Month: June 2022

Saving the life of one small animal among the billions upon billions of living things on Earth may not seem significant in the big picture, but when that one small animal’s life is in your hands, it means the world.

Yassin Elmahgoub is a medical student from Egypt who recently shared the journey of a tiny baby parrot he rescued. The parrot, who he named Mumble, was born with birth defects and wasn’t able to stand or walk. With the help of a parrot behavior consultant, Elmahgoub hand-fed Mumble, nursed him to good health and helped him develop mobility.

In a TikTok video that’s been viewed more than 8 million times, Elmahgoub shared Mumble’s journey from his earliest days until he was finally able to walk on his own.

“I bottle fed him and started his treatment,” Elmahgoub wrote. “It took days and hours of support and physiotherapy but our team could do it.”

Do it they did. But even better than seeing Mumble take his first steps is seeing Elmahgoub’s reaction to it. Watch:

@yassinelmahgoub

This is the best thing that happened to me in a while. All it takes is one person to save a life. @Sara Haytham couldn’t do it without u #fyp #hope #rescue #bird #positivity #medicine #medicalstudent #arabs #egypt #cairo #viral

The persistence and gentle patience of nursing Mumble paid off, and Elmahgoub’s celebration is joy personified. People are absolutely loving it.

“I love animals..but the pure joy on that guy’s face is simply beautiful,” wrote one commenter.

“This is one of the best and heartwarming things I’ve seen in a while, thank you so much for this,” wrote another.

“Oh I was not prepared for those tears!” wrote another “What joy this sweet bird has brought him, SO sweet!”

Elmahgoub has shared updates on Mumble’s progress since sharing the viral video. Check out this follow-up video culminating with Mumble at Day 60 in all of his beautiful blue glory.

@yassinelmahgoub

Growth takes time. For those asking about how mumble is doing now here you go. #fyp #foryou #positive #positivity #rescue #bird #rescuebird #medicine #medicalstudent #medical #arabs #egypt #cairo #viral

Mumble has not only learned to stand and walk, but he has learned to fly as well. Just amazing.

@yassinelmahgoub

And it was all yellow #fyp #foryou #postive #postivity #postiveenergy #rescue #rescuebird #medicine #medicalstudent #medical #arabs #egypt #cairo #viral

Congrats to Mumble and kudos to Yassin Elmahgoub for caring so much and sharing this happy journey to mobility with us. Imagine what a beautiful world we could create if we all took such good care of living things, including one another.

You can follow Elmahgoub and Mumble’s ongoing story on TikTok and Instagram.

Debate over legal access to abortion has long been a part of social and political discourse, but increasing state-level restrictions and a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that threatens to overturn five decades of legal precedent have propelled abortion directly into the spotlight once again.

While we’re accustomed to seeing religious arguments against abortion from Christian organizations, a synagogue in Florida is flipping the script, making the argument that banning abortion actually violates Jewish religious liberty.

In a lawsuit against the Florida government, Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor of Boynton Beach says that the state’s pending abortion law, which prohibits abortion after 15 weeks with few exceptions, violates the Jewish teaching that abortion “is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman.” Citing the constitutional right to freedom of religion, the lawsuit states that the act “prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and this violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.”

Wow.

The Florida 15-week abortion ban only grants exceptions if the mother’s life is at risk, if she is at risk of “irreversible physical impairment” or if the fetus is found to have a fatal abnormality. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or human trafficking.

If Jewish law stipulates that access to abortion is required not only for a woman’s physical well-being but also her mental well-being, then laws that criminalize such access are violating religious freedom, Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor contends.

