre-Left bent, love idealising the 2012 Olympics as a halcyon moment; pre-Brexit, pre-Corbyn. “Why can’t we go back to that feeling of togetherness,” they’ll ask – often the same people who did their bit for national unity in the intervening years by trying to overturn a democratic outcome they disliked. Politics was simpler for progressives then – they delighted in seeing George Osborne booed and they attacked Mitt Romney, the mild-mannered Republican nominee for that year’s presidential election, as a threat to women’s rights. (The next Republican president, Donald Trump, was then tweeting about how the Duchess of Cambridge could “make a lot of money if she did the nude sunbathing thing”). Not to go all Captain Hindsight on London 2012, but parts of the opening ceremony have aged like fine milk. Take that famous section devoted to the National Health Service (“the institution which more than any other unites our nation”, as the organisers chirpily informed us), featuring jiving nurses in retro uniforms and children in nightgowns bouncing around on luminous beds that spelt out the sacred acronym, “NHS”. Next, a group of Mary Poppins impersonators fought off the Childcatcher and other iconic fictional baddies before depositing the children safely back in their beds – the nanny-state writ large. Now the health service is in a worse state than ever, in part because our continued reverence of the institution has scuppered all hope of a mature conversation about it. Later on, a group of synchronised dancers stood together to form the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo. This hasn’t aged too well either; especially now that Russia has invaded one of the two European countries that did unilaterally discard their nuclear weapons. The other (Belarus) has become a Russian satellite state. Greenham Common was never just a bit of cuddly cosplay. Shami Chakrabarti was there too, in her pre-Corbyn days, selected by Boyle as one of the eight Olympic flag-bearers. “We salute her integrity,” chimed the voice-over. Paul Flynn, the late Labour MP, blogged of his delight at the ceremony, which he called a “Trojan Horse” smuggling “progressive socialist sentiments” into the arena. Meanwhile, Aidan Burley, a Tory MP then, sparked a national backlash for tweeting his distaste at “the most Leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen”. London 2012 demanded an obligatory jollity which anticipated the enforced collectivism we saw during the Covid-19 lockdown. What of those other icons of Britishness? JK Rowling has been shamefully traduced by a liberal-Left that once revered her. Even Shakespeare now comes with a trigger-warning. Mr Boyle’s opening ceremony was visually magnificent, reflecting a raw national confidence which I really do miss nowadays. But its message was Whig history with added Blair. The ceremony largely ignored the British experience before the reforms of the Victorian era – no coincidence there. Had they included the English Civil War, one suspects it would have leaned more Roundhead than Cavalier. The social scientist Benedict Anderson famously wrote of nationality as a series of “imagined communities”. A decade on from the London Olympics, and I wonder if the UK’s cultural elites developed something of an “imagined demos” in relation to a ceremony which entrenched in their minds the absolute perfection of their world view. Perhaps the deep nostalgia for that time stems from a sense of frustration that the bread and circuses offered to the public in 2012 were later so comprehensively rejected. Britain didn’t quite turn out to be the country they wanted it to be – and they’ve never forgiven us for it."
The Christian revival is here, and next year it will get even stronger - "According to YouGov, the proportion of British people attending church at least once a month has increased from 8 per cent in 2018 to 12 per cent in 2024. Bible sales were reported to be up 87 per cent between 2019 and 2024. While many parish priests may still wish for fuller pews at morning communion, the overall picture is that a significant number of churches in England are undergoing rejuvenation, with growing interest especially from younger people: Easter and Christmas services were overflowing."
