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Sometimes Tucker Carlson actually tells the truth. It doesn’t appear to be on purpose. These instances, few and far between, are more like slips of the tongue, him accidentally saying the quiet part loud. A few months ago the Fox News host admitted he lies, if he’s “really cornered or something.” (Incidentally, his multi-part series whitewashing Jan. 6 launched this week.) On Wednesday, Carlson host blurted out that, like most of the GOP, he doesn’t actually know what Critical Race Theory is, despite spending a year demonizing it to his millions of viewers.

For those not in the know, Critical Race Theory is a broad academic approach with roots in the 1970s. Generally speaking, it acknowledges that racism is deeply embedded in American society. It’s largely taught, if at all, in colleges, not K-12 schools. In the last few months, however, it’s become a tool for Republicans to scare white voters. Some believe it played a big part in scaring white voters, especially white women, in races in Virginia, which swung overwhelmingly GOP. (That “some” includes Tucker, but more on that in a sec.)

But perhaps Virginia voters were up in arms against something they didn’t understand. And maybe that’s because one of the people warning them against it doesn’t understanding it either. On his show, Tucker straight-up admitted he “never figured out what Critical Race Theory is,” even “after a year of talking about it.”

Undeterred by his own admitted ignorance, Tucker rattled off his own take on the theory he “never figured out.” He said it had something to do with how “some races are morally superior to other, that some are inherently sinful and some are inherently saintly.” That’s not what CRT teaches, but Carlson declared that it’s “amoral to teach” his made-up version of CRT because it’s “wrong.” He added, “That’s my view, and that’s most voters’ view.”

Carlson then praised Virginia’s Republican governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, who beat Democratic incumbent Terry McAuliffe, for making CRT a core part of his campaign. “Critical Race Theory, what our kids are taught,” Carlson said to guest and colleague Britt Hume. “He went right to the things that people talk about on social media, and he won on that.”

Later, before bringing on the conservative activist responsible for turning CRT into GOP triggering words, he took his definition of the academic approach — which, again, he admitted he doesn’t understand, and which even Hume admitted minutes earlier isn’t even taught in public schools — to a next-level. He compared those who teach it to Jim Jones, the cult leader who drove his flock to mass suicide — an interesting figure for Tucker to bring up, given his denunciation of vaccines and other COVID-preventing measures.

“This is not a semantic debate about what critical race theory means,” Tucker railed. “Schools are teaching students, your children, that some races are inherently superior to other races. That’s the definition of racism, that some children are born with the stain of sin, inherently. That’s Nazi stuff!”

Or perhaps it isn’t if you’re a professed lair who admitted, on national television, that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Jay-Z has a long list of accomplishments, going back for into his career. That makes him more than worthy to hand out advice to those who want to be as successful as he is. That’s exactly what he did during a recent interview. Jazlyn a.k.a. Jazzy, an 11-year-old reporter from Brooklyn who’s previously interviewed celebrities like Nas, Derek Jeter, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and more, asked Hov to share some tips for youngters who have “dreams of being successful like you.” And Jay gave them some.

“Believe in yourself, even before anyone else believes in you,” Jay replied. “You’ve got to have ultimate confidence like you do. You’re very confident. And just believe in yourself.” Jazzy shared the interaction on Instagram and promised that part two of their encounter would arrive at some point on Friday, November 5.

The interview comes after Jay-Z rejoined Instagram for the first time in six years to promote The Harder They Fall, a film he co-executive produced. Soon after, he became the only person that his wife Beyonce follows on Instagram. Jay returned the follow and also made Beyonce the only person he follows on the app.

You can watch a clip of Jazzy’s interview with Jay-Z above.

The Boston Celtics have not had a great start to the season, entering Wednesday’s action at 2-5 that most recently saw them blow a 19-point lead in the second half to the Bulls in what was a truly hideous fourth quarter.

The good news is they were headed to Orlando to face a Magic team that is among the league’s worst — although, one coming off a stunning win over Minnesota. Still, there were clearly some things to work out long term after that loss to the Bulls, particularly after Marcus Smart aired his grievances with the Celtics’ two stars not passing in the fourth quarter, saying that Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have to get better at getting the rest of the team involved late in games so they aren’t so predictable.