Advocating for abortion access is not the religious argument we usually hear, but it is on equal footing with religious arguments against it. (It’s worth pointing out that Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Florida abortion act into law not at his office, but rather at a church.)

u201cFor Jews who can become pregnant, access to abortion services is a religious *requirement*, and has been for thousands of years. Surprised? Let’s dig into some of the texts ud83euddf5 1/u201d

— Rabbi Daniel Bogard (@Rabbi Daniel Bogard)
1651629252

The synagogue’s lawsuit raises the question of which religion takes precedence when it comes to legislation. It also highlights the difference between “This is against my religion, therefore no one can do it” and “This is part of my religious tradition, therefore I legally have a right to access it.” The former really has no place in U.S. law, as it violates the traditional separation of church and state, and the latter is a prime example of the purpose of the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

Part of what makes legislating abortion so messy is that the questions at the heart of the debate are actually largely religious in nature. What is the true nature of human life and when does life begin? At what point is a zygote, an embryo, a fetus considered a full human being with the same rights as the rest of us? What is the relationship between a human (or potential human) in the womb and the person whose body is building it? What responsibilities does the person who is building it have toward that life, and what responsibility does society and/or the government have in holding the human accountable for those responsibilities?

These are all legitimate questions that don’t have easy, straightforward answers, no matter how simplistic and undernuanced people try to make them. They may be simple questions for some people to answer individually, but collectively? No. We all make those determinations based on different criteria, different beliefs, different values and different understandings of the nature of life. There is no way for “we the people” as a whole to answer those questions definitively.

u201cAll of which is to say: laws that limit or criminalize abortion aren’t just violations of the human rights of every person who can become pregnant, but are also infringements on the religious liberty of every American Jew, and an imposition of governmental Christianity on us all.u201d

— Rabbi Daniel Bogard (@Rabbi Daniel Bogard)
1651629252

And the implications of those questions extend far beyond the abortion debate. The Cleveland Clinic states that one-third to a half of pregnancies end in miscarriage before a person even knows they’re pregnant. For those who believe that life begins at conception or fertilization, should every death in the womb be considered a tragedy? Should we mourn the loss of lives we carried that we never even knew existed?

There are the slippery slopes that stem from those questions as well. Some religious people may see a miscarriage as God’s will, but what if it was caused by something a woman did? What if a miscarriage occurred because of an action taken of her own free will? Is she culpable for that loss using the same logic we use to criminalize abortion? At what point do we start policing women’s behaviors—what she eats or drinks, what medications she takes, whether she’s around smokers, and so on—at all times in order to protect a life she may potentially be carrying? We’re already seeing women being jailed for miscarriages. How far will we go with it?

What about things like child support payments and government benefits? Why we do not expect child support to be paid from the moment a pregnancy is detected? Why do we not give Social Security numbers to Americans in the womb? Why can we not claim a child on our taxes until they are born? If there is genuinely no difference between a life being grown inside a uterus at 12 or 15 or 20 weeks and a life outside a uterus, why does the law treat them differently?

How do we begin to answer these questions when the heart of them always circles back to individual beliefs?

The synagogue’s religious freedom argument is compelling for sure, but the bottom line is we shouldn’t be legislating on something based on religious beliefs in the first place. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That’s literally the opening line of the First Amendment of the Constitution. Banning abortion is, in effect, establishing a particular religious belief as law and prohibiting the free exercise of religion for an entire group of people.

At a basic level, abortion is 1) a medical event that entails far too many individual factors that are not the business of the government to judge, and 2) a choice that is determined to be valid or invalid, right or wrong, based largely on individual religious beliefs. Both of those realities are reason enough for legislators, who are neither medical professionals nor religious leaders, to stay out of people’s uteruses and leave these incredibly personal medical and religious decisions to the individual.

Fear of flying—aerophobia, in technical terms—is an extremely common phobia, affecting around 25 million adults in the U.S. alone. Some people grit their teeth and white-knuckle their way through their fear, while others find themselves unable to get on an airplane at all because of it.

Such a fear is understandable, really. Hurtling through the sky at 500 miles per hour, tens of thousands of feet above the Earth’s surface, isn’t exactly the way humans were designed to get from place to place. (We may have evolved with the brain power and ingenuity to make it happen, but that doesn’t mean we automatically go along for the ride without our sense of self-preservation kicking in.)

One of the triggers for people with aerophobia is turbulence—the occasional shaking and pitching of an aircraft when it hits certain conditions in the atmosphere. Even people who are comfortable flying can find turbulence disconcerting sometimes, especially when it creates a sudden dropping sensation. Turbulence is normal, but it doesn’t feel normal when you’re sitting in a chair 30,000 feet from solid ground. It feels chaotic and out of control.

Anna Paul, a popular TikTok star from Australia, has shared a helpful visual for people freaked out by turbulence in a video that has more than 19 million views.

Paul explains that a pilot shared the analogy of a plane flying through the air being like an object suspended in jello. There’s pressure on all sides, so even if the jello is shaken—and the object shaken along with it—the pressure suspends the object.

In other words, a plane is not going to suddenly drop down out of the sky due to turbulence, in the same way that an object won’t drop out of the middle of a bowl of jello.

Watch:

@anna..paull

Fear of flying tip ✈️❤️

The jello analogy is also used by aerophobia experts. Therapist Les Posen specializes in flying phobias, and he shows his clients a model airplane suspended in raspberry jello to illustrate the fact that turbulence won’t cause a plane to drop out of the sky. He even goes a step farther by having clients smell the jello, and then advises them to eat some raspberry candy or juice on the plane to remind themselves of the analogy, using their senses to calm their nerves.

At the end of her video, Paul said there’s never been a plane crash from turbulence, but that’s not quite true. In 1966, a flight (BOAC 911) coming out of Tokyo broke apart in midair due to unexpected severe turbulence. However, that was a very long time ago. Monitoring of meteorological conditions has greatly advanced since then, as have the designs of modern aircraft and the skill of pilots, so experts will tell you that turbulence is not something to worry about.

If imagining air pressure as jello doesn’t really work for you, it may be helpful to have a visual of what turbulence actually is. For that, Captain Stuart Walker, who has been flying for 30 years, explains the four main types of turbulence, what causes them and what pilots do to avoid them or reduce their impact. He also explains what passengers can do to minimize their chances of feeling turbulence on a flight, such as sitting over the wings or toward the front of the plane and flying earlier in the day when temperatures are not as likely to cause air disturbances.

Whether you prefer hospital-food-based analogies or no-nonsense, scientific explanations, the bottom line is that turbulence feels far scarier than it actually is. A shaking plane is not going to drop from the sky, modern aircraft can withstand a great deal of movement midair and pilots are highly trained to handle turbulence.

And remember: Commercial airline travel really is the safest way to get to where you’re going, statistically speaking. So next time you fly, kick back, relax and imagine you’re suspended in jello, knowing you’re in capable hands when the turbulence starts.

Na-Kel Smith may be best known outside hip-hop for his role in Jonah Hill’s 2018 directorial debut Mid90s, but those in the know will recognize him as an accomplished rapper who was closely associated with Tyler The Creator and his Odd Future crew in the early 2010s. Since then, he’s self-released four albums under his A Dream No Longer Deferred Records imprint, making occasional guest appearances throughout the years on projects from underground rap peers like Pink Siifu, Zelooperz, Eyedress, and most notably, Earl Sweatshirt.

Today, he pops up on UPROXX Sessions to perform “Prayer” from his most recent album, Skullface Bonehead. Released in January this year, the project is an anti-establishment Quickstrike of eight tracks that clock in at just 14 minutes. Similar to his compatriot Earl Sweatshirt, he eschews conventional beats, opts for headier subject matter, and highlights displays of deft wordplay over catchy hooks. “Prayer” is a perfect example of these tendencies, as Na-Kel growls, “For the game, put in pain like you own it / You gon’ change even if you don’t wanna / Be it not for the worst, but the better / Never ride, but keep stacking your cheddar.”

Watch Na-Kel Smith’s gruff performance of “Prayer” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

Today in We Didn’t Need This, But Sure, Fine: Deadline reports that Robert Rodriguez’s remake of his classic 2001 kids’ film Spy Kids for Netflix has landed its leads in Gina Rodriguez and Zachary Levi.

Rodriguez will write, direct and produce the next film, which will introduce a new family of spies. The original Spy Kids film followed the Cortez family. It starred Antonio Banderas, Car Gugino, Alexa PenaVega, Daryl Sabara, Alan Cumming, Danny Trejo, and Thumb Thumbs. In the original film, two kids become super spies in an attempt to save their ex-spy parents from an evil mastermind.