Pupils liken A-level maths paper to a 'war crime' as thousands sign petition to have it reviewed
So much for this being a thing in Singapore only
Want to understand the difference between Britain and France? Watch reality TV - "In Britain, it is not uncommon for reality TV to shape youth slang and conversational English. The expressive word “muggy” (meaning disloyal or disrespectful), unknown before Kem Cetinay uttered it on Love Island in 2017, has become part of our national lexicon. In France, where traditionally the introduction of new words has been policed by the Académie française, the phrase “c’est dar!” (an expression of approval, derived from the English “hard” by way of verlan, a French back-slang that reverses a word’s syllables) was popularised by Eddy Guyot, a contestant on the show Secret Story in 2013. Evolution in 21st-century fashion can also be studied in forensic detail on reality TV shows, where appearance is paramount. Just as we look to Jane Austen to understand Regency fashion, historians will be able to gauge the evolution of trends through contestants’ outfits, season after season, and note beauty micro-trends that might otherwise have become lost to the ravages of time; the infamous vajazzle, for instance, is now archived for posterity in The Only Way is Essex. In more conservative France, Marguerite Music, a contestant on the talent show Star Academy, revealed that producers had insisted she shave between her eyebrows in order to conform to conventional grooming. Yet the significance of reality TV extends beyond language and style. It reveals something far deeper: what preoccupies us, and the kinds of lives we aspire to. Given the British fascination with class, it is perhaps unsurprising that British reality TV consistently focuses on the decoding of class signifiers and differences, with shows such as The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea dedicated to examining people from a very specific social milieux. Meanwhile, when it comes to reality TV, the French appear indifferent to their own class system. A 2009 TV show about the lives of wealthy families in one of the richest arrondissements of Paris, Paris 16ème, was cancelled after one season: there simply was no audience for it. In France, the genre is marked instead by a preoccupation with another hierarchy. As a nation, the French distinguish incessantly between high and low culture, with opera, theatre, classical music and highbrow cinema at the top of the tree while pop music, comedy and mainstream TV rank much lower as mere divertissement (entertainment), which may only be enjoyed ambivalently, as a guilty pleasure. Being an import, reality TV is viewed with extra suspicion in La Belle France. Could it be that reality TV has been such a widely shared form of entertainment in Britain, at times bringing the nation together, because the British are simply better at having uncomplicated fun? Whilst the format has often been credited with giving light relief here, the French way of adopting reality TV has often been to make it more serious and less playful. The cookery shows Top Chef and Le Meilleur Pâtissier (similar to Masterchef and Bake Off) are highly competitive incubators for Michelin stars rather than fun spaces of experimentation. In France, food is no joke. Whilst the British and French have both been critical of reality TV on ethical grounds, in France, philosophers have warned that the narcissism and verbal clashes it encourages in contestants are a threat to Republican values and civilised political discourse. What Britain and France now have in common is a new media landscape where reality TV stars, who use social media to become “influencers”, have emerged as a new professional class. In many ways, the records of reality TV will be as exciting to future historians as the mosaics of Pompeii. Both will offer rich and tantalising glimpses into what life must have been like for those remote, alien people – the British and French people of the twenty-first century."
The French paradox of 'sad passion' as seen from abroad - "the major English-language newspapers have almost all attempted an explanation for this self-critical tendency, which is so tenacious that they viewed it as a kind of national emblem. "The French are living off their malaise much as the British live off the royal family," wrote New York Times correspondent Roger Cohen in 2013... There lies the "French paradox" as identified by Claudia Senik, a specialist in the economics of well-being. She studied this curious aptitude for gloom in a country that ought to be predestined for happiness by the robustness of its welfare state. The specific nature of France is beyond doubt: First-generation immigrants raised in France quickly become as unhappy as native-born people, and even more so than more recent immigrants, the researcher has shown. So where does this difficulty in taking a more objective look at ourselves come from? In international rankings, France is almost always among the developed countries where the perception of well-being is worst, and this is very consistent over time. Even during the period known as les trente glorieuses ("the 30 glorious years" from 1945-1975), "there was a blissful window between 1962 and 1975, during which the French considered themselves to be happier, but still less so than in other countries," said historian Rémy Pawin, author of Histoire du bonheur en France depuis 1945 ("History of Happiness in France Since 1945"). The origin of this "sad passion," of this French misfortune that seems to weigh more heavily than others, "is a very low level of interpersonal trust"... "There is a lack of intermediary bodies in France, of strong organizations, places where societal knowledge can be expressed," said Mr. Cohen, referring to a society that is incapable of thinking horizontally. This observation was already made by Alain Peyrefitte in Le Mal français ("The French Disease"), a portrait of a French society sick of its political and administrative centralism. This absence of intermediary structures drives the French to look for something that they cannot find elsewhere in money, said Mr. Cohen. Hence a "greater dependence than elsewhere on material wealth for their own well-being." Hence, also, a "particular suffering" in the face of the issue of purchasing power, as the election campaign revealed. The extremely hierarchical character of the exercise of power, which is found in all components of French society, is the legacy of "two fundamentally vertical powers, absolutism and the Catholic Church," said Mr. Cohen. "We were not prepared for a post-industrial society where horizontal relationships are essential, for example between researchers and industrialists, senior civil servants and mayors." The result is a contradictory relationship to authority: "The French hate it, and yet it reassures us." In addition to this political heritage, there is the trauma of the Second World War, according to Yann Algan and Pierre Cahuc in La Société de défiance ("The Society of Defiance"). The French are thought to have collectively lost confidence in themselves as a result of the defeat and the dark years of collaboration. The authors describe the period of reconstruction as haunted by "the old demons of monarchism and Bonapartism from which the Third Republic had emancipated itself." They highlight the establishment of a "controlling and corporatist" state, which ignored intermediary bodies, suffocated civil society and nourished mistrust of the public sphere and the elites. Others, like the historian Lucian Boia, see more ancient roots to this French fatalism, notably in the demographic decline of peasant France in the 19th century. Mr. Pisani-Ferry said... A few years ago, the historian Robert Frank, author of La Hantise du déclin ("The Dread of Decline"), said that we appear to still find it difficult in our discourse "to find a middle way between arrogance and depression.""