Neither Tatum nor Brown spoke after the Bulls loss, and apparently things came to a head in an “emotional” players only meeting in Orlando that, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, wasn’t particularly helpful.

It seems rare that a players only meeting works wonders for a team and fixes all of their problems, but that the Celtics are just seven games into the season and needed to air things out already seems like an especially bad omen for this team. Maybe they can turn things around and get on the same page, but the task for Ime Udoka in his first season on the Celtics bench is not an enviable one as it appears talking it out amongst themselves wasn’t the cure all for the tension in the locker room.

More than two years after they released their eclectic debut album Mirrorland, Earthgang is finally gearing up to share their follow-up. The Atlanta duo, comprised of rappers Olu and WowGr8, announced the release date for their upcoming project, Ghetto Gods, and fans won’t have to wait too long: It’s set to drop on January 28. Earthgang delivered the news through a trailer that’s narrated by fellow Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz and it finds the duo giving listeners a taste of what can expect to hear.

It’s been a long road towards the release of Ghetto Gods. The group previously announced it would arrive on the same day as J. Cole’s The Off-Season, which dropped on May 14. Unfortunately, that day came and went without the arrival of Ghetto Gods. To make the wait better, Earthgang released a number of loosies over the course of the next few months, including “Erykah” and “Aretha,” as well as remixes of Drake’s “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” and their own single, “Options,” with Wale and Coi Leray.

Earthgang also shared the dates for their Biodeghettable European tour, which will start on March 7 in Ireland and continue throughout the month before bringing things to an end on March 31 in Norway.

You can watch the trailer for Ghetto Gods in the post above.

Lindsay McCormick wants to make a low-waste lifestyle easy for everyone. In order to do so, she’s creating sustainable-yet-stylish personal care products under the name Bite — Because It’s The Earth. This direct-to-consumer daily care company took off like a rocket during the pandemic and continues to grow, with low-waste toothpaste and mouthwash “bits” (they look like mints) and a new deodorant.

Bite’s deodorant, in particular, feels like a brilliant idea that everyone missed. It features an aluminum case with refillable sticks in three scents — Neroli, Rose Vert, and Santal. It also solves a serious problem: the 15 million pounds of packaging that ends up in landfills yearly from products in this category. So it’s no surprise to learn that Mark Cuban tried to buy a 15% stake in the company on ABC’s Shark Tank in 2020.

“If you’re doing it right, the challenges don’t stop,” McCormick says of her blossoming business. “And they also don’t get easier, because you’re leveling up and you’re having new, just as hard, just as scary challenges.”

In 2017, McCormick started Bite in her living room, taking chemistry classes online at night, sourcing non-toxic ingredients, and purchasing several tablet pressing machines to create Bite’s natural, tubeless toothpaste bits while still working her day job as a TV producer. The problem she wanted to fix was staring her right in her face, as she constantly traveled for work on a plane, where TSA liquid rules don’t allow any personal care items over 3 oz. in a carry-on bag. The bigger issue, she soon realized, is the enormous amount of waste that plane-appropriate, travel-size items create.

“Pick a problem that you are fiercely dedicated to solving,” she says. “It will be astronomically harder than you ever thought, but that much more rewarding.”

For as long as she can remember, McCormick has been obsessed with all things sustainability and the environment. As a child, instead of asking for presents, she would ask her parents to adopt a specific animal from the World Wildlife Fund in her name. At just seven years old, she stopped eating meat after watching Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Her parents agreed but made her commit to a scoop of peanut butter with every meal.

Growing up, McCormick admired her dad, who worked at the Washington Post, and her mom, who taught marketing to high schoolers. Shadowing the two of them, she came to revere the power of the media and cultivated a gift for storytelling. After college, she moved to LA’s Venice Beach, where she made videos for travel companies. Yearning to travel the world, she took her life savings, sold her car, and convinced a travel outfitter to fly her out to Alaska in exchange for promotional videos she would create while there. Ending up in Sweden, she kept on traveling, eventually to South East Asia. But watching the Superbowl from abroad in 2013, when Beyonce’s performance literally changed the world, McCormick knew she missed the high-intensity energy of being on set.

