This will hit you right in the feels. This woman works as a caretaker for elephants in Thailand’s Elephant Nature Park. Each elephant gets a caretaker and their bond can get quite strong. Take a look at how the elephant Faa Mai reacts around his caretaker.
This Facebook photo from the Evergreen Hospice Volunteers in Kirkland, Washington went a little viral this week, when so many people saw the light and love of this sweet man’s face in the final moments of his life.
The story posted with the image was about Ed who has been suffering from his illness for several years and hadn’t been outside in quite a while. Ed had been a forest ranger and told the hospice Chaplain about his time among the trees and how much he’d missed it. His dying wish was simply to be in the forest again.
Chaplain Curt Huber talked with the hospice volunteers and they got in touch with the Snohomish County Fire Department who were more than happy to do what they could to see this last wish come true.
“Ed was picked up and transported in the EMS vehicle; other members of the fire department traveled in a fire truck,” the post reads. “Together, the group took Ed up and down the trails, bringing him the scents of the forest by touching the fragrant growth and bringing their hands close to Ed’s face. Ed was delighted. So were all the professionals who accompanied him.”
Many of us don’t choose how we go or when we go or where we go, but having someone who understands what those precious little things you appreciate about the world and helps you give them one last hug. Grace and peace to Ed and his family, and thank you to the amazing nurses, chaplains, and volunteers who work in hospice care across the world.
Jesse broke the story for us earlier this week that Washington Post columnist George Will thinks that colleges working to fight sexual assault are breeding an environment that makes “victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges” to students. Well people are speaking out.
We have had thousands of you demand that George Will not only apologize but that the Washington Post fire him and more are speaking out each day. Today, a young woman who is a survivor of a sexual assault that occurred on her campus is speaking out too. Thanks to this video by the women’s rights advocacy group UltraViolet, Elizabeth is sharing her story and how comments like George Will’s bring back all of those hurtful and traumatic memories.
“It’s been four years since I was raped, in my junior year of college. I’m finally at a place when the pain and trauma doesn’t dominate my life anymore. But when I read the Washington Post this week George Will’s words brought back that same fear and doubt I experienced when I was attacked,” said Elizabeth in a statement from UltraViolet. “The Washington Post needs to take a stand against rape and violence, and the first step is firing George Will.”
“The past week has seen the Washington Post devolve to violent and shameful rhetoric that normalizes rape and violence against women. In the face of a national epidemic of sexual violence, The Washington Post should take a stand against rape– starting by firing George Will,” said Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet. “From mocking survivors to misleading the public on demands for college sexual assault reform and blaming women for violence against them– the Post has left the realm of honest debate and entered the realm of hate-speech and dog whistles.”
Father’s Day is Sunday. For some of my friends it is their first Father’s Day, for my grandpas and step-dad I sent a carefully selected card with funny and loving things written inside. But for those of you who feel the need to shame those of us who lack the creativity of the perfect present, I’ll give you a good list of things you should NEVER buy on Father’s Day:
Let’s be real; dads don’t need any more work clothes, cufflinks, ties, monogramed hankies, or whatever else your local department store is hocking. If he needs it, he buys it.
Men seem to know they’re furry. If they ever had a relationship with a woman, they’ve seen that arched eyebrow when they take off their clothes or heard the phrase “honey what’s coming out of your nose?” Trust me, if your mom hasn’t taken care of telling him, or his mom hasn’t taken care of telling him, he probably doesn’t care and it’ll just end up in a drawer.
By that same token, buying a dude cologne is like saying “you smell… fix it.” Even if he doesn’t take offense, finding something that someone else wants to smell on themselves is an incredibly personal item to purchase.
Hard to imagine anyone would think this is a good idea, but a strip club in Queens is offering a special deal for dear old dads. You have to have a really special relationship with your father to think this is a good idea, and realistically it’s Father’s Day, buy the man a steak and save the strip club for another night.
Just, no. No. His sperm may have helped make you, but let’s not take that literally. Everyone knows your father is a guy, he doesn’t need to compensate for it, and again, even if he would find this funny or interesting, give the man a deserving steak dinner or take him out for a hunting weekend instead. TruckNuts don’t say “thanks for being a good father, I love you.”
Chances are if you’re reading this you’re over 10 years old. There’s no reason, unless you have a skilled craft or artistry that you should be trying to make an artistic interpretation of your appreciation for your father. Don’t make it that obvious that you forgot and are hung over.
If you don’t send a card, or call, or take him to dinner, or really acknowledge him at all then it’s probably because you don’t have a relationship with your father at all. And if you’re in that boat today, then take yourself out for a nice steak dinner and buy yourself a new pair of socks and some cologne/perfume and give your mom a call to tell her you love her.
If that isn’t your situation, then give the man a call. If you live in the same city, stop by. Take him out to do something with the two of you together. Either take him or your folks to dinner, go kayaking, see a movie, wash and wax your cars together, go fishing or hunting, whatever it is that you can both do together, do it. It’s more about having time together, catching up, and showing him you care than anything. And the most valuable thing you can give someone is a piece of your time.
Happy Father’s Day everyone!
Let’s say you’re a creationist and believe that everything is created by a holy entity. That includes bad things too right? Like rape. Hey, if God made all things then He must have also made rape, right?
That same logic was applied by creationist Darek Isaacs only the other way around about evolution. Our genius friends at RawStory.com have this messed up video they captured:
“You have to start asking questions: Well, if evolution is true, and it’s just all about the male propagating their DNA, we had to ask hard questions, like, well, is rape wrong?” Isaacs said. Listen for the gasp heard off camera as if someone heard that and thought – you sick stupid moron what the hell is wrong with you. Or maybe she saw a bug… who knows.
