Washington Ceasefire announced via their Facebook page that Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is set to appear on Fox News tonight to talk about Seattle's new Gun Free Zone program. He'll be a guest of On the Record, with Greta Van Susteren, which airs 6-8 p.m. (If you, like me, have never watched Fox News, people tell me it is Channel 48 in the Seattle area, if you have Comcast.)

If you're the type of person who watches Fox News on a Friday night, tune in! Then again, if you're the type of person who watches Fox News on a Friday night, you're probably not reading Slog.

Tell you what: DVR it, instead.

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Dunkin' Donuts employee gets PISTOL-WHIPPED, because he made a caramel, instead of vanilla. No, really!

H/t to Greg! More on Smoking Gun.

From Salon, earlier this week:

Beyond the obvious, what do a far-right Italian politician, the president of the John Birch Society and former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul have in common?

In early September, the men are all scheduled to speak – along with a lengthy list of archconservative clergy, lawyers and academics – at a conference in Canada sponsored by the Fatima Center, part of the “radical traditionalist Catholic” movement, perhaps the single largest group of hard-core anti-Semites in North America.

Whenever I've talked about the Paul family's racism, my arguments are just hand-waved away by Ron and Rand Paul supporters. Those racist newsletters probably just mean nothing. Rand Paul's repeated hiring of white supremacists for his inner circle are totally coincidental. So how about this? Did Ron Paul just accidentally accept an invitation to speak before an anti-Semitic group? Is he accidentally missing all these news stories about the true nature of the Fatima Center? One day, when I bring this speech up to a Ron Paul supporter, are they just going to wave their hands around and say, oh, it was an honest mistake? Do we need to find a candid video of Rand Paul openly saying vile, racist things before he doesn't get a pass anymore? Or would that even somehow be explained away? Here's my message for feeble-minded Paul supporters: Wake up, sheeple! The evidence is damning.

Nicole Hardy reads from her new memoir tonight at Hugo House at 7pm, free.

Since the debut of Nicole Hardy's 2011 New York Times Modern Love essay, "Single, Female, Mormon, Alone," in which she came out as a progressive 35-year-old virgin struggling to live within the strict gendered rules of the Mormon Church, Hardy's career has been on meteoric rise. Overnight, she gave voice to thousands of other women fighting to reconcile the dictates of their religions—no sex before marriage, plenty of kids, and a future as a subservient housewife—with a desire for autonomy, careers, even a kid-free existence.

Here in Hardy's hometown, her triumphs have felt especially personal. Every local writer sighed in envy over the success of her Modern Love column. They screamed in envy over her subsequent six-figure book deal. And yet it couldn't have happened to a more worthy writer. Anyone familiar with her work can tell you that Hardy is an accomplished poet and a hilarious, captivating reader. She is also a very nice person.

So I will say this as nicely as possible: Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin, Hardy's memoir about slowly rejecting the prescriptive tenets of her church—marriage, motherhood, and a happy career as a housewife—is a disappointment. It's not a singular flaw that drags the book down, but a collision of several: a seeming lack of direction on Hardy's part, poor editing, and, in some passages, plain bad writing, all of which contribute to the sense that Confessions is a compelling story drowning in words.

Keep Reading>>>

Slate:

Like many of you, I spent the week humbled and awed by Antoinette Tuff, the bookkeeper at Ronald McNair Discovery Learning Center in an Atlanta suburb who most likely averted another heartbreaking school shooting by talking a gun-wielding young man with a mental illness into giving himself up to the police. It’s impossible to listen to the 911 tape of Tuff’s lengthy discussion with Michael Hill—who burst into her office dressed in black, carrying an AK-47 with 500 rounds of ammunition—without suspecting that her stunning calm, compassion, and control is something absolutely nobody else could have achieved under similar circumstances.

