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On November 18th, Paloma Mami will be vying for the coveted Best New Artist Award at the 22nd Annual Latin Grammys. The Manhattan-born Chilean-American now lives in Santiago and she’s quickly becoming the gold standard of Chilean Latin Pop. She released her debut album Sueños de Dalí, this past March and there’s a palpable Andean lean to terrific Pop songs with production from Hitboy, Nova Wav, The Stereotypes and others. Stylistically, highlight tracks like”Goteo” and “Religiosa” align her more with the celestial reggaeton-tinged pop of Kali Uchis than with fiercer Latin trap of artists like Karol G and Becky G.

Today, Paloma Mami released “Cosas De La Vida.” the first single from her yet-to-be-announced follow-up album, along with the song’s video that she co-directed. Her pillowy voice rests alongside a delicate acoustic guitar-driven melody and in the video, she’s navigating steadily through space with a panoramic view of the stars and the universe. It paints the imagery that she sings about in the song, of looking to the heavens and dreaming of being with that certain someone once again.

She tweeted today that: “COSAS DE LA VIDA YA ESTÁ AFUERAAA!! Esta canción es muy especial para mi…espero que se pueda transmitir todo el amor que le metí” (“COSAS DE LA VIDA IS OUT!! This song is very special to me…I hope that all you can feel all of the the love that I put into it.”)

Watch the video for “Cosas De La Vida” above.

The Pardon the Interruption 20th anniversary celebration rolled on this week, and to cap off the hit ESPN show’s actual anniversary, hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon received a congratulatory message from former President Barack Obama. As Kornheiser explained, this was a surprise largely organized by ESPN’s Pablo Torre, at which point Obama popped up on screen, much to the delight of the two hosts.

The former President of the United States described his time as a state senator two decades ago when he would, during a long day of menial work, turn on ESPN for some light entertainment and often find himself watching PTI to catch up on the sports stories of the day and hear the two hosts bicker and debate until the buzzer sounded.

“Segment after segment, day after day, year after year, you guys show up,” Obama said.

As president, Obama was well-known for his sports fandom and he often linked up with ESPN for interviews and his annual NCAA Tournament bracket. Of course, since the show has always been filmed in part from Washington, D.C., and Wilbon hails from the president’s hometown of Chicago, it likely holds an even greater place in Obama’s heart.

May we all hope one day to argue with our friends so passionately about sports that the President goes out of his way to tell us we did it incredibly well. If any show deserves that, it is PTI.

The Philadelphia 76ers played their first home game of the 2021-22 NBA season on Friday night. The team played host to the Brooklyn Nets on what had been, to that point, a busy day in Philly, as Ben Simmons showed up to practice earlier in the day and addressed the team. According to reports, Simmons expressed that he wants to play but does not believe he is at a place where he can do that to a certain standard.

It’s been a tumultuous offseason to say the least in Philly with regards to Simmons, who had previously made clear he does not want to continue his career with the team. Perhaps not surprisingly, Sixers fans took Friday as a chance to express some frustrations as they booed Simmons when he appeared in a pregame hype video.

Shortly after, Joel Embiid addressed the crowd and gave an otherwise simple pregame address. But at the end, he implored Philly fans to continue to show support for Simmons.

“I just want to thank you for your support all these years, and then now,” Embiid said. “A lot has happened the last few months, and I urge you guys to continue to support us and our teammate Ben, cause he’s still our brother.”

Embiid was critical of Simmons earlier in the week following the latter getting kicked out of practice, telling the media that it is not the team’s job to babysit Simmons.

There is a seemingly pretty logical solution to the Ben Simmons and Kyrie Irving situations in Philadelphia and Brooklyn: Just trade the two players for one another. According to a new report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, though, this is not going to happen any time soon, because the two teams have not been in contact about a potential swap.

Wojnarowski reports that the Sixers have canvassed the league in an attempt to find a trade partner for Simmons, but one team they have not called is Brooklyn about an Irving deal. This does make them a bit of an anomaly, because there is interest around the league in acquiring Irving’s services.

“Brooklyn, I’m told, has taken incoming calls from teams on Kyrie Irving, but they have not themselves made any calls about Irving,” Wojnarowski said. “So Brooklyn and Philadelphia, with these two players in limbo, they have not talked to each other about a Simmons for Kyrie Irving trade.”

The news comes on the same night that the Nets head down to Philly to take on the Sixers. While there has not been an update on Irving’s situation in quite a while — he’s still not with the team as they prefer he stays at home due to his unwillingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19, which prevents him from playing in games without violating a New York City mandate — Simmons reportedly met with the Sixers’ roster on Friday morning and expressed that he is not in a place mentally where he believes he can suit up for the team.

Eight years a go, a grandfather in Michigan wrote a powerful letter to his daughter after she kicked out her son out of the house for being gay. It’s so perfectly written that it crops up on social media every so often.

