Quantcast
Channel: BuzzFeed - Latest
Viewing all 214923 articles
Browse latest View live

Greenpeace Probe Of Climate Naysayer Implicates Exxon Mobil

0
0

Despite a 2007 pledge to stop funding climate naysayers, Exxon Mobil kept supporting at least one: Smithsonian astrophysicist Willie Soon, who is now under investigation for shady research practices. Just-released public records show how the oil industry helped bankroll climate skepticism.

LM Otero / AP Photo / Via apimages.com

Oil industry titan Exxon Mobil kept funding a prominent climate science naysayer for years after the world's largest oil refiner claimed it had stopped supporting global warming denial, according to documents released Friday by Greenpeace and provided exclusively to BuzzFeed News.

The researcher, Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is best known for testimony before United States Congress blaming global warming on the sun. Soon is now under investigation by his employer after Greenpeace released funding records that suggest he received more than $1 million in fossil fuel industry support while not fully disclosing his funding to Congress and other scientists.

The records released Friday show that Exxon's support of Soon came despite a 2007 pledge to quit funding climate naysayer groups, according to Greenpeace's Jesse Coleman, who started the Soon records search using public records laws. "Exxon told us that they would stop funding climate denial front groups," Coleman told BuzzFeed News. "Years later, they were still funding Willie Soon."

In January 2007, Exxon's Mark Boudreaux said that the oil firm's position on climate change has been "widely misunderstood," and that it would stop funding groups that attacked climate science. But the records obtained by Greenpeace from Soon's employer show that Soon received $76,106 from 2008 to 2010, after which the firm stopped supporting him.

Boudreaux, the senior director of federal relations at Exxon at the time, signed off on that funding. "The person at Exxon that was approving this work was a lobbyist, not a scientist or someone interested in sun science," Coleman said, calling the case an example of how politics-driven corporate funding kept a fake debate over climate science alive.

Citing the revelation, U.S. Sens. Edward Markey, Barbara Boxer, and Sheldon Whitehouse on Wednesday requested funding records from dozens of fossil fuel lobbying groups and firms, including the Irving, Texas-based Exxon, detailing their support of climate change naysayers who have similarly testified before Congress.

"This kind of funding is in keeping with the sort of information we are looking for," says Eben Burnham-Snyder, a spokesman for Sen. Markey. "Our concern was that they hired people to mislead Congress."

In response, Exxon spokesperson Alan Jeffers told BuzzFeed News via email that the firm's "position on climate change is clear — increasing carbon emissions in the atmosphere are having a warming effect."

"In the past we have discontinued contributions to several public policy research groups," he added, that "could divert attention" from addressing global warming.

Industrial emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for at least half of the roughly one degree increase in global surface temperatures seen over the last century.

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson was a face of corporate resistance to such climate science findings in the previous decade, but he seemed to change his tune in a 2006 speech calling for funding climate research, "without conditions or preconceived outcomes."

Given Exxon's history, learning that the firm funded Soon despite the pledge to stop bankrolling climate naysayers "isn't a surprise," carbon policy expert Shanna Cleveland, of the environmental investor advocacy group Ceres, told BuzzFeed News. "This really signals the need for companies to change not only their public face on climate change but what they do behind closed doors."

Exxon was just part of a larger fossil fuel industry network that fought against regulation or pricing of the environmental costs associated with global warming, Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes told BuzzFeed News.

"Congress, and the American people, have a right to know what their role has been, and this may help us find out," Oreskes says. "For years we have had evidence of fossil fuel efforts to misrepresent and distort climate science, but it's been hard to pin down, exactly, because they often work through 'third-party allies' to hide the money trail."

On Tuesday, Rep. Raul Grijalva, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, sent letters to seven universities asking them to reveal the funding sources of faculty, such as MIT's Richard Lindzen and the University of Colorado's Roger Pielke Jr., who have testified in Congress in ways seen as dismissive of global warming's impacts. The letters also ask for "communications regarding the funding" of those researchers.

Grijalva cited Exxon's undisclosed funding of Soon in past congressional testimony as a reason for the inquiry.

But the move has generated blowback from mainstream scientists, with the American Meteorological Society (AMS) today saying the request "sent a chilling message" to researchers, that said scientific "peer review" of studies by other scientists is the right way to evaluate the quality of scientific work.


View Entire List ›


14 World Famous Paintings Significantly Improved By Emojis

0
0

The one thing Da Vinci was lacking was the poop emoji.

