13 Stories That Made Your Day And Broke The Internet In 2013
Originally I put this link at the end of this post but it dawned on me that even though you can get the gist of the story here, to see the great videos you have to go to
Viral content has come a long way since kitten videos and epic fails. That isn't to say those topics aren't still staples of Internet success, but the stories that were most popular in 2013 showed that we're willing to think a little bit deeper than squee and slapstick humor. In fact, looking back at some of HuffPost's most shared stories of the past 12 months tells us a lot about ourselves and the things we love enough to tell our friends. The 13 story lines below show exactly what it took to break the Internet in 2013:
1. We loved to be reminded that our lives on social media are pretty annoying. We might as well start where most viral stories do -- on Facebook. The blog Wait But Why documented the most annoying Facebook behavior, which readers promptly passed around on the social network, likely pretending that they weren't guilty themselves. Blogger Ashley Hesseltine also got a little more specific, calling out annoying couples around the world who make their big engagement announcements on Facebook.
2. So we turned to those same networks to share our amazement at real-life talent... Our digital lives are filled with banalities, and we only rarely witness impressive feats of excellence in our real lives, which makes the Internet a great place to remind us that many humans are pretty damn good at what they do best. A capella performances were a clear standout, like this one by Florida State's AcaBelles, which capitalized on the smash-hit success of Lorde's "Royals."
While many would be deathly afraid of the procedure she was about to undergo, Cohan -- and her medical team -- danced with genuine delight as Beyonce's "Get Me Bodied" played in the room. Her display of bravery gained worldwide attention and praise. You can track Cohan's recovery here.
4. We understood that there are some people who deserve to be pointed and laughed at... When a filmmaker launched a campaign to give a figurative groin-kick to Abercrombie & Fitch, the Internet said "yes, please," giving nearly 1.3 million Facebook "likes" to our article on the push. In his video, Greg Karber explained his plan to give A&F clothes to the homeless community as a response to the company CEO's super douchey comments about their products only being meant for cool, skinny, good-looking people.
7. We received advice on living better lives. Self-help is always popular, and 2013 was no different. People got some tips on basic day-to-day living with "The Habits Of Supremely Happy People," a series of suggestions that pretty much anyone can apply to their lives. Blogger Kate Bartolotta also chipped in her own two cents on being happy in the satirically titled, "How to Get Flat Abs, Have Amazing Sex and Rule the World in 8 Easy Steps." We switched from "do" to "don't do" in "23 Things Every Woman Should Stop Doing," a story about some basic behaviors that many women find themselves doing on a daily basis, and should feel empowered to stop. And for those who simply want an articulate, philosophical reason to live life to the fullest, just check out this video from filmmaker Jason Silva.
8. And hilarious commentary on the things we put ourselves through willingly. Apparently a lot of people can commiserate with a nightmare experience at Whole Foods, which, for comedian Kelly Maclean, happened during a rather typical visit to the store. In her yuppy anecdote that struck far too close to home for many of us, Maclean made us all wonder why we continue to make regular visits to the "land of hemp milk and honey."
10. And with those little bundles of joy and noise that sometimes show up as a result. Babies are a constant source of joy, even when they're not so happy themselves. While we'll never know for sure if this baby was actually crying at her mother's singing -- it could have been gas -- we were all happy to believe that she was.
13. And because this one little girl really just didn't give a @#$%. Who needs a routine when the beat of your own drum is this badass. We could all take a some notes from this tutu-wearing tyke.
Here Huffington Post shows an adorable video --to see it here is link
LONDON (AP) — A well-known privacy advocate has given the public an unusually explicit peek into the intelligence world's tool box, pulling back the curtain on the National Security Agency's arsenal of high-tech spy gear.
Independent journalist and security expert Jacob Appelbaum on Monday told a hacker conference in Germany that the NSA could turn iPhones into eavesdropping tools and use radar wave devices to harvest electronic information from computers, even if they weren't online. Appelbaum told hundreds of computer experts gathered at Hamburg's Chaos Communications Conference that his revelations about the NSA's capabilities "are even worse than your worst nightmares."
"What I am going to show you today is wrist-slittingly depressing," he said. Even though in the past six months there have been an unprecedented level of public scrutiny of the NSA and its methods, Appelbaum's claims — supported by what appeared to be internal NSA slideshows — still caused a stir.