Aspiring to work on nature documentaries, McCormick returned to LA and scored a job as a TV show producer for HGTV and the Travel Channel, which took her all around the globe, living her dream. But she saw a problem that needed to be solved when she noticed the correlation between her career and the waste that it produced.

“It started with the question of ‘why did we do it this way?’” McCormick says of her initial idea. “Like people in general, how have we gotten to where we are with these products that exist? And if we redid it and just stripped this down to the studs and figured out how we could make this the most eco-friendly way and the most, you know, clean way — what would I put in it and how would I make it? That was the beginning of that thought.”

A long-time vegan, McCormick lives in SoCal with her boyfriend and Co-founder of Bite, Asher Hunt. In 2018 they had planned to leave LA, and live in their converted Sprinter van — selling Bite toothpaste bits in glass jars on the road. But when a promotional video went viral, the company’s sales soared and the duo decided to stay home and hit the gas on their shared business.

These days, McCormick manages 10 employees but still produces all of Bite’s videos, ads, and social content. She’s always sure to share the company’s selling points — sleek packaging, clean look, quality (vegan) ingredients — but she also hopes to send a bigger message about the importance of creating less trash.

“We were built on social media,” she says. “But we’re not just about being a toothpaste company. We are trying to get people to live a low-waste lifestyle.”

With leaders like McCormick and brands like Bite, that lifestyle finally feels viable for everyone.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX was supposed to revolutionize space travel, reduce the price of interstellar transportation, even lead to the colonization of Mars. Perhaps one day all that will be true. But right now, a SpaceX flight due soon for re-entry on Earth has a little problem: The toilet is broken, and it won’t be fixed until after its return. So everyone put their heads together, just like in Apollo 13, and this is the best solution they came up with: Those on board will just have to pee themselves.

As per CNN, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ship — which is currently docked at ISIS, the International Space Station, having deposited them there back in April — is fine save a leak in the toilet. That will force the four NASA astronauts who will soon be onboard to use their “undergarments” instead.

That’s not as bad as it may sound. First, the “undergarments” are essentially diapers anyway, and have long been used as backups on flights. Second, it’s unknown how long the four will be in flight, though the last such trip took only six hours, though the one before that took 19 hours. Perhaps they can hold it.

This isn’t the first toilet leak on the Crew Dragon capsule. On the Inspiration4 mission in September, crew found a tube, that was used to funnel urine into a storage tank, had become unglued, leading to a hidden mess beneath the capsule floor. In fact, all three SpaceX spacecraft have had similar issues, which is probably in no way symbolic of a larger issue.

Musk is one of at least three billionaires who’ve caught space fever, leading to rivalries, even razzing. But only Musk is the one who’s enticed the likes of Tom Cruise and Channing Tatum to potentially join him in the heavens. If they go, however, they’d do well to not chug Big Gulps prior to takeoff.

(Via CNN)

As a middle-aged woman, I’ve spent decades battling for my body. I have become a skilled fighter against the advertising industry, the entertainment industry, the fashion industry, the beauty industry and the fitness industry. I’ve learned to fend off societal expectations, language norms, social media filters and even my own brain, simply to exist in peace inside my own body.

It’s not a war I chose to wage, but one I was born into. From infancy, magazine covers at grocery store checkouts and billboards along highways have bombed me with messages about bodies and beauty. It’s been a daily assault my whole life, boom after boom after boom.

I’m also a mother of three who didn’t want to hand this “forever war” down to her children. My own mom served as an excellent example on the body image front, which gave me a tactical advantage for which I’m grateful. But I knew the bombardment from the outside world would hit my kids just as it hit me, and I vowed to prepare them as best I could.