"The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo

"The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo

Robert Macklin / Wikimedia Commons

"The Scream" by Edvard Munch

"The Scream" by Edvard Munch

Robert Macklin / Wikimedia Commons

"The Singing Butler" by Jack Vettriano

"The Singing Butler" by Jack Vettriano

Robert Macklin / Wikimedia Commons

"American Gothic" by Grant Wood

"American Gothic" by Grant Wood

Robert Macklin / Wikimedia Commons


View Entire List ›

Catwoman Was Just Revealed To Be Bisexual In Newest Comic

0
0

Writer Genevieve Valentine wrote a blog post confirming the sexuality of the original Catwoman, Selina Kyle.

"She's flirted around it – often quite literally – for years now; for me, this wasn't a revelation so much as a confirmation," Valentine wrote. She calls her "canon bisexual," which means the plotline around her sexuality will continue.

DC Comics

"Eiko seemed like the right person: intelligent, driven, in that uncanny valley of Almost Catwoman," Valentine said of her decision. "And [she] knows enough about Selina that their honesty has become something of a shelter in a situation that's getting increasingly dishonest for everybody involved."

DC Comics / Via genevievevalentine.com


View Entire List ›

Atlanta Woman Says Police Shot And Killed Her Boyfriend Without Warning

0
0

In her first interview, April Edwards recounts to BuzzFeed News the night she was stabbed and called 911, then her boyfriend, Kevin Davis, was shot by police. After that, she spent two days in the hospital without receiving an update on Davis while his condition went from bad to worse.

Kevin Davis and his family.

Davis Family

When she heard the shots, April Edwards ran down the hallway to the front room of her Atlanta apartment where she found her boyfriend, 44-year-old Kevin Davis, bent over and bleeding.

"Kevin said to me, 'They shot me April,'" Edwards told BuzzFeed News in her first interview since the Dec. 29 incident. "I turned to the police officer and said, 'What did you do?'"

Then Edwards passed out and woke up hours later in the hospital.

Just before the shooting, Edwards was stabbed by the couple's roommate Terrence Hilyard after an argument over the television's volume. She retreated to her room and called 911 with Davis, who helped her tend to the wound. Hilyard fled the scene. (He was later arrested when he returned to the apartment complex that night.)

When the Dekalb County Police arrived at the scene, Edwards and Davis heard three shots ring out.

One of the responding cops from the Dekalb County Police, Officer Joseph Pitts, shot and killed their dog Tooter, a three-legged pit bull, who was still in the front of the apartment.

Davis, thinking that it might have been Hilyard returning to the house, grabbed his gun and confronted Officer Pitts. According to police, Pitts told Davis to drop the gun. When he didn't comply, Pitts shot Davis three times. Witnesses told the family's lawyers that they did not hear Pitts command Davis to drop the gun until after he started shooting.

Davis and Edwards were both transported to Grady Hospital. Davis was admitted as an in-custody patient. He was charged with felony aggravated assault of an officer for confronting Pitts with his gun, according to a warrant.

Davis' family says he was cuffed to his hospital bed and they were denied access to him while he lie in critical condition.

A Grady Hospital spokesperson said that it is their policy to only allow families access to patients in custody after police approval.

The family said that it requested to see Davis multiple times, but those requests were denied by the Dekalb County Police Department. DCPD said that the family never asked to see Davis.

While she was recovering in the hospital, Edwards says she asked hospital staff "more than several times" for an update on Kevin.

"Each time they just told me he's in critical care," she said.

On Dec. 31, two days after the shooting, Edwards was released from the hospital. Kevin's family came and picked her up.

"I asked them for an update [on Kevin] and they asked me the same thing," she said.

A couple hours later on Dec. 31, Davis died.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations has opened an investigation into the shooting. After the GBI wraps it investigation — hopefully in the next two weeks, Davis' lawyer told BuzzFeed News — the agency will present its report to the district attorney, who will make a determination whether to move forward with charges against the officers involved in the incident.

Edwards met with the GBI on Friday and told investigators her version of the story.

She believes that if Pitts or the other responding officers had called out to the couple when they arrived at her apartment, things would have played out differently.

"We never heard the police announce themselves. Had we heard them announce themselves Kevin would have never retrieved his gun," Edwards said.

Bobby Jindal: Obama Not Fighting ISIS Might Be Linked To His Desire To Get Iran Deal

0
0

“What I worry about is that this president’s hesitancy in going all the way and defeating ISIS may be linked…to his overarching desire to get a deal with Iran.”

