Why online dating hasn't lead to more marriage - GoGabber

In Search Of... Love... Having problems with friendships or finding companions, lovers or associates? Is someone pursuing an unwelcome relationship with you? Discuss your experiences here.

02-04-13, 08:09 PM	? #1
Moderator ? Join Date: Dec 2012 Posts: 232 Thanks: 36 Thanked 42 Times in 34 Posts Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts Send gift to a Friend	The economist Marina Adshade wrote something that I've been saying for several years: Quote: I can?t shake this feeling that access to online dating is actually making it more difficult for men and women to find love. I know that sounds counterintuitive, especially from a market perspective, but what should have been a useful tool to encourage matching has encouraged a response that is best described as ?relationship greed?. And that effect has left many singles still searching long after they would have found a partner on a traditional dating market. Online dating sites like to claim that they effectively help singles find love. The problem with evidence that supports that claim is that its metric is the share of married couples that met online ? that is the total number of married couples who met online divided by the total number of married couples ? as proof that online dating works. That, however, is a skewed measure of success for online dating sites that would be best replaced with a measure that is the share of all searching singles that ultimately met a relationship partner online ? the total number of married couples who met online divided by the total number of potential married couples. I haven?t seen any evidence of the success of online dating using the second measure and, in a period in which the rate of singlehood is increasing, we have good reason to be suspicious as to whether or not the first measure is really capturing an increase in marriage rates as the result of access to bigger markets. ... To start, let?s talk about how people behave when they are faced with a large number of choices on the dating market ? they start by limiting their available options. Online daters are not really looking for the needle in the haystack as much as they are looking to eliminate the pieces of straw as quickly as possible to reveal the hidden needle. Eliminating available options can be extremely time consuming in a large market so they find ways to filter out unwanted matches quickly by filtering searches and scanning profiles for reasons to reject rather than for reasons to accept. The problem with this approach that focuses on a ?must have? list of qualities is that it fails to recognize that the value of qualities a person possesses are not absolute but rather relative to other qualities. For example, a man might want a woman who describes herself as slender and shares his avid interest in traveling and so limits his search for women who are slender and who list traveling as one of their interests. Both of these qualities might be important to him, but chances are one is more important than the other. If he had been searching for a woman using a more traditional method he might have met a woman whose passion for travel more than made up for her curvy figure and they could have formed a happy union. Because he is filtering online, however, he never has a chance to even see her profile, never mind hear about the year she spent traveling in South America. Filtering searches might not sound like relationship greed, but it is in the sense that we want it all. The problem with this approach is that when we filter we lose out on the opportunity to find someone who actually has more of what we are looking for rather than someone who has less. I can always tell if a man that I am on a date with has spent too much time on the online dating market. Instead of taking the opportunity to enjoy each other?s company these men seem to spend the entire date mentally checking off boxes, almost like they are conducting an interview that would allow them to complete a online dating profile for me when they get home. I don?t know when a date became more like a job interview than an opportunity to seduce the member of the opposite (or same) sex, but I am pretty sure it started with online dating. http://bigthink.com/dollars-and-sex/...-single-part-i I don't know how many times I too have told people that online dating is more like a job interview than a date. People who have been married a long time and consequently have been away from the dating world are almost always surprised by this, to the point of disbelief. Marina came up with this conclusion by thinking the matter through. I came up with a similar conclusion after having hundreds of dates with American women (AW) I met online. I was astounded at how picky the AW had become. My previous dating experience was in the pre-Internet dating world, where you met the person, talked for a bit, and then asked her out or not. Internet dating allows people to be extraordinarily selective. This has lead to the proverbial 467 bullet point checklist that guys must meet in order to proceed with a girl. I had an experience similar to Marina's example above of someone who is seeking a partner who likes to travel. I exchanged a message with an AW I met on a dating website. Before she would even give me her phone number she sent me a message asking, "Your profile states that you like to travel. I do too. Where have you traveled in the last year on trips not for business?". I had had a promotion at work that previous year and had had to work a great deal more, so I told her this. She followed up with, "Where did you travel in the previous year, not for work?". I sent her the list of destinations and I passed that test. I still did not get her phone number because she decided that she didn't want to pursue a relationship with me because I had children. But that was just a mild example of, let's say, a heightened selectivity. I was on a date with another AW and the subject of dating tests came up. I asked if she had any (knowing she undoubtedly did). She said she nixed the last guy she was going out with because of his answer to her question "What would you order in a Chinese restaurant?". He answered almond chicken, a staple dish of Chinese restaurants in the US. She regarded that choice as insufficiently adventurous in a culinary sense. One of her major interests in life was food. She regarded herself as a foodie, so much so that that word was part of her username on the dating site. She had no thought that she might teach this guy about her food preferences. She knew she could go back to the computer and whistle up another dozen profiles. I passed the foodie test but I failed a subsequent one. It's important to note that neither of these AW was some gorgeous model-type. They were women in their late thirties or early forties who were somewhat attractive and not overweight.
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02-04-13, 11:23 PM	? #2
GG Guru ? Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: State of Denial Posts: 3,644 Thanks: 2,454 Thanked 3,858 Times in 1,883 Posts Groans: 1 Groaned at 3 Times in 3 Posts Send gift to a Friend	I have had similar experiences with men all over the western world (EU & US). It seems to me that internet dating has facilitated raising the bar to such an extent that no longer is anyone interested in anything short of star status in their intended. Good luck with that. __________________ The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
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Yesterday, 10:23 AM	? #3
GG Newbie ? Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 3 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts Send gift to a Friend	"Relationship greed" - I love that phrase. I'm not a fan of online dating sites, though I have dabbled with them in the past. I found that a lot of the men I met were serial daters, and no matter how much they liked someone they found it hard to quit looking for something better. I think one reason the 'AW's' mentioned above had such checklists is because they were older. Why waste time on people who you know won't measure up? (I see the point, although I think they sound extreme.)
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Yesterday, 11:09 AM	? #4
GG Prophet ? Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 10,154 Thanks: 1,574 Thanked 4,571 Times in 2,664 Posts Groans: 4 Groaned at 21 Times in 20 Posts Send gift to a Friend	Question the premiss , imo . On line dating has been initially and mostly sold as an answer for finding a marriage partner . But that is just one advantage among several that is available . Stop thinking of OLD as a "one trick pony" . If fewer people were mesmerised by the now tarnished idea that on-line dating can find you a soulmate , they could then better take advantage of the different and varied other potential benefits . Of course OLD is unlikely to find that perfect husband/wife . What method has ever delivered that promise with a good measure of success ? But OLD between mature , experienced and savvy people , and using Skype over a sensible period of time , will give better results than older previous methods . And International . And with different cultures . All imo .
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Ray Lewis Murders

