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The NBA 2K League is rolling along with its season with players playing remote, which brings some unique challenges. While gaming offers a rather easy transition to remote play, there’s a big difference playing online from separate locations rather than being in the same room with your team.

Communication can be tricky, but there’s also the risk of connection issues. Last Tuesday, a game between Nets GC and Pistons GT was interrupted with 4:13 seconds to play in what was heading for a blowout win for the Pistons. An investigation by the 2K League determined that Nets small forward Marquis “Randomz” Gill was the reason for the interruption as he quit the game purposefully while it was still going on. Gill has been suspended for next Monday for the Nets’ series with Cavs Legion GC as a result.

Rage-quitting happens all the time in online gaming, and trailing 71-39 late in a game certainly is the kind of situation you might expect to see someone quit. However, that’s when playing 2K online with some random person, not playing in the official NBA 2K League, and as such it’s unsurprising the league wouldn’t take kindly to that happening.

It’s the kind of thing that can only happen in this remote setting and the league suspending Gill for a night of games is clearly ensuring the rest of the league is aware of the punishment that can come their way if they did the same thing.

Keanu Reeves’ 50s have been some of his most accomplished and prolific, from finding yet another beloved franchise to star in to returning to multiple older ones to becoming a prolific inspirer of memes — all while still looking like he’s in his 30s. He’s even expanded his repertoire into the realm of video games. Last year it was revealed he’d have a starring role in Cyberpunk 2077, which would require not only voice work but also a motion-capture performance. And though the latter can only be seen but briefly in the new trailer, at least the cameo is amusingly profane.

As per IndieWire, the first extended look at Cyberpunk 2077 was unveiled during a 25-minute video on Thursday, which included a three-minute trailer as well as the announcement that the game will also receive an anime show due next year on Netflix. The game, from the developers of the popular Witcher series, is an RPG from the longtime Cyberpunk franchise, which began as a tabletop game in 1988. Players get to embody V, a mercenary whose look you can customize, and who prowls a futuristic dystopia, hunting for an implant that could grant him immortality.

The trailer shows off the expected first-person, Grand Theft Auto-style mayhem, albeit with a, well, cyberpunk sheen. Reeves himself is mostly heard, not seen, until the 11th hour, when he is very much both, delivering a decent red-band gag before the cut to black, all while looking not unlike Sylvester Stallone in Cobra.

This isn’t the first time Reeves has done cyberpunk, or even the first time he’s been involved in a game. Oddly, those were for the same title: the 1995 thriller Johnny Mnemonic, based on the novel by William Gibson, the father of cyberpunk. The movie didn’t do well initially, but it paved the way for The Matrix, and it was turned into a CD-ROM game, featuring 90 minutes of full-motion video. Second time’s the charm, it seems.

Cyberpunk 2077 will be out on November 19.

(Via IndieWire)

One of the hallmarks of progress, both societally and individually, is when we realize that something we thought was benign is actually not. When it comes to progress on racism, the cultural norms of language are frequently where those realizations occur.

For example, there are many common phrases we use that are racist, which many of us having no idea. And now The Conscious Kid on Instagram has shared how a collection of standard nursery rhymes most of us recited or sang as children that also come from racist origins. Some of them come from the blackface minstrelsy era, when white people dressed in blackface and sang songs portraying black people as uneducated caricatures. Others started as blatantly racist rhymes, then changed over time to be palatable to a more enlightened audience.

As we take these in, it’s good to be aware that nostalgia and familiarity will naturally create resistance to the notion that these rhymes are problematic, especially if we aren’t part of the racial group on the receiving end of the racism these rhymes stem from. Our minds will defend, justify, and qualify in order to keep fond memories from our childhood in tact.

With that in mind, here are “childhood nursery rhymes you didn’t realize were racist,” sourced from Atlanta Black Star and NPR’s Code Switch.

Many of us learned Eeenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe with the phrase “catch a tiger by his toe” or maybe “catch a tigger,” but the original rhyme used the n-word. Gross.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

“Ten Little Indians” is problematic on its face, but is actually worse when you see what the original lyrics were.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

“Chinese, Japanese” was a common playground recitation when I was little, and though I recall learning that it was wrong, it didn’t seem nearly as horrifying as it does now. Who the hell originally came up with this, and how did it travel so far?

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

“Five Little Monkeys” might not seem like anything problematic—until you learn that “monkeys” used to be “darkies” or the n-word.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

And then there’s the ice cream truck song. The familiar tune that’s synonymous with summer—also sung by kids as “Do Your Ears Hang Low”—was originally a song called “N****r Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!” Yeah.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

Same goes for “Shortnin’ Bread.” Yikes.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

Many of us sang at least part of “Oh! Susanna” in school music classes, and it’s often considered a classic. But look at what the song was actually about and how horrible some of the lyrics were.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

“Jimmy Crack Corn” is another familiar tune from childhood. I remember singing it in some capacity, and now I’m appalled that the term “Massa” ever came out of my mouth as form of entertainment.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

Finally, “Camptown Races.” Really? Yep. Again, from the blackface minstrel era, a song that basically made fun of Black people.

