Dr. Dre's apology: It's a small token but often a huge victory for survivors to hear abusers own up.

And the Internet is turning into quite a tool to make sure history isn't rewritten by those with power and money.

 Angie Aker
08.21.15

Victims left out of an abuser's movie — honest mistake or convenient sleight of hand?

"Straight Outta Compton," the blockbuster film chronicling the rise and fall of hip-hop group N.W.A is an important cultural touchpoint for its depiction of several really important themes: police brutality, race, youth culture, and the role of art in protest to name a few.

But when the movie, produced by N.W.A founding members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, was released, there were significant players in the story whose roles were conveniently left out. Dee Barnes, a journalist who Dr. Dre beat up in a nightclub, wrote that some reference to the occurrence would have been appropriate.

And when asked why she wasn't represented in the film, Dr. Dre's ex-fiancee Michel'le and former record labelmate said:

"But why would Dre put me in it? ... I was just a quiet girlfriend who got beat up and told to sit down and shut up."

It turns out, Dr. Dre's violent past was omitted entirely, and the Internet wasn't going to let it slide. The story blew up big time.

Image from Death Row Records.

Maybe recent backlash has taught abusers some lessons on how to deal with their crimes publicly.

In what seems to be a savvy PR move cribbed from seeing just how off-the-rails avoidance and denial can go for others (see Bill Cosby), Dr. Dre has issued an official apology. As told to The New York Times today:

"Twenty-five years ago I was a young man drinking too much and in over my head with no real structure in my life. However, none of this is an excuse for what I did. I've been married for 19 years and every day I'm working to be a better man for my family, seeking guidance along the way. I'm doing everything I can so I never resemble that man again. I apologize to the women I've hurt. I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives."

An apology is not a criminal conviction or compensation for years of pain and suffering, but it's also not nothing.

Image by Leyram Odacrem/Flickr.

One of the things to understand about abuse victims who never hear an acknowledgment or apology from their abusers is that it can be a form of gaslighting. It leaves the survivor to not only wrestle with the physical and emotional wounds from what they experienced, but to also reconcile conflicting accounts from the abuser and outsiders with what they experienced firsthand. When an abuser is twisting what occurred and the public (or friends and family, for those who aren't famous) seems to be buying it or just letting them move on, it can mess with a survivor's sense of reality and ultimately, their trust in their own perceptions.

The lack of an apology can leave a survivor without official closure. As Dee Barnes said in her piece on Gawker, it's not that she's holding on to the past but that the past is holding on to her. In her case, she means physically as well as emotionally, in the form of recurring pain. But that statement can be applied for abuse victims in numerous forms. Without official closure, a survivor must learn to be at peace with an unresolved part of their past.

Seeing an abuser finally own up to what they did and be held accountable in the eyes of the public can be an important step toward healing and a powerful way to shine light on the truth of abuse for all to see.

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Man pulls off elaborate scheme involving body double to get his overweight cat on an airplane

Facebook / Mikhail Galin

Putting your pet in cargo during a flight isn't always safe. In 2016, the Department of Transportation reported a total of 26 pet deaths and 22 injuries on flights. Because conditions in cargo can be uncomfortable for animals, the Humane Society recommends taking your pet aboard when you fly, or just leaving it at home.

It's not surprising that one Russian man didn't want to put his overweight cat in cargo during an eight-hour flight from Moscow to Vladivostok. What is surprising is the great lengths he took to fly with his four-legged friend.

Russian airline Aeroflot allows pets to fly inside the plane's cabin, as long as the cat weighs under 17.6 pounds and stays in its carrier during the flight. When Mikhail Galin went to check in, he was told he couldn't fly with his four-year old cat, Viktor. Viktor weighed in at 22 pounds and would have to be relegated to cargo.

But Viktor was sick from their earlier flight from Riga, Latvia to Moscow. And besides, Viktor had been allowed to fly inside the cabin during that flight. The airline staff didn't even bother to make Viktor sit on the scales. Galin was unable to persuade staff to bring his fur baby on board.

"To all attempts to explain that the cat won't survive there on an 8-hour flight with the baggage and would haunt her in her nightmares for the rest of her life, she (the Aeroflot staff member) replied that there are rules," Galin wrote in a Facebook post translated from Russian.

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There's a scientific (and adorable) reason why babies hiccup, according to a new study

Photo by Kelvin Octa from Pexels

Newborn babies don't seem to do much beyond eating and pooping and, of course, hiccupping. A lot. Parenting advice on how to cure a baby's hiccups runs the whole gamut. It's recommended parents try everything from nursing to stop feeding the baby so much, from giving the baby gripe water to letting the hiccups play their course. But when your baby hiccups too much, you shouldn't freak out. There's a good reason why.

A new study published in Clinical Neurophysiology found that hiccups play an important role in a baby's development. Researchers from the University College London found 217 babies for their study, but only looked at 13 newborns with persistent hiccups. Ten of those babies hiccupped when they were awake, and three hiccupped during their "wriggly" sleep. We have no idea how the scientists got any work done with all that cuteness lying around.

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Watch Kristen Bell magically rip through 17 Disney songs in 5 minutes with Jimmy Fallon

via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon / YouTube

Actress Kristen Bell and "The Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon showed off their vocal and comedic chops on Tuesday night when the performed a medley of 17 Disney songs, spanning nine decades, in just five minutes.

The duo started with 1940's "When You Wish Upon a Star" and ended with 2013's "Let it Go" from "Frozen."

Bell will reprise her role as Anna in Disney's upcoming "Frozen 2."

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Women shared how they make sexist men explain their nasty jokes, and it's so satisfying

Twitter—Heather Thompson Day/Naomi Savolainen/Chess Pearson

Ask almost any woman about a time a man said or did something sexually inappropriate to them, and she'll have a story or four to tell. According to a survey NPR published last year, 81% of women report having experienced sexual harassment, with verbal harassment being the most common. (By contrast, 43% of men report being sexually harassed. Naturally harassment toward anyone of any sex or gender is not okay, but women have been putting up with this ish unchecked for centuries.)

One form of verbal sexual harassment is the all too common sexist or sexual "joke." Ha ha ha, I'm going to say something explicit or demeaning about you and then we can all laugh about how hilarious it is. And I'll probably get away with it because you'll be too embarrassed to say anything, and if you do you'll be accused of being overly sensitive. Ha! Won't that be a hoot?

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