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EU's Ashton "cautiously optimistic" over Iran nuclear talks

We don?t have Ashley Judd to write about anymore, but we do have the guilty, albeit temporary, pleasure of the House contest between former Republican congressman and South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, known most recently for his spectacularly strange personal life, and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, known by most of the country as comedian Stephen Colbert?s sister. As the pair plunge into campaigns to win the May 7 special election for a vacant House seat, I can?t be the only one wondering:

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eus-ashton-cautiously-optimistic-over-iran-nuclear-talks-142157928.html

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Chinese HTC One variant spotted with microSD slot, dual SIM capabilities

'HTC 802w' hides external storage and two SIM slots behind removable back cover

As much as the 32 to 64 gigabytes of internal storage in the standard HTC One might be enough for most users in the West, different markets sometimes call for different features. And a feature difference is exactly what we're seeing in the first leaked shots of what seems to be a Chinese HTC One variant going by the model name 802w. That's right -- there's dual SIM support, in addition to a microSD slot.

Spotted by Engadget Chinese over on Sina Weibo, the 802w hides all extra stuff behind a removable back cover. That's something not found on the European and American HTC One models, which pack everything into a sealed unibody enclosure with only a pop-out microSIM tray along the left edge. The Chinese handset, said to be headed to China Unicom, has one SIM slot for WCDMA/GSM (data and voice) and another for GSM (voice only), a trait common to many dual-SIM devices.

Even if it's a legit HTC-made product and not a knock-off, we wouldn't hold our breath for HTC One variants like this outside of the Far East. What's more, the prospect of using such a device without Google services might not make the 802w a particularly attractive prospect for import. But at least we'll always be able to fawn over the picture above.

