Category: News

No one ever ate hot dogs because they were watching their figure, but this is ridiculous: A new study weighed the health benefits of over 5,000 foods, rating them by how much time they either take off — or add to — one’s life. And surprise surprise — one of America’s most popular culinary creations (modified, stories go, from the German original) will rob you of days, months, even years: the hot dog.

The report, first shared by the University of Michigan, found foods that ranged from erasing 74 minutes to adding 80. The dangerous foods tended to be sugary drinks, burgers, and (sorry) breakfast sandwiches. A single 85-gram serving of chicken wings nabbed 3.3 minutes, thanks sodium and harmful trans fatty acids.

But not all is bleak. Healthier (and delicious!) foodstuffs, like salted peanuts, baked salmon, and rice with beans added between 10 to 15 minutes. (Mind you, that doesn’t mean one can simply play math whiz and cancel out an unhealthy meal with one that’s good for you. So if you think you can gorge on a burger then down a bunch of peanuts, bringing your life clock back to zero, you’re almost certainly mistaken.)

And then there’s hot dogs. One of those will cost you 36 minutes of life, “largely due to the detrimental effect of processed meat.” (It’s not clear if that’s just a dog and the bun that houses it, or if adding some vegetables, like onions, will dilute its deleterious powers.)

When news of the study, specifically the hot dog business, spread over social media, people had a range of emotions. In fact, some conformed to the Five Stages of Grief model laid out by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. There was denial.

And anger.

Bargaining.

Depression.

And acceptance.

Some saw it as a challenge.

Some worried about hot dog eating contest champ Joey Chestnut.

Some were deliberately obtuse about the news.

And some thought about other unhealthy activities.

On the plus side, there’s another simple American culinary invention: the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not only is that also delicious, it also, as per the study, adds a whopping 33 minutes of life. Throw in some peanuts and you’ve all but atoned for that hot dog.

(Via NY Post)

Since the shooting altercation where Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion, Megan has been waiting for the case to move through the legal system. In the meantime, the incident has created some divisive reactions within the industry, including a strange feud with DaBaby, who seemingly took Tory’s side in the situation — then later tanked his own goodwill with some blatant homophobia delivered from the Rolling Loud stage.

But that wasn’t the only misstep at the festival. TMZ reports that a judge ruled Lanez’s surprise appearance at the festival — for DaBaby’s set, no less — violated the restraining order Megan had established against her assailant. Megan also performed at the festival and Lanez came within 100 feet of her during his appearance. In a new ruling, Lanez was required to pay a bail increase due to his order violation. The judge also added a modification to the order that specifically forbids Lanez from attending events where Megan will be present. According to TMZ, the judge noted that if the restraining order is violated again, Lanez will be taken into custody. He isn’t going to get a long leash with this one. Initially, Lanez’s bail was set at $190,000, and now it’s been increased to $250,000.

Like most conservative Rupert Murdoch-owned media outlets, The New York Post has spent much of the pandemic railing against mask mandates and generally downplaying COVID’s severity. But like former president Trump, they’re not stupid. So this shouldn’t be surprising: Despite their hostility towards places of business requiring people wear masks, that’s exactly what they demand their employees do when/if they’re in the office.

CNN obtained an internal memo sent on August 12 instructing staff to do the very thing they demonize in their newspaper, sometimes on the front page. “Masks are required while walking the floor/not at your desk,” publisher and chief executive Sean Giancola instructed. The formal guidance attached to the memo told employees to “mask up” and “cover [their] face when away from [their] desk or chatting with colleagues.”

This comes after months of slamming mask mandates, to say nothing of a year-and-a-half of slamming and undermining public health officials. CNN lays out some examples:

When the CDC said in July that it was recommending vaccinated people wear masks in areas with “substantial” and “high” community transmission of Covid-19, the Post called it “madness.”

“This is nonsense — and pernicious, too,” the Post’s editorial board wrote at the time.

The Post has also called for other agencies to lift their mask mandates.

In a July 7 article, the editorial board said it’s “time to scrap the mandate for masks on trains and buses.” That editorial said wearing a mask on public transit is “pointless and performative.”

“It’s time to lift the mask mandate,” the Post editorial board declared.

There’s also their July 30 cover, which featured the word “INSANITY” writ large over suggestions that vaccinated people wear masks.