The Conscious Kid/Instagram

Now’s a good time to ask ourselves what we should do with these rhymes now that we know their origins. Of course, there are bigger issues than nursery rhymes, but all of the seemingly low-significance incidences of racism add up to a crapton.

When we know better, we do better—at least in theory. Now that we know, let’s do something with this knowledge. Would it really be that hard to place these rhymes in the archives of history and not continue to actively use them? Are there really no alternatives that children can become familiar with instead?

April Judd, 19, from Quebec, Canada won first price in Greater Good’s Girls’ Voices at Home Class of 2020 Challenge with a virtual commencement speech on the theme “How the coronavirus affected my final semester.”

The contest was open to high school and college seniors and received 379 submissions from girls in 49 different countries.

In her submission, Judd bemoans the fact that she didn’t get to put on her final stage production or say goodbye to some friends she may never see again. She also discusses the challenge of moving in with her parents after being gone for two years.

However, during the pandemic she had a powerful change in her mindset that’s inspired her to move forward in a bold way.

“I don’t want to go back to the way things were,” she says. “I want to have a heightened appreciation for all the things that make life full.”

April wants to be someone who finds beauty even the “less favorable hands that life deals us.” She ends the video with an empowering message for her fellow graduates, “We got this.”

April from Shawville, Quebec

www.youtube.com

A Facebook group of over 5,000 people with a loose grasp of science, government, and grammar has issued a bogus card to its members, supposedly exempting them from wearing a mask in public.

The card is issued by the Freedom to Breathe Agency (FTBA) a Facebook Group posing as a government agency that protects people’s right to go mask-free in public.

The card claims the holder has a disability that prevents them from wearing a mask, and that it’s illegal for any business to ask them to disclose their condition.

“I am exempt from any ordinance requiring face mask usage in public. Wearing a face mask poses a mental and/or physical risk to me. Under the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), I am not required to disclose my condition to you,” the card reads.

“If found in violation of the ADA you could face steep penalties,” the card continues. “Organizations and businesses can be fined up to $75,000 for your first violation and $150,000 for any subsequent violations. Denying access to your business/organization will be also reported to FTBA for further actions.”

It’s pretty disturbing that anyone would pretend they have a disability to get away with putting people’s health and safety at risk by going mask-free during a pandemic.

The good news is that the card looks so bogus that it’s safe to assume no one would ever fall for the scam.

via Reddit

The card is littered with typographical errors.

The headline should read: “FACE MASK EXEMPTION CARD” not “EXEMPT.”

The word poses is spelled posses.

The ADA’s official title is the Americans with Disabilities Act not the Americans with Disability Act.

Organizations and businesses can be fined for “their” not “your” first violation.

Further, if it was an official government agency, the website would be at a .gov site not a .com.

The FTBA’s website was a monument to anti-science, paranoia, and bad grammar, but it’s been taken down. Here’s a screenshot that was taken before it went offline.

The fake exemption card caught the attention of the Department of Justice that said it is aware of the fake card and that “these postings were not issued by the Department and are not endorsed by the Department.”

Freedom to Breathe Agency / Facebook

According to the group’s Facebook site “Wearing a mask is an unhealthy obstruction of oxygen flow that can lead to hypoxemia and hypoxia, can permanently damage the brain, lungs, heart and about any organ.”

However, that is not true.

According to Dr. Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, an epidemiologist and lecturer at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales Australia, hypoxia is unlikely to take place with cloth and surgical masks.

Some people with pre-existing respiratory illnesses (like asthma, COPD), may face breathing difficulty with use of certain types of tight fitted masks, called respirators. [There is] less chance of hypoxia as they may discontinue using masks in that case. Risk is very low with cloth and surgical masks as they are not tight around [the] face.

This information is not hard to find.

The members of the Freedom to Breathe Agency either aren’t smart enough to understand the basic science behind wearing a mask or don’t have the curiosity to find out the truth for themselves.

Wearing a mask not only prevents people from catching COVID-19 but from spreading the deadly disease as well. So the Freedom to Breathe Agency are willfully deciding to put the health of others in danger because they aren’t smart enough to know or they just don’t care.

They don’t care about science, they don’t care about the health of others, and they sure don’t care about grammar.

When Disneyland finally opens, Star Wars land might not be the only new attraction you’ll get to experience on your first trip back into the park. In a post published on the Disneyland Parks blog, the theme park announced that it will transform the current Splash Mountain attraction at their Disneyland Resort and Magic Kingdom theme parks in Southern California and Florida to align with the 2009 animated feature The Princess and the Frog. The original attraction was themed around Disney’s 1946 feature Song of the South, a film inspired by the Uncle Remus stories, a collection of folktales from the Southern Plantation Era published in the 1880s.

If you weren’t aware that Splash Mountain was themed after a movie rather than just some weird drug trip of a ride full of glowing plants and menacing critters, we don’t blame you, Disney has been pretty ashamed of the movie for some time now. It’s been shelved by the company since the 80s, and does not appear on the Disney+ streaming site. There’s been public support for a retheme for years, but the issue received renewed attention amid the social justice protests that have broken out across the country after the killing of George Floyd by the police.

“The retheme of Splash Mountain is of particular importance today,” begins the statement issued by Disney. “The new concept is inclusive — one that all of our guests can connect with and be inspired by, and it speaks to the diversity of the millions of people who visit our parks each year.”

The Princess and the Frog, set in New Orleans, Louisiana, famously features Disney’s first animated depiction of an African American princess, Princess Tiana of Maldonia, and the new attraction’s story will take off after the movie’s final kiss and will follow Tiana and her trumpet-playing Aligator companion Louis “on a musical adventure as they prepare for their first-ever mardi gras performance.”

In a statement by Anika Noni Rose, the actress who voices Princess Tiana, expressed her support for the theme:

“It is really exciting to know that Princess Tiana’s presence in both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom will finally be fully realized! As passionate as I am about what we created, I know the fans are going to be over the moon. The Imagineers are giving us the Princess and the Frog Mardi Gras celebration we’ve been waiting for, and I’m here for it.”

The new attraction will be designed by Disney Imagineer Charita Carter, and fans of the original Splash Mountain will be glad to know that the new attraction’s creative design will also be overseen by Disneyland Imagineer Tony Baxter, who crafted the original Splash Mountain experience in 1989 after being inspired by his childhood memories of watching Song of the South.

According to Disney’s blog, a launch date for the new Splash Mountain has yet to be announced, though Disneyland Park’s Imagineers have been working on a Splash Mountain refresh since last year when they developed a backstory for the attraction and settled on a concept sometime this past summer. Meaning: It might come sooner than later.

With #JungleCruise currently trending on Twitter, too, it seems this might begin an even deeper exploration of the tropes seen in Disney rides.

Chris Evans and Paul Rudd have a lot more in common than starring in their own Marvel movies. The two actors recently made the jump into streaming TV series with Apple TV’s Defending Jacob for Evans and Netflix’s Living with Yourself for Rudd. They’re also both pretty adept at giving entertaining interviews, so it made perfect sense for Variety to pair them up for its “Actors on Actors” issue.

While looking surprisingly well-groomed for just coming out of a quarantine, the two actors discussed their streaming shows before Evans got down to brass tacks and demanded to know the secret to Rudd’s ageless looks and how he manages to be awesome in so many pop culture staples:

Evans: Why don’t you age? Are you drinking baby blood?

Rudd: I most certainly age.

Evans: Oh, you know what? It’s not a question so much as it’s just an attaboy. In terms of Hollywood, you are a part of Marvel, you’re a part of “Friends” and you’re in the [Judd] Apatow crew. Those are three real clubby, cliquey, benchmark-y things. I can’t think of anybody else that has such a kind of wide-spread affiliation with so many different genres and groups. Basically, what does it feel like to be awesome?

Unfortunately, Rudd dodged the question and left Evans hanging without learning the secret to the Ant-Man star’s immortal looks and natural coolness. But the two did get to reminiscing about how they met for the very first time on the set of Captain America: Civil War. Not only that, but Evans revealed that Rudd was gracious to dance in a Grease sing-along video that Evans was making even though the two had just met that day. However, the footage never saw the light of day, so maybe everything Paul Rudd touches doesn’t turn to cinematic gold.

Nah, his part is probably great.

(Via Variety)

Liverpool’s 4-0 win over Crystal Palace on Wednesday evening meant that perhaps the most important Premier League match in the club’s history would not take place with the Reds on the pitch. If Thursday’s tilt between Chelsea and Manchester City ended with anything other than a City win, then for the first time in Premier League history, Liverpool would be champions.

After 90 scintillating minutes of football, the decades-long wait on Merseyside ended up coming to its conclusion thanks to a 2-1 Chelsea victory.

The story of the match was how a pair of Manchester City blunders led to Chelsea’s goals. While City appeared in control of the game at the start of things, Chelsea broke the scoreless affair thanks to Christian Pulisic. Benjamin Mendy and Ilkay Gundogan had a miscommunication upon which the American was able to pounce. Showing off the pace, dribbling, and skill that made him one of the most expensive signings in club history, Pulisic took on both Mendy and Gundogan en route to a silky finish from the top of the box.

City, however, have been proud Premier League champions for nearly 900 days, thanks in large part to the brilliance of Kevin de Bruyne. The Belgian, who very well might be the best midfielder in the world, has saved his squad on plenty of occasions, and looked primed to do it once more when he buried a gorgeous free kick in the second half.

From there, the match decided to descend into complete and utter chaos. Pulisic looked primed to pick up his second of the match, as he absolutely blew past Fernandinho and beat Ederson. His finish, however, was not powerful enough, and Kyle Walker was able to narrowly clear the ball off the line.

Minutes later, it appeared a goal line clearance happened once again, as Ederson and Fernandinho teamed up to thwart Chelsea once again. The issue, though, was that Fernandinho used his hand, leading to a red card and a penalty. Willian stepped up to the spot, Ederson went the wrong way, and Liverpool came mere minutes away from earning the title.

With 10 men on the pitch and needing two goals to keep their slight title hopes alive, City weren’t able to turn the fight they showed for the final few minutes into anything. The whistle blew in London, and several hundred miles away, the (hopefully socially distant) celebration in Liverpool began.

Liverpool had seemed preordained to win the title from early on this year, as the Reds played with a ruthlessness that no club in the world was able to match on a nightly basis. While the Prem’s COVID-19 delay meant that that coronation would have to wait a little longer than Jurgen Klopp and co. would have liked, waiting a few more months is nothing when it’s been 30 years since their last time earning the distinction of being the kings of England.

While crowning a champion is done and dusted, there are still several more matches to play in this campaign. By nature of being the champions, Liverpool have earned a guard of honour from their opponents ahead of their next Premier League match. Because the footballing gods have quite the sense of humor about them, the Reds will next take the pitch on Thursday, July 2, when they travel to the Ethiad Stadium to square off against Manchester City.

People’s Party once again takes place via video chat for the latest episode with special guest Method Man. After The RZA recounted the origins of Wu-Tang Clan on People’s Party Live in April, Method Man gives his own take on the iconic hip-hop supergroup’s formation, as well as explaining how he got his own start as a solo artist before his fateful meeting with The RZA.

Meth explains how he wrote “Method Man,” his formal introduction to the world from Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the group’s groundbreaking debut album. He says the inspiration came to him while he and Cappadonna were on an all-night drug trip listening to Hall & Oates. The chorus of “Method Of Love” became the basis for the hook on “Method Man,” while the rhymes derived from Meth incorporating pop culture references like Fat Albert.

He also explains how comic books and Saturday matinees of Shaw Brothers kung-fu movies opened the group’s minds to RZA’s Eastern philosophies and approach to “strength in numbers.” “I’ll let you in on a little Wu-Tang trivia,” he says. “Wu-Tang originally was just supposed to be GZA, RZA, and Ol’ Dirty… [“Protect Ya Neck”] was supposed to be a bunch of friends from around the way spitting on this record. Being the scientist that he is, RZA said, “Let’s see if we can attack it like that.” RZA had to overcome some dissent from GZA, who snuck subliminal shots at RZA’s process into their debut, but eventually the crew became the foundation for an entire movement of grimy, lyrically-focused hip-hop from New York. The rest, as they say, is history.

Watch a preview of Method Man’s People’s Party interview above and catch the full episode on Monday, June 29.

People’s Party is a weekly interview show hosted by Talib Kweli with big-name guests exploring hip-hop, culture, and politics. Subscribe via Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Athlete A (Netflix documentary) — This film digs into the claims of abuse at USA Gymnastics through the eyes of The Indianapolis Star reporters. It’s heavy stuff but a valuable watch to expose the culture of cruelty that persevered through the elite-level gymnastics system for far too long.

Home Game (Netflix series) — On a brighter note, this series will explore unusual and extreme sporting traditions across the globe, including roller derby and… voodoo wrestling?

Burden Of Truth (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — Joanna’s not thrilled about helping out with a class-action suit, but it’s probably worth it, right? Billy might be able to save the day with help from his dad.

In The Dark (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — The stakes are high for the whole group with fallout over Nia’s supply complicating matters for everyone.

Blindspot (NBC, 9:00 p.m.) — This crazy tattoo show’s now taking on a high-stakes undercover mission, and Madeline’s son will hopefully be intercepted, but an old ally is on the way? Hmm.

Cake (FXX, 10:00 p.m.) — Two Aussie brothers experience love, life, and humanity while leading a dangerous mission against man’s eldest enemy.

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon: Shaquille O’Neal, John Lithgow, Ozuna

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: Patton Oswalt, Ibram X, Kendi

Late Night With Seth Meyers: Rachel McAdams, John Early

The Late Late Show With James Corden: Russell Crowe, SpaceX Crew Dragon Astronauts, Charlie Puth