“According to the evolutionary worldview, [if] that male is strong enough and he had wonderful genes, he should propagate his DNA as much as possible so that the species can progress,” Isaacs said. “So it redefines everything about our society.”
Back in January 2014, a Republican pollster spoke to the GOP House Caucus retreat and instructed them
“[GOP Pollster] Kellyanne Conway dispensed the stern advice as part of a polling presentation she made alongside fellow GOP pollsters David Winston — an adviser to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — and Dave Sackett. The comment was described by several sources in the room.
Conway said rape is a “four-letter word,” and Republicans simply need to stop talking about it in their races for office.”
Seriously. Just, stop. Unless you are advocating for stopping rape – stop talking about it.
What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and is wet. It’s the Water Slinky! No, seriously, this is a thing. What happens when it rains, or if someone was to wash their car and a cascade of water begins to come down a large staircase in large bursts of water, a sloshy bit of fun can occur. I give you… the water slinky! And for more science geekery, check out the Weird World of Water Mythbusters kit
Today there was a decision in California. A judge struck down basic protections for teachers. His logic: For students to win, teachers must lose. Of course, that’s ridiculous.
The judges decision reads almost as if there was no trial or evidence presented. However for anyone who followed the trial, they know this is not the case. Here are some good rundowns from GottaLaff and David Atkins.
So here’s the background: Basically, a tech entrepreneur named David Welch from Silicon Valley formed a shadily funded non-profit called StudentsMatter. He’s backed by some of the big education privatization money including Michelle Rhee, Eli Borad, and others. They sued the state of California over specific teacher protections. They focused mainly on seniority based layoffs and permanent status (what many people refer to as tenure). They claim that these rules protect bad teachers and deprive children of an excellent education. But after testimony from education experts, their claims were blown out of the water. And even more experts testified beyond that!
I think a key thing to highlight is that ed reformers of the Michelle Rhee and Eli Broad style point to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) PISA results as proof that American schools are falling behind. The PISA is a international study of test results, and the U.S. consistently ranks in the middle. So-called reformers say it’s the teachers fault that we are not performing at the top of this study, so we should judge the teachers based on things like standardized test scores. Their solution is more testing.
And they see unions as an obstacle. Personally, I’m grateful that unions are standing up to testing. But because of this, they go after unions, vilify them and attack them.
Randi Weingarten, President from the American Federation of Teachers said in a statement:
“It’s surprising that the court, which used its bully pulpit when it came to criticizing teacher protections, did not spend one second discussing funding inequities, school segregation, high poverty or any other out-of-school or in-school factors that are proven to affect student achievement and our children. We must lift up solutions that speak to these factors—solutions like wraparound services, early childhood education and project-based learning.”
Now, what they don’t tell you is that along with the PISA study, the OECD releases findings about why this is the case. Did you know that the counties that outperform us on these international tests have strong unions? In fact, the OECD specifically recommends working with unions rather than vilifying them. They also point out that the testing fixation we have in the US doesn’t happen in the countries that outperform us because… they focus on actual learning not scoring teachers.
The AFT released a compelling video describing these results.
Back to the case at hand. There are real actual solutions, but the Vergara Trial does nothing to address inequities in public education. They include having wraparound services and fully funding schools to make sure they have the resources they need to deal with students.
You can’t fire you way to better schools. You can’t test your way to better schools. You can fund your way to them.
If students really mattered to David Welch, he would be funding real solutions rather than attacking teachers.
What an adorable little puppy! Puppies get excited about everything when they’re little, especially playing with their people. But I imagine one spring afternoon his people were doing yard work and discovered that when exposed to the leaf blower their precious little yapper turned into something out of that Will Smith movie I Am Legend. Seriously – this puppy could cut a bitch, just watch:
Sunday night’s Cosmos showed an updated animation to Carl Sagan’s monologue where he reminds us how beautiful our world is and how we’re all in it together….”every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Michelle Obama is a strong, smart, amazing woman for whom I have always had great respect. But today when she spoke of the ways in which Maya Angelou empowered her as a woman… indeed as a fellow human being, I felt a special kinship with our First Lady.
Here are some excerpts and the video – the full text of the speech is below:
“The first time I read “Phenomenal Woman”, I was struck by how she celebrated black women’s beauty like no one had ever dared to before. (Applause.) Our curves, our stride, our strength, our grace. Her words were clever and sassy; they were powerful and sexual and boastful. And in that one singular poem, Maya Angelou spoke to the essence of black women, but she also graced us with an anthem for all women –- a call for all of us to embrace our God-given beauty.“Her message was very simple. She told us that our worth has nothing to do with what the world might say. Instead, she said,
“Each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory.” She reminded us that we must each find our own voice, decide our own value, and then announce it to the world with all the pride and joy that is our birthright as members of the human race.
“Dr. Angelou’s words sustained me on every step of my journey –- through lonely moments in ivy-covered classrooms and colorless skyscrapers; through blissful moments mothering two splendid baby girls; through long years on the campaign trail where, at times, my very womanhood was dissected and questioned. For me, that was the power of Maya Angelou’s words –- words so powerful that they carried a little black girl from the South Side of Chicago all the way to the White House.
“And today, as First Lady, whenever the term “authentic” is used to describe me, I take it as a tremendous compliment, because I know that I am following in the footsteps of great women like Maya Angelou.”
(Pardon the video quality – this was the most inclusive one I could find)