Source: Sina Weibo; via: Engadget Chinese, Engadget

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/Fa_FilDgQdg/story01.htm

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Obama proposes $100M for brain mapping project

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed an effort to map the brain's activity in unprecedented detail, as a step toward finding better ways to treat such conditions as Alzheimer's, autism, stroke and traumatic brain injuries.

He asked Congress to spend $100 million next year to start a project that will explore details of the brain, which contains 100 billion cells and trillions of connections.

That's a relatively small investment for the federal government ? less than a fifth of what NASA spends every year just to study the sun ? but it's too early to determine how Congress will react.

Obama said the so-called BRAIN Initiative could create jobs, and told scientists gathered in the White House's East Room that the research has the potential to improve the lives of billions of people worldwide.

"As humans we can identify galaxies light-years away," Obama said. "We can study particles smaller than an atom, but we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears."

Scientists unconnected to the project praised the idea.

BRAIN stands for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. The idea, which Obama first proposed in his State of the Union address, would require the development of new technology that can record the electrical activity of individual cells and complex neural circuits in the brain "at the speed of thought," the White House said.

Obama wants the initial $100 million investment to support research at the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation. He also wants private companies, universities and philanthropists to partner with the federal agencies in support of the research. And he wants a study of the ethical, legal and societal implications of the research.

The goals of the work are unclear at this point. A working group at NIH, co-chaired by Cornelia "Cori" Bargmann of The Rockefeller University and William Newsome of Stanford University, would work on defining the goals and develop a multi-year plan to achieve them that included cost estimates.

The $100 million request is "a pretty good start for getting this project off the ground," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health told reporters in a conference call. While the ultimate goal applies to the human brain, some work will be done in simpler systems of the brains of animals like worms, flies and mice, he said.

Collins said new understandings about how the brain works may also provide leads for developing better computers.

Brain scientists unconnected with the project were enthusiastic.

"This is spectacular," said David Fitzpatrick, scientific director and CEO of the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience in Jupiter, Fla., which focuses on studying neural circuits and structures.

While current brain-scanning technologies can reveal the average activity of large populations of brain cells, the new project is aimed at tracking activity down to the individual cell and the tiny details of cell connections, he said. It's "an entirely different scale," he said, and one that can pay off someday in treatments for a long list of neurological and psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, Parkinson's, depression, epilepsy and autism.

"Ultimately, you can't fix it if you don't know how it works," he said. "We need this fundamental understanding of neuronal circuits, their structure, their function and their development in order to make progress on these disorders."

"This investment in fundamental brain science is going to pay off immensely in the future," Fitzpatrick said.

Richard Frackowiak, a co-director of Europe's Human Brain Project, which is funded by the European Commission, said he was delighted by the announcement.

"From our point of view as scientists we can only applaud and say we will collaborate as much as possible," he said. "The opportunities for a massive worldwide collaborative effort to solve the problem of neurodegeneration and psychiatric disease will ... really become absolutely feasible," he said. "We need that."

___

Ritter reported from New York.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-proposes-100m-brain-mapping-project-143437271--politics.html

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Accidental Deliberations: On impending failures

Lest anybody see the high-profile Atlanta example of standardized testing fraud as an isolated incident, Valerie Strauss writes about how Sask Party-style mandatory testing has produced similar problems across the U.S.:

In the past four academic years, test cheating has been confirmed in 37 states and Washington D.C. (You can see details here, and, here, a list of more than 50 ways that schools can manipulate test scores.)? The true extent of these scandals remain unknown, and, as Michael Winerip of The New York Times shows here in this excellent article, it is very hard to get to the bottom of these scandals. In Atlanta, it took the will of two governors who allowed investigators to go in with a lot of time and subpoena power.

Atlanta, in fact, is the tip of a national test-score manipulation ?iceberg,? according to Bob Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the misuse of standardized tests. The cause? Pressure by politicians on educators to boost standardized exam results ?by hook or by crook? to meet the requirements of laws that purport to promote student achievement but don?t.

...

