Category: News

What could have been a second Jan. 6 turned out to be nothing much at all. According to The Washington Post, a rally entitled “Justice for J6,” in support of the more than 500 people (among them “QAnon Shaman”) charged in connection with the Capitol riot that put a disgraceful end to Donald Trump’s presidency, drew only a few hundred participants. The ones that showed up were outnumbered by law enforcement as well as reporters ready to capture an event that never took off.

There’s a chance the rally was simply doomed from the start. Police were thin on the ground on January 6, when Trump supporters forced their way into the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the certification of the 2020 election. This time they were ready. Law enforcement was everywhere, in anticipation of violence that never came. There were no clashes between Trumpists and counterprotesters, who held their own event about a mile away and drew about the same numbers.

Trump supporters may have simply been scared off. As per WaPo:

The rally’s poor attendance comes as no surprise. Organizers said they expected about 700 attendees, but many influential figures on the far right actually discouraged their followers from showing up, asserting the event was a trap. Baseless rumors have ricocheted through social media to the effect that the federal government was attempting to lure demonstrators to Washington to arrest them, and that left-wing activists disguised themselves as Trump supporters would deliberately cause trouble.

Even the Proud Boys, the violent, far-right men’s group, reportedly discouraged their members from attending.

And so instead of nightmarish, Boschian images of Trump supporters climbing all over the Capitol building, violently attacking police officers, photographers could only show sparse crowds, where most were either police or journalists. People marveled at how few people showed up.

While noticing that there were tons of reporters.

There were jokes.

And calls for actual justice.

Well, at least batman showed up.

(Via The Post)

It’s the final weekend of the WNBA season, and the top seven seeds are locked into place. A Las Vegas win on Friday night clinched the two-seed, while Seattle guaranteed it would get a first-round bye and stay at four by beating the fifth-seeded Mercury at home on Friday night.

The top seven teams are locked into place. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Connecticut Sun
2. Las Vegas Aces
3. Minnesota Lynx
4. Seattle Storm
5. Phoenix Mercury
6. Chicago Sky
7. Dallas Wings

The intrigue heading into Sunday’s five-game WNBA slate is who will land the eighth seed: the young, up-and-down New York Liberty, the injury-plagued Washington Mystics, or the veteran Los Angeles Sparks?

After beating Washington on Friday night to stay alive in the race for eight, Betnijah Laney and the Liberty are still in position to potentially swipe the eighth seed. They do not play on Sunday, but by way of the Mystics’ tough matchup against Minnesota, have a clear path toward the franchise’s first playoff berth since 2017.

Fortunately for Washington, they control their fate. As long as the Mystics win on Sunday against Minnesota (easier said than done), they will once again enter the playoffs as a frisky eighth seed. However, star forward Elena Delle Donne is not expected to play and head coach Mike Thibault is in the health and safety protocol, meaning his son and lead assistant Eric Thibault will coach the must-win game.

The Liberty also need a Sparks loss, as well as a Mystics loss, to sneak into the playoffs. Los Angeles faces a Wings team coming off a double-digit loss to Las Vegas earlier this week.

Here’s the bottom line:

• If Washington wins, they are in.
• If Washington loses and Los Angeles wins, the Sparks are in.
• If Washington and Los Angeles both lose, New York is in.

Online sportsbooks routinely lack odds to get in on the fun in the WNBA, but FiveThirtyEight actually has the Liberty with the top chances of getting into the postseason. That’s likely a result of the statistical projections showing that both the Mystics and Sparks are underdogs in their games on Sunday, which makes sense because they both play teams that have better records than them.

The action tips off at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday as the Mystics host the Lynx, then continues in Dallas at 5 p.m. as the Wings host the Sparks.

Awkwafina has one of the most unlikely success stories in Hollywood, and her representation in both music and the film world has been an important step forward. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she hasn’t made missteps of her own within the comedic and accent work she’s employed in the past. In particular, the rapper and actress has faced criticism in the past for using a “blaccent,” or the current cultural shorthand for when non-Black people adopted a Black voice.

In both of her biggest films, Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8, Awkwafina has, at times, used what could qualify as a “blaccent,” and alongside that, accusations of cultural appropriation have risen as well. Though Awkwafina hasn’t spoken on the subject in the past, In the press cycle for her new movie, Shang-Chi, she was asked point blank about the topic. In her answer, she seemed to struggle to actually address the question, or whether she considered her past work appropriation. “Um, you know, I’m open to the conversation,” she began. “I think it, you know, it’s really something that is a little bit multi-faceted and layered, and so yeah.”

While that isn’t really a conversation itself, being open to it is potentially a start. To learn more about issues like the use of a blaccent and cultural appropriation, read Lauren Michele Jackson’s 2018 piece “Who Really Owns the Blaccent” for Vulture right here.

