June 26th, 2015

We Say ‘I Dough, I Dough’ at Ben & Jerry’s!

Across the country and around the globe, the movement for marriage equality is on an unstoppable roll, generating history-making victories, game-changing wins and growing waves of public support for legalizing same-sex marriage everywhere.

With this ruling, the SCOTUS recognizes the bond of love and commitment between two people, and protects the fundamental rights and freedoms that come with it.



To celebrate the occasion, and the countless citizens who’ve worked so hard to make it happen, we’re honorarily renaming our Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream I Dough, I Dough for the summer, at participating Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops nationwide.

Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins
— President Obama (@POTUS) June 26, 2015

All marriages at their root are about love. In America, our laws now recognize that simple truth. #LoveWins today & we couldn't be prouder.
— Vice President Biden (@VP) June 26, 2015

Today the Supreme Court fulfilled the words engraved upon its building: ‘Equal justice under law.’ #SCOTUSMarriage
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 26, 2015

So grateful to the people of MD for leading the way on this important issue of human dignity and equality under the law. #MarriageEquaility
— Martin O'Malley (@MartinOMalley) June 26, 2015

Proud to celebrate a historic victory for marriage equality—& the courage & determination of LGBT Americans who made it possible. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 26, 2015

Congratulations to Supreme Court on today's good ruling for marriage equality! #chafee2016
— Lincoln Chafee (@LincolnChafee) June 26, 2015

Women seeking an abortion in a country where the practice is illegal routinely find ways to circumvent the law.

In Poland, that will soon include receiving abortion medication via a drone.

On Saturday, four women's rights groups will launch a drone carrying abortion medication from the German-Polish border town of Frankfurt an der Oder. The 11-pound drone will fly to Slubice, Poland. The two towns are about two-thirds of a mile apart, and are separated by the Oder River.

The event appears to be a symbolic gesture to draw attention to abortion laws in Poland. Women can only have an abortion in the country in cases of rape or incest, when woman's life is in danger, or if there is "potential damage" to the fetus, according to Women on Waves, an abortion rights group involved in the drone campaign.

An interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stopped in its tracks on Wednesday when NPR's Diane Rehm repeatedly pressed the Democratic presidential candidate whether he was a citizen of Israel.

"Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel," Rehm said during the interview on her nationally broadcast show based on station WAMU.

"Well, no I do not have dual citizenship with Israel," Sanders, who is Jewish, interjected. "I'm an American. I don't know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. I'm an American citizen, period."

Rehm cited "a list we have gotten" at NPR that said Sanders was "on that list."

After it raised wages for employees in April, Walmart said on Friday that it’s already seen lower turnover and an increase in job applicants.

“Our job applications are going up and we are seeing some relief in turnover,” CEO Doug McMillon said at a media briefing after its annual shareholders meeting. The company’s performance has been suffering recently thanks to understaffed stores, among other things.

The company announced that all workers would make at least $9 an hour this year, a minimum that would increase to $10 an hour in February. The company’s rationale at the time was that it would reap the benefits of its $1 billion investment in higher wages through lower turnover, which is apparently already playing out.

Turnover can be quite costly: it eats up the equivalent of a fifth of a worker’s salary to replace him. Higher wages have been found to stem a tide of fleeing workers, however: two different reports found that increased wages lower turnover as well as increase recruitment and employee performance.

Given how monumentally important scientific literacy is for anyone who hopes to lead America in the 21st Century, you would think holding a “science debate” alongside issues of foreign policy, social issues, and the economy is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, one half of the political spectrum seems to believe science isn’t observable facts based on data, and instead political opinions that come from your gut or the checkbook of the closest oil tycoon. As you can imagine, Republican candidates have historically opposed discussing science during elections at all costs. 2016 may change all that – and it will be a bloodbath.

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And it may actually work. We know that if there is one thing that politicians listen to almost as much as money it’s popular opinion. Knowing that 42,000 people are demanding you engage them in your views on science is hard to ignore. It’s also overwhelmingly popular. In fact, even Republicans who reject things like climate change and evolution want to appear like they are scientifically minded. They certainly don’t mind bringing up scientific studies or findings if they believe they support something they believe in. If a new study came out tomorrow that demonstrated conclusively that the Earth wasn’t warming at all (it won’t), the GOP and their friends in the right-wing media would become the biggest fans of science in the world over night.

The problem lies in the fact that on almost every issue, Republicans would get creamed. This is the “I’m not a scientist, but…” party, after all. Browsing the selection of presidential hopefuls, it is immediately clear that any one of them would struggle to make sense or sound smart while being asked about carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere. (Although, Rick Perry does wear glasses now, so there’s that.)

It’s hard to say whether scientific ignorance could cost a particularly dimwitted candidate an election, but watching someone like Rick Santorum or Scott Walker struggle to articulate their laughably off-base views on the Theory of Evolution might move the needle just enough. It’s hard to get excited to vote for a person who seems like they couldn’t hack it at an elementary school science fair.

Cookbooks can be an overlooked source of history. They reflect not only the culinary values of an era but even the political. That’s exactly what the new book Food in the Civil War Era: The South, edited by food historian Helen Zoe Veit explores, reports Nina Martyris for NPR.

Any connoisseur of Southern cuisine is sure to be aware of how history has shaped the foods of the region. Many foods are the dishes slaves cooked that harkened back to the foods of West and Central Africa and make do with more meager ingredients. (Though some Southern dishes betray unexpected influences — fried green tomatoes, for example, might come from Jewish immigrants and are apparently a recent addition to the cuisine.)

But modern variation in dishes cooked in the Northern U.S. versus the South is the result of decades of influences, simmered and blended over time. To delve into the differences made stark by the Civil War, Veit looks to cookbooks written in that time. "Although direct references to the war were rare in Northern cookbooks," Viet told Martyris for NPR, "a close reading can help us glean hints of the turbulence churning outside the kitchen window."

"There was only one actual cookbook published in the South during the war — but recipes were printed in other forms, especially in periodicals," she says.

Mixed martial arts fighter and self-proclaimed “alpha male” Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver, better known as “War Machine,” was in court June 3 trying to get some of the 34 counts against him dismissed in association with the savage beating of his ex-girlfriend Christy Mack. At one point he demanded Judge Elissa Cadish allow him to take a polygraph test.

“I want to do it,” he said rather aggressively. Her response? “I don’t care.”

The video of War Machine’s hearing, posted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, shows the shackled and orange jumpsuit-clad Koppenhaver growing agitated as his attorney, Brandon Sua, argued that there isn’t enough evidence to support charges alleging the fighter was trying to kill anyone. The judge shot down his request, meaning all charges stand and trial is set for September.

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Koppenhaver attempted suicide in October and left a note that is replete with language associated with the Men’s Rights Movement, a reactionary effort to preserve a patriarchal society. He claimed “society has killed men, I was never meant to live in this era anyway. Follow your dreams and think for yourselves.”