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he believes, but cannot prove, that the reason President Obama is not fighting the Islamic State might be his desire to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

"I worry that this president's desire to get a deal -- even if it's a bad deal -- I worry if he wants a bad deal greater than no deal," Jindal said on NewsMaxTV's Midpoint program on Friday. "Let's be clear, a nuclear armed Iran is a threat, not only to Israel and our European allies, it's a threat, an existential threat to the United States as well and it won't stop with Iran. I believe the Egyptians, I believe Turkey, I believe the Saudis all will want a nuclear weapon as well. And I believe that some of those countries may already have a deal with Pakistan to buy that technology if they need to. So now you've got multiple countries in the Middle East nuclear armed."

"What I worry about is that this president's hesitancy in going all the way and defeating ISIS may be linked -- I can't prove that, I suspect that from his actions, his rhetoric —may be linked to his overarching desire to get a deal with Iran."

Jindal is often mentioned as a Republican presidential hopeful in 2016 and said in the interview he was "thinking and praying" about a possible run.

11 Haikus Clearly Written By Dogs

0
0

This is what dogs do when you’re not home.

Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed / Via ELizabethHoffmann / iStock

Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed / Via Comstock Images

Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed / Via Ryan McVay / Digital Vision

Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed / Via adogslifephoto / iStock


View Entire List ›

Russian Opposition Leader Shot Dead In Moscow

0
0

Boris Nemtsov, one of the loudest critics of President Vladimir Putin, was killed just outside the Kremlin.

Are You An Unfriendly Black Hottie?

0
0

Can we sit with you or nah?

Paramount Pictures


American Apparel CEO Fights Back A Pro-Dov Charney Email Insurgency

0
0

The company’s new CEO, Paula Schneider, recently responded to a series of mass emails sent to employees by an anonymous insider. The emails were critical of American Apparel’s new management and the hedge fund backing the company.

American Apparel

American Apparel may have fired its founder Dov Charney last year, but new management is learning that he's far from gone.

A group of Charney supporters within the company, who operate behind the name and hashtag #TeamDov, have been rallying support for the founder and slamming American Apparel's new executives and investors through a digital campaign that management is struggling to quell. One employee has been sending pro-Charney mass emails to American Apparel employees through a variety of anonymous addresses during the past two months, causing enough ruckus that CEO Paula Schneider was forced to address the messages in a staff-wide memo on Feb. 19, BuzzFeed News has learned.

Internal memo from American Apparel's CEO about problematic emails.

Internal memo from American Apparel's CEO about problematic emails.

Obtained by BuzzFeed News / Via Source

"Over the last couple of months, we all have received 'blast' emails from an anonymous outsider criticizing American Apparel, its management and its policies," Schneider, who started as CEO last month, wrote in a message obtained by BuzzFeed News. "Some of the emails have even been designed to appear like they are being sent from inside the company. I have refrained from responding to these emails because I feel they do not deserve our collective attention."

She continued: "That said, I cannot let today's email — which stooped to personally attacking hard-working members of the American Apparel team — go without a response. As a company, we embrace free speech and social commentary by our employees. That is a valued part of our culture. But today's email provides an opportunity for me to reach out to all of you. I encourage you not to be influenced by unfounded personal attacks or baseless threats about job security sent by outsiders who do not have the company's best interests at heart."

The specific email Schneider is referring to accused Standard General, the hedge fund with the most financial control of the company, of "draining" American Apparel and forcing cutbacks at the retailer. The email included a link to a New York Post story about a lawsuit against Standard General, in which unsecured creditors of RadioShack are accusing the hedge fund of timing its investment in RadioShack to maximize a payout from the company's recent bankruptcy, raising concern that American Apparel could suffer the same fate. The email noted that Colleen Brown, American Apparel's newly appointed chairperson, was brought on to the board last year by Standard General (though it incorrectly identified her as CFO) and that new General Counsel Chelsea Grayson was Brown's pick.

"We need Standard General OUT," the employee wrote in the Feb. 19 email. "We have a bunch of consultants draining our company sitting in a room all day making 6 figures a month. THAT IS NOT AMERICAN APPAREL."

One of the anonymous emails described the campaign as being about more than just Charney, saying it is also a response to American Apparel "being taken over by corporate Wall Street guys who don't care about the company or the brand or the image or its employees."

The emails reflect concern among employees that as American Apparel tries to right itself under new management, it could lose sight of its core values that were championed by Charney. The founder was a vocal advocate for treating workers generously, paying a fair wage, and making high-quality items in America.

A source inside the company told BuzzFeed News that management has spoken of their commitment to the company's principles, and says it will continue to focus on remaining sweatshop-free, paying fair wages, and manufacturing in the USA.