The first thing to know is that the enemy in the body image war is sneaky, relentless and everywhere. It’s in every message that tells us we’re too fat, too skinny, too curvy, too flat, too tall, too short—or not enough of any of those things. “Too” and “not enough” are its weapons of choice and boy are they effective, targeting with perfect precision the part of us that wants to belong, to be accepted, to be loved.

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In a war, we can deal with an enemy attack in two ways: take cover or fight.

Body positivity is a weapon we use to fight body negativity. The enemy says “Your tummy’s too flabby,” and we fire back with “No way, my belly is fabulous!” The enemy says “You need to lose weight” and we fire back with “Screw you, my body is gorgeous!” The problem with fighting body negativity with body positivity is that it means constantly engaging in battle. One side hits, the other side hits back. Even when you’re winning the battle, it’s exhausting.

Body positivity can be especially problematic when it comes from other people. Jonah Hill recently spoke to this issue, asking people to stop commenting on his weight loss, either negatively or positively. “I know you mean well but I kindly ask that you not comment on my body,” Hill said in a post on Twitter. “Good or bad I want to politely let you know it’s not helpful and doesn’t feel good. Much respect.”

That message is so simple—I know you mean well, but your positive messages about my body are not helpful.

Those messages aren’t helpful because what they say to the person is “Someone is judging my body.” Judgment itself is what keeps the war going, whether it’s others doing it or us doing it to ourselves. Real freedom lies in dropping the judgments altogether. That’s where body neutrality comes in.

Body neutrality means moving away from judgment altogether and taking a neutral view of our body. It’s not “good” or “bad,” it’s not “ugly” or “gorgeous,” it just is. Instead of asking how our body looks and going with a negative or positive judgment as the answer, we ask different questions to determine if anything needs to be adjusted: How does my body feel? Does it function well? Is it fulfilling its purpose, enabling me to move around, enjoy things and be of service in this world?

Very Well Mind offers a description of it:

“Body neutrality means taking a neutral perspective towards your body, meaning that you do not have to cultivate a love for your body or feel that you have to love your body every day. You may not always love your body, but you may still live happily and appreciate everything your body can do.”

Body neutrality serves as a shield against body negative messaging. It allows us to put down our weapons and walk away from the body image war, largely unscathed by the bombardments of the enemy. It’s not putting up a white flag and surrendering to body negativity; it’s becoming Switzerland in the face of it. It’s simply saying, “Yeah, I’m not going to do this anymore.”

Body neutrality sounds simple enough, but it’s not necessarily easy to achieve considering how trained we are to judge. Once we do achieve it, though, the result is liberation.

My biggest body neutrality epiphany hit some years ago when I saw that women were spending gobs of money getting butt implants. I had spent so much of my teen and young adult years lamenting my “child-bearing hips” and formidable derriere in the face of tiny-bottomed models, and now suddenly having some trunk junk was all the rage? That’s when I truly internalized the reality that it’s all bullshit. All of the judgments and the subconscious thinking about what’s ideal or desirable—it all went out the window because it’s based on literally nothing.

Actress Jameela Jamil offered an example of what body neutrality can look like when she told Glamour in 2019, “I don’t think about my body ever. Imagine just not thinking about your body. You’re not hating it. You’re not loving it. You’re just a floating head. I’m a floating head wandering through the world.”

Personally, I don’t think we have to never think about our bodies at all. I think about my body daily because I want to feel good and have energy. I know that what I do with my body impacts those things, so I pay attention to what I’m eating and make sure I’m getting enough movement, considering my sedentary job—but I can do all that from a place of gratitude for what my body enables me to do, rather than a judgmental analysis of what my body is or isn’t.

I also don’t think we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Body positivity has been life-changing for some people, and body neutrality might feel unnecessary for people who honestly feel awesome in their own bodies and want to celebrate that. For me, there’s a place for body positivity alongside body neutrality. Putting on an outfit that fits just right and saying, “Dang, lookin’ good” is fun. When used as a genuine celebration instead of as a reactionary weapon, body positivity is healthy, in my experience.

