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We all knew a barbecue challenge would be coming eventually — this is Top Chef HOUSTON, after all. Five episodes in feels… tasteful. It’s like the producers didn’t want to seem too eager, but they didn’t want to drag it out too long and make it a whole thing either. This was the themed challenge equivalent of arriving fashionably late to a party. Nice.

So yeah, it was barbecue week on Top Chef, and in Texas, you know what barbecue means: brisket. Brisket makes a great subject for a barbecue challenge because it has probably the lowest floor and the highest ceiling of any barbecue meat. Bad brisket, which is easy to find, sucks. I’d rather eat an average hamburger than bad brisket. If I’m at a barbecue joint I’ve never been before with an unknown reputation, I’m ordering pork ribs over brisket every time. They’re just way harder to screw up. Here in Central California, I’m going for tri-tip, which takes about 20 minutes on a grill rather than a full day in a smoker and tastes consistently pretty damn good.

But a good brisket, long-cooked, perfectly seasoned, and juicier than my thighs after a brisk jog, is hard to beat. For this week’s elimination challenge, guest judge Brooke Williamson took the contestants on over to J-Bar-M to choose, trim, and season their meat. Which would then go in a J-Bar-M smoker for 12 hours. Their challenge would be to then incorporate that brisket into a dish, something that “flips the script on what barbecue can be,” to be judged by Greg Gatlin and 20 of Houston’s top pitmasters.

There were a couple interesting decisions here. Chief among them being to standardize and outsource the entire smoking process. On the one hand, that made it a lot easier for the contestants. On the other, this probably isn’t “true barbecue,” since all they had to do was trim, rub, and wait, letting someone else handle the fire. But true barbecue or not, it did save us all the time that would’ve inevitably been spent watching the contestants sweat over their coals and trying to keep the smoker going and blah blah blah. There are at least 10 barbecue shows covering this already, and honestly, zzzzzzzz.

Ditto having them make a brisket dish, rather than just serve a brisket. Barbecue judging is almost painfully codified and rigid these days, and if they’d made us sit through 25 minutes of sweaty guys in plaid shirts pontificating about smoke rings and tenderness tests I would’ve put a gun in my mouth and blown my brains all over the back wall of my TV room (too far? Fine, I may be exaggerating, SLIGHTLY).

Yet just when the contestants thought they could take a deep breath and settle in for a nice long chill sesh while the smoke did its thing, Brooke blew the Top Chef shofar, announcing a SURPRISE QUICKFIRE! This one was dedicated to Texas Toast. Texas Toast, as we were informed in Brooke’s important historical anecdote, is a Texas delicacy that, legend has it, was born when someone in Texas accidentally bought some big toast. “But… this toast is TOO BIG!” whined the small-minded.

That was when famous free spirit Augustus Toast piped up and said “Nay, the big toast is just right. Grill and serve it with Arby’s new Texas Beef and Cheddar with extra horsey sauce.”

Thus a legend was born, or something like that. Honestly, I spiced it up a little, because otherwise it was the world’s most banal origin story. “Someone bought some big toast one time and the rest is history.” Anyway, the chefs were tasked with serving up a bread-based appetizer. Was Carrie Baird not available to guest judge? It almost felt like they were going out of their way not to use the words “Fancy Toast.”

Anyway, if you’ve ever had bruschetta, pan con tomate, any kind of pintxo, or probably 20 other regional specialties (shrimp toast!), you know that bread-based appetizers have been a thing for a long time. Which is great. I watched this week’s episode right before mealtime and almost everything in it, from the bread-based apps to the brisket-ensconced mains, had me feeling hungry as hell. Easily the best food porn episode of the season.

The producers showed the briskets going in! Well done.

RESULTS

• Quickfire Top: Nick*, Jo, Jackson.
• Quickfire Bottom: Luke, Monique.

• Elimination Top: Buddha, Evelyn*, Jackson.
• Elimination Bottom: Monique, Ashleigh**, Jo.

*Winner
**Eliminated

RANKINGS

10. (-3) ((Eliminated)) Ashleigh Shanti

AKA: Moon Juice.