Anyone following school reform over the past decade knows exactly what happened. Under No Child Left Behind, president George W. Bush?s chief education initiative, and then Race to the Top, President Obama?s central education program, placed increasingly high stakes on standardized test scores. They had to go up, or else there would be negative consequences not just for students but schools and teachers and principals.

Those mandates became coupled with a ?no excuse? management push by school reformers who said teachers had, well, no excuse not to raise their students? test scores. Not a lack of materials. Not an overcrowded classroom. Not students who were hungry or sick or traumatized from living in violent communities. Nothing.

Then we started hearing story after story about so-called ?miracle schools? where scores shot up, seemingly overnight. The miracles never really panned out.

Needless to say, the same message which created incentives to cheat is exactly the one being pitched by the Sask Party: that student and school progress alike are somehow better measured by one-off testing than by longer-term development which isn't so easily reduced to a single number. And this even as international testing results show early childhood development and social supports, not constant testing, to be the most consistent contributor even to testing outcomes.

In the end, then, one can't describe the Sask Party's obsession with universal testing as anything particularly new or innovative. Instead, it's a well-worn racket whose flaws have already been thoroughly exposed in the United States - and the only question for now is whether Brad Wall will lurch ahead even in the face of the evidence.

Source: http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-impending-failures.html

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NRA study suggests trained, armed school staffers

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Schools across the nation should train selected staff members to carry weapons and should each have at least one armed security officer to make students safer and allow a quicker response to an attack, the director of a National Rifle Association-sponsored study said Tuesday.

Republican former Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas made the remarks as a task force he headed released its report, which included a 40- to 60-hour training program for school staff members who are qualified and can pass background checks.

"The presence of an armed security personnel in a school adds a layer of security and diminishes the response time that is beneficial to the overall security," said Hutchinson.

Asked if every school would be better off with an armed security officer, Hutchinson replied, "Yes," but acknowledged the decision would be made locally.

"Obviously we believe that they make a difference," he said.

Hutchinson said the security could be provided by trained staff members or by school resource officers ? police officers assigned to schools that some districts already have.

The report was released a week before the Senate plans to begin debating gun control legislation.

The NRA opposes the main feature of the legislation, an expansion of background checks to cover nearly all gun purchases. But the group has long said the school safety study would be an important response to last December's massacre of first-graders and staff members at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said administration officials were working with lawmakers to try to reach a compromise on legislation that could be supported by both parties.

"The president has always recognized that this is something that would be a challenge but that in the wake of the horrific shootings in Newtown was an obligation of all of us to work on and try to get done," Carney said.

The spokesman commented as the White House revealed the president plans a trip next week to Connecticut, scene of the horrific shooting that spurred the new push for gun-control legislation. The aim of Obama's trip is to build pressure on Congress to pass legislation.

Obama also plans to focus on firearms curbs in a trip Wednesday to Denver, not far from last summer's mass shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

Obama and his allies ? mostly Democrats ? are trying to bolster prospects that Congress will approve gun legislation. Chances of such action on Capitol Hill have waned since the Newtown shootings.

The 225-page NRA study, which Hutchinson said cost more than $1 million, made eight recommendations. They included changing state laws that might bar a trained school staff member from carrying a firearm, NRA-provided online assessments that schools could make of their safety procedures and better coordination with law enforcement agencies.

The study drew immediate opposition from the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.5 million teachers and other workers.

"Today's NRA proposal is a cruel hoax that will fail to keep our children and schools safe," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. "It is simply designed to assist gun manufacturers" to flood the nation with more guns and large magazine clips.

Hutchinson said the NRA dropped an earlier recommendation that retired police officers and other volunteers be armed to provide school safety. He said the idea encountered "great reluctance" from school superintendents.

The NRA had suggested the retired officer idea just days after the Newtown killings.

Several NRA-supplied security guards were at Tuesday's event ? unusual for an announcement at the National Press Club, a building that houses offices for many news organizations.