One of the slides described how the NSA can plant malicious software onto Apple Inc.'s iPhone, giving American intelligence agents the ability to turn the popular smartphone into a pocket-sized spy. "Apple has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products, including iPhone," the company said in a statement to AllThingsD. "Additionally, we have been unaware of this alleged NSA program targeting our products."
Another slide showcased a futuristic-sounding device described as a "portable continuous wave generator," a remote-controlled device which — when paired with tiny electronic implants — can bounce invisible waves of energy off keyboards and monitors to see what is being typed, even if the target device isn't connected to the Internet.
A third slide showcased a piece of equipment called NIGHTSTAND, which can tamper with wireless Internet connections from up to 8 miles (13 kilometers) away.
An NSA spokeswoman, Vanee Vines, said that she wasn't aware of Appelbaum's presentation, but that in general should would not comment on "alleged foreign intelligence activities."
"As we've said before, NSA's focus is on targeting the communications of valid foreign intelligence targets — not on collecting and exploiting a class of communications or services that would sweep up communications that are not of bona fide foreign intelligence interest to the U.S. government." The documents included in Appelbaum's presentation were first published by German magazine Der Spiegel on Sunday and Monday.
Appelbaum and Der Spiegel have both played an important role in the disclosures of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, but neither has clarified whether the most recent set of slides came from Snowden.
Arizona inmates saved 22-year-old female guard from jail cell attack. Rachel Harris, a rookie detention officer at Lower Buckeye Jail in Maricopa County, Ariz., was conducting a routine cell check in June when inmate Bobby Ruiz allegedly jumped on her back and bit off a piece of her ear, Fox 10 reported.
According to Harris and jail surveillance video, inmates rushed upstairs to aid Harris, peeling Ruiz off the 22-year-old guard. Inmates Ricky Shillingford and Andrew Davis were the first to come to Harris’ aid.
"He had her in a chokehold, I saw the blood was coming from her ears," Shillingford, who broke his hand in the scuffle, told Fox 10.
"I seen her on the floor, crunched over, hunched over. I snatched him off of her, and then he took a swing at me and went back toward her," Davis said.
Harris told Fox 10 that she knew the inmates were there to help her. After the attack, her ear wrapped in gauze, Harris thanked the inmates who rescued her.
"I just want to say thank you to those of you who did help me. I really don't know if I would have came out with anything more if you guys didn't help me, so thank you," Harris said.
"Right is right and wrong is wrong," Davis told Fox 10. "We make mistakes to get in here. But hey, if you can correct your mistakes, why not?"
Washington state inmates rescued three three boys from drowning in Salmon Creek.
KPTV - FOX 12 When three brothers fell into the cold water of Salmon Creek in southwest Washington in January, three inmates from Larch Corrections Center conducting supervised maintenance at a nearby park jumped into the water to save them.
"Just 'cause we're incarcerated doesn't mean we're bad people," 28-year-old Jon Fowler, one of the inmates, told KPTV. "We made some bad choices in our lives, but we're still, we're just like everybody else. We're just paying our debt for what we did wrong."
The boys, ages 8, 10 and 16, fell into the 45-degree water after their canoe capsized. As soon as the inmates spotted the boys in the water beside their overturned canoe, the three men dived into the creek and fished out the boys one by one.
“I don’t think I was thinking at all,” 37-year-old Nelson Pettis, another inmate involved in the rescue, told The Columbian.
The third inmate, 29-year-old Larry Bohn, made numerous trips into the water, rescuing the oldest boy before diving back in to help Pettis with the others. Once the boys were on dry ground, both Pettis and Bohn wrapped their shirts around them to keep them warm until the rescue crews arrived. “He looked real bad,” Bohn told The Columbian referring to the 8-year-old. “They were saying, 'thank you' repeatedly. They just seemed really scared.”
Along with the three brothers, two of the inmates were taken to a nearby hospital for mild hypothermia, according to Chief Jerry Green of Clark County Fire District 6.
"I think we did something that any good person would do," Fowler told KPTV. You see three helpless kids in a river, you help. That's what you do."
Exonerated prisoners started nonprofit detective agency to free other innocent inmates. After serving almost 13 years of a Texas life sentence, Christopher Scott was exonerated of murder after another suspect in the case confessed to the crime in 2009.
In an April interview with WUNC-FM at the Innocence Network Conference in Charlotte, N.C., Scott reflected on his battle to prove his innocence.