This week, Ashleigh said she was anxious to finally “put myself on a plate.” DING DING DING! (That’s me ringing the “Top Chef cliché” bell).

For the Quickfire, Chef Ashleigh prepared a “Texas Toast pizza roll-up,” which looked like it involved toast that was rolled out with a rolling pin, rolled up like a taquito with some cheese, then deep fried and served over tomato sauce. Honestly, pure genius. The judges should’ve carried her out on their shoulders after that.

For her brisket, Chef Ashleigh dreamed up a “kitchen pepper” spiced brisket (kitchen pepper apparently being a Caribbean-influenced mixture of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and maybe some other stuff too) influenced by “chicken and slicks,” a variety of chicken and dumplings. Hers would include brisket and sweet potato slicks, served in a cream of collard soup. I’m an absolute piggy for chicken and dumplings and really dumplings in general (I actually have a unified theory of food that says that if you’re trying a new and unfamiliar cuisine, always order the dumplings, which almost always combine the best of that cuisine’s stock spices and are generally prepared lovingly by the elders of the kitchen), so everything about that sounded pretty good.

“Hard to eat,” raved the judges. “I can feel my arteries clogging,” said one of the pitmasters.

It’s generally a bad sign when a professional barbecue man with elaborately styled facial hair worries about the health of his arteries. Turns out Ashleigh compounded her mistake of underseasoning her brisket by serving said brisket in giant meaty chunks immersed in a creamy soup. Nobody wants to eat soup with a knife and fork. Is it soup? Is it sauce? Are you trying to choke Tom Colicchio? This is a dish fit for pelicans! Ashleigh’s UX designer is fired.

Putting yourself on a plate is all well and good, but maybe smaller chunks next time? It’s hard not to feel for Ashleigh here, spending a full day smoking brisket, preparing dumplings, creaming collards, etc. only to go home for the very simple-yet-obvious sin of not cutting the meat small enough.

9. (+1) Jo Chan

AKA: Sarge. Smiles.

Sarge opened this episode lamenting “I haven’t been able to really cook my food since I’ve been here.”

Chug your drink! Sheesh, the Top Chef cliché bell is really getting a workout this episode.

Sarge was actually sitting pretty after the quickfire, serving up a mushroom toast that landed her in the top three. She tends to thrive when she keeps it simple. Which is exactly what she didn’t do in the elimination challenge, serving up a confusing pappardelle in brisket melange. Did I see corn kernels in there? What the fuck, man.

I tend to think Sarge probably should’ve gone home instead of Ashleigh this week. Ashleigh’s mistake was arguably more basic, but it would’ve taken a lot more to unfuck whatever was happening with Jo’s.

8. (even) Luke Kolpin

AKA: Liddell. Die Hard. Meekus. Eurotrip. Noma… Noma… Noma gonna be in this competition much longer, anyway.

EMTs almost had to come to my house and revive me with the defibrillator paddles after Meekus managed to go an entire episode without once mentioning that he lives in Europe. Incredible! And there were so many openings for it! “Texas Toast? Interesting, in Denmark we call it an Aalborg flatty.” “Smokers? Curious. At Noma we wrap the briskets with foraged seaweed and leave it to steep in the trunk of a Volkswagon.”

Otherwise, Luke was back to his old ways, which is to say looking like a guy who was about to go home, when he served up a ciabatta covered in a crawfish-pancetta emulsion (three words I’ve never combined before) that was so salty that Tom abandoned his usual poker face. “This is a salt lick,” he said to Brooke.

Yet he went on to totally redeem himself in the elimination challenge, with his brisket in onion-based barbecue sauce served with a coriander and lime stem salad that everyone seemed to mostly enjoy. How does he keep doing this? Luke has become the darkest of dark horses.

7. (-1) Monique Feybesse

AKA: Pebbles Flintstone. Henrietta Hawk. Stretch.

Every episode this season has included at least one shot of Miniscule Monique having to climb atop a shopping cart or stand on top of Jo’s head to reach something on a high shelf. It’s like she only shops from the high shelves. Monique and Jo should have to compete as one chef, with Monique on top of Jo’s shoulders inside a big chef’s coat.