The news comes days after CNN reported that the same mask requirements are in place at Fox News. That network is also owned by Murdoch, and it’s where hosts like Tucker Carlson tell their viewers to, among other things, harass people wearing masks. But look at it this way: At least the Post and Fox News want to keep their employees safe, even if the same doesn’t apply to their base.

(Via CNN)

There are a few uniting principles when it comes to the people whose pulses Jordan Klepper fingers on the regular while crisscrossing America for The Daily Show (and also probably for the satisfaction of some low-level masochistic tendencies he’s dealing with). They’re big fans of former steak in the mail salesman and reality TV host Donald Trump, they sometimes lack the desire to spellcheck their apparel, and they often sound like a 5-year-old caught in a lie when asked to justify their positions beyond the headline of a Facebook post they read that one time. Just the headline.

In this latest edition of Jordan Klepper Fingers The Pulse, that choir can be seen fumbling through half-baked mischaracterizations about science to explain their objection to vaccines and restrictions for the unvaccinated. They’re also overdoing it on air quotes, tossing “we’re living in a society” notions off a bridge, and getting into it with passersby who pretty much do Klepper’s job for him.

That this all went down a week ago in New York City outside Mayor Bill De Blasio’s house brings a “the call is coming from inside the house” vibe for anyone who thought this was a red state v. blue state thing. It’s very clearly not, but at least we can all take comfort in the irony that this got released today alongside the news that the Pfizer vaccine has received FDA approval. Now all those holdouts waiting for that step can go get their sticker and their protection against COVID. Yes, nothing is stopping them now.

This article originally appeared on 11.03.17.

In 1825, at the approximate age of 8, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled “Jordon”) was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and he and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio, where, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.

On Aug. 7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the Cincinnati Commercial. The letter, entitled “Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master,” was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance, and dignity. That year, the letter would be republished in the New York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child’s “The Freedman’s Book.”

The letter mentions a “Miss Mary” (Col. Anderson’s Wife), “Martha” (Col. Anderson’s daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson’s son), and George Carter (a local carpenter).

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

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Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jordon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, — the folks call her Mrs. Anderson, — and the children — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,
Jordon Anderson

Learn more about Jordan Anderson here.

This article originally appeared on 01.10.20

Media outlets love to compile lists of impressive people under a certain age. They laud the accomplishments of fresh-faced entrepreneurs, innovators, influencers, etc., making the rest of us ooh and ahh wonder how they got so far so young.

While it’s great to give credit where it’s due, such early-life success lists can make folks over a certain age unnecessarily question where we went wrong in our youth—as if dreams can’t come true and successes can’t be had past age 30.

Weary of lists celebrating youngsters, television writer and producer Melissa Hunter sent out a tweet requesting a new kind of list for 2020. “Instead of 30 Under 3 or NextGen lists,” she wrote, “please profile middle-aged people who just got their big breaks. I want to read about a mother of 2 who published her first novel, a director who released their first studio feature at 47, THAT’S THE LIST WE WANT.”

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At the end of 2020, instead of 30 Under 30 and NextGen lists, please profile middle-aged people who just got their… https://t.co/ekoM0iu4Tm

— Melissa Hunter (@himelissahunter)
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The Twitterverse responded with a resounding “YAAASSS.” Story after story of folks finding success in their 40s, 50s, and beyond began pouring in. If you worry that you’re not far enough along in your 20s or 30s, or think it’s too late for you to follow your passion in the autumn of your life, take a look at these examples of people crushing it in their mid-to-late adulthood.

Take this mother of four teens who released her first full-length book at 45 and started law school this year at age 47.

@melissaFTW @becauseivy I am a mother of four, I released my first full-length book at 45, and started law school t… https://t.co/J5hU44aM4k

— Tracy M (@dandelionmama)
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Or the woman who published two books in her late 50s and is revising book #3 at age 60. Oh, she also started running at age 45.

@melissaFTW My first book was published when I was 57, second, at 58, and now at age 60, working on revisions for b… https://t.co/8hDkc6h5Gq

— Jill Hannah Anderson (@JillHannahA)
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Another person shared how they got out of prison for drugs at age 49, stayed clean and started their own business, and broke the $1 million sales mark last year at 56.

“Lauching my clothing line now—at 48,” wrote a mom of two. “Next venture feels amazing.”

