Julie, an immaculately made-up woman, sits down in front of a camera. She has thick, voluminous hair that frames the high cheekbones of her conspicuously crease-free face. Her elegant, arched eyebrows and extra-long eyelashes act as a counterbalance to her plump, painted lips. She looks out of frame, as if admiring herself in a mirror, before giggling and batting her eyelids.

"Oh dear," she purrs, tilting her head from side to side. "Another long day in a wig and a girdle."

She reaches up and emits a light moan as she unclips her gold earrings and gently sets them aside, one by one. She considers her image a few moments longer, then places her hands just below her ears and begins to pull her blemish-free skin off and away from her jawline. It's only now that we realize it's not human skin, but rather a mask made of soft, flesh-like silicone rubber.

Julie is one of the most visible faces of female masking, a specific subset of cross-dressing men who wear masks, and occasionally skin-tone bodysuits, to make them look more like biological women. The videos that she uploads to YouTube have received hundreds of thousands of views, attracting both fans and detractors.

By now, most people who shop online are aware of the way in which companies try to tailor their offers based on your previous purchasing and browsing history. Being followed by strangely relevant ads everywhere is bad enough, but what if the government started using the same approach in its communications with you? That's one of the key ideas explored in an interesting new article by Zeynep Tufekci, strikingly presented on Medium, with the title "Is the Internet good or bad? Yes."

Tufekci suggests that neither of the two main metaphors regularly wheeled out for today's global surveillance -- George Orwell's "1984" and Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon -- is right:

To understand the actual -- and truly disturbing -- power of surveillance, it's better to turn to a thinker who knows about real prisons: the Italian writer, politician, and philosopher Antonio Gramsci, who was jailed by Mussolini and did most of his work while locked up. Gramsci understood that the most powerful means of control available to a modern capitalist state is not coercion or imprisonment, but the ability to shape the world of ideas.

The polarized politics of Venezuela are again in the news as demonstrations by pro- (see above) and anti-government forces are taking place, with, at this point, four deaths: a government supporter; an opposition demonstrator; a police officer; and one of uncertain provenance. But the foreign press is portraying these as evidence of bloody government repression.

Not to go over old ground, at least too much, but this manufactured crisis is a re-run. Anyone remember the massive demo/counter-demo at the Miraflores palace in 2002, the lead-up to a short-lived coup against Hugo Chávez?

The disgraceful judges of Britain's High Court - who have gone along with torture, extraordinary rendition, every single argument for mass surveillance and hiding information from the public, and even secret courts - have ruled that it was lawful for the Home Office to detain David Miranda, a journalist as information he was carrying might in some undefined way, and if communicated to them, aid "terrorists".

Despite the entire industry, both private and governmental, devoted to whipping up fear, it is plain to pretty well everyone by now that terrorism is about the most unlikely way for you to die. A car accident is many hundreds of times more likely. Even drowning in your own bath is more likely. Where is the massive industry of suppression against baths?

I had dinner inside the Ecuadorian Embassy on Sunday with Julian Assange, who I am happy to say is as fit and well as possible in circumstances of confinement. Amongst those present was Jesselyn Radack, attorney for, among others, Edward Snowden. Last week on entering the UK she was pulled over by immigration and interrogated about her clients. The supposed "immigration officer" already knew who are Jesselyn Radack's clients. He insisted aggressively on referring repeatedly to Chelsea Manning as a criminal, to which Jesselyn quietly replied that he was a political prisoner. But even were we to accept the "immigration officer's" assertion, the fact that an attorney defends those facing criminal charges is neither new nor until now considered reprehensible and illegitimate.

As various states slide towards totalitarianism, a defining factor is that their populations really don't notice. Well, I have noticed. Have you?

US congressmen Peter Roskam and Dan Lipinski have introduced a bill that would deny funding to American academic institutions that choose to boycott Israel, Al Jazeera reports.

The Protect Academic Freedom Act, introduced by Roskam and Lipinski in early February, is Congress' first effort to enforce penalties on higher learning institutions that receive government money and boycott Israel. It follows similar efforts at the state level in Maryland and New York.

"These organisations are clearly free to do what they want to do under the [US Constitution's] First Amendment," Roskam said on the House floor while introducing the bill. "But the American taxpayer doesn't have to subsidise it. The American taxpayer doesn't have to be complicit in it. And the American taxpayer doesn't have to play any part in it."