For the quickfire, Monique told us that she’d be cooking something that upon first utterance sounded a lot like “MILF loin.” Mmm, love a MILF loin. I only eat the tenderest MILF loin, pounded flat and stuffed.

Turns out she was actually saying “mille feuille,” a french dessert with layers of pastry and custard. Monique’s combined untoasted bread, buttercream, and mushrooms, which apparently tasted as weird as it sounded. Tom questioned the untoasted bread, but Monique pointed out that she didn’t want her buttercream to melt, and sure, you definitely don’t want to serve mushrooms with melted buttercream. You want the buttercream nice and congealed to really hold all that mushroom flavor.

Monique went trés Fronch again in the elimination challenge, with an onion soubise, beef fat potatoes, and a bone-marrow honey glaze, which had the judges raving “bland potatoes,” “a proper cut goes a long way,” and “this felt like a culinary school dishes, where the student presents a random combination of techniques they’re trying to master.”

What did we learn? It seems we learned that a cube is not the best way to present a brisket.

6. (+3) Jae Jung

AKA: Noodles. Jae West. Hilaria.

Jae continues to be a bit of an enigma. This episode didn’t feature any interviews of Jae getting weirdly horny about food or laughing her ass off at her own jokes, which was a bit of a disappointment, if we’re being honest. Instead she delivered decent food and solid puns. Her shrimp-lobster toast and “K-jun-style brisket” (a play on Korean and Cajun, get it?) had “a ton of flavor” though neither landed her in the top nor the bottom of either challenge, leaving me no closer to knowing where the hell to put Jae in these rankings.

5. (-2) Buddha Lo

AKA: Mr. International. Big Pun. Asian Ben Mendolsohn.

Buddha seemed to cement his fan-favorite status during the quickfire, when he said that he was hoping he would win the $10,000 prize so that he could afford eye surgery for his pug. “They’re shit, he’s gone blind,” Buddha said of his dog’s eyes, in one of the most Australian descriptions of all time.

Has there ever been a pug without eye problems? Honestly, if it’s functioning body parts you’re after, you should probably consider a different dog breed. Pugs are mostly animated loaves of bread that wheeze. Very cute though! Aw, poor pugs. Can you believe these things used to be wolves? We turned them into malformed furry jesters. Mankind is incredible.

Anyway, the editors would’ve had us believe that Buddha was style-biting Monique for most of this episode, copying her idea for a MILF loin in the quickfire and then going similarly French in the elimination challenge. Buddha did her one better in both instances, however, staying out of the bottom in the quickfire and then landing in the top three in the elimination challenge.

Buddha’s “play” on beef bourguignon had onion jam, a beef fat potato croquette, and plating so unabashedly artistic that it nearly single-handedly rehabilitated the entire concept of serving brisket in the form of a cube. Pretty impressive when you can get a group of grizzled dudes in leather vests raving about your culinary Mondrian.

“Well I’ll be dipped in shit, I ain’t never seen a sumbitch make such a tasty brisket Rothko afore.”

4. (+1) Evelyn Garcia

AKA: Cuddles.

The other top contender for fan favorite, Evelyn, came into her own this week. Being the only local this season also meant that she risked embarrassing herself in front of all the Houston Homeys from the BBQ scene. Not only did she avoid embarrassment, she rose to the challenge with a “Texas brisket curry,” that included brisket over rice in a pool of curry topped by a “burnt ends crumble,” the garnish I never knew I needed.

She did the pitmasters proud, had Tom calling it “destination food,” the kind of signature dish people travel from far and wide to eat, and got notorious curry queen Padma so excited that she called it “the curry I’ve been looking for.”

Damn, Padma normally only throws around compliments like that when she’s liquored up. Evelyn took home the win, and for good reason. She managed to serve brisket to pitmasters and curry to Padma simultaneously and please them both.

3. (-1) Jackson Kalb

AKA: Magoo. Andrew Lunk. Leghorn. Lurch. Bateman. Big Bird. Napholeon Dynamite.