Hutchinson said the NRA did not interfere with his task force's work. In a written statement, the NRA said the report "will go a long way to making America's schools safer."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nra-study-suggests-trained-armed-school-staffers-183642130--politics.html

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Working Class Students and Creative Writing Workshops - Lee Martin

A series of articles has appeared lately about the inclusion of the rural poor in a university?s attempt to admit a diversified group of first-year students. Syndicated columnist, Ross Douthat, writes, ?The most underrepresented groups on elite campuses often aren?t racial minorities; they?re working-class whites (and white Christians in particular) from conservative states and regions. Inevitably, the same underrepresentation persists in the elite professional ranks these campuses feed into: in law and philanthropy, finance and academia, the media and the arts.? I was one of those working class whites, and when it came time to make my college choice, it was simple. We had a community college twelve miles from my home. I knew how to drive there. I knew that after two years, I?d transfer to Eastern Illinois University, an hour away from home up Illinois Route 130. That?s what people did in my neck of the woods. I would follow the path that others had set for me. I never even considered the quality of these schools. They were what I knew, and what I knew felt comfortable. That?s about as far as my thinking about college went. I never considered other options. Even the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana seemed like a school meant for other people, but not for me. I came from a small town of a thousand people. The year I graduated, our high school had an enrollment of 132 students. My class had twenty-eight people in it. Nearly all of us were the children of working class parents.

Now I teach at one of the largest universities in the country, and I still sometimes feel like that shy country kid who spent a lot of time sitting in his car between classes during that first term at the community college because I didn?t know how to convince myself that I belonged there. The college was in a town of 9,000 people. It was a small town, yes, but to me it was large enough to make me shy. I took note of all the city kids who knew one another. To them, the community college was merely an extension of their high school years. They had an instant community to which they belonged. Although I and a handful of other students from my high school only lived twelve miles away, those twelve miles were enough to make me feel excluded. I was intimidated until I found my own community within the community college. Classes in English and literature allowed me to tap into my natural talents, and I gradually found other people who shared my interests. I found folks who were writing poems and stories, and I finally began to feel at home.

It?s what we?re all looking for, I suppose, those groups that value our talents and will put out the effort to encourage us to find our skills and then to develop them. In the case of creative writing, we who teach it encounter students from various backgrounds, and we try to help them strengthen their craft. We shouldn?t forget that we?re also inviting our students to use their writing to become more confident about the people they?ll be in the world beyond our classrooms. We?re helping them become the people they?re meant to be.

With that in mind, I want to offer some thoughts on three things we can do to make all our students feel included in our workshops:

1.???????? We should be sensitive to any language around the workshop table that might make our students feel that their own experiences aren?t of value. When it comes to the rural poor, words like ?white trash,? ?trailer trash,? ?redneck,? and ?hillbilly? particularly get under my skin. I?m sure any ethnic group could come up with their own list of terms which make them grit their teeth, redden with embarrassment, make them wish they were invisible around the workshop table. We should be sensitive to the attitudes that our words suggest even if we think we?re speaking in a good-humored and harmless way.

2.???????? We should also encourage conversations about social class. We can provide exercises for the exchange of stories and facts from various backgrounds so students can begin to value their diverse experiences. Any exercise that invites students to describe their homes and families in direct terms should work as long as we make sure that there?s an atmosphere of mutual respect around the table when it comes time to read from these exercises. For years, I?ve led my students in a round of applause after one of them shares work with us. No matter what the students may be thinking, the act of clapping is one that thanks someone for sharing. It?s my hope that the applause shows the student that his or her experience matters.

3.???????? Finally, we can look for what makes our students? work unique. We can praise them for taking us into worlds we wouldn?t have otherwise known. We can encourage them to keep writing from the worlds that they know most intimately. ?Tell me about the mango trees in Trinidad,? I said once to a student, and she was off and running, recreating the world from which she came in a way that gave her the confidence she needed in order to keep writing about the place and the life she knew best.

Our students are like most people. They like having the chance to talk about what they know. They like being invited to tell stories that only they can tell, stories that come from the places and cultures that created them. So much of teaching is a matter of having good people skills. Like most writers, I get curious about people. I like to ask them questions. I like my students to tell me things I don?t know. The rural poor are accustomed to not having that chance. For a variety of reasons I won?t take the time to fully mention here, students who come from working class families often get the sense that their worlds don?t matter. Often, those worlds, when they appear on television or the movies, aren?t represented in an honorific way. The message is there in subtle and not-so-subtle ways: keep quiet, don?t call attention to yourself, hope that no one notices you. That?s what I felt those days at the community college when I sat in my car, afraid to speak to anyone, afraid that sooner or later someone would figure out that I was a fraud and ask me to leave. It was through creative writing that I finally found a way to speak from my working class world. Now I try to make that possible for all my students, no matter their cultural backgrounds. ?Tell me your stories,? I say to them. ?Tell me what you know.?