While Schneider wrote that the emails came from an outsider, BuzzFeed News confirmed they originated from a current employee, who requested anonymity citing fear of retribution. The employee said they have roughly 5,000 americanapparel.net addresses and sent the messages in batches of 500; multiple employees have told the anonymous emailer that the messages have been deleted from their inboxes as American Apparel's management works to stem the tide.

A spokesperson for American Apparel declined to comment.

The pro-Charney insurgency shows how tightly a founder's personality can become entwined with a company. Emails prior to the Feb. 19 message centered around gaining signatures and statements for the Team Dov website, which says it's "a statement of support for Dov Charney and his business vision at American Apparel from workers and executives at all levels of the company and around the world." Hundreds have since signed the petition.

Charney, who founded American Apparel in 1998, was served with a termination letter in June for a long list of reasons including breaching his fiduciary duty, violating company policy, sexual harassment, and misusing corporate assets.

Charney was working as a paid consultant for American Apparel during an internal investigation that began in July, but was fired in December; the #TeamDov website was born almost immediately after. In a statement on Dec. 22, his lawyers described the investigation as "a complete sham" and said the decision to terminate him was "completely groundless."

Charney pledged 43% of his stake in the company to Standard General this summer in a deal that apparently soured. He told Bloomberg News in late December that the hedge fund conspired with a board member to oust him after agreeing to reinstate him.

He told the news outlet: "I gave them my entire life's work and they agreed to put me back in, but instead they used this investigation to fire me. They betrayed me." Charney has not commented on the current round of anonymous emails and the response by management.

Standard General, for its part, said last December it "supported the independent, third-party and very thorough investigation into the allegations against Mr. Charney, and respect the board of director's decision to terminate him based on the results of that investigation."


View Entire List ›

You Need To See This Enchanting Emoji Version Of "Frozen"

0
0

Do you want to text a snowman?

So you've probably seen Frozen, or at least HEARD someone humming "Let It Go" a million times.

So you've probably seen Frozen, or at least HEARD someone humming "Let It Go" a million times.

It's inescapable, but also fabulous.

Disney

Thankfully for everyone who stans for Anna and Elsa, Frozen-mania is FAR from over. Disney has released an emojis-only version of Frozen and it is so COOL.

Thankfully for everyone who stans for Anna and Elsa, Frozen-mania is FAR from over. Disney has released an emojis-only version of Frozen and it is so COOL.

youtube.com

It includes all your favorite moments from the movie in emoji form...

It includes all your favorite moments from the movie in emoji form...

youtube.com

...most important of all, "Let It Go."

...most important of all, "Let It Go."

The emojis never bothered me anyway.

youtube.com


View Entire List ›

17 Dogs Still Having A Deep Existential Crisis Over The Dress

0
0

We are all these dogs.

"IF THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH WHAT IS ANYTHING ANYMORE."

"IF THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH WHAT IS ANYTHING ANYMORE."

imgur.com

"I honestly don't know who to believe anymore. Are those trees outside even real?"

"I honestly don't know who to believe anymore. Are those trees outside even real?"

imgur.com

"But how can I see blue and you see white? Don't you love me?"

"But how can I see blue and you see white? Don't you love me?"

imgur.com

"If that dress doesn't have objectivity...can I subjectively drive??"

"If that dress doesn't have objectivity...can I subjectively drive??"

imgur.com


View Entire List ›

That HIV Storyline Was A Step Back For The Progressive "How To Get Away With Murder"

0
0

In the Season 1 finale, How to Get Away With Murder couldn’t resist including an after-school-special moment. But the characters and the audience deserved better. WARNING: Spoilers ahead!

Connor (Jack Falahee) discusses his sexual history with a nurse (Danielle Kennedy) in the How to Get Away With Murder Season 1 finale.

Mitchell Haaseth / ABC

Somehow, while solving the murder of Lila Stangard (Megan West), establishing multiple mysteries for an inevitable second season, and shoehorning in a case-of-the-week, the two-hour season finale of How to Get Away With Murder incorporated an HIV storyline.

The episode saw Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) urge his on-again, off-again boyfriend Connor (Jack Falahee) to get tested for STDs. The plot was not without the requisite AIDS scare (on the part of the sexually uninhibited Connor) and it also included an added twist ending (Oliver was the one who tested positive).

On the one hand, it's refreshing to see a television series once again tackling the subject of HIV, which has all but disappeared from the TV landscape. (Until Thursday night's HTGAWM finale, Eddie, played by Daniel Franzese, on HBO's Looking was the only HIV-positive character on a current series.) But on the other, the show's approach to HIV was an embarrassing representation of HTGAWM's muddled queer politics: Connor continues to alternate between a progressive representation of a sexually liberated gay man and a caricature who's defined solely by his bedroom activities and slut-shamed for his promiscuity.

Network television has given us numerous gay male characters over the past decade, but they've been men who remind the audience to be tolerant of their queer brothers and sisters but hold off on shocking them with an actual display of affection. So there's never been a character like Connor on network television before. His sexual escapades rival those of Brian (Gale Harold) on Showtime's Queer as Folk, and he's wholly unapologetic about his random hookups. Which is a beautiful thing. The ABC series deserves plenty of credit for taking things as far as it has, with more implied analingus than we ever could have hoped for in primetime. After all, mere man-on-man kissing is still controversial in 2015, as evidenced by the backlash over the recent same-sex kiss on The Walking Dead.

But Connor has also been one of the most frustratingly underdeveloped characters on HTGAWM. For much of the season, his primary characteristic has been that he's slutty — and his recklessness in the wake of Sam's (Tom Verica) murder has been directly tied to that. Almost all of the characters have engaged in casual sex, most of it ill-conceived, but none of them are as rigidly defined by what they do in the bedroom as Connor is. To be fair, it is tough to create a sexually liberated character who is more than his or her sexual liberations — and were it not for the HIV storyline in the finale, HTGAWM could probably have gotten a pass for Connor.

Connor leaves for class while Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) waits for the results of his HIV test.

Mitchell Haaseth / ABC

And while that HIV storyline might have been an attempt to add depth to the character of Connor, and to further the arc of his relationship with Oliver, the way it played out was too pedantic and condescending to be mistaken for actual character development. When Connor went in for his HIV test, he was lectured on his safe sex practices. It was disappointing to see that a character presented as sexually uninhibited had no idea he could contract HIV from topping, and that he seemed unclear as to why he and Oliver both had to get tested before they could resume sexual contact.

The story had an off-putting teaching moment vibe: After a season of sexual freedom, Connor had to face the consequences of his actions in the form of an HIV scare. Because naturally, as soon as his results were delayed, he immediately assumed the worst. It's not as though this never happens in real life, or that sexually active gay men couldn't use the reminder on the importance of condoms; it's more that it felt like the peak of HTGAWM's season-long confusion over how to handle Connor. None of the other characters who engaged in steamy sexual encounters got tested or had any concerns about what they could have contracted, but the finale managed to devote a sizable chunk of time to the possibility that Connor might "pay the price" for his rampant fucking.

On top of that, the twist at the end — Connor ends up testing negative, while clean-cut, sexually responsible Oliver finds out he's HIV positive — felt like another lesson to be learned: Anyone can contract HIV! It's territory that was covered by any number of TV series throughout the '80s and '90s. It's quite the paradox that How to Get Away With Murder, which has been painted as a forward-thinking series for its inclusion of Connor as well as its diverse cast, is presenting the same ideas that were on television three decades earlier.

Though HIV is not off-limits —and we could do with more representations of HIV-positive characters on television — the way HTGAWM's storyline played out was neither authentic nor earned. It wasn't fair to the characters, whose biggest moment up to this point revolved around Connor lying about being a drug addict. Contrast the treatment of HIV on HTGAWM with what Looking has done this season. The HBO series has managed to introduce discussions about safe sex and pre-exposure prophylaxis Truvada without ever falling into after-school-special territory by filtering the information through the lived experience of a well-rounded HIV-positive character. While not every series can be as steeped in queer politics as the LGBT-centric Looking, a show as progressive as HTGAWM at least owes Connor and Oliver a less old-fashioned storyline.


View Entire List ›

18 Black Women Breaking Boundaries In The 21st Century

0
0

The sky’s the limit.

Ezola Foster

Ezola Foster

In 2000, Foster, who grew up in the segregated South, became the first black woman to be nominated for vice president by a Federal Election Commision-recognized and federally funded party.

Scott Nelson / Getty Images

Ruth Simmons

Ruth Simmons

Simmons, formerly the president of Smith College, became the first black woman to head an Ivy League university when she became the 18th president of Brown in 2001. She resigned in 2012.

Kris Connor / Getty Images

Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice

In 2001, Rice became the first black woman to serve as the U.S. national security adviser. She then became the first black woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state in 2005.

Rob Kim / Getty Images

Vonetta Flowers

Vonetta Flowers

Not only was Flowers the first of her family to attend college, she was also the University of Alabama at Birmingham's first seven-time All-American. Her athletic skills would eventually lead to a gold medal in bobsledding at the Winter Olympics in 2002, making her the first black woman to earn one.

Bryan Bedder / Getty Images


View Entire List ›

My Weight-Loss Surgery Didn't Fix My Bad Relationship With Food

0
0

Jenny Chang/BuzzFeed

It was January 2013, I was a couple of weeks shy of my 25th birthday, and my BMI was over 40, the result of a lifelong addiction to food and a history of binge-eating. And after months, if not years, of dilly-dallying, I’d finally decided to seriously look into bariatric surgery. So I met with a doctor in a cold hospital room in Lebanon, where I live, to discuss my options. For an hour, he poked and prodded and checked for medical soundness as I stood self-consciously in my underwear.

His verdict was definitive: I was a good candidate. Knowing I would most likely change my mind if given enough time, I asked for the surgery to be scheduled the following week. But before I could go under the knife, I had to meet with a “hospital-mandated” therapist so she could assess my psychological state and whether or not I could withstand the procedure. She had me fill out a form, asked me a couple of questions in a laconic monotone, and concluded the session by informing me I was depressed. (Needless to say, this was not a surprising diagnosis.) Still, I was cleared for surgery, and so they sliced me open, stitched me back up, and sent me home.

Two years later, it’s 7 p.m. after a stressful day at work and I’m gorging on peanut butter ice cream in a supermarket parking lot, scooping it with my fingers with feverish haste like a savage who has no use for utensils. I stop after a few minutes, suddenly aware that people can see me and feeling like my reduced stomach is about ready to implode. I wipe the ice cream off my hands, my face, my shirt, my seatbelt. It's everywhere. This is my crime scene, and I’m frenetically wiping off the blood, wondering what in God’s name I have done. As soon as I get home, I scour my kitchen for more unhealthy food to stuff down my throat. Unhappy with what I find, I take another trip to the nearest grocery store and load up on all sorts of carbonated, refined, artificial, and processed junk.

I wish I could say this was an isolated incident. But despite getting the operation, my binge-eating disorder is still going strong. On any given bingeing day, once the valves are open, it takes tremendous efforts to close them back up again, and not even the nausea and stomach cramps can quell the flood. Today, I don't regret my decision to opt for surgery, but I can’t help but feel like I should never have been allowed to have it. The crux of the matter is, I may have been qualified for it physically, but I was far from ready psychologically.

Remember, this is all taking place in Lebanon, a small and conservative country known to outsiders for its beaches, its food, its indomitable will to party its way through troubled times. But to locals, it’s not’s an easy place to live in. There's the volatile political context, the perpetual economic slump, the propensity for sectarian strife, the lack of social justice. And then there's the fact that here in Lebanon, where looks and appearances are paramount, plastic surgery qualifies as a routine procedure. Imagine conventional standards of beauty on speed. Fall short of these standards and you'll feel left out, ostracized.

Lebanese society is only part of the problem. Unscrupulous Lebanese bariatric surgeons who operate on patients with only 20 or 30 pounds to shed are also part of the problem. The media is part of the problem, so is my country's defective health care system. Pattern-repeating parents are part of the problem. Admittedly, I’m part of the problem too. I could easily gripe at length about body image, about fat shaming, about the fat acceptance movement, about the assumption that happiness is not possible unless you wear a size 12 or under, about the way some people feel entitled to comment on women’s bodies. I could argue that it's all very subliminal and insidious, and that once it takes hold of you, you feel unbelievably foolish for letting it define you, but at the same time, you feel so incredibly worthless that you forget how to function properly.

But over the years, I grew tired of pointing fingers. Personal responsibility, societal pressure, social construct — I no longer cared. The "why" of my dysphoria did not matter. I've tried to rationalize it too many times, going as far as standing in front of my bathroom mirror and sermonizing out loud as I scrutinized my bloated face: "I am not defined by my weight. It's not me, it's society. There is more to me than a number on a scale."

It didn't work. I had the surgery on the very day I turned 25.

There are different types of bariatric surgery procedures. Some can seem pretty scary. There’s the band, the sleeve, and the gastric bypass, among others. I settled on a procedure known as “gastric plication,” which entails creating a sleeve by suturing rather than removing stomach tissue. To my highly skeptical mind, it was the option that sounded less radical, and less invasive since it would be done laparoscopically. All I’d be left with, besides a significantly smaller stomach, were five small scars scattered across my belly. No foreign object inserted, no part of my stomach taken out, no organ rerouted.

The operation went well, but in the weeks that followed, I could barely eat anything. I’d only manage to get two or three bites in before I was overcome with the urge to regurgitate them. Going cold turkey from eating, let alone bingeing, was really tough. I keep one very vivid memory of my recovery, in the weeks following my return from the hospital: standing at 2 in the morning in front of my fridge, longingly sniffing every possible food item I could get my hands on. Ketchup, a can of tuna, I even once took a big whiff of a tub of butter. The compulsion was as irrepressible as it was indiscriminate. All the same, I lost a considerable amount of weight in the first six months alone.

Two years on, I've more or less managed to keep part of the weight off, although the numbers on the scale still tend to fluctuate greatly and I have yet to confront my eating disorder head-on. Food is still at the forefront of my mind every second of every day, and my struggle with addiction is not made easy by the ubiquity of junk food that I so frequently crave. I live in constant dread that I might one day lose my grip, and that my bingeing habits will resurface and plunge me back into an unstoppable maelstrom of weight gain and self-loathing. Some days, it feels like it’s only a matter of time. Think peanut butter ice cream, an entire tub of it, every day for 10 days straight (my personal best).

I don't mean to discredit weight-loss surgery altogether. After years spent shrugging it off as a last resort, a cop-out, I now realize that it can also serve as an effective way to jump-start the process, and one particularly appealing to people faced with the dispiriting prospect of having 100, 150, 300 pounds to lose. But here's the big "but": There's also something fundamentally wrong with bariatric surgery, in that it only serves to "fix" the body and not the mind. I can't help but notice that it's being increasingly touted as the panacea for our modern, busy, hyperactive times. But it is not to be treated lightly. Tremendous psychological work has to be done first or at least in parallel but it's often overlooked in favor of the contemporary truism that weight loss is all about diet and exercise.

By the time I had my surgery, I had 10 years of bad habits under my belt, and the resigned understanding that I was wasting my life away for the most frivolous and shallow of reasons. To me, that was enough. I’d put myself through so much isolation, self-loathing, self-indulgence, phony excuses, missed opportunities, a succession of last straws that never quite decisively snapped me out of my funk and spurred me into action. I thought I was ready for my life to start, and that all these years of misery had helped prepare me for the transition.

But said transition turned out to be excruciatingly long and grueling, in a way I could never have expected. I'm still trudging through, making every possible mistake in the book. One recent snag comes to mind, after a boundary-pushing, stomach-stretching binge: me sitting on the edge of my tub, pressing my thumbs hard against my temples, trying to rationalize what I was about to do, soliloquizing that this would never happen again, that Monday was only two days away, a fresh start, a way to get back on track with a clean slate. Feeling nauseated, my stomach about ready to implode, trying to muster the courage to go through with my plan. Then finally sticking a finger down my throat. Gagging, but only for a couple of seconds, and taking my finger out immediately. That was my first ever attempt at bulimia, and it ended in abject failure.

I doubt there will be ever a second attempt. But I have to stop evading the issue. At some point, I’ll have to learn how to have a healthy outlook on food. Losing weight alone will not miraculously solve everything, and I can’t keep putting my life on hold with that quixotic prospect in mind. Sometimes, it feels like only yesterday I was 15 and just beginning to turn to food for comfort, putting down the foundations for the wall I’d spend years erecting around myself, growing increasingly quiet, withdrawn, painfully avoidant in the process. Then I come to and I’m 27 and feeling like I’m at a standstill, fumbling blindly for the play button on my life, the wall still very much intact albeit carved with scratch marks from my unfruitful attempts to climb my way out. The way things stand, I’m either staring at the slippery slope of self-destruction or looking up at a towering mountain toward salvation. All I need now is to figure out how to start climbing.

RESOURCES:

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, here are some organizations that have trained support staff available by phone:

National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders Helpline: 1-630-577-1330

Binge Eating Disorder Association Helpline: 1-855-855-BEDA

National Eating Disorder Association Helpline: 1-800-931-2237

This Is What An Upside-Down Iceberg Looks Like

0
0

Belly up! Here’s what the icy behemoths look like when they’ve had a few too many.

On a recent excursion to Antarctica, San Francisco-based filmmaker and designer Alex Cornell, 30, caught a rare glimpse of an iceberg's underside.

On a recent excursion to Antarctica, San Francisco-based filmmaker and designer Alex Cornell, 30, caught a rare glimpse of an iceberg's underside.

Most icebergs' hefty bodies are submerged under water, but occasionally they roll over, according to ScienceNews. Compared to the comprehensively white Antarctic, from a distance on their fast bouncy boat, the iceberg just looked like a piece of rock, Cornell wrote in an email to BuzzFeed.

Alex Cornell / Via alexcornell.com

As we got closer, it became clear that it was a pure jade iceberg. We had a naturalist onboard the zodiac boat with us, and he explained what we were seeing and why it was so exciting. To us, everything we came across was exciting (penguins! icebergs!), but this certainly stood out as a rare sight — something I had never seen before in real life, or even subsequently in photos.

Where do icebergs come from, anyway?

Where do icebergs come from, anyway?

The ice giants break off from glaciers or massive ice sheets and meander along with ocean currents, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center. So the flip occurs after the iceberg detaches from its parent, or when its ice melts unevenly and it keels over, oceanographer Louise Biddle told ScienceNews.

In a video he made about the shoot, Cornell said capturing images amid blindingly reflective surfaces is the biggest obstacle, especially because the mandatory sunglasses make it hard to review your work as you do on dry land. Of all of his projects, he never imagined a natural photo he took of ice in water would be so widely covered, he wrote on his company's site.

Alex Cornell / Via alexcornell.com

Here's another view of the spectacularly aquamarine ice, which steadily becomes coated with the flotsam of environmental elements.

Here's another view of the spectacularly aquamarine ice, which steadily becomes coated with the flotsam of environmental elements.

"We were very lucky to come upon it during the short window of time before it blended back into white, after enough air, sun, and snow exposure," said Cornell.

Alex Cornell / Via alexcornell.com


View Entire List ›


The 15 Greatest Spock Quotes As Motivational Posters

0
0

Goodbye Spock. You have been, and always shall be, our friend.

Tanner Ringerud / BuzzFeed

Tanner Ringerud / BuzzFeed

Tanner Ringerud / BuzzFeed

Tanner Ringerud / BuzzFeed


View Entire List ›

Llamas Lead Authorities On Chase Through Arizona Streets, Capture America's Heart

0
0

Llamas for life. They’ve been rounded up, but their legend lives on.

Via abc15.com

vine.co

vine.co

Local news station ABC 15 covered it live from the air.

The llamas tore through yards and shut down highways as the hapless Maricopa County Sheriff's Office posse trying to corral them looked on.

Authorities tried to lasso the llamas multiple times, but the adorable escapees consistently broke free.


View Entire List ›

12 Korean Snacks You Absolutely Have To Try

0
0

From savory to sweet, these treats will inspire you to expand your palate.

Macey J. Foronda / BuzzFeed

All these snacks can be found at your nearest Asian supermarkets and sometimes even in the "Asian foods" section of American grocery stores.


View Entire List ›

Embattled Mexican Attorney General Steps Down

0
0

Jesús Murillo Karam faced a wave of criticism at home and abroad for how the attorney general’s office handled the investigation of the 43 missing students.

Mexico's Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam.

Marco Ugarte / AP

Mexico's embattled attorney general, who was heavily criticized for his handling of the investigation of 43 missing students, has stepped down and taken on a new cabinet-level job.

President Enrique Peña Nieto swore in Jesús Murillo Karam on Friday as the new minister of rural, territorial and urban development.

Murillo Karam famously ended a press conference about the missing students with the phrase "Ya me canse," meaning "I'm tired," which become a rallying cry for protesters on the ground and online.

Only the remains of one student have been identified by a forensic team, while the remaining 42 others were declared dead by Mexican authorities.

At the end of his office's investigation, Murillo Karam said corrupt police on the orders of a local mayor kidnapped the 43 students from a rural teachers college in Ayotzinapa in September. The all-male students were then handed over to a drug gang that killed them and burned their bodies.

The case of the missing students dealt a heavy blow to Peña Nieto's approval ratings, setting a new low for any Mexican leader in two decades.

El Diario reported that Peña Nieto thanked the former attorney general for his dedication and responsibility.

The Mexican attorney general's office "has been an area which has had to take on a complex and challenging task, particularly at the events in Iguala," Peña Nieto said.

LINK: Independent Experts Question Mexican Government's Investigation Into Missing Students

There Is A Secret Underground Bar In London That Contains An Entire Tube Carriage

0
0

Going underground.

Lynzy Billing/ BuzzFeed

Lynzy Billing/ BuzzFeed

First, look out for the sign.

First, look out for the sign.

Lynzy Billing/ BuzzFeed


View Entire List ›

Viewing all 214923 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images