I keep wanting to sandbag Big Bird on account of looking like an ostrich and sounding like Napoleon Dynamite, but I can’t really deny him at this point; the dude stays winning. He made a shrimp toast in the quickfire. That landed him in the top three.

The editors then did their damnedest to make us believe that the Big Magoo was making a catastrophic error by planning to grind up his 12-hour-smoked brisket to stuff inside a pasta. Which, to be fair, absolutely did sound like a terrible idea. Nothing highlights the gorgeous texture of that meticulously smoked meat like just grinding it up like so many discarded hog snouts and beef buttholes, right??

The ground brisket would be for his “scarpinocc,” which, if you had as Spanglicized an upbringing as I did, sounds exactly like “scarred panoche.” Which I believe translates to something like “scarred mangina” in California Spanglish slang. Who doesn’t love a delicious scarred mangina?? The scars really allow the flavors to penetrate. The fear lets you know it’s delicious.

Sorry, I digressed a little there. In what turned out to be a wild misdirect, Big Bird’s brisket manginas in what he called “beurre-BQ sauce” (credit for another pretty good pun) turned out to be a huge hit. The old pitmaster salts, shockingly, absolutely pissed their Wranglers for Jackson’s ground brisket in buttery barbecue sauce. Who could’ve predicted this?? Well, Jackson, apparently. He didn’t quite win, thanks to Evelyn’s home run curry, but he landed in the top three. Giving the man-sized rooster yet another feather in his cap and another thing to crow about (too many bird puns? Whatever, f*ck you).

2. (+2) Nick Wallace

AKA: Domingo. Chocolate Mormon. The Count.

The Chocolate Mormon had me questioning my high ranking of him these past few episodes, but he really brought it home this week, winning the quickfire with his take on a BLT. That take included pancetta, roasted tomatoes, and a cheese spread made from melted cheese and pancetta fat. Can you see why I love this guy?

Of course, this week was for brisket challenges, and Nick just seems like kind of guy you look at and imagine that he probably knows how to smoke a brisket. He made a rub that he described as “12-14 different spices.” Not to be confused with “Nick’s 26,” his proprietary blend of seasonings invoked a few episodes ago. Does this man always count his seasonings? Thank God someone in this competition is actually giving me useful nickname fodder.

Aside from Nick’s 12-14, his brisket included a pork neck and collard greens gremolata. Gremolata is just an Italian version of a chimichurri, but anything this man makes with pork necks sounds good as hell. I know he didn’t make the top three, but the more confident Nick gets with his pork necks, the higher his stock goes, in my mind.

1. (even) Damarr Brown

AKA: Catchphrase. James Beard. Screech.

I’m calling Damarr “Screech” as an ironic nickname because he might be the most low-key, soft-spoken man on Earth. Damarr didn’t land in the top three in either challenge this week, but… didn’t it seem like he should’ve been? It feels like when people like Olivia Colman or JK Simmons don’t win Oscars, because at a certain point you just expect them to hit home runs and then they do, and it doesn’t feel that noteworthy. This was Damarr’s quickfire dish, a bomb-ass pizza toast:

Then he made a brisket with giardiniera, braised cabbage, and Worchester consommé that had Tom raving “This is fantastic.”

I can only conclude that the only reason they left him out of the top three was because Damarr being a finalist is basically assumed at this point and they’re trying to keep things interesting.

Jeopardy! winningest woman (and first openly trans woman on the show) Amy Schneider is staying enormously busy. She’s penning a book after quitting her day job and recently got engaged. And she still made time to pop by the White House to honor the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Via this video clip from GMA, Schneider fielded questions about the plague of GOP-led anti-trans bills in various states, many of which aim to deny gender-affirming care (and to penalize doctors for even recommending such care). In short, Amy’s hopes are that these bills will eventually fizzle out, and trans visibility is key to making that happen.

“I think that this backlash right now is temporary,” Schneider declared. “The country overall is on our side and getting more so every day. And I think it’s not going to be too long before these sorts of bills are seen as a thing of the past. And no longer what we want to be as a country.”