Anyone buying jewelry hopes they’re authentic. But sometimes they’re not. That’s what happened to Lil Baby wanted, who was forced to call out Rafaello and Co., a New York-based jewelry company after he discovered that they sold him fake goods.

The rapper recently discovered a Patek Phillippe watch, supposedly valued at $400,000, that he bought from the company was fake, along with some other goods.

“Now @rafaelloandco y’all Kno better then to sell ME of all people a FAKE Or anything that could be called a FAKE!” Lil Baby wrote on an Instagram video showing four rings and a diamond-flooded watch. “I stand on my name the same way y’all should! Ain’t no such thing as a mistake when that money involved ‍!! Don’t F*ccin Play Wit me Cause when I’m on that I’m on that #ansameforyoup*ssyn****s #dontplaywitbaby.”

Rafaello and Co. responded to Baby’s claims and accepted full responsibility. “We do stand on our name just like he does that’s why today he got those four rings for free and his money back because we didn’t do our homework on the watch and we take Full responsibility for that,” they wrote, adding, “But it didn’t happen intentionally and knows that for a fact.” In a second post to their Instagram Story, the company emphasized that the incident was merely a mistake that wouldn’t happen again.

Excitement has already been building around Ariana Grande’s decision to join The Voice as a judge this season. The producers of the show seem eager to spotlight Ariana’s position too, featuring her in quirky ads for the next season, and Ari herself seems to be having a ball as well. But her appearance on the show also means we’ll (hopefully) be getting some special performances from her, too. That kicked off pretty quickly when the first episode of the show premiered with a duet between Kelly Clarkson and Ari — with a little help from John Legend, too — performing nothing less than Aretha Franklin’s classic, “Respect.”

Check out a clip of the performance here:

As the season progresses, it will be interesting to see how Ari performs as a mentor, but her first chair turn of the season seemed pretty in line with how she performs as a vocalist. The contestant in question was performing “A Team” by Ed Sheeran, and though John Legend and Kelly Clarkson turned their chairs early on, Ari turned when she heard him do the kind of vocal trill that she’s become infamous for. The contestant’s final choice won’t be shown until the next episode this coming Monday, so let Ari and Kelly’s cover tide you over for now.

This article originally appeared on 03.31.15

Kids can innovate, create, and imagine in ways that are fresh and inspiring — when we “allow” them to do so, anyway. Despite the tendency for parents to freak out because their kids are spending more and more time with technology in schools, and the tendency for schools themselves to set extremely restrictive limits on the usage of such technology, there’s a solid argument for letting them be free to imagine and then make it happen.

It’s not a stretch to say the kids in this video are on the cutting edge. Some of the results he talks about in the video at the bottom are quite impressive.

If you can’t or don’t want to watch the clip, here’s the quick version:

Many people think the Internet and technology are scary places for kids. But did you know about …

Martha, who is from Scotland.

She took pictures of her school’s lunches every day.

It reached a point where Jamie Oliver took notice and tweeted his support.

The school told her to stop, but after all of the press, instead they did the right thing and made changes to the lunch program. Yay, Martha! And she raised $200,000 for the food insecure.

(Yes, that’s Mr. Bean in frame 4.)

There’s Josh, who is in middle school in Iowa.

He decided to narrate Pokemon walk-through videos.

He’s so good at that, he walked into college with a six-figure income from the ad revenue of those videos(!!).

There’s Tavi, who created an online magazine called “Rookie” with her friends.

It has a huge following and has reached far into teen culture.

John created an app at age 15.

He sold it to Yahoo at age 17 for $30 million. Can you imagine?

Lauren decided to send a Hello Kitty doll 93,000 feet into space, and record it.

And she did just that.

And there’s a group of teens on the Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota.

An ABC News special portrayed their lives as pretty much based on drugs and crime. They made a video to show who they really were: kids with passion, humility, self-respect, love, creativity, and family.

All of these are kids are creating and innovating — but not in school. Rather, at home.

Schools are far too restrictive to allow kids to do things like these kids did, and that needs to change.

The final quote says it all for me. “Get out of their way and let them be amazing!”

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This article originally appeared on 04.10.15

As part of an experiment, a man asks for help translating a Facebook message he has received.

There’s a man in Lithuania who speaks only English. The message is in Lithuanian. He can’t read it, so he asks some locals to translate it for him.

As he asks one person after another to translate the message for him, two things become obvious.

1. He’s received a message full of hate speech.

2. Translating it for him is breaking people’s hearts.

It’s nearly more than these people can bear.

There’s a sudden, powerful connection between the translators and the man they’re translating for. They want to protect him, telling him not to bother with the message.

They apologize for the message.

They look like they want to cry.

Words hurt.

Most of us would never think of saying such horrible things. This video shows people realizing in their gut what it must feel like when those words are pointed at them — it’s all right on their faces. And so is their compassion.