Exclusive | NYPD cop says boss asked her for sex while wearing sex toy: suit - "An NYPD traffic cop says her lesbian boss repeatedly sexually harassed her – including once beckoning her into the supervisor’s office while wearing a strap on dildo, and asking to use it on her, new court papers allege. Traffic Agent Yvonne Llewellyn Campbell, 53, claims her boss, Marian Manick, “frequently” made inappropriate advances, saying “she was attracted to [Campbell] since they worked together years before,” according to a Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit from last month. Manick, 49, also said “she was attracted to Jamaican women” like Campbell, the filing claims... Rumors had spread around the unit that other agents filed complaints against Manick for sex harassment, and that she wore “dildos and other sex toys under her uniform while she is at work” and “you could see the bulge in her pants,” the suit claims. On one occasion, Manick called Campbell into her office and when the agent “opened the door and entered, she saw defendant Manick wearing a strap on dildo,” the filing alleges. “Manick indicated that she wanted to have sex with [Campbell] while using the dildo” and she asked her to stay late to do so, the court papers allege... Afterward, Manick allegedly started to retaliate, giving Campbell undesirable, stressful assignments that traffic agents “deemed punishment posts,” the suit claims. Manick also allegedly stopped allowing Campbell to sit inside agency cars to warm up or cool down on blistering hot or bitter cold days, the suit claims... Campbell, who has anxiety and depression, argues she’d been granted an accommodation from 2014 through 2020, allowing her extra time for bathroom breaks and to not be posted under elevated trains. But she said an annual accommodation request unfairly found her unfit for duty on Feb. 21, 2020, “without running a single test on” her — and despite her own doctor saying she was fit for work, the court papers say. As a result, she was forced to work inside and could no longer earn over time costing her roughly $20,000 in extra earning a year, the suit claims."
Cold Hard Truths About The Workplace I Learned The Hard Way - "1. Co-Workers Are Not Your Friends
2. Perception Is Reality
3. Open Doors Are Not Really Open
4. Couples Are Targets
5. Irreplaceable People Get Special Treatment"
How steak became manly and salads became feminine
As is usual for Americans, history started in the US at a certain time (in this case, as often, it's the late 19th century). Yet, even in the Middle Ages in Europe, men ate more meat than women
Steve McGuire on X - "A Berkeley history professor said he’s gone from assigning 100 pages of reading per week to 35. Another “said the earliest version of the…course he taught required seven full books, while his most recent iteration exclusively consisted of excerpts.” “We are now reaching a crisis point where if the number (of pages) goes down further, it’s unclear to me whether my discipline of history can really be taught,” the first one said."
John Carter on X - "The academic death spiral is something to behold. Demographics are steadily reducing the size of the student body, squeezing finances and driving bankruptcies. At the same time, standards collapse is destroying the quality of the students the universities admit. We're already at the point where it's common knowledge that a degree signals essentially nothing about intellectual ability. AI is exacerbating this, since cheating is so easy now. Kids are already starting to forgo university, since they don't think the cost of the credential is justified. That cuts even more deeply into the number of students universities can attract. Universities respond by reducing standards even further (thereby accelerating brand destruction), by reducing tuition (which cuts even more deeply into budgets), and by firing professors in low-enrollment majors (reducing program variety, especially in the small seminars that are generally the most rewarding experiences for students)."