“I think it’s the first time I actually cried, when [my lawyer] told me I had a million-to-one chance to make it," Scott said. "I went back to him the next day and I told him, ‘You gave me a million-to-one chance to make it. I’m gonna be that one out of the million.”
While Scott’s case hinged on mistaken identity, others have been cleared by DNA analysis years after they were convicted.
Scott, now owner of his own men’s apparel store, Christopher’s Men’s Wear, has united with dozens of other exonerated former prisoners in Dallas County to launch the House of Renewed Hope, a nonprofit amateur detective agency that helps free wrongfully convicted inmates. The House of Renewed Hope also lobbies Texas legislators for greater compensation for ex-inmates who have been exonerated and increased access to public services, including health care.
Tech-savvy Oklahoma inmates developed computer software that may save their state millions. A handful of tech-savvy inmates at the Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington, Okla., got together to create data-collection software that three state lawmakers said may save Oklahoma millions of dollars a year, according to The Oklahoman.
The program, which has been in place for the past two years, was initially developed to prevent prisoners from receiving multiple meals per dining session. Data collected by the system also showed that the food vendor, Sysco, was charging varying amounts for the same product at different facilities, which quickly became a point of concern for state lawmakers, The Oklahoman reports.
If the software was implemented in correctional facilities statewide, the program could save the state almost $20 million every year, Bobby Cleveland, an Oklahoma state representative and chairman of the state House Public Safety Committee, told The Washington Post in October.
“It’s a pretty neat program," Cleveland told the Post.
"It’s all done by the direction of the supervisor, one of these guys who’s kind of, what do you call it, thinking outside the box.”
Two of the three inmates, whose names were withheld by Oklahoma Corrections Department spokesman Jerry Massie and state lawmakers, are serving time for murder and sexual offenses, according to The Oklahoman.
Washington state prison inmates prepared rescue cats for adoption.
14 News, WFIE, Evansville, Henderson, Owensboro The Silver Star Unit at Larch Corrections Center in Washington state offers qualified inmates one of two cat adoption programs in the Washington State Department of Corrections, 14 WFIE reports. As of February, the inmate adoption program, coordinated with the West Columbia Gorge Humane Society, has hosted five cats, allowing inmates to feed, care for and socialize maladapted felines until they are ready for adoption.
To qualify for the program, inmates must undergo an interview with prison staff, maintain a positive behavioral record with the Department of Corrections and have no violent crimes or animal abuse in their history.
One inmate at Larch Correction Center, Jerry Warfield, spoke to 14 WFIE about Jinx, a skittish cat previously living with hoarders.
"In a situation like this, normally, typically you don't have a lot of responsibility, so when you go back to the community, you're not used to the responsibility, so it kind of overwhelms you," Warfield told 14 WFIE. "This, it kind of keeps you on track, gives you a sense of responsibility. It helps build you and prepare you for your release. “And of course they love you back and it’s always good to feel love. … They don’t judge ya,” Warfield added. Paws in Prison program: Prisoners saved shelter dogs from death row. In an effort to make dogs more adoptable and provide rehabilitation skills to inmates, nationwide programs like Arkansas’ “Paws in Prison” pair incarcerated individuals with dogs that would otherwise be euthanized because of unmanageable or dangerous behavioral issues. The training program tasks qualified prisoners with socializing rescue dogs from shelters and teaching them basic obedience skills in preparation of adoption.
“I’ve been looking for ways to just -- even if it’s small -- to give back to society in some way,” James Dulaney, a Tucker Correctional Facility inmate and Paws for Prison participant in Arkansas, told The Associated Press in June. Dulaney is serving life for murder.
“The dogs have a remarkable impact on offenders, improving offender behavior and giving offenders incentive to maintain excellent conduct records,” George A. Lombardi, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, told the AP.
All-prisoner fire crews in California helped battle the raging Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park.
Of the nearly 4,000 firefighters dispatched to battle one of the largest wildfires in California history, 673 were male and female state prison inmates.
California's voluntary Conservation Camps program, begun by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, allows inmates to serve their communities while providing cooperative agencies with an additional trained workforce for emergencies, including fires, floods and earthquakes.
"They are in the thick of it," Capt. Jorge Santana of the corrections department told NBC. "They work 24-hour shifts. They sleep in tents at base camp. They work side-by-side with other firefighters." Inmates must undergo intensive two-week physical training in addition to two weeks of fire safety and suppression techniques training.
"A lot of people think you pull that fire engine up and just pull a hose out and fight fire," Cal Fire Capt. Mike Mohler told National Geographic. "We're talking inmates who hike miles and miles just to get where they're going to start, and then cut line all through the day."
Qualified inmates, who are meticulously screened, medically cleared and must have no history of violent crimes, earn $1.45 to $3.90 per day for projects ranging from fire breaks to flood protection, according to the California Conservation Camps website.
“Our inmate firefighters are vital to our fire protection system here in California,” Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire spokesman, told Time magazine.
The California Conservation Program saves state taxpayers an average of $80 million annually and helps inmates return to society when their sentences end.
“A lot of these guys come in and have never held a job, never had any self-worth,” Correctional Lt. L.A. von Savoye, public information officer at the Sierra Conservation Center, told Time. “Within a very short time their mentality changes. They take pride in what they’re doing. They’re giving back to their communities. It gives them purpose.”
There are currently 42 adult and two juvenile Conservation Camps in California, with nearly 4,000 inmate participants.
Inmates grew new lives through prison gardens program. Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames.
Prisoners have been growing vegetables, fruits and flowers in prison yards across the country, helping them gain vocational landscaping skills and a peaceful outlet for frustrations. “We believe that everybody has a heart and everybody has a chance for transformation,” Beth Waitkus, director of the Insight Garden Program at California's San Quentin state prison, told ABC. A 46-year-old career criminal named Bernard has been an active member of Willard Cybulski Correctional Institution’s gardening efforts in Enfield, Conn., according to ABC News. “I get a sense of peace and a sense of serenity being that I’m in a hostile environment at times and then coming out here to pick these vegetables. It brings calmness to me,” Bernard, who, like other inmates interviewed by ABC, didn't give his last name.
Dennis, a San Quentin inmate serving 22 years for burglary, told ABC the program has had shocking effects on him, including reduced aggression.
“I’m sitting next to this guy that I would have been fighting on some other yard. It really amazed me that I could actually prune plants and dig in soil,” the budding expert on soil composition told ABC. “It really touched me.”
In Connecticut, all 18 state prisons have garden programs, none of which cost taxpayers a dime. In 2012, the state’s prisons yielded more than 35,000 pounds of produce for prisoners, which saved Connecticut taxpayers $20,000 in prison costs. Surplus food from prison garden programs is donated to charities.
“We give 25 percent of what we pick back to the community and that’s the most fulfilling thing, that I’m helping someone,” Bernard told ABC. “Because in my life, I have taken in trouble. So, to me, it’s almost like paying back a debt to be able to pick something and be able to give back to others.” “I’ve been in and out since I’ve been 15, and this is the first time I’ve done something like this,” Rasheed, another San Quentin inmate, told ABC. “I can connect spiritually with something as simple as garden. … To me that was different.”
According to Connecticut's 2011 Annual Recidivism Report, recidivism of state convicts after their release from prison approaches 60 percent. But San Quentin garden prisoners see a recidivism rate of less than 10 percent, and none of Connecticut’s garden graduates have returned to jail since their release, Waitkus told ABC.
The Last Mile prison program has been transforming inmates into tech-savvy entrepreneurs. In 1995, Chrisfino Kenyatta Leal was convicted of possessing a firearm after two previous armed robbery convictions. Under California’s three strikes law, he was given a prison sentence of 25 years to life. Nineteen years later, California Prop 36 allowed him to qualify for resentencing. Leal was released from prison in July, according to Business Insider.
While imprisoned, Leal was one of dozens of inmates enrolled in The Last Mile, an entrepreneurship program that provides qualified inmates with the technological skills they need to get jobs upon release. To qualify, inmates must apply, provide peer recommendations and undergo administrator review. The six-month program, founded by Silicon Valley investors Chris Redlitz and wife Beverly Parenti, includes twice-weekly training sessions on social media, which covers the basics of Twitter, blogging and Quora, a question-and-answer website that has allowed inmates to enter the world of social media through volunteer intermediaries.
"Before The Last Mile, I was going to be an electrician" if paroled, Leal told Business Insider. "But when the program came along, I realized there's a whole world out there I wasn't aware of. When I was incarcerated, the Internet was just starting to take off, so I didn't really get too much of an understanding for it. Once I started taking classes through The Last Mile sessions, all of those questions were answered."
Upon his release in June, Leal became a full-time intern at tech company RocketSpace. After four months, he was hired as a full-time operations associate, Business Insider reports. Since The Last Mile’s 2011 launch, six program alumni have been released from prison and have secured employment. Currently, 30 inmates are enrolled in The Last Mile, according to Business Insider.
Vermont inmates helped families of fallen war heroes.
WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports- Harley Time, an eight-month class offered through the Vermont Department of Corrections, teaches inmates vocational auto mechanic skills, including how to strip, restore and customize motorcycles. Each year, the inmates at St. Alban’s Correctional Facility in Vermont donate their completed projects to charities as fundraisers.
"I'm an auto body technician by trade, so I can take that to the table in here and share that particular skill with them," inmate and program mentor Mark King told WCAX. In May, St. Alban’s Harley Time participants chose to donate two Harley-Davidson motorcycles to Vermont Fallen Families, which supports people who have lost loved ones in battle. Marion Gray, the Vermont Fallen Families president, lost a son in 2004 to the Iraq war and was deeply moved by the inmates’ tribute, sparking her first trip to a prison to personally thank the inmates.
"I wanted to hear in their own words why they chose us," Gray told WCAX, fighting back tears as she hugged each participant individually. "They're wonderful kids regardless of the circumstances, in my book, for wanting to do this."
The inmates custom-designed the motorcycles with military blue paint and 42 gold stars to symbolize each Vermont service member lost in battle. "We know that your son, Jamie, is on here along with his fallen brothers and sisters. So God bless them," King told Gray.
Two Virginia Beach prisoners saved a fellow inmate from suicide attempt. Virginia Beach inmates Antonio Tabron and Kwaku Acheampong were eating breakfast one Sunday morning in March when they noticed fellow inmate Donnie Bullard preparing to hang himself from a bed sheet in his cell, according to WAVY.com.
Tabron and Acheampong called nearby guards for assistance as they talked Bullard out of suicide. "I remember getting up on the table," Bullard, who had been imprisoned for a month, told WAVY. "I told one of them I was going to hang myself and he said, 'Not here.' Then, I went and got on my bed." Tabron and Acheampong declined to be interviewed, but Bullard spoke with WAVY to publicly thank the inmates who saved his life.
"I felt relieved that they had come," Bullard told WAVY. "I thank them for what they've done, stopping me. It could have been worse.”
Bullard is incarcerated for simple assault on law enforcement and driving while intoxicated. Acheampong is serving time for simple assault on law enforcement, damaged property and disorderly conduct. Tabron is imprisoned for rape.
Florida prisoners saved a 64-year-old prison guard from being choked to death by violent inmate.
This incident occurred in November 2009, but the exceptional actions of these inmates warrants renewed applause. Deputy Ken Moon was the lone guard on duty at the Orient Road Jail in Tampa, Fla., when he was violently attacked by inmate Douglas Burden, as revealed by the jail surveillance video. Burden, jailed for drug dealing and drunk driving, placed the 64-year-old guard in what officials later called a “rear naked choke,” a martial arts strangle that cuts off the blood to the brain. Within moments, inmate Jerry Dieguez Jr., serving time for armed home invasion, ran to Moon’s defense, punching Burden in the face. More inmates flooded the room to help in Moon’s rescue. As some inmates peeled Burden off the guard, others used Moon's radio to call for help, according to theDaily Mail.
Col. James Previtera, commander of Hillsborough County's Department of Detention Services, told reporters that the inmates "saved the deputy's life," describing the attack as “fast” and “violent.” “The response of the inmates in this case, I think, speaks volumes as to the fact that we treat these men and women ... in our facilities with a lot of respect," Previtera added. When reporters asked Previtera why the inmates rushed to Moon’s aid, he relayed the inmates’ response: “He was a good guy and they liked him.”
Burden was placed in solitary confinement with added charges of attacking an officer, according to the Daily Mail.
Moon was treated at a hospital for injuries, but was released the same day.
The Pew Research center has updated their terrific graphic showing how each generation of Americans have voted, relative to the rest of the country, over the last two decades:
As you can see, those who came of voting age under FDR, Nixon, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama have tended to vote more Democratic compared to the nation at large, while Americans who reached majority while Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41 have leaned Republican. Most cohorts have remained fairly consistent in their choices over time, though that 1960s contingent—perhaps surprisingly, or perhaps not—seems to have grown more conservative in recent years. One thing this chart doesn't show, though, is intensity of preference. So Clinton kids like myself have typically gone for Democrats, but by what margin? For that, you have to drill down further, and Pew offers the example of our most recent presidential election, the 2012 contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Head below the fold for another compelling graphic.
