Many of the world’s sports records are held by women, but due to human bias, search engines have learnt to prioritise sportsmen in our search results, even when the facts put sportswomen first. You can help correct the record with just a couple of clicks. Sign into the search engine of your choice and Correct the Internet.
Hey Americans: These are world’s records, so “football” means “soccer.”
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
At the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, the men have fuzzy balls. The women have smooth balls, and they’re not happy about it.
To explain: Wilson makes both “regular-duty” and “extra-duty” tennis balls. The regular-duty balls are sold as “ideal for clay and indoor surfaces,” while the extra-duty are “ideal for longer play on hard court surfaces.” The U.S. Open is outdoors, a hard-court event. Men’s matches are played with “extra-duty” balls, as you’d expect, but women play with “regular-duty” balls.
The felt on the men’s “extra-duty” balls is fluffier, and the racquet strings get a better purchase on the thicker surface. The felt on the “regular-duty” women’s version has a tighter weave, feels lighter on the stringbed, and the balls play faster and go farther because they’re more aerodynamic.
Men and women play on the same courts, with the same type of racquets. No other major tennis tournament uses different balls for men and women. To make matters even worse, the “extra-duty” ball is used in the Open’s mixed doubles, a severe disadvantage for women doubles partners who have been playing with the “regular-duty” ball in the tournament’s women’s matches.
More:
“Women use faster balls than men at U.S. Open. Some players are over it.” Julian Mark, Washington Post
“‘You’ve just started a war’: Iga Swiatek wades into row over US Open balls,” Tumaini Carayol, The Guardian
“Badosa joins Swiatek as she hits out at U.S. Open balls,” Anita Kobylinska, Reuters
US Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh was eating at Morton’s steakhouse in DC on July 6th when womens’ rights activists found out, and protested in front of the pricey eatery. Mr. Kavanaugh had to sneak out the back without dessert. Sad, but there’s always Grubhub.
Morton’s angrily responded that “Politics … should not trample the freedom … of the right to … eat dinner.” Protesters reponded by flooding Morton’s with fake reservations by phone and on Open Table.
There were other reactions. “Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions,” Chasten Buttigieg tweeted, alluding to Kavanaugh’s vote to overturnRoe v. Wade, the decision that guaranteed abortion access on the basis of Americans’ right to privacy. And after Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked if “These justices … have no right to privacy?”, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted “Pretty sure they overturned that right 2 weeks ago Doocy.”
More:
“Brett Kavanaugh is the latest target of protests at D.C. restaurants,” Emily Heil and Tim Carman, Washington Post
“‘Let him eat cake’: AOC reacts to Kavanaugh being forced out of restaurant by abortion rights protesters,” Axios
“Sorry, but the Constitution contains no right to eat dinner,” Washington Post
“Group offers up to $250 for SCOTUS justices sightings after Kavanaugh protest,” Axios
“Protests of Public Officials in Restaurants Aren’t Going Away,” Jessica Sidman, Washingtonian
The annual Right to Meddle in Women’s Lives demonstration was held in Washington DC last Friday, sponsored by the Zygote Liberation Front and the Committee to Restrict Women’s Health Care, or something like that. Theme of this year’s pep rally was “Equality Begins in the Womb,” a bid to promote fetal personhood and negate the human rights of the, um, womb-owners. This biology-denying sect is said to have infiltrated the federal judicial branch recently.
More:
“Anti-Abortion Marchers Gather With an Eye on the Supreme Court,” Kate Zernike and Madeleine Ngo, New York Times
“As March for Life returns to D.C., antiabortion activists wonder: Is this the last march under Roe?” Casey Parks, Washington Post
Related:
“Catholic pro-choice activists project messages onto DC basilica in protest,” by Jack Jenkins, RNS, via National Catholic Reporter
“White nationalists are flocking to the US anti-abortion movement,” Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“‘You never forget it’: These are the stories of life before Roe v. Wade transformed America,” Shefali Luthra, The 19th
The ex-girlfiend of Florida Man and well-known congressional sleazebagMatt Gaetz (R, FL-1) testified to a federal grand jury investigating him on underage sex-trafficking and other charges. The young woman has been in talks for months with prosecutors about an immunity deal, NBC reports, hoping to avoid prosecution for obstruction of justice in return for testifying as to whether Gaetz paid a 17-year-old female for sex and violated a federal law prohibiting people for paying for prostitutes overseas. This testimony is seen as a sign that the grand jury is moving closer to indicting Trump idolator Gaetz.
More:
“Matt Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend testifies to grand jury in sex trafficking probe,” Marc Caputo, NBC News
Update:
“Matt Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend granted immunity before testifying in sex trafficking probe,” Michael Kaplan, CBS News
“My Boyfriend’s Coming Home For Christmas,” written and performed by Toni Wine, a prodigious Brill Building songwriter and uncredited session backup singer on many rock and pop hits. She wrote and recorded this holiday tune in 1963, when she was 16 years old. Ms. Wine later left New York for Memphis, where she worked with (and married) record producer Chips Moman.
The Liverbirds were Britain’s first female rock band (from Liverpool, get it?). Here’s why you don’t know them. A New York Times “Almost Famous” video by Ben Proudfoot.
“Trevor Davis, a former consumer products expert at IBM, came up with a theory that matched heel length with economic upturns. ‘The index worked by analysing social media and other online sources for influencer and consumer references to shoes and boots where there was either a specific height of heel mentioned, like ‘four inches’ or a phrase that could be equated easily to a height,’ he says. ‘We then correlated that with a variety of indicators of economic performance to get the index.’ He says the data revealed that when economic indicators turned down the heel height initially went up, but if the economy remained in a recession state for more than a few months then heel heights went down.”
— “Can the ‘high heel index’ predict economic growth?” Priya Elan, The Guardian
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