I am well-aware of the journalistic-slash-moral-slash-legal imperative not to “politicize” any school shooting, whether it actually occurs or is averted. It is always “too soon” to have that policy conversation about how better gun control, better mental health care, and other political measures might have averted the latest mass shooting. And then it is always too late by the time the next one has occurred. But listening to Tuff persuade a young man that he should put down his AK-47 and all his ammunition, lie down on the floor, and turn himself into the police, suggests that maybe it’s not too soon to politicize empathy.

Read the whole thing.

From a Slog tipper...

"Saw these in April while on vacation in Namibia with my girlfriend and thought of you," writes Scott. "These are speed bumps in Luderitz, Namibia. Noun or verb? Feel free to use them as you see fit!"

It goes without saying that a HUMP! video made on HUMP bumps in Namibia—or anywhere else—would automatically make the festival. Also, a HUMP! video starring some fictional Christian protesters trying to "spoil" HUMP!—show us what's going on in their heads?—would also be a shoo-in for HUMP!

Continue reading »

Christine Haughney at the New York Times reports:

National Public Radio will continue for now to refer to Private Manning as “he,” according to a spokeswoman, Anna Bross. “Until Bradley Manning’s desire to have his gender changed actually physically happens, we will be using male-related pronouns to identify him,” she said.

What the fuck, NPR? This is some draconian bullshit, right here. Gender is not just physical. And anyway, the content of Chelsea Manning's underwear is none of NPR's business. Is an editorial board going to demand photographs of her crotch before they agree to switch pronouns? I can understand some news organizations having some difficulty yesterday as they transitioned from using "he" to "she" with Chelsea Manning. An announcement of this scale has never happened before, and I don't think it's happened to these kinds of reporters—the ones covering breaking national and international news (thanks to Chaz Bono, entertainment and gossip reporters are actually ahead of the curve on this issue). But for a whole organization to demand proof of a physical change in gender before they respect someone's wishes is more than just institutional ignorance; it's outright aggression.

UPDATE 5 PM: Scott Simon on Twitter says NPR will refer to Chelsea Manning by her name. No word about the pronouns yet:

To those who have asked: NPR will now say #ChelseaManning, believing everyone has the right to be called by name they want.
— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) August 23, 2013

UPDATE 7:30 PM: Now NPR says their thinking has "evolved" on the issue, and they will use the proper pronouns when referring to Manning. Good for them for finally coming around to decency.

@anotheridijit @StrangerSlog thanks for holding us to a high standard - we've updated our guidance on this: http://t.co/uWGNGLDEgV

— Kate Myers (@NPRKate) August 24, 2013

From her her early readings, where she’d wear fabulous dresses and invoke the spirits of dead poets, to the autobiographical story she published in the New York Times’ Modern Love column about being a Mormon virgin, Nicole Hardy has always been funny and surprising and sharp. Tonight, she finally hits the big time with the publication of her new memoir, Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin, and she’s celebrating in style with music, food, booze, and a photo booth (and maybe a reading, too, if you’re lucky). (Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, hugohouse.org, 6:30 pm, free)

In this week's Last Days:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 13 Speaking of idiots wreaking havoc with guns, the week continues with a story out of Ohio, where this past weekend 26-year-old Michael Piemonte was attending a concealed-carry gun class with his wife, Alison. "Such classes are required for anyone wanting [to] carry a concealed weapon in the state," reports CNN, describing a lecture-type class attended by 29 students, with Piemonte and his wife sitting in the front row. "While the instructor was demonstrating self-defense techniques, the gun went off. The bullet struck Piemonte in the arm." "It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I had been shot," Piemonte told CNN, which reports the shooting has been classified by police as accidental. "I'm just glad my wife did not get hit." Us, too. (Dear everyone: Please complete this thematically apt Mad Lib–type situation and e-mail the results to lastdays@thestranger.com: "Getting shot by a gun-safety instructor is like getting [BLANKED] by a [BLANK]!!!" Best entries here next week.)

Entries have been streaming in, most of them good and generally factually accurate (e.g. "Getting shot by a gun-safety instructor is like getting fucked by the pope.") But there's a world of next-level detail to be mined, along the lines of Zoe Isadora's "Getting shot by a gun-safety instructor is like getting knocked up by your abstinence-education teacher."