Source: http://leemartinauthor.com/blog/2013/04/working-class-students-and-creative-writing-workshops/

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Biz Stone's New Startup Jelly Sounds Like A Home For Do-Gooders On The Go

AllThingsD reported last week that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was working on a new mobile startup called “Jelly.” Today, a company blog post has emerged that gives us a few more details as to what Jelly might focus on, but it’s still hazy on exacts. In the post, Biz Stone, who is co-founder and CEO of Jelly Industries, Inc., says it will be for “everybody,” and will be mobile focused. Yes, it doesn’t sound like much, but Stone also said that the company is named after the jellyfish, which sheds light on the type of application he might be working on: We are inspired by this particular animal because neurologically, its brain is more ?we? than ?me.? Also, for the past 700 million years, this decentralized structure has been wildly successful. To us, it sounds like Jellyfish might have something to do with social good, or helping others out. By calling out the “we” vs. “me” aspect, it’s clear that Stone won’t be working on another social network that lets you express yourself in 140 characters, set up a bio or otherwise peacock about how amazing you are and why you’re interesting, all over the Internet. Doing “good” is a whole separate ballgame, though. You might be a generous person trying to change the world for the better, but can you prove it? Jelly sounds to us like a way to connect you to social causes and show off your contribution. The Twitter co-founder explained that “People are basically good?when provided a tool that helps them do good in the world, they prove it.” The service will be free, but won’t be available for “a while.” Additionally, Stone says that Jelly will be taking up a good part of his time, save for some of his advisory roles at companies like Branch and Fluther. Jelly is self-funded and it’s based in San Francisco. Much like Ev Williams’ publishing service Medium, Stone is in no hurry to become a big company he says. There aren’t many central homes for philanthropy and volunteering on the web other than a site like Causes, which piggybacked Facebook’s success and open graph. The site never took off as a standalone service, lacking helpful discovery tools to connect you with causes that you might care about. For the most part, you donate here, sign a petition there, but there’s no scorecard. If you had a public-facing

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ZCG4K5RVI_4/

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Rapper Rick Ross explains lyrics on 'U.O.E.N.O.'

FILE - This July 7, 2012 file photo shows rapper Rick Ross performing during the OpenAir music festival in Frauenfeld, Switzerland. Ross says critics have misinterpreted his recent lyrics on Rocko's ?U.O.E.N.O? after uproar from women's advocacy groups. Ross raps about giving a woman the drug MDNA, known as molly, and having his way with a woman in the song, ?and she ain't even know it.? Thought the song came out in January, the lyrics gained widespread notice last week when women's groups began to complain. Petitions were also issued, including one asking Reebok to withdraw its advertising agreement with Ross. The Miami-based rapper said in an interview on New Orleans' Q93.3 that ?There was a misunderstanding with the lyric, a misinterpretation.? He says the term rape was never used and it's not something condoned by him, his camp or hip-hop in general. (AP Photo/Keystone/Ennio Leanza, file)

FILE - This July 7, 2012 file photo shows rapper Rick Ross performing during the OpenAir music festival in Frauenfeld, Switzerland. Ross says critics have misinterpreted his recent lyrics on Rocko's ?U.O.E.N.O? after uproar from women's advocacy groups. Ross raps about giving a woman the drug MDNA, known as molly, and having his way with a woman in the song, ?and she ain't even know it.? Thought the song came out in January, the lyrics gained widespread notice last week when women's groups began to complain. Petitions were also issued, including one asking Reebok to withdraw its advertising agreement with Ross. The Miami-based rapper said in an interview on New Orleans' Q93.3 that ?There was a misunderstanding with the lyric, a misinterpretation.? He says the term rape was never used and it's not something condoned by him, his camp or hip-hop in general. (AP Photo/Keystone/Ennio Leanza, file)

FILE - This Sept. 29, 2012 file photo shows Rick Ross performing at the BET Hip-Hop Honors at Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center in Atlanta. Ross says critics have misinterpreted his recent lyrics on Rocko's ?U.O.E.N.O? after uproar from women's advocacy groups. Ross raps about giving a woman the drug MDNA, known as molly, and having his way with a woman in the song, ?and she ain't even know it.? Thought the song came out in January, the lyrics gained widespread notice last week when women's groups began to complain. Petitions were also issued, including one asking Reebok to withdraw its advertising agreement with Ross. The Miami-based rapper said in an interview on New Orleans' Q93.3 that ?There was a misunderstanding with the lyric, a misinterpretation.? He says the term rape was never used and it's not something condoned by him, his camp or hip-hop in general. (Photo by John Amis/Invision/AP, file)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Rapper Rick Ross says critics have misinterpreted his lyrics on Rocko's "U.O.E.N.O" after uproar from women's advocacy groups.

Ross raps about giving a woman the drug MDMA, known as Molly, and having his way with a woman in the song, "and she ain't even know it."

Although the song was released in January, the lyrics gained widespread notice last week when women's groups began to complain. Petitions were issued, including one asking Reebok to withdraw its advertising agreement with Ross.

The Miami-based rapper said in an interview on New Orleans' Q93.3 that "there was a misunderstanding with the lyric, a misinterpretation." He says the term "rape" was never used and it's not something condoned by him, his camp or hip-hop in general.

Messages to Ross' publicist weren't returned.

___

Online:

http://rickrossdeeperthanrap.com /

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-01-People-Rick%20Ross/id-348933915f864ebc8f06a4e6bde1142a

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Dolan: Catholic Church's Nature Means It Will be Out of Touch Sometimes (ABC News)

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Pakistani woman makes history with run in May vote

KHAR, Pakistan (AP) ? A 40-year-old Pakistani housewife has made history by becoming the first woman to run for parliament from the country's northwest tribal region, a highly conservative area that is a haven for Islamist militants.

Badam Zari told The Associated Press on Monday that she will participate in the May 11 election to bring greater attention to problems facing women, which she believes the government has ignored.

"I want to reach the assembly to become a voice for women, especially those living in the tribal areas," Zari said.

Zari is from Bajur, part of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The area is mostly populated by Pashtun tribesmen who have very conservative views toward women. Most women in the tribal region are uneducated, rarely work outside the home and wear long, flowing clothes that cover most of their skin when they appear in public.

Zari spoke to reporters at a press conference Monday wearing a colorful shawl wrapped around her body and head, with only her eyes showing.

Bajur is one of the many areas in the tribal region where the army has battled Taliban militants, who are waging a bloody insurgency against the government. The militants have a history of using violence to enforce their hard-line views on women.

Last fall, the Taliban in a different part of the northwest shot 15-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head in an unsuccessful attempt to kill her because she resisted the militants' views and was a strong advocate of girls' education.

Zari, who finished high school and does not have any children, said she filed the paperwork necessary to run for office on Sunday in Khar, the main town in Bajur. She was accompanied by her husband, who she said fully backed her decision to run for a seat in the National Assembly.

"This was a difficult decision, but now I am determined and hopeful society will support me," Zari said.

Men in Bajur and other parts of the tribal region have historically discouraged women to vote, saying they should remain at home, according to local traditions.

Far fewer women vote than men in other parts of Pakistan as well, and females remain underrepresented in the country's politics. But there are examples of Pakistani women holding very powerful political positions in the country, such as the late former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Zari said she hopes she can convince women to go out to vote. Out of the roughly 186,000 registered voters in her constituency, about 67,000 are women, according to government records.

Under Pakistan's political system, the winning candidate is the one who receives the most votes ? not necessarily a majority ? meaning Zari could be a strong candidate if she can get women to vote for her.

Zari said she has not yet received any threats or been discouraged from locals to run.

"My decision to contest the election will not only give courage to women in general and attract attention to their problems, but also helps negate the wrong impression about our society," Zari said. "This will reflect a true picture of our society, where women get respect."

___

Associated Press writer Zarar Khan contributed to this report from Islamabad.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistani-woman-makes-history-run-may-vote-091852248.html

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