Previously, Amy joined a Teen Vogue panel to discuss how strongly she felt about trans visibility and her role in the process. “I don’t want to present a ‘too perfect’ image of myself,” she said of her time on Jeopardy!. “Because I want everyone to be able to see that whether or not you are good at trivia, whether or not you have a lot of followers on social media, any of those things, you still deserve and can find the same acceptance, the same affirmation and freedom to accept who you are.”

(Via GMA & Teen Vogue)

J. Cole and his Dreamville crew surprised the music world on Wednesday with news that they teamed up with DJ Drama for a Gangsta Grillz mixtape. The project is titled D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape, and as promised, they released the mixtape to the world on Thursday. D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape arrives with 15 songs and appearances from the entire Dreamville crew which includes Cole, Ari Lennox, JID, Earthgang, Cozz, Bas, Lute, and Omen. Additionally, 2 Chainz, ASAP Ferg, Young Nudy, G Perico, Reason, Kenny Mason, and Sheck Wes also appear on the new project.

The mixtape is the latest compilation project from Dreamville, who has been quite active in that department over the years. It makes for their fourth project as a group following 2014’s Revenge Of The Dreamers, 2015’s Revenge Of The Dreamers II, and 2019’s chart-topping Revenge Of The Dreamers. As for D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape, some highlight points on the project are Ari Lennox’s sample and interpolation of Rose Royce’s classic record “I’m Going Down,” Cozz’s freestyle over The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Who Shot Ya?” and excellent verses from the likes of J. Cole, Bas, JID, Earthgang, and more.

D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape touches down two days before Dreamville and friends bring their talents to North Carolina for a weekend filled with performances from some of the industry’s best names. The Dreamville cast, Lil Wayne, Jeezy, Moneybagg Yo, Wale, Rico Nasty, Fivio Foreign, Larry June, Bia, Morray, Blxst, T-Pain, and more will all appear at this weekend’s Dreamville Festival which takes place on April 2 and 3 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape is out noa via Dreamville and Interscopre. You can stream it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Most professional athletes these days have incredibly strict nutrition plans to go alongside their workout regimens, allowing them to stay in top shape. At the very top, many of the top players in the NFL, NBA, and beyond have private chefs to curate a menu that fits their nutritional needs.

However, Seahawks star receiver (and generally freak athlete) DK Metcalf is not among those, as his dietary plan is, well, let’s just say much more elementary — that is to say, the kind of diet you’d expect from a child left unsupervised for a weekend with access to unlimited money and food delivery services. Metcalf joined Kevin Garnett on the KG Certified podcast this week and the Hall of Famer asked Metcalf to describe how important nutrition is, to which Metcalf laughed and explained why he’s the worst person to ask, running through his daily intake of one Starbucks coffee, one actual meal, and “three to four bags of candy” that left Garnett in total disbelief.

The best part is Garnett asking Metcalf to “define bags of candy, man” because he cannot wrap his brain around the idea that DK is just housing bags of gummy candies and not eating actual food until an 8 pm dinner then going to bed. There are a lot of questions I still have about this, namely, how big is this meal every night, because if you’re doing two workouts in the morning, apparently without eating breakfast, and only having coffee for lunch, I don’t understand how he is a functioning human being, much less one of the greatest athletes on the planet.

This is a man who was competitive with the best sprinters in the world last year and regularly makes NFL defenders look like children, and he’s apparently doing that fueled almost exclusively by Skittles Gummies and Lifesavers.

The Oscars weren’t boring this year, that’s for sure. Still, the powers that are attempting to quell the controversy that won’t stop swirling after Will Smith smacked Chris Rock for a GI Jane joke about Jada Pinkett (who struggles with alopecia). It truly was the slap heard ’round the world, and the incident prompted approximately 550,000 people (who weren’t already watching) to turn on the broadcast. Likewise, the LAPD descended upon the scene.

Oscars producer Will Packer (who has already called the slap “a very painful moment for me”) sat down with GMA for an interview that will air on Friday. As Packer reveals, cops used the word “battery,” which sounds accurate in a criminal-law sense because the word refers to nonconsensual “harmful or offensive conduct,” with or without intent. Assault, on the other hand, is a word that’s often used interchangeably but actually “causes the victim to apprehend imminent physical harm, while battery refers to the actual act causing the physical harm.” One can have battery without assault (which usually requires general intent to qualify), or together.

Long story short, the cops were ready to proceed with arresting Will if Rock had wanted to press charges for battery. Rock immediately dismissed the possibility, and it sounds like Packer wanted to make sure that Rock had made his final decision. According to Packer (via Variety), here’s how the police involvement went down:

“They were saying, you know, this is battery, was a word they used in that moment. They said, ‘We will go get him. We are prepared. We’re prepared to get him right now. You can press charges, we can arrest him,’” Packer said. “They were laying out the options. And as they were talking, Chris was — he was being very dismissive of those options. He was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m fine.’ And even to the point where I said, ‘Rock, let them finish.’ The LAPD officers finished laying out what his options were and they said, ‘Would you like us to take any action?’ And he said no. He said no.”

Will has since publicly apologized to Rock, who broke his silence during a Wednesday night stand-up comedy gig to declare that he’s still “processing” what happened, which is completely understandable. We’ll likely hear more from both parties at some point, but for now, Packer’s full GMA interview will air on Friday morning.

(Via Variety)

How great is Australia? A relaxed cultural vibe that is progressive, inclusive and seems like a literal day at the beach. They even give us some of our favorite Marvel superhero film actors. Must be tough to make a buck there though, right? Actually, they’ve got a significant edge on us there as well. Take a look at Australian’s minimum wage and how much further it goes for the average worker than for your typical hard-working American.

Australian unions are currently pushing for a 5% increase to the minimum wage to counter inflation. Australia’s minimum wage is 20.33 Australian dollars per hour, which is the equivalent of $15.23 (as of the writing of this article).

Meanwhile, Americans are still sitting on the same federal minimum wage we’ve had since 2009—a whopping $7.25 an hour—while we are also dealing with inflation.

Minimum wage by U.S. state varies—a lot—from $7.25 to $15.90. And most states have different minimum wages for tipped jobs such as wait staff in a restaurant, on the assumption that you’ll earn enough tips to make up the base wage. Though employers can choose to pay above the minimum, they aren’t required to. And the minimum tipped wage in 17 states is $2.13 per hour.

Let me repeat that. In 17 states in the United States of America in 2022, the tipped minimum wage is $2.13 per hour.

That’s bonkers. And the disparity between states is, frankly, shocking. If you live in Washington state, for example, you’re guaranteed to make at least $14.49 per hour in any job, whether you get tips or not. If you live in Idaho—literally the state next door—you’re guaranteed $7.25 per hour for standard labor and just $3.35 per hour for tipped employment. So the base pay for a waiter on one side of an imaginary line is four times more than on the other. So weird.

Anyway, back to Australia. They’re a little worried about us, and it’s not hard to see why.

A 16-year-old Australian on Reddit was shocked to learn that the federal minimum wage here is $7.25 per hour. “There is no way someone can live off that wage even if they’re working full time.” Yep, nope.

Another Aussie responded to a sign for Buc-ee’s, a chain of country stores and travel centers in the southern United States, announcing wages for full-time work ranging from $15 to $17 per hour for associates to $22 to $32 per hour for department leads. To American eyes, in most states, this sign is a unicorn of awesome hourly starting wages for “unskilled” labor.

To Australian eyes, these are the lowest wages they ever see in their country.

This is what I canu2019t wrap my head around. In Australia, I work at a shop assistant level, I make $27.91 per hour. I donu2019t have a degree and I barely graduated high school. Yet in America people are busting their ass for $9/ hour. Absolutely disgusting that itu2019s even allowed.

— Brett Klein (@Brett Klein)
1648682643

Despite Australia having a minimum wage of AU$20.33 ($15.23), most workers actually make more than that. In addition to its minimum wage, Australia has a system under its Fair Work Act called Modern Awards, which establishes base pay and benefits for workers in a variety of industries, from fast food to health and beauty to caregiving.