Another user chimed in with “Yes! Plus the 40 under 40, 30 under 30 can be quite contrived (sometimes). I want to see people juggling school, career, and family.”

Yet another mother of two teens finished her PhD at 41 and got a tenure-track position at age 47. She’s also working on a book on Indigenous Early Childhood.

@melissaFTW @A_Story_of_A Finished my PhD at 41 with two teens as an Indigenous woman in public health. Finally got… https://t.co/eBSlrzaeEY

— Dr. Angela Mashford-Pringle (@armp71)
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How about this woman who hadn’t taken a math class for 40 years? She aced her statistics classes and will graduate with a perfect GPA after she turns 60. “Lots of life to live!” she says.

@melissaFTW @whoisgarylee Workings on my doctorate. I had not taken a math class for 40 years but aced statistics a… https://t.co/yREvwwZfR5

— Nicolette C Dennis (@greekfromidaho)
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Another mom (are we seeing a theme here?) discovered a passion for interior design and won a national TV design challenge in her late 40s. Now, at 60, she has a successful design career and contributes to radio and magazines.

@melissaFTW I was a stay at home Mum for years. In my late 40’s I discovered a passion for interior design & won a… https://t.co/lvqhENXUIm

— Anne Tuohy (@RoomJunkieAnne)
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Of course, we also know there are fabulously successful folks who got a “late” start in Hollywood, including the incomparable Ava DuVernay, “who left her job at age 40 to focus on filmmaking and then became the first black woman to make over $100 million at the box office.”

As one man pointed out, “The idea that you’ve got five years between 20 and 30 to do everything you’re ever going to do is ridiculous.” Hunter agreed, writing, “The advice is always that it’s a marathon, not a race, and I wanna read about the people who finished that marathon!!”

@rothschildmd congrats! and agreed. the advice is always that it’s a marathon, not a race, and i wanna read about t… https://t.co/x7NLnq6LeQ

— Melissa Hunter (@himelissahunter)
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So many stories of people publishing their first books, landing their ideal jobs, or discovering a passion later in life just kept coming, and person after person shared how inspiring and motivating they were.

Of course, not everyone has lofty career goals. If these stories aren’t quite hitting the mark for you, check out this woman’s contribution to the conversation. She’s “just a regular human,” she says, but she went to Zimbabwe and volunteered at a wildlife refuge at age 47. “Life doesn’t just peter out after 30,” she wrote. “My friend Elsa is 96 and went on an archaeological dig at 75. I want to be like her.”

Don’t we all.

@melissaFTW I didn’t publish anything, I’m just a regular human, but I went to Zimbabwe and volunteered at a wildli… https://t.co/METvk7SXMq

— Kate – Every Child Matters (@KateGrand)
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Age really is just a number, and there’s nothing magical about “making it” in your younger years. Let’s be sure to celebrate people living their best lives and making dreams come true at any and every age.

Today’s conservatives love false equivalencies. They love to derail debate by comparing two things that may share some similarities but aren’t meaningfully alike. A good example arrived Monday, and of course it came courtesy of repeat dunkable tweeter Ben Shapiro. He was none too happy to learn that 75 doctors in Florida had taken a stand, protesting the out-of-control numbers of unvaccinated people flooding their hospital, creating preventable chaos and death. And the only way he could attack, it seemed, was by likening it to something with a lot of differences.

“If this is the new standard — that failure to take measures to alleviate your own health problems are punishable by doctors refusing treatment — the extension of this logic to obesity will certainly be something,” Shapiro tweeted.

This wasn’t just a false equivalency. It was another conservative-approved argumentative trick: It was a slippery slope argument. That’s where someone brings up a far-fetched end game that will almost certainly never happen. That often involves invoking false equivalency, because it’s a sleazy move.

When Shapiro fired off his latest self-owning tweet, people online were happy to point out his argumentative hiccup. The main problem: COVID is a highly transmissible disease that is overwhelming hospitals. Obesity is doing neither.

Perhaps next time Shapiro will think before he tweets. But his fans wouldn’t love him if he did that.

While the entertainment industry at large is getting significantly better at both including and representing marginalized groups in-front of and behind the camera, prolific screenwriter Jack Throne (known for his work on Enola Holmes, His Dark Materials, as well as the U.K. versions of both Shameless and Skins) says one group is still largely ignored: disabled people. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Thorne used his keynote MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival to address the numerous issues revolving around the exclusion of disabled people and their narratives in film and television. While he at first spoke broadly on the topic, he then proceeded to tell a pretty upsetting story about how one of his series was completely shut down because it followed a wheelchair basketball team.

