A man from Austin, Texas, had a great comeback for a Twitter account that mocked him for crying on his wedding day.

Adam Harris' wedding photographer captured his emotional reaction to seeing his wife walk down the aisle in a heartwarming series of images, but when the pictures found their way online, one 'meninist', or ‘anti-feminist’ Twitter account poked fun at the couple, questioning 23-year-old Adam's sincerity.

Posting three images of Adam tearing up at the sight of his wife, along with one of the bride, Tisa, in her wedding gown, the person behind the crude Twitter account commented: ‘He's thinking about all the side hoes he has to give up [sic].'



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In 2022, Qatar will host the World Cup. The host city has already made some waves with its stadium shaped like a certain body part. But what you might not know is that, since 2012, about 900 workers have died while working on infrastructure in Qatar, in a building boom anticipating the World Cup.*

Last month, the Guardian reported that over 400 Nepalese migrant workers had already died at building sites. Between 2010 and 2012 more than 700 workers from India lost their lives working on construction sites in Qatar, too. A report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) says that if conditions don’t get any better, by the time the World Cup kicks off, at least 4,000 migrant workers will have died on the job.

For comparison, 25 construction workers died during the preparations for Sochi. Only six workers have died during construction for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil that starts this summer. Only eleven men died during the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s. By all measures, the death count in Qatar is extreme.

Robert Booth at the Guardian explains why Qatar is so unusual:

Workers described forced labour in 50C (122F) heat, employers who retain salaries for several months and passports making it impossible for them to leave and being denied free drinking water. The investigation found sickness is endemic among workers living in overcrowded and insanitary conditions and hunger has been reported. Thirty Nepalese construction workers took refuge in the their country's embassy and subsequently left the country, after they claimed they received no pay.

Son Doong is one of the world's largest caves, with enormous chambers that can comfortably fit a 747 airplane or an entire New York City block full of 40-story buildings. Its mammoth chambers extend so far that explorers have called Son Doong an "infinite cave." And with an amazing new digital tour, you can plunge below ground to see it yourself without ever leaving the country.

Pictures have offered stunning peeks into the cave, which is located in central Vietnam's Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, since explorers discovered it in 2009 with the help of a local guide. But the attention of curious sightseers is a double-edged sword; planned construction projects to make the cave more accessible to tourists could harm the formation's unique environment.

Photojournalist Martin Edström hopes to bring the cave to as many people as possible. He also wanted to document Son Doong in its relatively untouched state, just in case those construction plans go through. So he set out with a team in January 2015 to build a virtual tour of this roughly 2.5-mile-long (four kilometers) cave.

Digital "tourists" can mouse through 360° panoramic views of key sections of Son Doong on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer (see above). Some of the largest passageways are about 300 feet (91.4 meters) wide and over 600 feet (182.9 meters) high.

When your child brings home a form from school for you to sign, do you gloss over it, mindlessly scribble your signature, and go about your business? I don’t know about you, but I’m guilty as charged.

Jennifer Smith is different. The Indiana mom is proclaiming victory after flagging something in her son’s school permission slip she felt could ultimately prove harmful to elementary school girls — a dress code requirement for a sixth-grade pool party. The form, a picture of which Smith posted to a Facebook feminist group, included a stipulation that all girls wear non-white T-shirts over their swimsuits. No similar requirement was targeted at boys, unless you count a “No Speedos” rule.

It’s just the latest in a recent string of stories about parents or students being outraged over dress codes for female pupils. But Smith’s experience could prove encouraging for anyone disturbed by apparent gender inequality in school dress codes — Smith’s complaints brought about change within days and she didn’t even have to stage protests to make it happen.

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But Smith fired back with academic research to justify her concerns. She wrote:

… I am not sure if you are aware of the emotional hardship that is caused by [telling] young girls their bodies are inappropriate and must be covered. According to Siegel (1999), “negative feelings about their bodies account for the higher prevalence of depressive symptomatology and lower self-esteem among girls” (p.163). As you are aware adolescence is a very confusing time and can also be detrimental to girl’s emotional wellbeing. Setting one standard for half of the student body only promotes the idea that girls bodies are naturally shameful, and helps to send a very damaging message of “you are reasonable for others thoughts, feelings, and actions” that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Researchers from UC Berkeley and the Univeristy of Michigan dug up some surprising results after posing the question: How much do lawmakers really know about their voters' political views?

"Pick an American state legislator at random, and chances are that he or she will have massive misperceptions about district views on big-ticket issues, typically missing the mark by 15 percentage points," David Broockman and Christopher Skovron wrote in a study for the Scholarly Strategy Network originally published in 2013.

To investigate the question, the duo surveyed thousands of state legislators and compared their perceptions of voters to people's actual views, derived from a large body of public opinion data.

Their conclusion: "legislators usually believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are."

On three issues — universal healthcare, same-sex marriage, and welfare — lawmakers' assumptions about what their constituents believed were "15-20 percent more conservative, on average," than the actual base of public support for such issues.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/study-lawmakers-liberal-conservative-assume

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Breaking down misperceptions by the leanings of legislators reveals further imbalances:

The typical conservative legislator overestimates his or her district’s conservatism by a whopping 20 percentage points. Indeed, he or she believes the district is even more conservative than the most right-leaning district in the entire country.

Liberals also think their constituents’ views are more conservative than they really are, but are typically only off by about five percentage points.

Most conservative legislators believe their positions on same-sex marriage and health care command majority support in their districts – but only two-fifths are correct. In contrast, liberal legislators usually share views with constituents, but one in five does not know it.

Read more: http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/content/politicians-think-american-voters-are-more-conservative-they-really-are

Since 2007 photographer Matthias Schaller has photographed raw, abstract paintings. The paintings however are not found on canvas, but rather smeared onto the tools used to craft each work of art—the palettes. His series, Das Meisterstück (The Masterpiece), claims these behind-the-scene objects as portraits of the artist, while also giving a direct insight into the detailed techniques performed by each painter.

Palette of Eugene Delacroix / Palette of Georges Seurat

Palette of Vincent van Gogh, 2007, 190x156cm, Copyright: Matthias Schaller, Musée d’Orsay, Paris;