One caveat: Workers under age 21 can make less than minimum wage in Australia, so teenagers may make significantly lower wages than AU$20.33 per hour (though still not as low as $7.25 per hour). However, the Modern Awards system dictates higher than minimum wage earnings for most workers—even for basic fast-food jobs—for people over 21. For example, the starting pay for a Level 1 fast-food worker over age 21 is AU$22.33 ($16.72) per hour during the week, AU$27.91 ($20.90) per hour on Saturdays and Sundays, and AU$50.24 ($37.63) per hour on holidays.

Not too shabby.

Another Australian pointed out that the amount some Americans pay for a college education is bonkers, in addition to our low minimum wage.

Iu2019m in Australia, we accrue a u201cHECSdebtu201d that we pay off gradually once we earn above a certain pay bracket. Also we have higher minimum wage due to a strong union foundation. Even as a casual MH support worker I make $40/hour (no degree needed)

— amybroomstick (@amybroomstick)
1648679436

Australians graduate with less student loan debt than Americans, on average, and their student loan payments only start over a certain income threshold (and are linked to the amount you make).

Oh and let’s not forget that Australians don’t have to pay for healthcare out of their own pocket, either. And they have paid maternity leave of up to 18 weeks at the national minimum wage. And they have a minimum of four weeks of paid vacation time for all employees, on top of paid national hoildays.

But don’t Australians pay a much higher tax rate than Americans for these benefits, you may ask? No, not really. According to the Tax Foundation, a single worker earning an average wage in the U.S. pays an average tax rate of 28.3% while in Australia they pay an average of 28.4%—so basically the same tax burden, at least for single people with no kids.

It’s not that Australia is perfect, of course. But when it comes to paying people reasonable wages and guaranteeing paid time off and providing healthcare to all, they’re light years ahead of the U.S.

Rather than seeing it as a woe-is-us comparison, however, let’s look at it as “Hey, look at what’s possible!” We, too, could have wages people can actually live on and not go into bankruptcy over medical bills and ensure that everyone gets paid time off so they can actually relax a little. It doesn’t have to be some distant pipe dream; it’s a matter of collective and political will. If Australia can do it, there’s really no good reason we can’t, too.

Last week, Harry Styles arrived with great news for his supporters. He revealed that his third album would be titled Harry’s House and added that it will be released later this spring. The upcoming project will be his first full-length effort since 2019’s Fine Line, a project gave him his second No. 1 album, his first chart-topping song, and his first Grammy award. That same success is hopefully in order for Styles with Harry’s House, and today, he kicks off the campaign for the album with its first single “As It Was.”

The new track sees Harry set on moving on from the past and accepting the things that life is currently offering him. The somber track is carried with lyrics like “I want you to hold me in the palm of your hand / Why don’t we leave it at that? / Nothing to say and everything gets in the way.” Together with the song, Harry also released an eccentric video for the track and it features a heartful dance routine with a woman he appears to be emotionally invested in. He also shows off some dance moves to conclude the video.

Harry confirmed that Harry’s House will arrive on May 20, and thanks to a press release for “As It Was,” we know that the album will arrive with 13 songs. The project will also feature songwriting by frequent collaborators Kid Harpoon, Tyler Johnson, and Mitch Rowland.

You can watch the video for “As It Was” above.

Harry’s House is out 5/20 via Columbia Records. You can pre-save it here.

Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball, according to head coach Billy Donovan, will again ramp up his rehab after he arthroscopic knee surgery in January. The news also comes after Ball had to roll back his rehab 10 days ago and stop running for a period of time, delaying his possible return to the court.

Per Donovan, Ball’s ramping up process will not be “zero to 60,” perhaps indicating that a return is not imminent. Ball has not played since Jan. 14 and was sidelined with what the team originally described as a bone bruise. When treatment did not help Ball recover, he had to undergo surgery for a partially torn meniscus.