Amatuer, professional, and semi-professional comedians: Go nuts.

I've been tucked away writing stuff for the meatspace paper, and so I have not been on the internet very much, which means I missed this story from yesterday:

The FBI suspected William T. Vollmann of being first the Unabomber and then the anthrax mailer, the award-winning writer revealed in a grimly funny Harper's article [subscription required]. Vollmann's heavily redacted FBI file, which he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals that he became "Unabomber Suspect Number S-2047" based on a tip from an anonymous citizen, whom Vollmann dubs "Ratfink." "UNABOMBER, not unlike VOLLMANN has pride of authorship and insists his book be published without editing," part of the file states.

I can't believe the FBI spent time and money investigating this lead. Have you seen the size of Vollmann's books? Do you know the frequency with which he puts those books out? The man clearly doesn't have the time to carry out one or two organized terrorism campaigns. It's scary that an anonymous tipster can inspire a couple of serious investigations like this. One quick read of the Unabomer's manifesto would convince you that he's not Vollmann; it doesn't read anything like his work. So much for pride of authorship.

Required viewing—watch:

And here's what Gessen had to say a town hall meeting in New York City the night before:

Roughly 100 people, including many Russian and Eastern European emigres, gathered at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center to hear author and journalist Masha Gessen, who described the dire circumstances for LGBT Russians in Russia.

“We’re kind of past the point where silence can ever protect,” Gessen told the crowd during the August 21 meeting. “At this point, the more Russians know and the Kremlin knows that the world is watching, the safer we feel on the ground.”

And Russians and the Kremlin are watching and listening to the response that has swept around the globe since Russia enacted its anti-gay propaganda law in June. The law bans any pro-LGBT statement in public or private and on the Internet. With the law, Russia has effectively criminalized being out of the closet or supporting the LGBT community.

“One of the best moments of my time was when I was in my car 10 days ago in Moscow and I turned on the radio and they were talking about the vodka boycott on every radio station,” Gessen said. “That is getting media attention. It was really, really amazing, Suddenly we’d been granted visibility that we hadn’t had in years.”

In other developments: the day after declaring that Olympic athletes and visitors would face arrest for violating Russia's laws against "gay propaganda"—and that there was nothing discriminatory about these laws because gays and straights would arrested equally—today Vladamir Putin issued a "terror decree" banning public meetings, marches, rallies and protests during the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Says John at Americablog:

And there’s an even greater headache now for the International Olympic Committee: Any violation of Russia’s draconian anti-gay “propaganda” law during the Sochi Olympics is now a violation of a Russian anti-terrorism decree. That would seem to raise the crime of being openly gay to an entirely new and dangerous level: An act of terrorism. And what exactly is the price one pays for violating anti-terror decrees in Russia? Our Olympians may soon find out.

And another must-read piece in the Guardian by Nancy Goldstein:

This double standard, whereby the IAAF or the IOC awards major sporting events to nations with gross human rights violations in defiance of their own charters, and then mandates that athletes to shut up and behave like nothing's happening—so long as they don't see any LGBT people being beaten bloody, arrested, or tortured within the stadium walls—has begun to wear thin. There are simply too many athletes challenging it, too many public figures opposing it, and too many corporate sponsors and world leaders becoming increasingly anxious about the possibility of winding up on the wrong side of history.

People of good conscience have already begun turning down invitations to visit Russia. Earlier this week, Wentworth Miller, the star of Prison Break, came out while declining an invitation to the St Petersburg international film festival, saying he could not "participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly." The Miss Universe Pageant may be trying to pull an NBC and have it both ways—saying that they object to the laws, yet refusing to change their venue—but their equivocating is lost in the dust of co-host Andy Cohen's brave refusal to play the game. Cohen released a statement that he "didn't feel right stepping foot into Russia as a gay man."

Go read the whole thing.