In place of the iconic original cast are Gina Rodriguez and Zachary Levi, whom we can probably assume are playing the spy parents. Rodriguez was the star of The CW’s telenovela Jane the Virgin (2014-2019) and has appeared in films including Netflix’s Something Great, and Annihilation. Levi played Chuck on the NBC series Chuck (2007-2012) and is currently the star of DC’s Shazam! film series. The film’s sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, is scheduled to be released in December 2022.

Per Deadline, the Spy Kids reboot is “set after the children of the world’s greatest secret agents unwittingly help a powerful game developer unleash a computer virus that gives him control of all technology, leading them to become spies themselves to save their parents and the world.”

We didn’t need it but we’ll take it.

(Via Deadline)

The Ezra Miller saga continues. After being arrested twice while in Hawaii, hit with a restraining order after threatening a couple, and accused of grooming multiple teenagers, Miller is now allegedly hiding out on a farm with a woman and her three young children.

According to Rolling Stone, Miller has been housing an unnamed 25-year-old female and her three kids (aged one to five) on a secluded farm in Vermont. The children’s father claims that he has not been able to see or speak with his kids. Miller allegedly met the mother while in Hawaii, and flew her back to the farm where they have been since April.

Footage obtained by Rolling Stone implies that there are multiple weapons on the property, including eight assault weapons, rifles, and handguns lying around the living room, with some weapons “propped up next to a pile of stuffed animals.” A source called the environment “chaotic” and said that one of the children, allegedly the one-year-old, picked up a loose bullet and put it in her mouth.

Sources also alleged that there has been “frequent and heavy” use of marijuana, which was seemingly grown on the farm by Miller and their friend Whitney Suters. While the state of Vermont permits two to four marijuana plants on an individual property, Miller’s farm is not a licensed cultivator, and there are as many as 28 different marijuana strains growing on the property. Videos of Miller appearing to be smoking with teenagers have also been surfacing online.

While Vermont’s Department For Children and Families has carried out a wellness check, they were unable to find anything out of the ordinary, and the family is reportedly still at the farm. The mother claims that Miller helped her escape her “violent ex,” though the father has denied any allegations of wrongdoing.

Miller is still expected to star in the upcoming Flash movie, which finished filming last fall, mostly because replacing them would be much too expensive. All in all, the whole situation is…very troubling.

(Via Rolling Stone)

Anyone who has ever had to work on a team knows it can be hard to collaborate at work, especially with someone who has a difficult personality or where there’s a larger skill gap between collaborators. Now, you might think that people who make music for a living would have less trouble with this, but as Dreamville rapper JID recently pointed out on Twitter, it appears that they run into similar issues.

Earlier today, JID tweeted, then deleted, his thoughts in this respect, complaining that “none of my rap co-workers be tryna rap wit me dawg.” After noting the exceptions, since “only women and pop stars” have been calling to collaborate, he took a swing at explaining just why this is the case, positing, “I think y’all n****z is scared, I’m talking to bigger rap artists.”

It’s true that most of JID’s higher-profile collabs have come with artists outside the genre of hip-hop. Two of his biggest hits to date have been the Arcane theme song “Enemy” with Imagine Dragons and “Dope” with John Legend, whereas most of his rapper collaborations have come with his Dreamville labelmates, other members of Spillage Village, or close friends such as Denzel Curry and Mike Dimes.

There is one A-list exception though — emphasis on the “A” — with fellow Atlanta rapper 21 Savage on “Surround Sound,” but it does appear that JID has yet to rap alongside many non-J. Cole-signed lyricists. While it’s anyone’s guess whether they’re actually worried about being outrapped on a song (or being “renegaded” — named for Jay-Z’s 2001 collaboration with Eminem, on which many fans say Em rapped circles around his host), they shouldn’t worry too much about it. After all, JID’s presence could very well bring the sort of contemporary clout that can help keep a veteran rapper relevant, even if they do get smoked on their own song.

Vladimir Putin’s been waging a dismal war in Ukraine for over 100 days, and all the Botox in the world can’t help his image.

What a way to sum things up. Putin is, in fact, apparently still deep into the Botox, and despite supply-chain hiccups, he’s still said to look embalmed as a result of his obsession. The Ukrainian people didn’t roll over as he presumably expected, what with the grandmas waving molotov cocktails around and President Zelensky refusing a lift out of the country, preferring to stay and ride with his people.