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of U.S. military veteran and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern against John Kerry, in his capacity as the Secretary of State, and against officers at George Washington University.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia three years to the date of Mr. McGovern's brutal and false arrest at GWU during a speech of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Since arrest, the PCJF has uncovered that the Department of State issued a Be On The Lookout Alert ('BOLO Alert') for Mr. McGovern which described his "considerable amount of political activism, primarily anti-war," displayed his picture and directed law enforcement that if the then-71-year-old Mr. McGovern was encountered, "USE CAUTION, stop" and question him and contact the Department of State Diplomatic Security Command Center.

Circumstances of arrest

The circumstances of McGovern's 2011 arrest were marked by stinging irony. Mr. McGovern was brutalized and arrested after peacefully and silently standing with his back to Hillary Clinton as she gave a policy speech condemning authoritarian governments who repress dissenters and internet freedom.

As Secretary Clinton was reading from her prepared remarks regarding Egypt's dictatorship saying, "Then the government pulled the plug," Mr. McGovern was forcibly and falsely arrested by GWU police officers, grabbed by the head and assaulted directly in front of her.


As Secretary Clinton continued undisturbed in her speech which was being live broadcast worldwide by the State Department and was stating, "the government ... did not want the world to watch," Mr. McGovern was removed from public view with excessive and brutal force, taken to jail, and left bleeding with bruises and contusions. Mr. McGovern's charges of disorderly conduct, for standing silently with his back turned, were ultimately dropped.

Commuters screamed in terror as an up escalator at a Docklands Light Rail station suddenly reversed, sending them plummeting downwards.

Passengers piled into each other and two women were injured when the escalator at Cutty Sark station "accelerated" in the opposite direction, sparking panic.

Debra Sainsbury, 46, who fell and hurt her head and foot, said it was "like something out of a horror film ... terrifying. My foot was caught, there was no escape, with 50 people piling around you. My shoe was shredded".

She was pulled from the crush by a fellow passenger. "There were no staff around. If it wasn't for a quick-thinking person it could have been worse." The housing officer from Greenwich is considering legal action: "Staff said it wasn't their fault as they don't maintain the escalators. My foot was badly bruised, I have tissue damage in my ear. I can't believe safety measures did not kick in and the escalator stop. It was so dangerous."

Cleveland authorities have made several arrests following the mob beating of a disabled Army veteran by a group of teenagers.

Last Friday, the victim, Matthew Robinson, was surrounded by between six and eight teenagers while riding the RTA Healthline. Robinson told WOIO that he was attacked by the teens, then robbed of his possessions.

During the attack, the teens made several derogatory remarks about Robinson.

"What they were saying was, 'Knock that boy out!' 'White boy.' 'Cracker,'" he was quoted as saying about the incident. "They were saying, 'Knock that white boy out.'"

This week, three suspects - Kenneth Matthews, Ronald Reid Williams and an unnamed 16-year-old girl - were arrested by Cleveland and RTA police. The latter filmed the attack with her cell phone, and was said to still have the video at the time of her apprehension.

A Russian freestyle skier has suffered a broken back in a training crash in the mountains above Sochi, a source told R-Sport on Saturday.

Skicross racer Maria Komissarova sustained the injury while training at the PSX Olympic skicross venue at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, the Russian Freestyle Federation said earlier.

A source close to the situation told R-Sport the injury was a fracture of the spine with a dislocation.

"The character of the injury doesn't allow for her transportation to Moscow," the source said. "Now doctors will decide what to do further but an urgent operation with be carried out at Krasnaya Polyana hospital," the source added.

The 23-year-old's best career result came with second place at a World Cup event in 2012, but she was not expected to be a medal contender in the women's ski cross competition Friday. The federation has not commented on the nature of the injury other than to say it is "serious" and that Komissarova is ruled out of competition.

A University of Mississippi fraternity chapter was suspended Friday and three freshman members kicked out because of their suspected involvement in hanging a noose on a statue of James Meredith, the first black student to enroll in the then all-white college.

Sigma Phi Epsilon said it indefinitely suspended the Alpha Chapter, which voted to expel all three men and give their names to investigators.

Cops on Sunday found a noose tied around the Meredith statue's neck, along with an old Georgia flag bearing a since-eliminated Confederate battle emblem.

When Meredith tried to enter Ole Miss in fall 1962, Mississippi's governor tried to stop him. That led to violence on the Oxford campus.

U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 500 U.S. marshals to take control and days later, Meredith was allowed in the school. Though he faced harassment, he graduated with a degree in political science.

"It is embarrassing that these men had previously identified with our fraternity," said Brian C. Warren Jr., CEO of Sigma Phi Epsilon. "SigEp as a national fraternity has championed racial equality and issues on diversity since 1959 when it became the first national fraternity to invite members of all races, creeds and religions to join its membership."