The letter is beautiful because it’s written by a man who may not be with the times, but his heart is in the right place.

It first appeared on the Facebook page FCKH8 and a representative told Gawker that the letter was given to them by Chad, the 16-year-old boy referenced in the letter.

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In the letter the grandfather is responding to his daughter Christine, who says her son is a “shame” to the family and an “abomination.” She’s also suprised that he became gay because she didn’t raise him that way.

Given the fact she called him an abomination, she must be a very religious woman. Because men who “lie” with men are deemed an “abomination” in The Bible. But one should take that with a grain of salt because in the same chapter, eating shellfish is an abomination as well.

Here is the letter in full:

“Dear Christine:

I’m disappointed in you as a daughter. You’re correct that we have a shame in the family, but mistaken about what it is.

Kicking Chad out of your home simply because he told you he was gay is the real ‘abomination’ here. A parent disow[n]ing her child is what goes ‘against nature’.

The only intelligent thing I heard you saying in all this was that ‘you didn’t raise your son to be gay’. Of course you didn’t. He was born this way and didn’t choose it any more than he being left-handed. You however have made the choice of being hurtful, narrow-minded and backward. So, while we are in the business of [disowning] our children, I think I’ll take this moment to say goodbye to you. I now have a fabulous (as the gay put it) grandson to raise and I don’t have time for heartless B-word of a daughter.

I[f] you find your heart, give us a call.

— Dad”

The grandfather’s letter shows true moral clarity. He can’t believe that she is abdicating her responsibility as a parent just because her son is gay, an orientation that wasn’t even his choice. He then turns the tables on her by doing to her what she did to her son.

“So, while we are in the business of [disowning] our children, I think I’ll take this moment to say goodbye to you,” he writes. He then shows he has some passing familiarity with gay culture by refering to his grandson as “fabulous.” That’s pretty progressive for a grandfather in 2013.

The identities of the teen and his grandfather have never been revealed, but they know the letter received a lot of support. A representative from FCKH8 said that, at the time, the grandfather and grandson refused to do any interviews about the letter because the teenage boy had yet to come out of the closet.

One of the primary tenets of the Sikh faith is “sewa,” or selfless service. We have seen sewa in action in Sikh communities organizing to feed the hungry and rallying to help stranded truck drivers, but sometimes opportunities to practice selfless service pop up in unexpected places.

According to Maple Ridge News, Ridge Meadows Search and Rescue received a call at around 6:00 p.m. on October 11 alerting them that two hikers were in trouble just above the Lower Falls at Golden Ears Provincial Park in British Columbia. The manager of the search and rescue, Rick Laing, told the news outlet that one of the men had fallen into the pool above the falls and was struggling to get out.

But before the rescue team got there, a group of five male hikers were alerted to the stranded men and took the matter into their own hands—and heads. The hikers were Sikhs and were wearing the traditional dastaar (turban)—a piece of cotton cloth up to six yards long wrapped around the head.

“We were trying to think how we could get them out, but we didn’t know how to,” Kuljinder Kinda, one of the hikers, told NBC News. “So we walked for about 10 minutes to find help and then came up with the idea to tie our turbans together.”

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When they got to the area above the hikers, they unwrapped their turbans and used them to make a “rope,” which they then lowered down to the stranded hiker. One of the rescuers lowered himself partway down the rock and tested the rope while the others held on from above.

Watch:

Watch: Video Shows Sikh Men Using Turbans To Rescue Hikers At Canada Waterfall

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“The rocks there are quite slick and it can be really difficult to get back out of it, especially if you are wet and cold,” said Laing. “So, they were fortunate that these five young men happened by and were able to get him out and back up to the trail.”

Laing added that the man could have succumbed to hypothermia if he had stayed in the pool any longer, and if he had been swept over the falls, he could have suffered broken bones or worse.

“Several people are injured each year as a result of slips or falls,” he told NBC News. “It seems about once every one to two years, someone will be swept over the falls and die as a result of their injuries.”

The two men told the Ridge Meadows rescue team that they did not see the hazard signs in the area. It’s unclear whether they climbed down near the water or if one fell from above, but Laing says the man who fell in was lucky.

“In Sikhi, we are taught to help someone in any way we can with anything we have, even our turban,” Kinda told NBC.

He said that he and his friends weren’t worried about their own safety. “We just really cared about the safety of the men,” he said.

Truly selfless service. What a beautiful example for us all.

When your job has you standing in the middle of a huddled-up flock of hundreds of turkeys, you already know to expect the unexpected. But for CNN’s Anna Stewart, the unexpected also turned out to be hilarious—in more ways than one.

As she was reporting from the KellyBronze turkey farm in Essex, England, Stewart found herself the literal butt of a turkey joke, and goodness did they find it funny. Stewart shared an outtake scene from a CNN segment on U.K. worker shortages and supply chain issues on Twitter, with the comment “Turns out what turkeys REALLY like is a good laugh, at my expense.”

Seriously, you’ll want the sound up for this:

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Turns out what turkeys REALLY like is a good laugh, at my expense. Sound up…

No shortage of outtakes today at… https://t.co/GaXGWGIzoO

— Anna Stewart (@annastewartcnn)
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One of the turkeys nipped her right in the bum, and when she whooped and laughed, the entire flock laughed too.

“Ow! That really hurt, he really got my a**,” Stewart said. And right on cue, the turkeys laughed again.

Okay, they didn’t actually laugh, but it sure sounds like they did. Their collective gobbling sounds just like a studio audience laugh track. Too, too funny.

Someone shared the outtake video on the Animals Being Jerks subreddit (which is a hilarious thing in its own right) and that prompted people to share videos it reminded them of.

Years ago, a video went viral of a man gobbling at a bunch of turkeys and them gobbling right back. Apparently, turkeys are quite reactive to sounds. And again, sounds like a laugh track (though the man’s tearful laughter is really the best part).

Man gobbles at turkeys, turkeys gobble back.

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In another clip, a man appears to be giving a dictator speech to a huge warehouse full of turkeys, who keep cheering him on.

The turkey dictator.

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And in the actual aired CNN segment, Anna Stewart got the gaggle of gobblers to giggle just by clapping her hands. Not quite as entertaining as when one of them goosed her, but it’s funny to see how easy it is to get them to react.

Thanks for the laughs, cheeky turkeys.

Nobody wants to work anymore? Tell that to Joey Holz, the Florida man who applied to 60 entry-level jobs, only to receive one interview. Perhaps all of the problems facing the American labor market are, in fact, not due to widespread “laziness.” Go figure.

Odds are you’ve seen a sign outside a place of business, lamenting a loss of employees. If not in real life, perhaps you’ve caught a quick glimpse on the internet. It’s pretty widespread at this point. There’s even a Facebook group titled “No one wants to work,” where short-staffed employers could meme out their frustrations.

In an interview with Insider, former food-service worker and charter-boat crewman Joey Holz recalled hearing one business owner’s labor shortage complaint, saying he “went on this rant about how he can’t find help and he can’t keep anybody in his medical facility because they all quit over the stimulus checks.”

Holz continued, “And I’m like, ‘Your medical professionals quit over $1,200 checks? That’s weird.'”

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Weird indeed, considering that even after the end of federal unemployment benefits, there hasn’t been a surge in employment. Holz told Insider “If this extra money that everyone’s supposedly living off of stopped in June and it’s now September, obviously, that’s not what’s stopping them,” he said.

Holz decided to inquire/investigate further. He started applying for jobs himself, starting with restaurants, which had been more outspoken about their staffing obstacles. The rule was to only apply for roles he actually qualified for. He told Insider “I didn’t apply for anything that required a degree. I didn’t apply for anything that said ‘must have six months experience in this thing.'”

Describing the common job qualifications, Joey noted that “some jobs wanted a high-school diploma … some wanted retail experience … most of them either said ‘willing to train’ or ‘minimum experience.'” In terms of the pay, “none of them were over $12 an hour.”

In an amazing show of his administrative skills, Holz even tracked his process in a spreadsheet. The results? Pretty abysmal. Out of 28 job applications, he received only nine email responses. But hey, that led to one interview! Oh boy, here comes the big turnaround.

Holz went to interview for a full-time site cleanup position with a construction company. Where the hourly rate was advertised as $10, the company instead tried to negotiate that down to $8.65. And instead of full time, they offered part time until Holz gained seniority.

By the end of his experiment, Holz had sent out 60 applications and subsequently received 16 email responses, four follow-up phone calls, and the one interview with a company that misadvertised its hourly rate. He shared a pie chart showing that 70% of his efforts received no reply.

So, is this really a case of entitled generations waiting for government handouts? The chart suggests otherwise. Holz has a clear stance on the subject. In a Facebook post that went viral on Twitter and Reddit, he wrote, “58 applications says y’all aren’t desperate for workers, you just miss your slaves.”

Seems like Joey has hit the nail on the head. People aren’t laying back, they’re fed up. Fed up with toxic work environments and unlivable wages, to the point of “rage quitting” and starting anti-work subreddits lambasting the terrible bedside manner of most bosses.

Like this bartender, who wasn’t a “team player” for drinking on his night off.

r/antiwork thread on TwitterTwitter

Or this worker who–despite being the top performer–received a complaint from his boss about not standing on a broken foot.

r/antiwork thread on TwitterTwitter

No amount of sloth-blasting rhetoric is going to change the fact that a systematic change, one that actually causes the workplace to thrive and promote well-being, needs to be made. And as Holz told Insider, his story is “familiar to many.” Maybe this isn’t an act of apathy and more like a cry for help.

Prankster Jary Patel has earned over 4.4 followers on TikTok for his funny man-on-the-street videos. But it looks as though he may have met his match in a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” spoof where he asked a random guy on the Santa Monica Pier in California the wrong question.

Patel offered the guy $10,000 if he could answer a trick question correctly.

“So your mom got four kids. North, South and East. What’s the last one’s name?” Patel asked while holding a stack of cash in his hand.

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The commenters on the video seem to be split on whether the video is real or just a comedy bit. A TikTok user named Geneva made a great point: “Should have asked for his ID.”

If this is real, then maybe Patel asked him for his ID after “West” took the money. If he didn’t, he may have gotten beat for 10 large by someone more clever than him.

Some people think the video is real because the second time Patel asks the question, “West” points to himself when he says, “West.” “It really don’t matter what his answer was. The second time he was asked he clearly pointed to himself, meaning he understood the question,” Shi commented.

Regardless if the video is real or not it’s pretty hilarious. What’s more fun than getting to see the prankster get pranked?

Feeling blah? Need a little pick-me-up? Having a “no-bones” day? Unsure of what a “no-bones” day even is?

No worries, we’ve got you covered on all counts.

Each week, we round up 10 tasty morsels of joy to help you hop through the weekend with more pep in your step. If you’re feeling even a little bit blue, here are 10 doses of dopamine to flip that frown upside down. (Trying to see how many cheesy colloquialisms I can squeeze into one intro. Forgive me. It’s Friday.)

Enjoy, friends!

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1. First, let Noodle the pug predict if it’s a bones day or a no-bones day.

Noodle the 13-year-old pug has become a huge viral sensation with his daily fortune telling. If Noodle stands on his own four feet, it’s a bones day. That means a day filled with energy, productivity, ambition—all the things! But if Noodle flops back down onto his bed, it’s a no-bones day. That’s a day to take it easy, practice some self-care, leave the hard stuff for a bones day. “No hard pants on a no-bones day,” as Jonathan says. Read more about Noodle and his predictions here.

2. Ever seen a baseball player do ballet on the field? Now you have.

The fact that there’s actual baseball being played in the background while Zack Frong dances ballet is hilarious. But that’s intentional. The Savannah Bananas are a bit like the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, selling out all of their “baseball circus” home games since they formed in 2016.

Check out the amazing story of how the Savannah Bananas got their start, thanks to the vision of one man:

3. Sweet puppers anxiously waits for her bestie to get off the school bus.

That tail wag, though! She can hardly contain her excitement, even though this probably happens every day. It’s too dang much.

4. Speaking of cute puppers, this chihuahua is the cutest bather everrrrr.

Don’t forget the earplugs when it’s bath time.. 😊 https://t.co/9X0PxjP84w

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden_)
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Why is this so cute? Why? Literally everything about it makes me want a dog, and I’m 100% a cat person.

5. If you need a boost of confidence, just watch this pony overcome a humongous, enormous, practically insurmountable hurdle.

Thinkin’ about this pony working up the courage to jump over a tiny step
https://t.co/CwtSzc46XT

— Nerd Girl Says (@Rachael_Conrad)
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Can’t you just hear the pony’s internal pep talk? And that little“Yes! I did it!” dance at the end! If this pony can push through her fear of That Big Gigantic Step, you can do anything.

6. Son being surprise-woken-up by his dad who had been on deployment—PHEW.

Sorry to make you cry when we said we’d make you smile, but tears of joy borne of love totally count. Father-son love is a beautiful thing.

7. Keep that tissue handy, cuz here comes another good dad tears of joy video.

This is one lucky, lucky baby girl.

8. Squishy the chipmunk. Enough said. 

Squishyyyyy! (Seriously, though, how does a mouth that small hold so many nuts that big?) Brad the human has a page where he shares videos of his chipmunk friends he’s made in the past five years: Dinky, Squishy, Mooshy, SpongeBob, Boris, Stinky, Bubba, Hershel, Crazy, Chippie, Shooshi, Inky, Squeaky, Hishkabibble, Mr. Fuji, Betty, Squeegee, Cookie, Stubby, SweetPotato and Friends. SERIOUSLY, BRAD? You are the best.

9. 4-year-old called the police in New Zealand to show them his toys.

How adorable is this? All of the adults handled it so perfectly. And there’s seriously nothing cuter than a preschooler with a New Zealand accent. Read the full story here.

10. One more sweet dad-kiddo video, but this one is just pure, unadulterated joy.

BRB, starting a petition for every flight to have the pilot’s adorably proud kid on board from now on. So darn precious.

Hope that brought a little joy to your day! Join us next Friday for another roundup of happiness and hope.