Meanwhile, reports of Putin’s circle maneuvering to find a successor persist for many reasons, not only including rumors about Putin’s physical (and mental) health but also because, according to a Pew Research Poll and the Moscow Times, Putin’s worldwide ratings are at a 20-year low:

A median of 9% of respondents in 18 countries said they have confidence in Putin “to do the right thing regarding world affairs,” Pew said. That compares with 18% confidence in Chinese leader Xi Jinping and 60% for U.S. President Joe Biden and 59% German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Putin’s worldwide approval has been on a downward trend during his two decades in power. :But in 2022, these numbers reached record lows in every nation where trends are available,” Pew said.

The report even indicates that right-wing participants, who previously looked favorably upon Putin, have jumped ship as well. This won’t do anything to quell word from U.S. intelligence officials who read reports indicating that Putin’s “rule is no longer absolute” in Russia, and CNBC is now reporting that Putin’s already tiring of being a global pariah. He’s now attempting to strengthen his still remaining ties with China and India while lashing out at what he’s describing as “politically motivated” economic sanctions levied upon Russia since the Ukraine invasion began. So, sanctions are political, but war is not? Yup, it sounds like he’s really saying that.

(Via Pew Research, Moscow Times & CNBC)

On the heels of his latest album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Kendrick Lamar is attending Paris Fashion Week. Today, Lamar performed at the Louis Vuitton Men’s Spring/Summer 2023 fashion show. During his set, he paid tribute to the late Virgil Abloh, Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection’s artistic director.

Lamar performed several cuts from Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, including “Savior,” during which, he chanted Abloh’s name. Additionally, he performed, “Rich Spirit,” “Count Me Out,” and”N95.” Before he performed “N95,” he shouted, “Long live Virgil.” Throughout the song, Lamar was wearing a crown of thorns and a large, draping suit.

Abloh, known for designing for artists like Kanye West and Pharrell Williams, died in November of last year, following a two-year battle with cancer. Earlier this year, Lamar wore a piece from Abloh’s Fall/Winter 2022 collection during his performance at the Super Bowl.

During a visit to Accra, the capital of Ghana, Lamar also spoke with several children about Abloh while visiting Freedom Skatepark, the first skatepark in Ghana, which opened last December and honors the late designer.

“Virgil,” Lamar said. “What he means to them, you know, as far as letting them have this creative space for them to enjoy themselves. That’s special.”

Check out the performance above.

On one hand, Lady Gaga is one of the most recognizable artists in the world, given that she’s been one of the biggest pop stars for well over a decade now and she’s launched a nice acting career for herself, too. On the other hand, she often wears elaborate outfits and costumes that make it hard to see what she really looks like. So, for some people, it could be a toss-up whether or not they’d actually recognize Gaga if she was standing in front of them.

For Leslie Jordan, one of her co-stars in American Horror Story: Roanoke, he didn’t manage to put two and two together when he first met her.

On yesterday’s (June 22) episode of Apple Music Country’s Trailblazers Radio With Fancy Hagood, Jordan said of meeting Gaga for the first time (as Exclaim notes):

“The first day, I showed up and there was a girl standing there and they said, ‘Leslie, have you met Stefani?’ And I thought she was maybe an extra. I didn’t know who she was. […] They could tell I didn’t know. They go, ‘Leslie, that’s Gaga.’ I go, ‘Huh-uh.’ They said, ‘Yes, it’s Gaga.’ And she was just adorable.”

He also previously spoke about working with Gaga in a a 2020 episode of his “Pillow Talk” Instagram series, saying:

“We had a scene where she was gonna blow fairy dust in my face, and then knock me down, and blind me, chase me, and then roll me over, kick me. And then she was supposed to squat down on me and cut me with a knife. She took me in the woods right before we shot, and she said, ‘You know, I tend to sexualize all my acting partners.’ I thought, ‘Where’s this going?’ Well honey, she kicked me, rolled me over, and got down on me and started riding me… I didn’t know what I was supposed to do! I just laid there and thought, ‘How do I get myself into these situations?’”

Speaking of Gaga’s acting career, she may have landed a role in an upcoming Joker sequel.