According to Thorne, once he pitched the idea he was told he needed to eliminate the entire wheelchair aspect of the basketball team in the proposed series because the show “was full of good ideas” and needed “the best chance it could get” at being picked up by a network. He went on to say he was essentially told the fact that it was about a disabled team was “dragging it down” financially, then proceeded to add that prior to his start on BBC’s Then Barbara Met Alan this year, he has never been permitted to make a single disabled story on a full drama budget.

In addition to recounting his own distressing anecdotes, Thorne also talked about the larger issue of the casting of non-disabled people in disabled roles, a problem that made headlines as recently as last November, when Sia cast a non-disabled actress in the role of someone with autism in her film Music. The writer acknowledged that while there are a number of disabled actors currently working, he said they were mostly “disabled people fitting in with non-disabled narratives.” To help remedy this problem, Thorne expressed his desire for quotas to ensure disabled representation in both the film and television industries feel more true to real life. He stated that while “there is an intention to change [..] that intention is not backed up by impositions on the makers to change their ways,” before pointing to statistics stating that while 20% of the U.K.’s population is disabled, only 8.2% of on-screen talent and just 5.4% of people working off-screen are.

This lecture is merely one part of Thorne’s larger work to highlight the way disabilities are handled — or ignored — in entertainment. Here’s hoping his words hit home for more filmmakers and writers and we start to see even more work intent of providing disabled groups with adequate representation and stories.

This article originally appeared on 06.06.19.

Dogs can smell fear, but can they sniff out the truth? Your dog might actually be smarter than you’re giving it credit for. It turns out, dogs are pretty good at picking up on human behavior. Science says so. A team led by Akiko Takaoka of Kyoto University in Japan conducted a study which found out that dogs actually know if you’re to be believed or not.

The study involved tricking dogs in the name of science. Humans have known for a long time that if you point at an object, a dog will run to it. Researchers utilized this information in their study. During the experiment, they pointed at a container that was filled with hidden food. Sure enough, the dog ran towards the container. Then, they pointed at a container that was empty. The dogs ran towards it, but found that it had no food.

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The third time the researchers pointed at a container with food, the dogs refused to go to the container. They knew the person pointing wasn’t reliable based off their previous experience. 34 dogs were used in the experiment, and every single dog wouldn’t go towards the container the third time. This experiment either proves that dogs can spot a liar or that dogs have major trust issues.

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In other words, if you lie to your dog, your dog forms the opinion that your word isn’t good and will behave accordingly. “Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought. This social intelligence evolved selectively in their long life history with humans,” said Takaoka, who was also surprised that dogs were quick when they “devalued the reliability of a human.”

John Bradshaw of the University of Bristol in the UK, who wasn’t involved in this study, says that the results indicate that dogs prefer predictability. When gestures are inconsistent, dogs tend to become nervous and stressed.

The researchers have plans to repeat the experiment swapping out the dogs with wolves because wolves are closely related to dogs. The point of this isn’t to get bitten by wolves, but rather, to see the “profound effects of domestication” on dogs.

TikTok has become a great place for finding life hacks and one of the best follows is @Sidneyraz. His hook is that he shows people the “things I wish I knew before I was in my 30s.”

Most of his life hacks are simple, domestic tricks for cleaning the house or preparing food. But he also shares some financial advice and makes the personal admission that “not being hungover is better than being drunk.”

That’s a lesson that a lot of us wish we learned sooner.

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Like a lot of folks, Sidney is learning a lot of domestic skills in his third decade and that makes sense. That’s the time when people begin to settle down with a significant other and pick up more domestic skills.

The good news is that he’s not going through this life change alone. He wants to share all of it with you.

Here are 11 of his best life hacks.

Baking bacon is better than frying:

How to eat a flat chicken wing:

A tooth-brushing trick:

How to stop a pot from boiling over:

You can vacuum more than just your floor:

Did you know your dishwasher has a filter?

The weatherman isn’t saying what you think he’s saying:

How to fill a cooler:

The secret behind Chinese food containers:

Hire movers:

Not being hungover is better than being drunk: