I just don't get people who love sharks. They are truly hideous killers
No longer just the menace of beaches Down Under, the great whites are actually coming for us all. The marine research group Ocearch has even predicted their arrival on English beaches. 'We believe they should be moving up past Brest [in Brittany, France] and Cornwall,' said Chris Fischer, one of their researchers. Heaven forbid!
But the man of steel and naturalist Lewis Pugh takes a different view, along with plenty of marine conservationists who see sharks, even the great white, as primarily victims, to be preserved at all costs, no matter the human lives and limbs they claim per year.
On Thursday, in critical homage to the 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, which instilled the universal terror of great whites, Pugh embarked on one of his marathon swims around Martha's Vineyard off the New England coast. This is where Jaws was filmed and in these waters, thanks to the nightmarish creatures' drift northward in search of seals, they are now regularly spotted. His 62-mile circumnavigation will take 12 days, and on each day he will be speaking to audiences about the importance of sharks.
'It was a film about sharks attacking humans and, for 50 years, we have been attacking sharks,' Pugh said.
What's madness to me is the idea that I might encounter one of these figures from hell in waters I used to enjoy without a second thought. What's madness to me is that more swimmers will lose their lives this year when a great white mistakes them (so we are told) for a seal.
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an hour ago
- Buzz Feed
I Watched 'Jaws' For The First Time & Here's My Reaction
Jaws is officially 50 years old. It was Steven Spielberg's second film (can you believe that?), and it blew up at the box office in 1975, making it the first big summer blockbuster ever. Oh, yeah, it also won three Academy Awards, NBD... But even after all these accolades, I have never seen it... until now. So grab your chum bucket (aka popcorn), and watch the movie with me for the 50th anniversary below: Cool, cool, cool, cool... we're just starting off with the Jaws theme song. This is fine...I'm fine. Oh, look, now we're hanging out with the youths while they have a bonfire. And this man approached a woman... who was hanging by herself, might I add. Sir, stay in your lane. Now they're running toward the beach because Chrissie wants to go swimming?? Girl, it's in the middle of the night! Why do you think this is a good idea?? (I can already tell, I'm too old to hang with these youths...) "I'm not drunk!!" said a very "sober" nameless man as he ran after her. *facepalm* Wait... now Chrissie is in the ocean by herself... in the middle of the night?? In this economy??? And this man, who is NAMELESS, is struggling to take his clothes off because he's "not drunk"? This isn't going to end well. However, Chrissie's footwork? 10/10 And the Jaws music is back... Damn, you, American composer and conductor John Williams... damn you. Bruce got her!! Chrissie is screaming for her life! And this NAMELESS man is just lying on the beach?? Absolutely not. Why are you doing this to me so early in the movie, Steven Spielberg?? So now it's the following morning, and we're at Martin and Ellen Brody's house... AND THEIR SON HAS A CUT ON HIS HAND?? It's too early for this. What is going on with the youths in this town?? Okay, Martin and Ellen are so cute together. A healthy couple in a thriller movie? I'll take it. Also, can we talk about how great this shot is? You find out he's the chief of the Amity Police Department with perfect positioning of the car behind the fence, and the color contrast is *chef kiss.* "And nobody saw her go into the water?" "Somebody could have, but I was sort of... passed out." YOU DID THIS, NAMELESS MAN! Oh, no... they found Chrissie. Well, thanks to Polly, we finally figured out how Martin's son hurt his hand: Apparently, kids have been karate chopping picket fences. *shakes fists* Youths. Now Martin needs to go to the store to get supplies to create "beach closed" signs. A man of many talents... "This stuff is not going to help me in August. ... You haven't got one thing I ordered. Not a beach umbrella, not a sun lounger, no beach balls. If I can't get service..." Okay, sir, in the background, you don't need to be rude to the store owner! Where is that shark when we need him... #sharkattackonland "You're going to shut down the beaches on your own authority? ... Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars..." Oh, this mayor is the devil, isn't he? Capitalism at its finest. I don't like how much the camera is focusing on the dog... Or this boy... "Are you okay?" "Everything is fine, it's fine..." Don't hide your anxiety, Martin! Tell your wife how you feel!!! Also, props to Ellen for being a supportive wife. "If the kids going into the water is worrying you, they can play on the beach." #morehealthycouplesinfilm "We know all about you, Chief. You don't go into the water at all, do you?" I don't condone making fun of old men, but HOW DARE YOU, HARRY. Don't bring up Martin's traumas to his face. Martin is right: That is some "bad hat, Harry." Now, go back into the water where you belong. Ugh, I knew it. The owner is calling for his dog, Pippet. The dog didn't deserve this, Steven Spielberg! Okay, you (kinda) won me back, Steven. Only because you did this iconic dolly zoom shot when Bruce unfortunately killed the kid and the dog. #justiceforpippet "Any special questions?" "Is that $3,000 bounty on the shark cash or check?" Oh, hell no. A kid (and a dog) just died, sir. Go straight to jail!! The absolute worst (yet best) introduction to a new character ever??? I might say so. My body will never recover from this sound. "I don't want no volunteers. I don't want no mates. ... $10,000 for me, by myself. For that, you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing." Uhhhh, yeah, I would trust this guy with my whole life. Give this fisherman all your money to kill this shark!! For the boy, for Pippet!!! "Oh, you scared me!" He scared you, Ellen?? You were the one who snuck up behind him while he was reading about sharks! At least she forces him to stop reading so he can fall asleep. "Wanna get drunk and fool around?" Get it. #morehealthycouplesinmovies OHHHHHHH, Matt Hooper has entered the chat!! And so has the rest of New England!! Everyone is trying to get that $3,000 reward from the boy's mom to kill the shark, but everyone is not thinking straight!! Why are so many people trying to get into a small boat?? Why was a person holding dynamite so casually?? It feels like Martin is trying to control a bunch of wild children!! Is this what parenting is like?? "Gentlemen, the officer asked me to tell you that you are overloading the boat!" "Ah, get out of here..." "Ha, ha... they're all going to die." This feels a little too close to what's happening in today's political world. *facepalm* I'm not triggered, you're triggered. WHY ARE THESE DOGS ON A BOAT WHILE A MAN IS THROWING CHUM INTO THE OCEAN?!?!?! Does no one care about dogs in this movie?? I give up! *Throws myself into the ocean* Oh, Matt, who is the marine biologist, asked to see Chrissie... and she's in this wash basin... Oh, Chrissie. I'll never forgive you, nameless man!! #justiceforchrissie Ah, so they think they caught THE SHARK... but Matt has other opinions on the matter. "The fact is the bite radius on this animal is different than the wounds on the victim. I want to be sure. You want to be sure. ... Let's cut it open. Whatever it's eaten in the last 24 hours is bound to still be in there, and then we'll be sure." That's right, Matty, SPEAK YOUR TRUTH!! Lord, the mayor has OPINIONS on Matty's professional analysis of the situation??? OF COURSE HE DOES!! "Look, fellas, let's be reasonable, huh?" Reasonable, Larry?? Reasonable? I'LL SHOW YOU REASONABLE!! The boy's mom came to see Martin and SLAPPED HIM! "I just found out that a girl got killed here last week... and you knew it." What a heartbreaking scene... and she's 100% right. Her boy is dead because of the choices the town made just to get "summer dollars." What a disgrace! And Larry, the devil — ahem — the mayor, had the audacity to say she was wrong???? Let me at him!! Thankfully, Martin said she wasn't wrong. DAMN STRAIGHT!! That woman lost her son because of you, Larry!! Well, I'm officially a part of the Matt Hooper club. Why? I'm so glad you asked: #1 He invited himself over and brought TWO different wine bottles because he didn't know what the Brodys were serving for dinner.#2 He asked if anyone was eating the full plate of food that was on the table, which was clearly not made for him.#3 He began to tell Martin that he should let the wine breathe, as Martin stopped giving a fuck and poured himself a giant glass. Also, add me to the Martin Brody fan club, too. His wife: "Martin hates boats. Martin hates water. Martin sits in his car when we go onto the ferry to the mainland. I guess it's a childhood thing. There's a clinical name for it..." Martin: "Drowning." "I can do anything... I'm the chief of police." YES, PREACH, MARTIN, PREACH. Stand in your power and drink that giant-ass glass of wine! Cue Mariah Carey's "Hero". "And when a hero comes along..." #4 reason why I'm in the Matt Hooper club: He's an encouraging "friend"... Matt: "I gotta find [the shark] right now; he's a night "ON THE WATER?"Matt: "Well, if we're looking for a shark, we're not going to find him on the land."Martin: "Yeah, but I'm not drunk enough to go on a boat."Matt: "Yes, you are."Martin: "No, I'm not."Matt: "Yes, you are!"Martin: "I can't do that."Matt: "Yes, you can." Seems like Martin found a larger "glass" for his boat ride! You won't catch him wine-ing about it. (I'm sorry, I had to.) JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH!! What is going on with this abandoned boat they found?!?! "We will be open for business." Even after EVERYTHING that has happened, this m*therf*cker still doesn't want to close the beaches? I've never hated a character more. Sorry for the swear words, familia, but my god. I need a "Martin-sized" cup of wine right about now. These families have no idea a people-eating shark is in the water! And Larry "the Devil" is asking this person and his family to get into the water, KNOWING there is a shark somewhere out there. Somebody hold me back because I'm about to jump through the TV screen. Well, look at that, LARRY. There's a shark, and someone else has died! You're lucky Martin and Ellen's kid got out alive!!! Oh, NOW Larry realizes what he's done?? "I was acting in the town's best interest. ... My kids were on that beach, too." Don't you dare! Just sign the damn papers Martin is giving you to hire the shark murderer and go on your way, sir! #justiceforpippet Oh, this fisherman like hates-hates sharks. "What am I going to tell the kids?" "Tell them I'm going fishing." OMG, where did this sweat around my eyes come from?? Ah, look at these two becoming best friends... JK, they hate each other's chum guts. "He's gone under the boat. I think he's gone under the boat!" WTF does that mean, QUINT? What does that mean?!?! Quint: "Marlin, Stingray bit through this piano wire? Don't you tell me my business again." Yeah, I'm gonna steal that. Oh, and let's sketch this on the biggest billboard we find, too: "Well, it proves one thing, Mr. Hooper: It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong." SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK! BRUCE HAS RISEN!!! Martin has risen!!! "You're gonna need a bigger boat." (Also, is this the first full look of Bruce's face??? An hour-ish into the movie??? Such a smart idea to lead up to this reveal!!) Can we talk about how this scene would never be shot today? A real boat, in the real ocean, with real water? Give us realism, please and thank you! #2 reason why I'm a part of the Martin Brody fan club: "Martin, move, move, move!" "I'm not going out there!" "Go beyond the edge of the barrels. Further out!" "WHY? What for?" "I need to have something in the foreground to give it some scale!" "Foreground my ass!" FIRST SHOT!!! But he disappeared! Omg, my hair is falling out from all the stress. Wait, are Quint and Matt actually becoming besties after trying to fight a shark all day??? Look at them!! Oh... is this why Quint hates sharks? He was on the USS Indianapolis, where the boat was sunk by a Japanese submarine, and sailors were fighting for their lives in shark-infested I don't blame him... Okay, it's the next day and BRUCE IS BACK!! And Quint smashed the hell out of the radio with a bat while Martin was trying to radio in the Coast Guard for help!! He's gone cuckoo for Coco Puffs!! SECOND SHOT!!! AND A THIRD SHOT, too!! Quint won't quit!!! They tried to tie Bruce to the boat to bring him in, but he's too powerful!! I wasn't expecting Bruce to be a beast like this!!! Now I understand how this shark made people terrified of the ocean in the '70s!! Good news is: Bruce can't stay underwater with three barrels attached!! haha SUCK IT, BRUCE!! Of course, Bruce is angry and decides to chase them... of course!! Yeah, I'm never going into the ocean again. But their boat is falling apart as they try to go back to the shore to drown Bruce. Why didn't anyone tell me the last hour of the movie is just straight chaos?!?! Welp, I guess the only option is to put Matty into the shark cage so he can poison Bruce up close. This is fine... he's fine. Oh, no!! He lost the poison stick and is now hiding from the shark in the water!! AND MARTIN AND QUINT THINK HE'S DEAD!! Aw, now Bruce feels bad and wants to replace Matt by becoming the "third fisherman"... JK, he wants to eat them as little snackies. I can't help but think of Martin and how he must feel during this time: He hates the ocean and he hates boats; he didn't ask for any of this, but he got sucked in because of Larry! Now, a shark is trying to "board" a boat in the middle of the ocean to eat him and his mate. He'll need a therapist after this. NOOOOO, QUINT IS DEAD!!!! Martin is DEFINITELY going to need to see a therapist after this... Martin threw one of the oxygen tanks into the shark's mouth!! Didn't Quint say earlier that the shark was going to eat one of the tanks as a joke? I guess it's coming true!!! For someone who hates water and boats (and sharks), Martin is killing it!! His therapist will be so proud. MARTIN KILLED THE SHARK ALL BY HIMSELF!!!! He don't need no (fisher)man!!! And he found out his bestie Matty is alive!! Oh, Quint, you got the $10,000 but never got to use it. That's so unfair!! "I used to hate the water." "I can't imagine why." OMG, what an amazing ending. What a jaw-dropping movie (see what I did there)? SO GOOD! Have you seen Jaws? Tell us what you think of the movie in the comments below.
CBS News
12 hours ago
- CBS News
Wedding party bus gets "Storrowed," strikes low bridge on way to Boston reception
A newlywed couple from Massachusetts got a big surprise on the way to their reception when their party bus struck a bridge on Soldiers Field Road. Varteni Akian and her husband Steve had just gotten married at St. James Armenian Church in Watertown on June 21 and were headed to their reception at Venezia in Boston. When they got to the Anderson Memorial Bridge by Harvard University, the driver tried to pass through. "He tried to pass the clearance chains, which he did, and then he made contact with the bridge and then paused and started reversing on Storrow Drive to be able to make the exit ramp to take Mass Pike to get to Boston," said Varteni Akian. "It delayed us but we didn't need a police escort to be able to reverse safely, by some miracle." Varteni Akian credited her husband for calming everyone down after the moment of impact. "I think there's panic on every single one of our faces, except for my husband who's always calm, cool and collected. He was like, 'Everyone, it's going to be OK, we're going to have a great time and nothing is going to stop us from having the best day ever,'" said Varteni Akian. "I think the adrenaline of the whole, we just got married, we're heading to a party, this just happened. When it happened, honestly, I was like, 'OK, this is kind of cool. This is a pretty eventful thing to occur on an eventful day.' So it kind of just added to our experience," said Steve Akian. Varteni and Steve said they didn't have a follow-up with the party bus company but they still got to enjoy their wedding day together. No one was hurt in the "Storrowing." "The whole day was so eventful that this was just one little piece of it but it's a story to tell for our future," said Varteni Akian. "It happened, fortunately we didn't allow it to put a damper on our day, it added to the just enjoying the whole thing," said Steve Akian.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
Caught on the jumbotron: How literature helps us understand modern-day public shaming
The scene at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts on July 16 was steeped in irony. During Coldplay's 'jumbotron song' — the concert segment where cameras pan over the crowd — the big screen landed on Andy Byron, then-CEO of data firm Astronomer, intimately embracing Kristin Cabot, the company's chief people officer. Both are married to other people. The moment, captured on video and widely circulated on social media, shows the pair abruptly recoiling as Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin says: 'Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.' Martin's comment — seemingly light-hearted at the time — quickly took on a different tone as online sleuths identified the pair and uncovered their corporate roles and marital statuses. Within days, Byron resigned from his position as CEO while Cabot is on leave. This spectacle raises a deeper question: why does infidelity, especially among the powerful, provoke such public outcry. Literary tradition offers some insight: intimate betrayal is never truly private. It shatters an implicit social contract, demanding communal scrutiny to restore trust. When trust crumbles publicly French philosopher Paul Ricoeur's notion of 'narrative identity' suggests we make sense of our lives as unfolding stories. The promises we make (and break) become chapters of identity and the basis of others' trust. Betrayal ruptures the framework that stitches private vows to public roles; without that stitch, trust frays. Byron's stadium exposure turned a marital vow into a proxy for professional integrity. Public betrayal magnifies public outcry because leaders symbolize stability; their personal failings inevitably reflect on their institutions. When Astronomer's board stated the expected standard 'was not met,' they were lamenting the collapse of Byron's narrative integrity — and, by extension, their company's. This idea — that private morality underpins public order — is hardly new. In Laws, ancient Greek philosopher Plato described adultery as a disorder undermining family and state. Roman philosopher Seneca called it a betrayal of nature, while statesman Cicero warned that breaking fides (trust) corrodes civic bonds. The social cost of infidelity in literature Literature rarely confines infidelity to the bedroom; its shockwaves fracture communities. French sociologist Émile Durkheim's idea of the 'conscience collective' holds that shared moral norms create 'social solidarity.' As literature demonstrates, violations of these norms inevitably undermines communal trust. Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1875-77) dramatizes the social fracture of betrayal. Anna's affair with Count Vronsky not only defies moral convention but destabilizes the aristocratic norms that once upheld her status. As the scandal leads to her ostracization, Anna mourns the social world she has lost, realizing too late that 'the position she enjoyed in society… was precious to her… [and] she could not be stronger than she was.' In Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), Emma Bovary's extramarital affairs unravel the networks of her provincial town, turning private yearning for luxury and romance into public contagion. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) makes this explicit: Hester Prynne's scarlet 'A' turns her sin into civic theatre. Public shaming on the scaffold, the novel suggests, delineates moral boundaries and seeks to restore social order — a process that prefigures today's 'digital pillories,' where viral moments subject individuals to mass online judgment and public condemnation. Domestic crumbs and digital scaffolds Contemporary narratives shift the setting but uphold the same principle: betrayal devastates the mundane rituals that build trust. Nora Ephron's autobiographical novel Heartburn (1983), based on her own marriage's collapse to investigative journalist Carl Bernstein, weaponizes domesticity. Heartburn's protagonist Rachel Samstat delivers her emotions through recipes — 'Vinaigrette' as a marker of intimacy and betrayal, 'Lillian Hellman's Pot Roast' as a bid for domestic stability and 'Key Lime Pie,' hurled at her cheating husband — become symbols of a life undone by public infidelity. Ephron's satire, later adapted into a film, anticipates our digital age of exposure, where private pain fuels public consumption and judgment. Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation (2014), which draws from her own life, shows another perspective: betrayal as quiet erosion. Offill never depicts the affair directly; instead, the husband's absences, silences and an off-hand reference to 'someone else' create a suffocating dread. This indirection shows betrayal's power lies in its latent potential, slowly dismantling a life built on trust before any overt act. Both works underscore betrayal's impact on the collective conscience: a lie fractures a family as fundamentally as a CEO's indiscretion erodes institutional trust. Power magnifies the fallout by turning private failings into public symbols of fragility. Even hidden betrayal poisons the shared rituals binding any group, making the notion of 'private' unsustainable long before any public revelation. The limits of power Literature acknowledges power's protective veneer from consequence — and its limits. Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire (1912–47), modelled on the Gilded Age robber baron Charles Yerkes, follows the rise of financier Frank Cowperwood, whose power shields him — until it doesn't. Even his vast empire proves vulnerable once his adultery becomes public. The very networks that protected him grow wary. Though many critics of the elite are themselves morally compromised in the trilogy, Cowperwood's transgression becomes a weapon to discredit him. His brief exile shows that power may defer, but cannot erase, the costs of betrayal. Once trust fractures, even the powerful become liabilities. They do not fall less often — only more conspicuously. Gender also plays a role in shaping these narratives. Male protagonists like Cowperwood rebound as tragic anti-heroes, their moral failings recast as flaws of character. By contrast, women — think Flaubert's Emma Bovary or Hawthorne's Hester Prynne — are branded cautionary figures, their transgressions stigmatized rather than mythologized. This imbalance in assigning consequences reveals a deeper societal judgment: while broken trust demands repair, the path to restoration often depends on the transgressor's gender. The unblinking eye From Tolstoy's salons to TikTok's scroll, literature offers no refuge from betrayal's ripple effects. When private trust visibly fractures, communal reflexes kick in. Scarlet letters, exile or a CEO's resignation all aim to heal the collective trust. The jumbotron, like Hester's scaffold, is the latest instrument in this age-old theatre of exposure. Jumbotrons. Scaffolds. Same operating system. Same shame. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organisation bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jason Wang, Toronto Metropolitan University Read more: 'Eat the rich' — Why horror films are taking aim at the ultra-wealthy TikTok may be bad for privacy, but is it also harming our cognitive abilities? Citizens' social media, like Mastodon, can provide an antidote to propaganda and disinformation Jason Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