The Facebook message is horrible, but their empathy is beautiful. The video’s emotional power is what makes it unique, and so worth watching and passing around.

Here it is.

The video’s in English, subtitled in Lithuanian. Just watch the faces.

This article originally appeared on 11.06.15

In 2005, a Croatian architect designed a 230-foot-long organ that turns the rhythm of the waves into actual music.

Nope, not nonsensical bellows or chaotic tones. Real, actual, music.

Most of us have never seen, or heard, anything like it.

Photo by linssimato/Flickr

Imagine walking along the picturesque Adriatic Sea, treading lightly on a set of white stone steps as a cool breeze rolls past.

Carved into the steps are narrow channels that connect to 35 organ pipes, each tuned to different meticulously arranged musical chords.

As the waves lap against the steps, they push air through the pipes and out whistle-holes in the surface above, making a harmonious and completely random musical arrangement.

But you don’t see what’s happening below the surface. You close your eyes and all you hear is a song like you’ve never heard before, one completely unique to the movement of the sea at that exact moment.

Take a listen: Here’s what it sounded like at one particular moment, on one particular day. On any other day, it might sound completely different.

(Hit the orange button to hear it.)

Pretty amazing, right?

The Sea Organ, or the Morske Orgulje, is an incredible feat of architecture designed to bring life back to one of the world’s oldest cities.

Photo by Lisa/Flickr

Zadar, a 3,000-year-old city on the coast of Croatia, was almost completely destroyed in World War II –– so many of its ancient landmarks lost forever. Years after a rebuilding that featured lots of plain, concrete structures, award-winning architect Nikola Bašić was brought in to bring some delight back to the coastline.

That’s when he came up with the idea.

Photo by J We/Flickr

No doubt he was inspired by the hydraulis — a nifty little instrument built by the ancient Greeks that used water to push air through tuned pipes — or even the Wave Organ in San Francisco — a set of curved tubes built in the 1980s that amplify the gurgles and howls of the Pacific Ocean.

But the intricate design of the Sea Organ is what sets it apart and makes it truly something to marvel at.

It’s become an all-too-familiar pattern: Far-right personality downplays, even brushes off the pandemic and trashes the vaccines. Far-right personality then tests positive. (Some of them even die.) So this shouldn’t be surprising: Laura Loomer, the far-right, anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist, who once said “bad fajitas” were worse than COVID, now has COVID.

As per The Daily Beast, Loomer recently revealed on the Trumpist social media network Gettr that she tested positive for the highly transmissible disease. Her symptoms include “fever, chills, a runny nose, sore throat, nausea and severe body aches,” and she compared it to “a bad case of the flu.” She also said she feels like she’s been “hit by a bus.”

Loomer added the she hadn’t taken a COVID vaccine and, even after her ordeal, said, “I don’t plan on ever taking it because it is unsafe and ineffective.” Instead she’s taking some of the questionable, even dangerous “miracle cures” floated by Trump and/or his followers, including Azithromyacin, Hydroxychloroquine, the OrthoMune dietary, even the Regeneron antibody treatment used by Trump after he caught it.

For Loomer, it’s a wish come true, sort of. “I hope I get COVID just so I can prove to people I’ve had bouts of food poisoning that are more serious and life threatening than a hyped up virus,” she wrote on Parler in December of last year “Have you ever eaten bad fajitas? That will kill you faster than COVID.”

Jump some ten months later and she’s changed her tune. “Just pray for me please,” Loomer wrote. “Can’t even begin to explain how brutal the body aches and nausea that come with COVID are. I am in so much pain.”

When news of Loomer’s condition broke, very few people on social media were surprised.

Some reminded people that this is a likely occurrence when you downplay COVID.

(Via The Daily Beast)

At the end of last year, Kid Cudi released his seventh album, Man On The Moon III: The Chosen. It was his first solo, full-length effort since 2016’s Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’ and first overall since 2018’s Kids See Ghost, which he made with Kanye West. The album was a strong continuation of the rapper’s trademark series, and nearly a year after its release, Cudi returns with a new video for one of its tracks, “Mr. Solo Dolo III.” It finds Cudi enjoying a blunt in various places, like a studio, a party, and in the pool.

Cudi recently joined Young Thug and Strick for their own video, for their collaboration “Moon Man,” which showed the trio chowing down on a massive stack of pancakes. Cudi also spoke about Lil Nas X and explained why he thinks he will break down hip-hop’s “homophobic cloud.”

“When I saw the tweet about Nas’ album Montero not featuring Black male artists, and he replied that ‘maybe a lot of them just don’t wanna work with me,’ that made me sad,” Cudi wrote about Lil Nas for Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list. “There’s a homophobic cloud over hip-hop, and he’s going to break that sh*t down. We have to stand with him. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to let him know—you have my support. When we do our song together, however trippy the video is, let’s get sexy with it.”

You can watch the video for “Mr. Solo Dolo III” above.