The headline on Pew's chart here references the Kennedy generation, thanks to the recent burst of interest in JFK on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his assassination, but it offers data for all age groups:
So as you can see, my gang, the Clinton Gen X-ers, supported Obama by 10 percent, second only to the youngsters who backed him by an outsize 22 percent. The only other cohort to pull the lever for Obama, as you might have guessed from the first graph, is the Nixon group, though I suspect that New Dealers did as well. (It appears there simply aren't enough of them left, sadly, for Pew to study in a statistically meaningful way.) The remaining four age brackets all went for Romney, as you'd expect, though they, too, have different intensity levels as well. The question, as always, is whether these patterns will hold as we march toward the future, or whether they'll change. If they stay true to form, as they largely have for some time now, that's good news for Democrats, as the oldest Americans are some of the most conservative in the nation while the youngest Americans tilt strongly blue. While we're at it, take the poll below and let us know which generation you belong to!
Originally posted to Daily Kos Elections on Mon Dec 30, 2013 at 04:29 PM PST.
I did some work for a man who was a hoarder once..very odd story...
He was in an unusual position, he owned a small brownstone-like apartment building in Mid-Manhattan and had become a hoarder since his divorce some years earlier.
He remained actively engaged as a real estate agent, though..
I was working for him very cheaply, and so I guess he figured I couldn't be bothered to worry about so I was in his apartment on a number of occasions.
The effect was incredible. Of what was a three bedroom apartment with a living room and dining room, only the dining room and kitchen were like a normal space, and the dining room had a bed in it and his work station as well as piles of papers.
I won't begin to catalog the kinds of objects he had hoarded--these photos do that better than I could.
When photographer Paula Salischiker saw an American TV series about extreme hoarders, she felt instinctively that the way they were being portrayed wasn’t fair. “They are usually shown under a very obscure light, like objects themselves,” Salischiker said via email. “I somehow felt there was something else beyond these stories of horror portrayed with the question of, ‘How can anyone live like that?’ in mind.”
In the 2½ years since she started her series, “The Art of Keeping,” Salischiker has been invited to photograph six homes in London and Essex after attending a self-help group for hoarders and posting an ad on a website dealing with hoarding habits. “The process of finally visiting their homes was difficult, as they accepted with a lot of energy and then became a bit worried about my possible presence there,” Salischiker said. “For a hoarder, sharing their space can be a menace. Many of them also suffer from other mental health conditions, so letting someone into their homes is something they might have not done for years. I felt privileged to enter their lives and welcomed at their homes, despite the clutter.”
Originally, Salischiker wanted to take portraits of the hoarders in their homes. But although her subjects recognized themselves as hoarders, their families, friends, or colleagues often didn’t know about their condition. Anonymity, therefore, became essential, and Salischiker’s photographs came to mostly focus on the clutter rather than the hoarders themselves. “I also realized their objects constituted them, formed their identities, and were themselves in a way. Showing the objects they felt close to, depicting this bond with the material world around them might portray them better than if I showed their faces,” Salischiker said.
Collected fallen hair, London
Paula Salischiker
Kitchen, London
Paula Salischiker
Kitchen bookshelves, Essex
Paula Salischiker
A dry fruit found in the fridge, London
Paula Salischiker
Talking with her subjects helped Salischiker learn more about the suffering involved with having their condition. “Hoarding takes a lot of energy and time from the people who suffer it, and it is tiring both mentally and physically. There is the constant moving of items, carrying them, worrying about them. There are also health hazards: The gases emanated by accumulated garbage are toxic and can cause fires. It is not a mental illness that never materializes: They face constantly the challenge of being surrounded by that which constitutes their main problem.”
For Salischiker, photographing in severely cluttered spaces, in which the smallest item can hold great significance, was a challenge. “I felt worried I would break something really important for them, or step on a precious, irreplaceable item,” Salischiker said. “Nothing is a detail for a hoarder, and that is the main thing with this condition: They cannot distinguish and establish the importance of the objects around them. Any sort of hierarchy is lost. I took very little equipment with me to their home. I wanted to interfere as little as possible with the space.”