Chicago plays on Thursday against the Clippers and, after that game, will have five games left in the regular season. Three of those games — April 2 vs. the Miami Heat, April 5 against the Milwaukee Bucks and April 6 against the Boston Celtics — are against teams above the Bulls in the Eastern Conference standings. Currently, the Bulls are in a battle to remain in the top-six of the Eastern Conference, as they are jockeying for position with the Toronto Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers to remain above the play-in tournament. Entering Thursday’s game, the fifth-place Bulls have a two-game lead on the seventh-place Cavaliers.

If Ball can come back at some point and contribute, it would give Chicago a needed shot in the arm if they hope to make any noise in the playoffs. How realistic that is, however, remains unclear even as he begins to ramp up his rehab again and theoretically get closer to a return.

Daniel Radcliffe declared that he was “dramatically bored” with hearing about Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars, and he does have a point. That doesn’t mean, however, that people will stop talking about it anytime soon. We’ve heard countless celebrity/artist weigh-ins, including the strange take of noted hothead Alec Baldwin likening the incident to the Jerry Springer Show. And more takes are coming for sure, as people (including Rock) continue to process the very unordinary Oscars incident.

A notable reaction follows how Smith, who may or may not have been asked by the Academy to leave the premises, went on to accept the Best Actor award for King Richard. He then proceeded to give a weepy speech in which he referenced the act of defending his family out of love. And that doesn’t sit too well with Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (Pain and Glory, Talk to Her, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), who’s notched a few Oscar wins over the years. Almodóvar wrote an essay for IndieWire about his experiences at Sunday night’s ceremony. And he’s not thrilled with Will’s speech, which he thought felt cult-like in its phrasing:

What I saw and heard produced a feeling of absolute rejection in me. Not only during the episode, but afterward, too, in the acceptance speech — a speech that seemed more like that of a cult leader. You don’t defend or protect the family with your fists, and no, the devil doesn’t take advantage of key moments to do his work.

(None of this will stop those Scientology rumors, obviously.)

Almodóvar went on to call Will’s speech “fundamentalist” and of a nature that “we should neither hear nor see.” He laments that this event has overshadowed the winners of the night, and he then characterizes social media as “the faceless monster” for embracing the discussion and being “avid for carrion.” Of course, Almodóvar himself is contributing to the discussion as well, so this is all very circular. And he expresses a wish that people will go back to movies, which (of course) would include the approximately 550,000 people who tuned into the broadcast as soon as the smack happened. The dilemmas, they just won’t stop, and nor will the Smith-Rock discussion.

(Via IndieWire)

“Actually, I did,” she disclosed, to the interviewer’s surprise.

Malala explained that her colleagues organized a call with the men who had shot her all those years ago. After the young men tried to apologize for their brutal actions, this is what she had to say:

“All I had was sympathy. All I had was empathy. Because you wonder … what are the reasons that lead to these actions?”

Malala showed genuine compassion and understanding as she described the incident from the attacker’s perspective, who were handed a picture of Malala and told “this is a girl and she is against Islam. Go and shoot her.” For them, it was about loyalty, purpose and fulfilling a job.

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As she continued, Malala chose to focus on solutions, rather than placing blame.

“Whatever hatred you have against this person, it’s not going to solve any of the problems … There is a system in there that will create more terrorists. It’s the narrative that is wrong … It’s the ideology that we need to challenge.”

Her stance was clear: The problem isn’t people, it’s what people are taught. It takes getting deeper insight into how history has shaped us, so that we can take new steps toward a better society. That is what can be gained by letting go of anger and resentment in favor of progress.

As for revenge? Malala told the audience, “I can take my revenge by educating girls. That’s the best way to fight back.”

Despite receiving such hatred, Malala’s vision remains fueled by hope.

“There can be a society where we can live together. We can know what it means to be just. What it means to be fair. I think as individuals, we can use reason. We can have good emotions and powerful emotions that can really guide us in creating a better society.”

Malala is now a household name as an advocate for women’s education, wrote a bestselling book and heads a highly successful platform “working for a world where every girl can learn and lead.” She took what was arguably the most horrific experience of her lifetime and made the conscious choice to transform it into a force for good.

Forgiveness often comes down to one simple question, “How will I use this moment to become a better person?” The choice is ours.