Category: News

This article originally appeared on 01.12.15 T

Meet Samira Omar.

All images by CBC News/YouTube

The 17-year-old was the victim of a horrific bullying incident. A group of girls threw boiling water on her, leaving her badly burned and covered in scars and discoloration.

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She thought the physical scars would be with her forever — until she met Basma Hameed. Basma Hameed runs a tattoo shop, of sorts — but her tattoo artistry doesn’t look like you’d expect. Basma is a paramedical tattoo specialist. Instead of tattooing vibrant, colorful designs, she uses special pigments that match the skin in order to conceal scars.

It looks like this:

With Basma’s help, patients like Samira can see a dramatic decrease in their scar visibility and discoloration after a few treatments. She even offers free procedures for patients who are unable to afford treatment. That’s because Basma knows firsthand just how life-changing her work can be for those coping with painful scars left behind.

Check out the video below to find out more about Basma’s practice, including how she became her very first patient.

This article originally appeared on 05.06.16

Dads are ridiculous. But perhaps, in the world today, there is no dad quite so ridiculous as Rob Lopez:

Photo via Rob Lopez/YouTube.

On a morning not too long ago, Lopez apparently had the following thought: “I’m going to dress up as Darth Vader and wake up my 2-year-old.”

Photo via Rob Lopez/YouTube.

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Clearly, the correct follow-up thought is, “No. That’s silly. Why would I ever wake up a 2-year-old. Like, on purpose.”

But not for Rob Lopez. Oh, no.

After suiting up…

…and receiving the mission critical sign-off from his wife.

He grabbed his lightsaber and gave it a go. The results … pretty much speak for themselves (fast-forward to 1:05 for the main event).

There are a couple of things about Lopez’s son’s reaction that we should talk about.

(First, this child is objectively the hardest core human on the face of planet Earth right now.)

He grabs the lightsaber he keeps next to his bed (just in case) and it’s game on, Dark Lord of the Sith. Game. On.

Think about how you would feel, as an adult person, in complete control of your faculties, with a firm grasp on the difference between fiction and reality, being aggressively prodded awake by a six-foot-tall man in a full-body Darth Vader mech-suit complete with voice modulator and terrifyingly heavy breathing.

Think about how loud you would scream and the volume of pee you would pee into your pants.

Meanwhile, this toddler — who is probably no more than three feet tall, groggy and vulnerable, with no cognitive ability to discern this is not the real Darth Vader — didn’t even think twice about taking him on.

Perhaps the most impressive part? At a mere 2 years of age, he’s already learned, perhaps, the single greatest lesson of “Star Wars.”

You don’t defeat the dark side with mad lightsaber skills (although they are fun to show off).

You defeat it with compassion.

…which, in this kid’s case, involves casually grabbing a book and asking Darth Vader to read him a story.

Empathy for Siths — with an assist from curiosity and literacy: That’s a lesson we could all use.

With Kevin Durant staying in Brooklyn, there are two remaining big names waiting to be traded this offseason. Utah’s Donovan Mitchell is expected to be moved whenever a team reaches the lofty asking price of the Jazz, who are hoping to replicate the pick return from sending Rudy Gobert to Minnesota. Russell Westbrook is also still waiting to find out where he will play basketball next season, although his situation is the opposite of Mitchell’s, as the Lakers will need to attach picks to Westbrook to unload his $47 million expiring salary.

It appears as though there’s a decent chance both players will be on the move in the same deal, as the Jazz are very much open to adding Westbrook for next season, provided the Lakers send them their 2027 and 2029 first round picks. According to Marc Stein, those two picks are “coveted” by Jazz CEO Danny Ainge, who would like to add the Lakers as a third team in a Donovan Mitchell trade package with the Knicks — or someone else potentially.

The two future first-round picks that the Lakers possess in 2027 and 2029 are the kind of top-shelf draft picks that Jazz CEO Danny Ainge is believed to covet. Russell Westbrook’s $47 million expiring contract and those picks could be the Lakers’ entree to a potential three-team swap … depending on the players that would land in Los Angeles.

Stein goes on to wonder if Evan Fournier and Bojan Bogdanovic would be enough of a return to get the Lakers interested in jumping into such a deal, as they are willing to part with those two picks provided the deal makes them a legitimate contender. While Utah will be hoping to load up on picks and young talent, they’ll be happy to pass whatever top veterans to the Lakers for those picks. The Lakers will have to decide if that return is better than the oft-discussed Buddy Hield and Myles Turner package from Indiana, or if they’ll push for something more like a return to L.A. for Jordan Clarkson.

In any case, as camp approaches, we figure to get a resolution on Westbrook and Mitchell’s situations, potentially all at once, as the league starts to finalize rosters and prepare in earnest for the 2022-23 season.

Ever since Joe Biden announced a (modest) amount of student loan forgiveness, Republicans have been up in arms. How dare President Joe Biden help alleviate the out-of-control debt that’s all but crippled a generation, say the likes of Lauren Boebert and Ted Cruz. Trouble is, any time they open their mouths about the subject, they only show how out-of-touch they are. Perhaps no one’s advice to debt-ridden graduates was more divorced from reality than that of Marco Rubio.

The Florida senator, taking a break from pearl-clutching over the FBI’s legitimate search of Mar-a-Lago, went on Fox News to rail against “freeloaders” who’ve had to deal with astronomically high tuition and avalanche upon avalanche of rising interest rates. Unlike others in his party, he tried to be helpful…sort of…not really.

“I owed over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans. The day I got elected to the Senate I had over $100,000 still in student loans that I was able to pay off because I wrote a book and from that money, I was able to pay it. If not I would have never, I would still be paying it okay?” Rubio said. “So it’s not about, I think the student loan thing in America is a big problem and it’s broken and it needs to be fixed and it needs to be reformed and I have bipartisan ideas.”

That’s good that Rubio wants to reach across the aisle to fix “the student loan thing.” But the first part of his response? Less so. His advice — just write a book, dummy! — wasn’t exactly the sage sharing of wisdom he perhaps thought it was. Sure enough, people on social media were quick to call out his lousy counselling.

Others pointed out that he has some questionable ways of making money, such as donations from the NRA.

Others dredged up his sketchy financial past.

And some pointed out that he didn’t even write that book — and that the ghostwriter may have been paid illegally.

If you’re one of the millions who will still have gobs of student debt even after Biden’s modest proposal, at least you could always pay it off by writing a book — or paying someone else to do it for you.

(Via Raw Story)

Over the last couple years, Sydney Sweeney has become one of the biggest young stars in Hollywood, becoming both a sex symbol and an acclaimed actress currently up for multiple Emmys. She’s also been vocal about how the way the industry currently operates isn’t as lucrative for actors as it once was. But with fame comes unusual, sometimes absurd levels of scrutiny. Such is the case when a lot of people on social media got up in arms over learning she has some MAGA relatives, prompting Sweeney herself to tell them to chill the heck out.

Sweeney, who hails from Spokane, Washington, visited her family for her mother’s birthday, where they threw what she called a “surprise hoedown.” She posted pictures from the gathering, with everyone in Western garb — and in one case, a “Blue Lives Matter” t-shirt.

As the photos circulated over social media, some expressed horror that Sweeney has MAGA relatives, or might even be MAGA herself. Eventually, Sweeney herself felt compelled to step in and swat down any suggestion that politics played a key part in what was for her a lovely celebration for her mom’s birthday.

“You guys this is wild. An innocent celebration for my moms milestone 60th birthday has turned into an absurd political statement, which was not the intention,” she tweeted that night. “Please stop making assumptions.” She added, “Much love to everyone [heart emoji] and Happy Birthday Mom!”

So, guess what? Lots of people who live in progressive parts of America come from less progressive parts of America. They have lots of relatives who don’t share their socio-political beliefs. They also have to see them from time to time, especially during family birthday gatherings. In any case, happy birthday to Sydney Sweeney’s mom.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Now that The Rehearsal’s six-episode run is over — with more, semi-improbably, given HBO’s troubles, en route — we can finally wrestle with the big questions. Is what creator/star Nathan Fielder did ethical? Do the randos who appeared on the show — and sometimes exposed some of their dodgiest qualities — bear some responsibility for what they allowed cameras to pick up? Is hoped-for-mommy Angela Sankovich right and it’s bad for a kid to call himself “Dr. Fart”? Whatever the case, an already thorny show just got thornier, as a bunch of its participants are now trying to make money on Cameo.

This was caught by The A.V. Club, who noticed that when you search the celebrity messaging service for “Nathan Fielder,” you don’t get Fielder himself, who’s probably still busy with that group of young TikTok dancers. But you do get Angela, who will record a birthday greeting or what-have-you for a mere $140. You can get Robbin Stone, the ultra-religious numbers fanatic who believed his roommate was possessed or at least had a demon, for a third of that, namely $46.

Elsewhere on the service, you can enlist arguably the show’s nicest participant, Kor Skeete, the bar quiz enthusiast stressing over a very minor lie, for a steal at $50. You can even get Miriam Eskenasy, the cantor and educator who pushes back at Angela’s, uh, interesting take on Judaism, only to reveal her, uh, very strong thoughts about Israel.

Like Nathan for You, The Rehearsal purposefully blurs the line separating fact from fiction, questioning who’s really exploiting who. The sudden avalanche of Rehearsal figures, even controversial ones, suddenly trying to make a couple bucks on the same place where you can get Brian Cox to swear at you for about 700 clams, only makes the whole affair more questionable and fascinating. What a show!

(Via The A.V. Club)

Danilo Gallinari left Italy’s World Cup Qualifier game against Georgia in the fourth quarter on Saturday after pulling up with a left knee injury that many, including Italy’s coach, feared would be a significant one.

Gallinari suffered the injury trying to plant his left leg to go right and avoid a defender on a fast break, but bent his knee awkwardly and immediately let the ball go and grabbed at it. While the initial fear was that he’d suffered an ACL injury, the MRI on Sunday revealed he had torn his meniscus but had suffered no damage to any of his ligaments.

While Gallinari is obviously disappointed to be out of World Cup qualifying and the upcoming EuroBasket tournament for Italy, this is, all things considered, about the best case scenario given how the injury looked. A meniscus tear is certainly not a minor injury, but the recovery time is typically shorter than an ACL, which would have very likely cost him the entire 2022-23 NBA season. The timetable for his recovery will be determined later, but the hope would be that he’s able to join the Celtics at some point in the regular season after signing with the reigning East champs this summer.

Last week, Joe Biden announced he would be making the lives of millions of Americans much better, and Republicans could not be more angry. The president unveiled a comparatively modest form of student debt forgiveness. It won’t wipe it all out, as some had hoped, but it will still help an entire generation all but crippled by their decision to pursue higher education. This made the GOP mad — mad that people keep pointing out how many of them have had their own loans forgiven; mad that the government is doing something, anything to improve the lives of citizens; mad that the Democratic Party may have locked down the millennial and Gen Z vote.

But few conservatives were mad in as creative a fashion as Lauren Boebert. The firebrand, who dropped out of high school and wound up marrying a guy who exposes himself to women and terrifies their neighbors, went on Fox News to rant and rave about graduates not drowning in debt and ever-escalating interest they’ll never be able to pay off. She was also hopping mad that Biden called the MAGA wing of the Republican Party “semi-fascists.”

“How the heck does Joe Biden call America First conservatives a threat to democracy with a straight face and a dry diaper?” she said. “He is the one who’s allowed millions to invade our southern border. He’s the one who is robbing hard-working Americans to pay for Karen’s daughter’s degree in lesbian dance theory.”

It’s the kind of outright homophobia — not even dog-whistling — that has returned to the GOP with a vengeance, and has all but killed their chances at appeasing younger, more diverse, more progressive voters. Indeed, Boebert is such a joke that her comments weren’t even seen as offensive. In fact, many thought “lesbian dance theory” sounds pretty rad.

Others just made jokes.

And some dwelled on Boebert’s hostility to education, even at the basic K-12 level.

In the meantime, summer’s almost over and universities are about to start their fall semesters, and it’s probably not too late to sign up for “Lesbian Dance Theory 101.”

Here is a thing that is usually very funny: mascots playing sports. For whatever reason, clips of adult humans in ginormous costumes trying to participate in an athletic endeavor is great, usually because it just looks extremely weird. This is made even better when those mascots are going up against children in a sport, because the kids seem to have a good time trying to, like, get buckets against them or something.

Every now and then, we get the holy grail, which is the clip of a mascot trying way too hard and something really stupid happening as a result. We got one of those clips on Saturday during halftime of an Atlanta Falcons preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Apparently, a bunch of mascots played a game against a team of children who were in their full uniforms.

This brings us to Blooper, the mascot for the Atlanta Braves. Blooper took a hand-off and took off, trying to get to the edge en route to the end zone. One brave young athlete tried to take him on, but instead, Blooper threw out the single most ferocious stiff arm I have ever seen in my entire life.

A few more kids tried to take Blooper down, all of them failed. Do not mess with Blooper.

Madden NFL 23 dropped earlier this month, giving NFL fans who like video games the opportunity to pick up the latest version of the game. More than just a game that features updated rosters and uniforms, the newest Madden game features a new gameplay system called FieldSENSE that does make this year’s edition feel a bit different in a very good way.

Having said that, this is still a Madden game, which means that the days following the release of the newest game means that a bunch of silly videos of glitches that gamers run into while they’re just trying to do a standard football thing. We might have gotten the best of the bunch for this year’s version of the game thanks to this clip. Just watch it, enjoy it, maybe crack open a drink before you dive in and really savor it.

From what I can gather, the plan here was for a fake punt on fourth-and-2 on the opponent’s side of the field, only instead of a fake punt, the game decided that it would be better for the snap to not be corralled, the ball to float like a plastic bag in the wind, and for the two teams to get locked up in a rugby scrum with one another. This might be a hot take but I do not think this would ever happen in a real NFL game.