Interior of a house packed with art, London
Paula Salischiker
Bed covered with bags of newspapers and unopened presents, London
Paula Salischiker
Salischiker’s series is ongoing, and she plans to photograph hoarders in Uruguay next. “The very fact that the project can be continued in South America proves that the condition is not only related to the wealth of a country or consumerism. Hoarding is … more common than we think,” she said.
You can follow Salischiker’s work on her website and on Facebook.
Unopened letters by the window, London
Paula Salischiker
Cleaning objects rescued from the basement, London
Paula Salischiker
A poster of the landing on the moon decorates one of the rooms, Essex
The Census Bureau released a slew of data on state-to-state migration recently showing that Americans have become significantly less mobile than they used to be, with just 11.7 percent moving in the last year, near historic lows. It's not much different from the record low of 11.6, set in 2011.
Even when people move, they aren't moving far, with a majority staying in the same county and less than a quarter moving more than 500 miles.
All that points to how mobility hasn't really recovered from the Great Recession. You might remember The Grapes of Wrath and assume that economic dislocation spurs more people to move in search of work, but that isn't the case, which can in fact slow recovery. Rather than head for parts of the country where the economy is healthiest, instead people get stuck in place, often thanks to an underwater mortgage that makes selling unwise, or simply the need to scrape up thousands of dollars to be able to relocate. Nevertheless, unemployed people did move more (18.9 percent) than employed persons (11.9 percent), and persons in poverty moved more than the national average.
All that data is interesting in itself, but if you're wondering specifically where people are going, a new data visualization from analyst Chris Walker really makes the numbers pop. Instead of a boring bar chart, Walker offers a dazzling pinwheel of webs between states. Walker's version is interactive, and you should click through to play with it, but here's a still to give you a taste:
If you want to drill down to a particular state, you can mouse over each state at Walker's site and see individual links to other states. For instance, contra conservative claims, not everyone in California is moving to Texas. In fact, many Texans are moving to California, and nearly as many Californians are moving to Washington as they are to Texas. California does have a net outflow (not as large as New York, though) while Texas has a net inflow (not as large as Florida, though), but that doesn't mean California is on track to lose population, so long as births continue to outstrip deaths there. Atlantic Cities also has some stationary images, like the one above as well as a few individual states, as well as a brief interview with Walker.
(Click to enlarge) Recommended reading: this Ezra Klein post about the reality of unemployment in America today. The national average may be three job seekers for every job opening, but for many people it's worse than that:
Nationally, there are three job seekers for every one open position. But because unemployment is much higher in some cities than in others, the reality is that most people who've been unemployed for more than 26 weeks live in areas where there are four, five, six, seven and even eight job seekers for each open job. They're not being held back by their unemployment checks. They're being held back by mass unemployment.
But apparently the facts on the ground don't matter for someone with his head stuck in thick clouds of libertarian dogma.
"Apple has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products, including iPhone," the company said in a statement to AllThingsD. "Additionally, we have been unaware of this alleged NSA program targeting our products."
As you can see, those who came of voting age under FDR, Nixon, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama have tended to vote more Democratic compared to the nation at large, while Americans who reached majority while Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41 have leaned Republican. Most cohorts have remained fairly consistent in their choices over time, though that 1960s contingent—perhaps surprisingly, or perhaps not—seems to have grown more conservative in recent years. One thing this chart doesn't show, though, is intensity of preference. So Clinton kids like myself have typically gone for Democrats, but by what margin? For that, you have to drill down further, and Pew offers the example of our most recent presidential election, the 2012 contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Head below the fold for another compelling graphic.
So as you can see, my gang, the Clinton Gen X-ers, supported Obama by 10 percent, second only to the youngsters who backed him by an outsize 22 percent. The only other cohort to pull the lever for Obama, as you might have guessed from the first graph, is the Nixon group, though I suspect that New Dealers did as well. (It appears there simply aren't enough of them left, sadly, for Pew to study in a statistically meaningful way.) The remaining four age brackets all went for Romney, as you'd expect, though they, too, have different intensity levels as well. The question, as always, is whether these patterns will hold as we march toward the future, or whether they'll change. If they stay true to form, as they largely have for some time now, that's good news for Democrats, as the oldest Americans are some of the most conservative in the nation while the youngest Americans tilt strongly blue.