What all of this really comes down to is that truly being at peace in our bodies doesn’t come from constantly fighting negativity with positivity, especially in a war over body image that truly has no end. The commercial machine will continue to do what it does best—tell us we should feel insecure and then prey on those insecurities. We can fight back with opposite messaging—and sometimes that might be a reasonable strategy—but we have to realize that judgments, good and bad, just keep the war going. Perhaps a better strategy is to decide the fight simply isn’t worth it, lay down the weapons and walk away from the battle altogether.

I have a body that lets me live in this world. That’s neat. I’m thankful for it. End of story.

People tend to love math because it’s truth is absolute and permanent. 1×1 is always 1. 2 + 2 is always 4. However, when it comes to the world of women’s fashion, tried and true mathematical principles fall to the wayside. A Target 4 is more like an H&M 6, and a Free People 12. This is the non logic that women consistently go through just to buy a pair of pants.

Megan Perkins (@justablusmom) created a Tiktok video to reveal just how much of a minefield the retail sizing systems are, and hopefully it will encourage women to just STOP letting arbitrary numbers determine their self image, or, as Megan put in her video’s caption: “Don’t judge your body by the number on the label.”

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In the video, Megan took four pairs of size 14 jeans, “different styles, all button fly,” from Old Navy, which were placed neatly on top of one another. As she pans to the left, the discrepancy between sizes is…apparent, to say the least.

Noting in the video that she’s only “talking about waist sizes,” she began differentiating how each pant fit. One was huge, one fit perfectly, another a little snug, and the top couldn’t fit over her hips. The on-screen text aptly read: “it’s not you, it’s them.”

Megan’s video began with “and this is why women hate their bodies.” And she’s not wrong. It’s already been documented how the radical sizing difference can negatively impact body image, especially, teenage girls who think that their fat because suddenly they went up a dress size. I mean, really, how can size 4 be the universally accepted “ideal size” promoted by magazines and clothing brand companies if we can’t even agree on what a size 4 really is?

Even if it doesn’t affect your self esteem, man-oh-man is a nuisance. As someone who somehow ranges between a 2 and an 8 myself, I seriously am in awe of people who can buy jeans online. Several TikTok users wondered why we couldn’t incorporate the simple universal sizing the men’s clothing has.

“Meanwhile my husband can buy 36x34s at ANY store and they all fit.” one commenter astutely put.

Okay, okay, okay. The woman did say they were different styles, right? Could that have made some impact on the sizing? An Old Navy worker seemed to think so, claiming that “this isn’t a fair comparison. Those are different styles of jeans. They are designed to fit differently.”

That arguing point was given ANOTHER video by @justablusmom, this time with all the pants having the same rise and same cut. Think it really changed anything? Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

In the follow up video, three pairs of identical pants were piled neatly onto one another, waistbands all aligned, same as before. Only this time, the sizes were 12, 14, and 16. How can this even be possible? I’m no math wiz, but even my right dominant brain can figure out that this doesn’t add up.

Even the jeggings didn’t align in size, and were, and Megan put, “at least two sizes difference.” This makes zero sense. Although I don’t feel comfortable using the word “zero” anymore. Does it even mean what I think it means?

One person commented that “The point is, it’s not just Old Navy, it’s all brands and it’s ridiculous! Regardless of style/fit, a size 14 should fit someone who’s a size 14.”

Another person wrote: “It’s not just Old Navy, it’s every store, and it’s shirts too!” Might I just add from personal experience that this includes bras as well. Perhaps this is the secret Victoria has been keeping…

Jokes aside, clothing brands definitely need to take the initiative to create more universal sizing, so that it doesn’t play crazy mind games for women and make them question their bodies (even more than they already do). But let’s not wait for them to start being a bit kinder to ourselves, whether we’re wearing our size large sweatpants, or our size small leggings. I mostly wear a nightgown these days, anyway.

Racist blasting, viral vigilante Denise Bradley (aka “Aunt Karen” on TikTok) strikes again. This time, she’s gone undercover into a private Facebook group titled ‘White Lives Matter.” Yeah … you probably see where this is going.

To bring you up to speed on all things Aunt Karen: Bradley created her social media alter ego in 2020 to identify and expose people using racial slurs and derogatory remarks online. Though sometimes her methods can be extreme (like publicly sharing people’s home address, social security number, etc.), Aunt Karen does live up to her slogan of “the devil works hard, but we work harder” by relentlessly forcing bullies and white supremacists to be accountable.

Bradley recently posted a video (currently racking up close to 250,000 views) where she said: “So I have this White Lives Matter group that I secretly infiltrated, but now they know I’m in there. But what they don’t know is that I have four profiles in there—they kicked out one of my profiles, but there’s a ton more. And all of you guys that are helping infiltrate this group, I love you.”

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“The trolling in this group is amazing,” she continued, showing a post depicting a picture of Michael B. Jordan as superman, which apparently the group found alarming, as the caption read “I’m terrified where this will go. Yes, Superman is now black.” Yikes.

It’s probably no surprise that in infiltrating this group, Bradley easily saw that “every post made was rooted in hatred. At the heart of it all, skin colour was their only excuse for it. They held people of colour (particularly Black people) in such low regard. To them, we’re the root of all problem[s],” according to her interview with Indy100. Which is admittedly depressing, and yet all of Aunt’s Karen’s videos do have an undeniable sense of humor, even while exposing deep-seated racism.

Despite the levity in delivery, Aunt Karen’s purpose is singular and serious: “I want them to feel uncomfortable. They shouldn’t be able to display so much hate and bigotry. They don’t deserve a space on any platform.”

This was said to The Daily Dot after she found yet another white supremacist group on Facebook, with the not-so-clever rebranding of “White Lives Matter 2.0.” I guess some things can be worse than Facebook changing to Meta.

Luckily, Facebook banned the revival group within a day of Bradley’s follow-up video. But not before she revealed a few more posts from the group. You know, things like how “disturbing” it is that the Netflix show “The Baby-Sitters Club” requested fans donate to Black Lives Matter and The Trevor Project (spelled “Trever” in the post and informing us all that the campaign “praises sinners that are gay”). Or photos of Trump and Jesus being the best of friends. Bradley admitted that they weren’t all racist posts. A puppy meme was thrown in for good measure.

And though some present themselves as moderate by promoting “all lives matter” as a form of racial equality, there are still anti-Black messages. Including, but certainly not limited to referring to Black people as “lazy.” This kind of hate-filled rhetoric and fuel for ongoing systemic oppression must be, as Aunt Karen says, “dismantled.” Though Bradley has a sense of humor about it, it’s (obviously) not funny.

On staying resolute, Bradley told The Daily Dot that “what calms me is my purpose. If anything I do can help take another step towards the end of racism. I’m going to do it.” And in a continuously more digital world, it might as well be taking down racists one tweet or TikTok at a time.

Disney has been in the live-action remake game for a while now, having realized they can make far, far more money redoing their animated classics rather than simply re-releasing them, as they use to do for decades. But so far they’ve avoided the one that started it all: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first major feature-length animated movie, and the one that took Walt and company next-level. A remake was announced back in 2016, but only now does it appear it be in motion. To wit: They’ve just found their Evil Queen. (And yes, that’s her name.)

As per Deadline, Gal Gadot will take the role of the jealous queen who orders a huntsman to deliver unto her the literal heart of the fairest maiden in the land (to be played by the West Side Story remake’s Rachel Zegler). It will be a rare villainous turn for the Israeli actress, who tends to play heroes like Wonder Woman and the Fast/Furious cycle’s late Gisele. (Though perhaps she’ll be the one who dunnit in the forthcoming Death on the Nile.)

The Snow White revamp will be directed by Marc Webb, of the Andrew Garfield-era Spider-Man movies as well as (500) Days of Summer. It will reportedly expand upon the 1937 original, which already expanded the Brothers Grimm-told fairy tale that inspired it. But will it be as dark as the original Disneyland ride, which was so terrifying the amusement park de-fang and re-title it? And will it destroy memories of the one that starred Kristen Stewart?

(Via Deadline)